Theyre the real patriots. They really love the country that theyre trying to provide and split. Some very good news. Lets play hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews in washington. The jobless rate down to 6. 3 . The number of new jobs created, catch this, 288,000, way more than a quarter million. This is just in the one month of frill. The stock market this week hit its highest level in american history, more than doubling since president obamas inauguration. What was the republicans reply to all of this news . To rain on the parade. And you have to wonder if this isnt without a purpose. That being to discourage the consumer from spending, encourage Business Leaders to horde their cash, put off investing, sit on the money they had all ready to invest if mitt romney had won. But you dont have to wonder how loudly the republicans would be celebrating had they held these brags rights other numbers like these. A solid drop in the unemployment. Well more than a quarter million new jobs in just a month. The highest r point in the history of the stock market. What do you think priebus, boehner and eric cantor would be saying about those apples . They would do the republican equivalent of highfiving each other, whatever that is. And doing cartwheels on fox telling sean hannity that they were, in fact, in heaven. Anyway, Eugene Robinson is a
columnist for the washington post. And alex wagner is the host of now on msnbc. Two great people to join me. The oobs lute hilarity, when everything is turning up roses. Reince preibus comes out and eric cantor maybe the unemployment wait doesnt get to their eroj nous zone the way it does to the democrats. But certainly the stock market through the roof. Wouldnt they be saying good fine work by this man, good work. Everything would be coming up roses, happy days would be here again, except thats a democratic sthougt. No, it would be morning again in america. Right. A. Why dont democrats tell the story, right . Yes. This is a problem with the Democratic Party maybe for a while now. They dont know how to win. They dont know how to tell their accomplishments. Chris, we got mugs with the
president s birth certificate . Where are the mugs showing the numbers out of the great recession. Today before he began. The president took a moment to tout aprils exciting job numbers. And repeat theres more to do. Lets listen to him. We have to keep a focus on job creation and creating more opportunities for working families. Theres plenty more congress should be doing, creating good construction jobs, rebuilding america. I want to work with them wherever i can, but i keep acting on my own wherever i must to make sure every american who works hard has the chance to get ahead. Explain that. Why is he like that today . Is he caught up on Something Else . Maybe hes thinking about ukraine. Which is a general downer and so
maybe thats why it was such a dour recitation of what one would think he would be clicking his heels about. Strutting around the rose garden saying look, i told you these were the right economic policies. 23 we would all just be patient for a while, things were getting better. And look, nings are better. 6. 3 . 288,000 jobs. I like the way youre doing it. Of. It is funny. I guess well get on to this. Theyre doing the opposite of glee. Theyre doing what you know republicans would be thrilled with these numbers. The stock market has always been their anyway, republicans had to acknowledge the good numbers. Then, of course, began to damn the whole thing with feign praise. Quote, were happy that more americans were able to find work last month, but more and more people are dropping out of our work force. Then he adds this jab. Oba obamacare is to blame for slashing workers hours. Speakers john boehner joined the welcome news but put in the shift. Quote, president obama ought to call on the democratled senate to take up the jobs measures s get it moving again. Its time Senate Democrats stop ignoring these stacks of bills so that we can help hardworking americans deal with their stacks of bill bps. Very cleverly put by some staffer up there. They issued these statements on paper. They didnt even phone them in. Its unconscionable. Its unconscionable that john boehner of all the people to say stop sitting on your hands. Start passing some legislation. Heres a dude whos basically a dead end for any kind of bipartisan effort at anything at
all times. And then has the audacity in two weeks to go back home in ohio say oh, whoa, its so hard passing legislation. Telling members of his own party to buck up. Its outrageous. Lets talk about the strategy behind this. I dont know the president s strategy for being somewhat hesitant here. There are certainly poor people and there will always be poor people. Theres one logic to this on the republican side. Weve got a poll out that says that people who are absolutely certain, look people are going to vote this november, which is a lot of politics. We isolate some of this from the papers poll. An improving economy could boost democratic turnout in november. Among those democrats who are thinking well, threequarters of those who rate the economy positively say theyre absolutely certain to vote in november. Just 58 who rart the economy negatively are absolutely
certain to vote. So if you can get most americans to think its not happy, nothing going well, if you could work them down to say its okay, but not so great, you can get them not to vote. Its the republican playbook. Why is the president acting leak this. Does he know the playbook . Then it becomes a base election. Then republicans fire up their base with obama care and benghazi, whatever. So democrats just sit home. A. Frankly roosevelt except the smirts up. He said were getting there. Things are getting better. I think the president has had oceans of patience in terms of not getting i think in some degree his spirit, when he talks about working with congress, he
knows the next three years are going to be executive actions and thats basically it. There has been many moments when he has been forceful and optimist optimistic. Its just that today would have been a good day. I do think economics drives politics. The economy, gas lines, got to blame somebody for this crap. Clinton on the other hand swam through his problems. The economy was really good. So the context of most of the politics that we talk about, personality at all often times comes in that package, that box that says how are you doing . Its that whole atmosphere. You take on the chark tacterist of the atmospheres. The atmospherics should be getting better. The republicans are doing a good job. If the news is bad, theyre going to be the ones that are going to give the middle class and the working class a chance at fighting back. That is the elegant and overarching strategy here. Were going to keep telling you guys that were the ones fighting. Everybody says you shouldnt brag and the bush family would never brag, but the fact is thats old money talking. Old money doesnt have to brag. New money does. Yeah. And i look at i washed the feet of some good Democratic Candidates because they didnt know how to do it. We just came off of eight great years of the clinton era. He wouldnt do it. The lock box and all this stuff about deficits. Youve got to blow your own horn. Consensus and intellectual honesty. The its hard for them to have no compunction about winning. Its hard for the left at some times. Thank you. I think i youve got to get out there and sell it. If youve got a good product, sell it. Anyway, Eugene Robinson, alice wagner, todays latest on the rights benghazis obsession. Darrell issa subpoenas john kerry, then Speaker Boehner moves to create a new formal select committee to investigate apparently the other four committees already investigating this nonscandal werent enough to do the job. Also the news again kooeps getting worse for chris
christie. Today, we learned that many of christies wealthiest and best connected donors are preparing to jump ship if jeb bush gets into the president ial race. And i guess hes getting in. And president obamas sharp elbows at tomorrows White House Correspondent dinner. Look for the president to use his humor as a weapon. Are you listening, donald trump . No one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth der sif c certificate matter to rest than the donald. So he can get back to the issues that finally matter. Like did we fake the moon landing . What really happened in roswell . And where are biggie and tupac . Finally, let me finish with a great cause in my home down of philadelphia. [ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance
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could mean less waiting for things like security backups and file downloads youd take that test, right . Well, what are you waiting for . You could literally be done with the test by now. Now you could have done it twice. This is awkward. Check your speed. See how fast your internet can be. Switch now and add voice and tv for 34. 90. Comcast business built for business. A dramatic escalation in the benghazi escalations. Yesterday, we told you about a newly disclosed email that republicans were heralding as the smoking gun in this investigation that set up a Chain Reaction inside the
republican party, starting with senator Lindsey Graham calling the white house scumbags. But as we noted in yesterdays show, that email sent by White House DeputyNational Security ben rhodes squares with the reality of what actually happened in benghazi. That hardly matters to some republicans today. The right is out there going nuclear. House speakers john boehner announcing the house will create a new select committee, that means a Permanent Committee practically to investigate benghazi. The republicans on the services committee, Foreign Affairs committee have all conducted their own investigations. For some republicans theres no such thing as enough. The speaker says, quote, its clear that questions remain. And the Administration Still does not respect the authority of congress to provide proper oversight. Well, this dismissiveness and invasion requires us to elevate the investigation to a new level. Thats boehner. Boehners announcement came just hours after House Oversightchairman, darrell issa disclose pd ehad subpoenaed john kerry to testify in front of the Committee Later this month. Issa is accusing the state department of failing to meet its legal obligations saying the new subpoena will compel kerry to, quote, answer questions about your agencys response to a congressional investigation of the benghazi attack. David corn is Washington Bureau chief for mother jones. And a special correspondent for the daily beast. You know your stuff here. Is there anything here . Im going to argue that watching this thing, i do have a file cabinet in my head. I can follow this thing. Its not like every day is is a brandnew thing. Consistently weve gotten reports that what happened was there was a copycat kind of thing. There were terrorists, there were protests all over the middle east at that time. Cairo was all over the media. That led into kind of a copycat operation in this benghazi
facility out there. And of course, the whole thing seems to have come out of anger in the islamic and arab world about this crazy and obnoxious video that went out. Thats in the news, thats in this new email that came out. That was in the bipartisan report on the intelligence committee. Whats new, pussy cat . Why do they keep making this a big deal . Because theres nothing else. Their theory was always that the white house deceived the public because they were so scared that the public would look at obamas kournt terrorism credentials with suspicion going into the reelection two months after the benghazi attack. And so we have all these emails that come out tho showed it wasnt the white house who created the talking points as being related to the video or somehow related to the video. And the talking points tell us it was the cia, the state department, not the white house that put that language together
and now theyre talking about a overup of a coverup that didnt exist. At the time, reports from libya, media reports said the same thing. And investigations by the Senate Intelligence committee and the New York Times both come up with the same conclusion. So even with what susan rice said, if not entirely accurate was kind of close to what other people found. So if theres a difference of opinion here, it wasnt i think its close to what we know months and years later now. My question, is this something in the Republican Brain soup . Did they somehow get the idea that something bad happened here . If youve got boehner under sodium pen thol, imagiathol, im thought whats your worst Case Scenario about what
happened. Not press releases that were issued. Did anybody deserve blame for a beloved ambassador getting killed . I dont have any idea what they believe. I think some believe that. Believe what . Hillary was out doing Something Else . Something like that. Or that there had to be some kind of lack of preparedness on the obama administrations part for this to have happened. I think a lot of them dont even believe it. Theyre really drinking crazy juice over there at that committee now. And theyre ratcheting this up. The rhodes email as you said, is exactly like the cia talking points that susan rice got. And theres just nothing new here. Heres krauthammer. Smart guy here. Charles krauthammer who writes a big syndicated column. He said theyre making far reaching comparisons when it comes to the newly disclosed ben rhodes email. Heres krauthammer himself. To me, the equivalent of what was discovered with the nixon tapes. The point is that republicans have done a terrible job in building a case. They had appointed a special committee a long time ago, the way it was done in watergate, we would have had answers on this and the country wouldnt be tired. Hes changing his story originally. He said they blew it. Now hes saying if they had done it right they could have done it. But hes not even saying theres something there. Do you listen to charles there . Does he say theres something there . He says its watergate. No, hes not. Hes saying they should have used the same investigative effort they did with watergate. But for 40 years, this is the big picture. 40 years, republicans and conservatives have wanted their watergate. In the 90s they tried to get clinton on whitewater, filegate, fbi, all those things. Whitecat water. And now theyre trying with obama. Benghazi, fast and furious, just keep throwing the spaghetti at the wall, seeing if anything sticks. Enbenghazi is too good for them. It gives them the weak on National Defense tag. You know the problem. You have to have a coloneled idea, like a breakin of the headquarters. You used to. Not anymore. Thats old school, chris. Yeah. You get a republican, you say to the guy a few things, what do you think was the bad thing done by Hillary Clinton . They dont care. They want to keep Hillary Clinton out of the white house. They want to keep the embassy revved up for the vote this fall, and they want to keep the headlines coming. Subpoena john kerry. They played no preparation for them. Issa just subpoenaed him out of the blue. They dont care what comes of it. He wasnt there then. John kerry has to testify. Then kerry will go testify. Then more hanging testifies when kerry testifies and they can just make it go on forever. The white house is taking heat for not disclosing the email sooner. Now, heres jay carney facing
off with abcs Jonathan Carr whos actually quite good at his questioning here earlier this week. Lets listen to carr going after carney. Why were you holding back this information . Why was this email not turned over to the congress . Why was it not released when you released all the other emails. This is directly relevant. John again why did it take a court case for you to release this. I can say it again and again and you can keep asking again and again. This document was about benghazi. It was the prep for the subject. It wasnt her only prep, john. She relied for her answers on benghazi on the document prepared by the cia, as did members of congress. This is not the thing i want to argue about in my life, how people screw things up. Rolling disclosures is the worst thing in the world. The longer you keep it, the more
it rots. The more it smells. Get it out if you have it. And they waited for a while to get out the initial batch we were talking about a year ago. It took them a while to do that. And these come out. Now the republicans are saying thats theish shup. This is about bad management. I dont think it was jay carneys decision. It was a lawyer dealing with this. Or an archivist for all w