Story, and it will give small children bad dreams. Weve got riveras First Senate Campaign commercial ahead. Michelle goldberg, michael tamaski and Gene Robinson are here to talk about the legacy of ed koch. Beer prices could rise, but not if president obama has anything to say about it. Weve got the details on the next move by the department of justice on anheuserbusch. Ten years ago today, the Space Shuttle columbia tragedy rocked the country. Today a new shocking story of what nasa knew has america talking. We have the real story here tonight. Good to have you with us tonight. Folks, thanks for watching. A big thank you tonight for Hillary Clinton for finally saying what really needed to be said. Today was clintons final day as secretary of state. She begins her life as a private citizen tomorrow. And for now, she has nothing to lose politically. So when the Associated Press asked clinton about the republican lawmakers who grilled her on benghazi, this was the secretarys response. They just will not live in an evidencebased world, and thats regretle. Its regrettable for our political system and for the people who serve our government in very dangerous, difficult circumstances. Amen to that. The president might not be able to call out republicans like this. Democratic lawmakers certainly might not be able to do it, but Hillary Clinton has no fear of speaking the truth now that she is going to be a private citizen. Her appearances in front of the congressional committees on benghazi, the investigation turned into a complete sham because of these lies. The most outrageous questions came from the most ridiculous sources. Take conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin. She managed to get an absolute falsehood presented as fact by republican lawmakers. Rubin reported on a deputy secretary of state who testified about getting information from benghazi in realtime. Charlene lastminute said the information came from multiple phone calls to communicate with the annex in tripoli. She ended her testimony saying the other diplomats would hang up on us and then call back. Rubin decided to invent details just out of thin air. She wrote, this was the most urgent issue of the moment in which everyone wanted to know what happened in benghazi. So why not look at the realtime video . Video . There was no video. All communication was done over the phone. But rubin apparently imagined a scene from the bin laden raid and then presented her imagination as fact. This is how it starts. One completely bogus and shoddy piece of writing, which makes its way over to fox news. Oh, and did i mention the state department was watching this unfold in realtime . After catching fire over at fox news, its just a quick jump away from the United States congress. At any time, did you see the initial attack on a monitor . Or the president . Congressman, there was no monitor, there was no realtime. We got surveillance videos some weeks later. That was the first time we saw any video of the attack. Even after secretary clinton debunked this nonsense on camera in front of the committee, it made its way back to fox news the very same night. Charlene lamb said they were watching it at the state department in realtime. This is not just an isolated incident, my friends. During the same hearings, clinton was asked about a crazy conspiracy involving gun ruining from benghazi. It looked like this garbage started on an extreme antiislam website. Claiming that he was coordina r coordinatoring the gun running. This is especially attractive to guys like glenn beck. His website picked up the theory. Of course they ran with it. A headline at the blaze said Chris Stevens may have been linked to jihadist rebels in syria. How irresponsible is that . Its really scary. And here is the scary part. Glenn becks media outfit is a trusted source of secret information by at least one republican senator. Here he is. Rand paul had no problem repeating this total rumor and asking secretary clinton what she knew about it. My question is the u. S. Involved with any procuring of weapons, transfer of weapons, buying, selling, anyhow transferring weapons to turkey out of libya . To turkey . And of course the trip wouldnt be complete if the story didnt wind back up on fox news that night. I dont have proof of this. No one has given me any information. I have no briefing to this. But there have been articles in the news print and in the press saying that there was some gun running going on. All of those crazy theories and rumors serve one purpose for the people who will not live in an evidencebased society, just like Hillary Clinton was talking about. They make people think that there is some larger conspiracy at play. And it goes all the way to the top, the white house. Well, two can play this game. You see, you can connect the dots to make things appear any way you want. I think its only fair to connect these dots to the Republican Party. They love to foster these conspiracies. They need to accept the consequences. Republicans really should heed the Lessons Learned by the last gop president ial nominee. You see, mitt romney frequently relied on these nonevidence conspiracies, like the time jeep announced it would expand production in china due to great sales. A right wing newport completely butchered the story, saying that the jeep was considering giving up the United States and shifting production to china. Enter mitt romney. I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, jeep, now owned by the italians is thinking of moving all production to china. There was also the lie about president barack obama never saying benghazi was an act of terrorism. Obama knowingly lied to the American People. Obama created a Conspiracy Theory and coordinated a campaign of deceit to distract from the truth that affects our national security. Mitt romney listened to this kind of stuff for weeks. And because he relied on this junk, he walked into the biggest trap on the largest possible stage. I think its interesting the president just said something which is on the day after the attack, he went in the rose garden and said that this was an act of terror. Thats what i said. You said in the rose garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values we stand for. It was not a spontaneous demonstration . Is that what youre saying . Please proceed, governor. Even after this, romney didnt learn. With polls shows barack obama leading on election day, romney was convinced by conservative media that he was going to win. He was shellshocked when he lost. Republicans are headed down you know what . The romney path. They would do well to listen to Hillary Clintons advice and rejoin everyone else in the evidencebased world. Get your cell phones out. I want to know what you think. Tonights question, will republicans ever live in an evidencebased world . Text a for yes. Text b for no to 622639. You can go to our blog at ed. Msnbc. Com. Well show you the results later on in the show. Joining me tonight is karen finney, former Dnc Communications director, and michael steele, msnbc contributor and former chairman of the rnc. Great to have both of you with us on this friday evening. Michael, you first. Good to see you, ed. Will the Republican Party listen to Hillary Clinton . Does she have merit to what she is saying . Well, if you put it like that, ed, the answer is probably not. But i think that the underlying argument that hillary puts out there is something that we need to pay some close attention to. You know, i think the takeaway from the hearings the past week, and just looking at this from a partisan political perspective was we didnt serve our interests very well. We never clarified the key questions that i thought needed to be asked. And hillary quite aptly in that clip there, turkey . Where are you getting your facts from. From the party standpoint, i get the idea of wanting to drill down on benghazi and all these issues, but were scattered. Were all over the place there is no cohesion there is no current message there is no sense of where were leading with the questions we have, which of course gives opportunity for you and others to look at this and go are you serious . I mean, here are the facts. How do you respond to the facts. And if were responding in a direction different from the facts, you get what we have of the past few weeks. Karen, isnt this a classic example of how something can be made up, and then theyll be called out on it later on when someone really doesnt have any political chips to lose on it. It is. But a little bit of history. You may remember, ed, that i worked for former secretary, i guess now we would call her clinton in the white house when she was our first lady. She back then talked about the vast rightwing conspiracy, and a lot of people didnt believe her. Not so much of a conspiracy anymore. We have since found out even back then, she was very correct. Watching you connect those dots was quite a joy to actually have a venue where we could do that and push back on the misinformation that is out there. Because this is a classic, classic thing that weve been seeing. And its amazing how a blogger can put something out, it ends up in a hearing, it gets picked up by another senator, who goes on a media outlet, presents it as almost fact, has the commentator saying there was actually a live feed. Im pulling my hair out. Give me a break. Remember, there was one of the questioners also asked her about why havent the im messages that weve subpoenaed. And later she said actually, we dont allow im at the state department. This is a clip from chuck hagels hearing yesterday. Listen to senator James Inhofes source for his information. There is an article the other day in the Washington Post by Jennifer Rubin called our dim witted state department. Its kind of an interesting article. Michael, how do you get these guys to stop listening to the same wild conspiracy theories . They just live in a different world. I think it is a little bit of a different world in that sense. I dont get i dont get the direction and the messaging that the party is putting out this right now. I really honestly dont. I think that we really need to sort of step back from this thing and really assess exactly what do we need to focus on. Is benghazi of all the things that are pressing the American People right now something that as a National Party we should be fixated on. Hillary clinton, yes, she served as secretary of state. Did an admiral job. Most people would say that. Yeah, there was this hiccup with benghazi. We unfortunately lost the lives of four u. S. Servicemen out there, ambassador and the like. So how do we now deal with this in the context of everything else. You deal with it by dealing in fax. And i think thats the point, ed. I think thats the point. Whatever happened to the day when the United States senator would pick up the phone and do his own information. Senators do have their phone calls taken, okay. Is this true . What do you know . And were losing that. Karen, what about that . Well, remember also, as we learned from both the hearing with secretary clinton and then the following day with senator kerry, you had one senator who was asking secretary clinton several questions about, you know, video i believe it was and other things, and admitted that he hadnt actually gone to the briefing. So part of it is dont just go off of what you read on the internet or what somebody tells you. Go to the briefing. Check that information for yourself. In that same exchange, a senator who was not at the briefing asked john kerry if he would work with him on that. Well, i guess so. You didnt go to the briefing. Its a good start. Ed, what im curious about is Hillary Clinton, unlike a lot of secretaries of state had a very good working relationship inside the senate on both the right side and the left side of the aisle. So to your point about the phone call, i find it surprising and would be curious to know if any of them did pick up the phone at that time, try to reach and talk to her directly to connect their own dots as opposed to relying on third party sources. You guys, lets be really clear about what this was about. Benghazi, they used susan rice. They were trying to use Hillary Clinton to go after president obama. Thats what this whole thing is about. So whether or not people went to the briefs or picked up phone calls, it was pretty obvious from the travesty that were those hearings that this was really about trying to come out with some got you information. But ultimately to go after her president that. Is it, got you information. It would seem to me that rand paul would have picked up the phone and scauld secretary clinton, i dont want to make you look like a fool and i dont want to look like a fool, but im going to be very clear on this. This is what im going to be asking. You know what . We need to get to the truth of all this. Thats really what the hearings are all about. Its still out thereby discovered. There are still a lot of questions that i think were missed completely in these hearing. Ill let it sit there. Great interest have you with me. Remember to answer the question at the bottom of the screen. Share your thoughts on twitter and at ed show and on face book. We want to know what you think. There was encouraging news and the stock market going crazy. But income inequality, my friends is very real. It plagues this country. And Bernie Sanders will join me to talk about it and how to remedy this whole thing. Stay with us. Well be right back. Take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. Or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. Good eye. Which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. All stations come over to mithis is for real this time. Step seven point two one two. Verify and lock. Command is locked. Five seconds. Three, two, one. Standing by for capture. The most Innovative Software on the planet. Dragon is captured. Is connecting todays leading companies to places beyond it. Siemens. Answers. Tax time can ofbe. Well. Taxing. So right now well give you. 10 off any turbo tax deluxe Level Software or higher find thousands of big deals now. At officemax. Big shakeup in the senate in 2014. Geraldo in, scott brown out. The big panels got it all covered for you tonight here on the ed show. And the unbelievable story of how nasa handled the Space Shuttle columbia. On the tenth anniversary of the disaster, a former Shuttle Program manager blogged his reflections. Stay with us. Because what you have heard about it really is unbelievable. Dont forget, you can listen to my radio show on sirius xm radio channel 127 monday through friday, noon to 3 00. Share your thoughts with u on facebook and on twitter using the hash tag edshow. Were coming right back. There. And some difficult ones. But, through it all, weve persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. So why should our anniversary matter to you . Because for 200 years, weve been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. And the next great idea could be yours. Ooh baby, can i do for you today . [ female announcer ] need help keeping your digestive balance . Align can help. Only align has bifantis, a patented probiotic that naturally helps maintain your digestive balance. Try align to help retain a balanced digestive system. Try the 1 gastroenterologist recommended probiotic. Align. Welcome back to the ed show. You like numbers . I got numbers for you tonight there is big Economic News today. Records are being broken. But there is still a major story of income inequality underneath all of this. First, the numbers. The nations economy added 157,000 jobs in january, and the unemployment rate, well, it ticked up to 7. 9 . But the jobs numbers for november and december were revised upwards significantly. This means more than two million jobs were created last year. The best number since 2005 and better than seven out of eight years in the bush cheney era. Now the economy has now gained 5. 5 million jobs out of the 8. 74 million jobs lost in the great recession. We got a long way to go. No doubt about it. Now the stock market is on a roll. It topped 14,000 today for the First Time Since 2007. 100,000 construction jobs were added in the last four months of 2012, and today chrysler posted its highest sales in five years. And there is another side of this story, of course. Millions of people are still out of work. The economy actually shrank by a tenth of a point last quarter because of what . Government cutbacks. 2 3 of americans are planning to delay the retirement according to the wall street journal because of the financial losses. Income stagnation and layoffs over the past several years. Income inequality in the United States actually, folks, has gotten worse. And we now rank in the middle of latin american countries, which have historically had poor economies and high levels of income inequality. We got a lot of work to do. Lets turn to senator Bernie Sander of vermont. Senator, great to have you with us tonight. Thanks for joining us. Good. My pleasure. There is still an ugly underbelly to this economy as it stands right now. This past election was themed about and focused on the middle class. What can we do, senator, moving forward here in the shortterm . Your thoughts. Well, first of all, ed, we have to do exactly what you were doing now and focus on an issue that gets very, very little attention. That is the fact that we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth, worse today in the United States than at any time since 1928 before the great dep