Transcripts For CURRENT Viewpoint 20130308 : vimarsana.com

Cenk all right, if you want to watch the whole Sherrod Brown interview i had with the progressive senator from ohio, go to youtube. Com text yt interviews. Viewpoint is next. Stay right here. John rand paul completes his efic 13 hour drone attack filibuster and promises to go back to being the socially backwards ayn rand acolyte liberals love to hate. The department has promised to look into drones that drop ayn rand novels from the sky. Arkansas republicans have struck a blow against abortion, the most restrictive law in all of america. If they can just get rid of reading, theyll have the perfect state at least women still have the right to leave arkansas. Barack obama takes a group of republican senators out for a fancy dinner. Sean hannity demands to know why this president so obviously hates lunch. Today is the birthday of Bryan Cranston comedian wanda sykes and the late great singersongwriter townes van zandt. On this date, u. S. A. For africas we are the world was released to the world bringing people of all nations all races and creeds together say in unison, why the hell is dan aykroyd on this record . This is viewpoint. John good evening, im John Fuglesang. This is viewpoint. President obama hasnt given up hopes yet for a grand bargain with republicans that would both raise taxes and slash the deficit. Even if that means cutting social Insurance Programs which it would. But with a sequester now law despite mr. Obama campaigning against it, hes now trying a new kind of outreach to the g. O. P. Call it dining diplomacy. This afternoon, the president broke bread with house budget chairman paul ryan and his democratic counterpart Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen. Last night, mr. Obama threw a twohour dinner for 12 republican senators at washingtons jefferson hotel. According to nbc news, they focused on the ongoing battles over the debt ceiling the budget and the sequester apparently without throwing any cutlery. Two wellfed republicans senators john mccain and mike johanns seemed pleased. All i can say is we had a nice evening. His goal is ours. We want to stop careening from crisis to crisis. John the senators may have even learned something. Because according to nbc news, again, when the dinner was over and i quote. John to think just like bill oreilly, all they had to do to find his cuts was just look at the white house web site on the fancy internet because some republicans might like what they see. Progressives should really take a look at that, too, because the president s proposals dont necessarily show the balance he insists is necessary to deal. The president is offering republicans 930 billion in program cuts plus another 100 billion locked from Social Security benefits in return for 580 billion in revenue. Not exactly progressives should take heart boehner says any additional revenue is still a deal breaker. Im hopeful something will come out of it. But if the president continues to insist on tax hikes, i dont think were going to get very far. The president doesnt believe that we have a spending problem i dont know if were going to get very far. John for more, lets go to john nichols washington correspondent for the nation magazine. His latest piece in the magazine is time for a right to vote constitutional amendment. He wrote this week about the battle over medicare. Thanks for joining us. Good to be with you john. John great to have you. You wrote earlier this week that paul ryan was still floating the idea to reform medicare by raising the eligibility age as high as 59. After some republicans objected to this, apparently that is said to be off the table. So is congressman ryans assault on medicare over for now . Not at all. This is a guy who keeps coming back looking for medicare any time he wants money. That makes sense. I mean medicare is a big budget. Youre talking in line items of hundreds of millions and billions so it is logical that he goes after it. But the bottom line is that he has made a commitment to his caucus to balance the federal budget in ten years. That is something a couple of years ago he said couldnt be done. He didnt even try to do that. Now, hes trying to fit into that narrow zone. And i think on monday, when he went to his caucus, he was honest. He said to him look, the only way you can figure this out if youre not going to raise taxes on wealthy people, if youre not going to negotiate with the Drug Companies due to things you should do is going to be to start implementing deep cuts in medicare at a higher age than had previously been suggested. Thats where you got they promised 55. Now theyre moving it up to 56, 57. John i have no doubt that congressman ryan is serious about balancing a budget. Im not sure if hes been told that no republican president has been able to do that since nixon. He insisted hes about saving medicare for future generations. Is that how you read it, john . Saving medicare . No, i mean if you were saving medicare, why would you tell people under the age of 55 that theyre going to get Something Different . Now, i dont know exactly you know, how he defined things. I dont know how you define the word it or there but it strikes me in this case, the word save means to retain, to keep it. And thats not what paul ryan has been proposing. What hes been proposing is a radical change, such a radical change that members of his own caucus get terrified when he talks about tinkering with the age at which he implement it. John we learned during the Campaign Last year with governor romney, theyre fond of saying things like no seniors will have their medicare taken away from them. Of course, anybody under age 55 would have been hurt by the voucher plan. His budget is scheduled for release next wednesday. He said we shouldnt expect any surprises. So john, could that mean he is going to try again to turn medicare into a Voucher Program like he floated with governor romney last Campaign Season . I think that theres very little question that he is going to propose a radical change in medicare for people under a certain age be it 55, 56. That radical change, sometimes referred to as premium support and other names is really a Voucher Program. And it is a program where you say to people were going to give you a chunk of money. You go out and find yourself some insurance. Well, call me crazy but i think the Insurance Companies are going to adjust accordingly and a lot of seniors under such a plan would end up not only paying into federal money whatever amount they got but quite a bit more. John can medicare costs be lowered in a way that wont cut benefits . Absolutely. This isnt even a debatable point. Start to negotiate on the Prescription Drug costs. Thats something that other agencies of the government do, it is something that should have been done initially when they put the program in. You save a lot of money there. You also can find a whole bunch of other you know, rational ways to make the program more efficient that do not make cuts. One of the bottom lines is this. Medicare is a single payer program. It is a program that works because it is well organized via the government. As you put in different cost controls and different approaches that seek to make that program work, if your goal is to make sure you have the highest quality benefits for people, not cutting them, yeah, theres ways to make cost savings, of course. John senator Bernie Sanders and pete defazio introduced a bill that would strengthen security. But the president s proposal does seem to weaken it. What do you think of Barack Obamas grand bargain proposal . Should progressives embrace this, despite the cuts to insurance he seems to be offering . The president was reelected on a promise to defend Social Security medicare and medicaid. It is something voters understood. It is one of the reasons why he did way better in the election than even his own people had expected. So americans want him to fight for these programs. I think that any kind of grand bargain that begins to undermine the programs is a very dangerous game. Not just as regards to the programs but also politically. Remember, george bush got in a lot of trouble when he said during a campaign, read my lips, no new taxes then he turned around and raised taxes. I think theres a lot of political danger if you say in a campaign youre going to protect Social Security, medicare and medicaid and then you start to assault them. John john nichols you made me feel a lot better about all of this. Great to you have on the program. I appreciate being with you. John and for more on the president s new diplomatic offensive and the prospects of a grand bargain were thrilled to be joined by the one and only mr. Bill press. Host of the bill press show. Welcome full court press. Good evening. How are you sir . Bill hey john, how are you . John great to have you. Bill great to be here. John a week ago sir president obama was on the road attacking our republican friends over the sequester. Lunch and dinner invitations werent mentioned a week ago. What happened in the past seven days bill . Bill i guess i would say welcome to washington, d. C. The city of broken promises. Look, john first of all let me say i think myself, that any meeting with any republican is a waste of time. I mean thats where i start. But i have to tell you in this town, this is the town where things get done best when you have members of two parties who fight like hell during the day and then respect each other enough to kick back and have a couple of drinks and talk things over in the evening. Thats what i think youre see,. Im not too worried about this. You know what i like about it . Mitch mcconnell wasnt at the dinner last night. You cannot deal with mitch mcconnell. Who was not at lunch today . Eric cantor, john boehner wasnt there. Mccarthy from california wasnt there. John obama was with the reasonable ones. Bill thats a strategy is to pick the people off that he needs he needs some republican votes to get anything done. Pick those people off and isolate the hardliners then maybe we can move forward. John it is a big relief because the last time this many republicans met for dinner in d. C. , it was to obstruct the president , not is to have him buy them sea bass. You had Chris Van Hollen on your program, still carried on current before his lunch date with the president. What did Chris Van Hollen expect from the meeting and what do you think he expects from the budget negotiations Going Forward . Bill first, i have to say when you have breakfast with bill press and lunch with barack obama, thats a pretty good day i think for Chris Van Hollen. What he told us is he did not expect to make any deal at lunch. He knew that. But he was hoping that they would just air their points of view, air their differences and let paul ryan hear the facts like the republican senators did last night that maybe they could even get paul ryan to understand that obama is first of all, not going to accept his budget, not going to accept gutting medicare but does want to move forward and maybe inch him away from boehner and cantor. John now that president obamas apparently trying to restart his grand bargain talks on the deficit should progressives and democrats let him know whether he ends these talks or not that Social Security cuts cant be on the table . A lot of people are worried any time the president sits down with paul ryan to talk strategy. Bill im worried about it. To answer your question, youre damn right. We progressives have to keep obamas feet to the fire. And when we do that, john, people like you and me, we get flak from our viewers right . But look thats our job. Hes got to know Social Security should not even be on the table. It does not contribute to the debt. It does not contribute to the deficit. It is easy to fix if you raise the cap on the payroll tax, for example. You can fix it for another 70 years easily. Social security, chain cpi forget it. Social security, medicare, medicaid, sake resank. John mr. Press, i know you enjoyed watching bill oreilly scream at combs like he was a bad intern. It includes Social Security and medicare cuts. A lot dont know about it. Polls show those cuts are incredibly popular with both sides of the aisle. If the president offers them and republicans agree does barack obama own those cuts to those entitlements . Bill well, i think thats up to us. He did just win reelection promising, as john nichols pointed out again i agree with john nichols on almost every issue. The president promised not to touch Social Security, medicare and medicaid. I think it would be dangerous i dont expect the president to cave on those. I think it would be dangerous if he did. Yes, he would own them if he did john the house version of the house budge set due tuesday. Senate version will come out a few weeks later. Given where the parties are starting from, is any kind of reconciliation possible . If not, what is going to happen next with this big ugly mess . Bill i do think theyre going to work this out. The paul ryan budget, from what weve heard inside the beltway here, it is going to be this years budge set going to be worse than the last two and they were dead on arrival in the United States senate. Thats, i think, whats going to save us. The budget isnt going to get to president obama. It will never get out of the senate. The Senate Republican senators arent that crazy. John the bill press show airs monday through friday from ungodly oclock to holy god oclock. I know you have to get to bed to get up at 3 00 a. M. To do your excellent show. Bill great to be with you. John is rand paul still talking in a way . Yeah. [clucking]. Everyone wants to be the cadbury bunny. Cause only he brings delicious cadbury creme eggs, while others may keep trying. Nobunny knows easter better than cadbury very, very excited about that and very proud of that. Beltway politics from inside the loop. We tackle the big issues here in our nations capital, around the country and around the globe. Dc columnist and four time emmy winner bill press opens currents morning news block. Well do our best to carry the flag from 6 to 9 every morning. John its time for our thing of the da day. It is gun reform dropout. Im talking about senator tom coburn. The Oklahoma Republican had been working with three other senators on a bipartisan bill to expand background checks for gun sales. Thats something everybody wants. The majority of nra members favor that. But senator coburn, the man with an a rating from the nra could not accept one simple part of this very simple, very popular plan requiring gun sellers to keep sales records of the guns they sell. Car dealers keep records. Amazon. Com keeps records. Even some responsible drug dealers keep records but it is just too much to ask from somebody at a gun show. So new york senator Chuck Schumer who leads the group of senators is walking away from coburn and wants someone to replace him maybe republican who will actually dare cross the nra and risk a b plus rating. Yesterday, like a punch in the stomach, i was forced on this very show to agree wholeheartedly with senator rand paul of kentucky, the man who spent just under 13 hours filibustering the nomination of john brennan for c. I. A. Chief. Confirmed today. He wont be able to play sting in the next fantastic four movie. Because of questions he had about the u. S. Drone warfare policy specifically, how the policy might apply within the United States. It turns out not everyone in the world agreed with me and rand. Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously, he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up libertarian kids in their college dorms. John very clever line and he didnt write it. That zinger was actually courtesy of the wall street Journal Editorial Board which also ripped senator paul today. Senator pauls filibuster did however, catch the attention of attorney general eric holder who released a second letter stating. John thats the entire letter. Succinctly put to which senator paul responded. Hooray for 13 hours yesterday, we asked him that question and so there is a result in a victory. Under duress and under public humiliation, the white house will respond and do the right thing. John just like that, friends, it is okay to hate that smug rand paul all over again. Lets bring in Thom Hartmann who hosts the number one nationally and internationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. Thom, thank you so much for joining us. John, great to be back. John great to have you back in bizarro world. I was amazed watching the filibuster last night. Im thrilled to hear you talk about it. So many liberals criticizing rand paul for making a switch that most arent liberal enough to make. It was odd to find myself agreeing with senator paul. How did feel . I had mixed feelings about it john. His point that the president does not have the power in the constitution to be judge jury and executioner. The president has the power to be executioner. Thats given. But the judiciary the third branch of government is supposed to do the judge and jury thing. That point was really well taken. I think it is a discussion that we have been needing to have since the patriot act was pushed through in 2002 and we havent been having. So to the extent he may have furthered that discussion, im really pleased. On the other hand, this was rand paul kicking off his 2016 president ial bid. John . [ ding ding ] no need for him to go to the floor of the senate and filibuster. This was purely a publicity stunt. By speaking for his first hour without taking a sip of water he was shoving it in the face of marco rubio. John thats reading into it more than i dared thom. It was also about erasing the unpleasant memory of him getting into a slap fight with secretary clinton last month. Does attorney general holders second letter we just read mean that senator paul succeeded in his filibuster work . No, not at all. Rand paul is claiming victory when he knows that letter reflects no change in administration policy. The letter the second letter that holder said basically we would not kill somebody who was not engaged in combat against us on u. S. Soil. Thats been the position of the Obama Administration all along. The tricky problem is what does combat mean. John exactly. We havent had a declaration of war since 1941 in this country. So george w. Bush invented this category called enemy combatants so they could be anywhere in the world including manhattan. It is like we need to have this conversation now. John a lot of our democratic friends dont like to hear it but it has been continued that abuse. You hit the nail on the head. Kill an american not engaged in combat on american soil. What does engaged in combat mean . Does it mean youre at a burger king and you think youre going to there is still a lot of wiggle room for the attorney general, dont you think . Well, thats the tragic thing. It means whatever the executive branch interprets it to mean. The authorization for war in iraq and all of the other authorizations that bush requested and got they set the rules so loosely. Now the executive branch can conduct itself pretty much any damn well way it pleases. Thats not what the founders and framers had in mind. I think thats what most progressives, most conservatives, libertarians, it doesnt matter, right across the board. The neocons most thing its the way we should be going. John there is a lot of g. O. P. Hypocrisy. A brief clip of my favorite tennessee my colleagues, i dont remember them coming down here. They had a Drone Program back then. So what is it . All of a sudden that this Drone Program has gotten every republican so spun up. What are we up to here . John i can handle with agreeing with rand paul. Agreeing with Lindsey Graham kind of creeps me out. He told the truth right . As i said, democrats are progressives conservatives libertarians greens, you know, pretty much most americans think the idea of giving the executive Branch Unlimited Carte Blanche to kill people is a bad and dumb idea. Neocons, Lindsey Graham is a neocon so bingo. John these republicans who didnt complain when bush was doing it and now they complain when obama was doing it. Rand paul and his dad had been consistent. Thom hartmann, you have the smartest radio show. Thank you for coming on with us tonight. Thank you john. John see you soon. Arkansas passes an abortion law thats so restrictive, it will definitely get struck down by the Supreme Court unless it doesnt. Thats coming up. [ male announcer ] its red lobsters lobsterfest our Largest Selection of lobster entrees like lobster lovers dream or new grilled lobster and lobster tacos. Come in now and sea food differently. Visit redlobster. Com now for an exclusive 10 coupon on two lobsterfest entrees. John we conclude wtf pennsylvania week with the inspiring story of how a few Pennsylvania Republicans love their country so much and respect the electoral process so deeply, theyre willing to remove all of that trifle and democracy thats been screwing up the last few president ial elections for them. Now, yall know what the Electoral College is. That magical thing that gave the white house to george w. Bush even though more people voted for our former boss, al gore. His empty office is a riot to jump around in by the way. The Republican National committee took a look at states where the people vote blue but the legislatures and governors are republican and told the republican lawmakers to enact a plan to manipulate the Electoral College. Now wisconsin and virginia both had a go at this but republicans were so busy manipulating elections there they forgot to manipulate the media there. There was such a public outcry that even paul ryan and Virginia Governor Bob Mcdonnell backed away from the scheme. Pennsylvania however, did not get the memo. So governor tom corbin and dominic recently introduced a plan to rig electoral votes in the state of pennsylvania by allocating based on the percentage of the votes that the candidate receives. If this law were placed, it would affect the electoral votes. No matter the pennsylvania has it is about the will of a few powerful people. To the loser goes the spoils. Wtf, pennsylvania i love you i love that you fired rick santorum. I love that you gave us rocky and i know it gets cold in your state but making your november election day seem like a warm election day in a third world banana republic, not the answer. The sweatshirt is nice and all but i could use a golden lasso. vo only on current tv. John a joyful moment and long overdue. The president rethorsized the violence against women act which now has protections for lgbt victims, native americans and undocumented immigrant women. Add this to a drop in Sexual Violence against women for the last 15 years and the war on women is won and over, right . Not even close because arkansas held a different kind of ceremony yesterday. Over the governments veto the state Legislature Passed abortion restriction that flatly contradict the suns Supreme Court. The human heart beat says one cannot receive an abortion in an abdominal ultra sound detects a fetal heart beat. That can be at around 12 weeks into pregnancy about half the time allowed by the Supreme Court. This is, by far the most restrictive abortion law in the country and it will most likely get voided by the courts, most likely. Or maybe just maybe this will reach the Supreme Court and challenge roe vs. Wade. Lets bring in terry oneill president of the National Organization for women and Amanda Marcotte, columnist for slate and blogger for pan daggen on the rawstory. Com. Thank you for joining us. Thanks, john. John lets accentuate the positive. Vawa, let me go to you amanda, what are your feels on the final signing of the violence against women act . It took them 500 days to do it. It is ridiculous because this was a noncontroversial, bipartisan bill before. It is indicative of how the Republican Party is getting swept up by the right. That they saw that for so long. It passed with pretty much everything that the democrats wanted in it. So im ecstatic about that. John terry were you surprised so many members of congress didnt have a terrible problem with violence against gay women or undocumented mexican women or women that live on reservations . You know, i have to say, i was telling someone i was at the signing ceremony today and it really was a good moment. And i have been so focused particularly since the 113th congress started at get this thing passed. Now that its passed, it has been signed into law ive been taking a step back and i find myself really angry at eric cantor, at the other Republican Leadership who have done all they could to derail this law that literally saves lives. I think that we have from the Womens Movement point of view, there were what, over 130 all republicans who voted against the violence against women act and they need to be defeated. We need to unseat them and there were 22 senators who voted against it. It is not okay. We have to defeat them, too. John it is a shock to me. Is it that popular among Republican Voters to support violence against women on reservations . I dont understand what the end game was in opposing this for so long. It was jawdropping. The attitude of, in particular, eric cantor and his staff was we cant give native American Tribal authorities jurisdiction over white rape suspects because you just cant trust those tribal authorities to treat white defendants fairly. You know, i thought my goodness. Is this 1952 or 2013 . And the good news is that 87 republicans turned their back on the majority leader. And voted their conscience which is a good thing. But i really think that eric cantor is not going to be the majority leader frankly all that much longer. John it took two weeks of unbroken shame to make him do it. Lets move on to the arkansas abortion law because it is pretty surprising. Amanda, do you think theres any way this law can survive the courts . It wont survive the lower courts. Roe v. Wade is clear you cant restrict abortion until viability. 12 weeks is well before viability. There is no way a fetus could survive if it was delivered at 12 weeks. So it is not going to pass every court is going to test it against roe and say no. It could go all the way up to the Supreme Court. They technically have the authority, if they want to, to overturn roe v. Wade. John terry does it seem like they try to have a scheme to protect abortion laws while still protecting abortion rights . Honestly, that, as in many other states, extremist tea partiers have taken over the Republican Party in those states and theyve taken over some legislation. Arkansas is one of them. I do think that theres a real threat to roe vs. Wade. Whats really amazing to me about that threat is that the 2012 elections, the postelection polling showed Something Like 70 of people in this country warrant roe v. Wade to remain the law of the land. John 77 . 77 yes. Want roe v. Wade to remain the law of the land. Between 30 and 35 of people who consider themselves prolife want row versus wade to remain the law of the land. I think the Supreme Court will reveal itself as illegitimate. It could overturn roe vs. Wade. That will be a problem for the court and for our democracy. John we all know many voters who dont feel comfortable with abortion being used as a bit control device. Who dont like the thought of abortion. They dont like the thought of it being outlawed even more. My parents would never have called themselves prochoice but they always voted for rights because they remember what it was like before roe v. Wade. I have a theory our republican friends dont care because abortion is the best fundraising tool theyve got. They put things up like this that they know will be knocked down. Antiabortion groups usually go after smaller victories. Whats going on, amanda . I think part of it is maybe theyve convinced themselves it is not that big a deal because most abortions are still before 12 weeks. So i think they may feel like theyre singling out just a small percentage of women that are getting abortions. But i also do think theyve been taken over by true believers. The man who wrote this law is a wildeyed, tea party true believer. Theres just no doubt about it. And i think those kind of people maybe after 30 something years of antiabortion rhetoric, theyve start to the believe their own story. John if you call yourself prolife if youre against abortion rights, you have a right to fight for that in a free society. Ter terry, for the women who want to protect womens reproductive freedoms, what can we do about this . Have a electoral solution. I dont trust the federal courts anymore to protect womens rights as much as they should. We need to get those people out of office. My organization is beginning this year with a state by state effort. Well be in virginia, new jersey hugely important elections going on. What we want to do is get the word out to voters about whats at stake for women in the state legislatures. Thats where womens rights have been pushed back and thats exactly where we need to be going over the next few years. Well be there. John terry oneill is president of the National Organization for women and Amanda Marcotte from slate. Thank you so much for talking with me tonight. Hope youll come back as this situation is not going away. Yesterday, we had a filibuster we can actually look at. Well be catching highlights of it and special commentary coming up. John welcome back. Your dreams are your ticket out. Rand pauls filibuster yesterday was a worldwide trending topic on twitter. Stand with rand was all over the place. And Brad Friedman of the internationally respected brad blog tweeted us about it saying. We totally agree with you brad. There will be a commentary on that coming up after this. However, how can he accept the Civil Rights Act when he still hasnt accepted the outcome of the civil war. Well be having much more on this coming up on tonights f bomb. If you have a comment for the show, tweet us at viewpoint or at John Fuglesang or use the hashtag viewpoint or post it on our facebook page. Now, in case you missed any of senator pauls nearly 13hour filibuster yesterday, it was great tv. Filibusters the way they should be done and here are some of the more interesting highlights. The point isnt that anybody in our country is hitler. Im not accusing anybody of being that evil. Many people will remember jane fonda swivelling herself around in the north vietnamese artillery im not a great fan of jane fonda. Are you going to drop a drone, hell fire missile on jane fonda . Youve been here awhile. Let me give you some free advice, keep some water nearby. I wanted to give some small sampling of the reaction on twitter. Stand today with senator rand paul. Stand with rand. Stand with rand. Stand with rand. I think the technical term for what the twitter verse is doing right now is called blowing up. Let me just begin by quoting a modern day poet, his name is whiz khalifa. The godfather takes me back to another modern day pote by the name of jayz. There are some limits to filibuster and im going to have to go take care of one of those in a few minutes here. [ laughter ] john thats rand paul making a joke about urinating thats marco rubio talking about some rappers he would like to have arrested if they showed up and ted cruz talking about ayn rand who would hate ted cruz if she were still alive. It is tough to admit in this case though, i too, very much stand with rand. Joining me now to discuss this and so much more are former Senior Advisor to president bill clinton, richard socarides. Editor in chief for the contributor. Com, miss tina due pie and political comedian tim. He spoke for 13 hours. Saxby chambliss joined in as well. Did rand paul accomplish anything with the 13hour filibuster . Tina . Yes because were talking about it and when we have to talk about rand paul, it is usually when he does something stupid like say that just because the Supreme Court has ruled on obamacare doesnt make it constitutional. John what did he accomplish with this . I think that he brought to light that the filibuster is broken. John okay. Richard . You know, i think dont give him too much credit for anything. But the one thing i would say is that it was good that someone finally stood up and did an oldfashioned filibuster. John i agree. Maybe Going Forward people will not be able to do this sort of behind closed doors secret filibuster that nobody hears about. When you filibuster something in the senate, you ought to stand up for it. I thought it was terrific he brought that back. But i think that what he really did what he was really doing was taking advantage of an issue which sounds like it is not quite right just to get himself some publicity. A drone is like any weapon, right . So you know, it doesnt sound right that you could use a drone to kill an american citizen but if american citizens, in the case of potential terrorism what the attorney general general was saying if american citizens lives are in immediate danger and immediate threat and you have to act quickly that the attorney general would authorize any appropriate use of force and that might be a drone. Now it doesnt sound right when you say a drone could kill somebody on american soil. The president then kind of walked it back. John especially jane fonda. Bomb her last five films but not jane. They dont sound right because theyre immoral counter productive. John it is how wars are going to be fought from now on. Sadly, i wonder if other liberal democrats if it was the Bush Administration policy, it is inconsistent that we dont criticize. His policy is wrong. Let me say that accomplishment is a semi erotic male, standing for 13 hours without a bathroom break is an incredible achievement. And hearing jayz mentioned which never came out during Strom Thurmonds 24 hour rant. As you pointed out earlier in the program i wish more liberal democrats were standing with rand because it is a bad policy. He was right on a lot of things about neverending war and all of that. I certainly havent agreed with him in the past but he was right on last night. John the Strom Thurmond filibuster didnt mention jayz because he wasnt alive yet and he was trying to get jayz from getting the vote. Dont you wonder what they did that for 24 hours. An aide had a bucket. John rand said this morning because cnn asked him what he would do. He said that Strom Thurmond had some tricks to sneak out of the room and still keep the filibuster going. . Oan another guy who was running for president against rand paul, marco rubio americas sweetheart. Every time he talks, seems to push himself further and further from the presidency. He quoted michael he evoked whiz khalifa and jayz who a staffer carelessly put on his ipod. Is this marco trying to show hes a regular guy and did anybody watching buy it . Trying is the word. He tries very hard. I have to say as a comedian, it was a pretty good line about saying heres free advice, keep some water. John hes milking that thing so hard i almost hurt. Every line he uses is a water joke. Come on. Better than the other lines. It is no longer a line now it is a shtick. Im the water boy. John speaking of people who exist outside of reality Tucker Carlson. Tucker is on an almost completely defunct crusade to bring down bob menendez for allegedly using a prostitute in the dominican republic. However carlson was quoted speaking about David Vitters prostitution scandal. He really did hire one. Back then, tucker said. John richard you have be in politics for a long time. Have you been seen a more blatant example of be careful what you wish for. Didnt the woman say she was making it up . John the woman in question said she had never seen menendez. She was making it up. John accused the Washington Post of lying. This whole thing with men endez is crazy. It is a vendetta. I dont know where who found this but good for them. John tina, does this prove Tucker Carlson is to journalism what he is to dancing with the stars . Yes. Hes not a journalist. Hes an agitator. Completely different. Like to call him a journalist is inaccurate and something he would say about someone who was also an agitator. John youre right. Clearly, i would have to say if it would be more like europe. I dont care what david vitter did or Eliot Spitzer or Anthony Weiner or bill clinton. I think we need to focus on policy. John they care about what berlusconi did a little bit. Really quick before break Newt Gingrich said he would be open to appearing on Donald Trumps Celebrity Apprentice allstars which are not really apprentices. Wouldnt it be great if all it is like a rerun right . The last two years. Off our existence was exactly that show. John is newt right . Would it help the g. O. P. Brand if legislators were willing to go on a show like that . It might help his brand. No, i dont think if he distanced himself from donald, hes not a serious person. Help their brand, distance themselves even more. Donald trump is a celebrity and nothing more. They dont need to i kind of think a little reality tv would be good for the republicans. John i feel like cspan turned into reality tv this week. My panel stays with me after the break as i give a hand and expand on good ole senator rand. Dont go away. Lobsterfest is the king of all promotions. Theres nothing like our grilled lobster and lobster tacos. The bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobsters lobsterfest. With the years Largest Selection of mouthwatering lobster entrees. Like our delicious lobster lovers dream, featuring two kinds of lobster tails. Or our savory, new grilled Maine Lobster and lobster tacos. My favorite entree is the lobster lovers dream. Whats yours . Come celebrate lobsterfest and sea food differently. [ male announcer ] visit redlobster. Com now for an exclusive 10 coupon on two lobsterfest entrees. John welcome back to viewpoint. One more quick question for the panel. When is the last time you were pleasantly surprised by something a politician did . Richard socarides . You know, i thought what rand paul did was pretty pleasantly surprising in that he stood up for a procedure that i think needs standing up for. John i agree. Tina . I would say Michael Bloomberg if you think standing up for 13 hours is impressive, 36 hours by my count during hurricane sandy. John very nice. Scott blakeman . When rand paul said he believes the president any president should have the prerogative to pick whoever he wants. President should get to appoint whoever he wants. John this brings me to tonights very special f bomb. I stand with rand. I stand with rand. The filibuster man on the issue at hand. That drones unmanned which kill on command must forever be banned on american land. I stand with rand. I stand with rand. Mcconnells too bland and boehners too tanned. But hes the man with the libertarian plan. With more freedom and liberty than you can stand there. Is one thing i cant