Science that together across multiple studies is forming a picture of whats going on in the gulf. Dr. Andrew whitehead. Also with us tonight dr. Mike robicheaux. Thats it for the ed show. Good evening, rev. Good evening, ed. Thanks to you for tuning in. Tonights lead silence from the gop today. The startling response from republicans to Rudy Giulianis ugly smear that president obama doesnt love america. A deafening no comment. And the pressure is building after giuliani stood by his insult. Mr. Mayor, do you want to apologize for your comment . Not at all. I want to repeat it. The reality is from all ive seen of the president , all ive heard of him, he apologizing for america, he criticizes america. He talks about the crews ides and how the christians were barbarian barbarians. I dont feel this love of america. The president and his comments has not displayed the kind of love of america, the kind of love of america and exceptionalism that other american president s have displayed. Im right about this. I have no doubt about it. I do not withdraw my words. There is no way to spin it. These are hateful slurs from a fading republican desperate for relevance. It should be easy for fellow republicans to reject this. And this morning msnbcs joe scar borough warned 2016 gop hopefuls, they cant let it hang over their party. Are we really going to go through another cycle where republican candidates are too stupid to get out of the way of the stupidest people in their
party that keep them from winning president ial elections by spewing hatred instead of telling people how theyre going to get back to work . Its not enough to say well let Rudy Giuliani speak for himself. Today it looks like yes, there may be another cycle of this. So far only gop senator marco rubio has said clearly he doesnt agree with giuliani. Scott walker said hell let the mayor speak for himself. Bobby jindal said the gist of what giuliani said is true. Ted cruz declined to comment to us. Rand paul declined to comment to us. Indeed we still havent heard from most of the big name 2016 republicans including jeb bush who we also reached out to. They aspire to be leaders of the free world, but theyre in no rush to stand up to irrelevant
rudy juliangiuliani and is only hurting the gop brand and showing theyre not serious about change. Joining me now are e. J. Dionne and jason johnson. Thank you both for being here. Glad to be here rev. E. J. Before we get to the silence of republicans, i mean whats going on with Rudy Giuliani . What do you make of these comments . I mean these were appalling comments. I have to say i was surprised. I thought we might be done with this. The president s not on a ballot any more. Theres absolutely no reason to say it. The thing he said that really bothered me and the way even more than he does a lot of america, which is absurd on its face is he wasnt brought up the way you were brought up and i was brought up. What in the world does that mean . What kind of code is there as if he lived in indonesia . Is it a comment on who his mother was . What does that mean . I was just astonished by it. Jason, i see you shaking your head. What is it a code for, using e. J. s term . Hes that black guy in the white house that i never liked. Thats the code speech. And really i think what giuliani should recognize from his ridiculous statements and republicans should realize as well is this is not a winning strategy. Its not just poor leadership its not a winning strategy. One of the high points of the 2008 president ial election was when john mccain countered one of his own supporters and said look barack obama i dont agree with him, but i would never question this guy loves his country. You would think republicans would be smarter now. Let me go to that because i think thats a very important point. John mccain, who i disagree with did have the courage that we are not seeing any republican contender have. Watch this. I cant trust obama. I have read about him and hes
not hes an arab. Hes not no . No maam, no maam. Hes a decent family man citizen that i just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and thats what this campaign is all about. Hes not. Thank you. Now, e. J. I never thought i would miss john mccain, but this is the kind of leadership you can respect even if you dont vote for. And weve not seen that now. Senator rubio did say on the record he disagrees with giuliani. But none of them have come out and shown what john mccain said in a crowd of people where he could have been heckled. None of them has shown that kind of moral strength. No that was very gutly from mccain. He got criticized by some people to his right for saying that. He did. Marco rubio said almost
exactly the thing john mccain said. There are two things about this. What does this say republicans really think of their own people . Because this is their judgment on their own base. And what theyre saying is their own base believes this stuff . That doesnt show a lot of respect for your base. But what they also dont get is there are plenty of people who are not liberals and people who didnt vote for president obama but theyre uncomfortable and unhappy when politicians talk like this. So i think theyre definitely making a mistake with middle of the road voters but it says terrible things about their analysis of their own party. Let me go back to another point you were commenting on. Giuliani told the New York Times his comments were racist. He says in fact some people thought it was racist. I thought that was a joke since he was brought up by a white mother, a white grandfather, went to white schools and most of this he learned from white people. This isnt racism. This is socialism or possibly anticolonialism. Now, i mean, how do you react to that aside from the race part and aside from the fact that the grandfather hes talking about that brought him up was a world war ii veteran who fought for the country, is he condemning anticolonialism . I thought all of us were anticolonialism. I dont even understand the logic of what hes saying here. Obviously Rudy Giuliani doesnt even understand the level of criticism hes throwing out. Number one, ive never heard of the school in hawaii being called white schools. But president obama wasnt raised by people like you. On the other hand while he was raised by white people in the midwest, on one hand president obamas a horrible dictator on the other hand hes a feckless coward in the face of isis. Giuliani represents a throwback
in the Republican Party to lets just keep throwing things at president obama. And this is where it ends up being a strategic problem. Hes not on the ballot in 2016. If they keep wanting to bash president obama, that will make it easier for Hillary Clinton to say, look at these guys trapped in the past. I represent the future. E. J. One of the more striking parts of giulianis interview was about 9 11. Listen to this. President obama didnt live through september 11th. I did. President obama didnt almost have a building fall on him, myself and my Police Commissioner and my fire commissioner did. So excuse me, its a little bit emotional for me but its also real. I mean im totally, what is that supposed to mean . If we werent mayor of new york if we werent in new york city when nooin9 11 happened, we didnt feel it. Rudy giuliani in that period gained National Notoriety and a
lot of respect because every american felt hit by 9 11. For him to say that hard to figure out what hes trying to say. I was in new york that day. In fact it was the mayoral primary day. I was in a way to finance the run against Rudy Giuliani. Does that mean i didnt love america . The logic of that i said he was a fading republican desperate because theres not even any logic to any of these things. I think maybe we shouldnt be looking for logic here because there isnt any. Why cant the relevant guys running today in the Republican Party condemn it . Thats my real point. Yeah now, i think they should be out there. But only marco rubios doing it. In terms of the 2016 republican hopefuls mother jones writes this could be an opportunity for jeb bush to speak out. Quote, jeb bush could, if hes splart he will taking a public
stand against giuliani would cement his position as the adult in the republican field. Jeb bush is trying to run as the socalled moderate. Why havent we heard from him on this . Because i think if theres anything weve seen in last eight years theres not much political hay to be made of being the adult in the room. President obama has been the dad in chief of the Republican Congress for years and that hasnt necessarily helped him. Any president ial candidate who actually cares about this country should come out and condemn these comments. Jeb bush he like Hillary Clinton, i dont want to say anything thats remotely controversial right now. I want to slide into eventually announcing im running for president. Because he believes longterm if he ignores things like this it wont come back to haunt him. From a leadership standpoint and statesman standpoint, its kind of cowardly and ruins the discourse we need to have in
this country going forward. E. J. Dionne and jason johnson, thank you for your time tonight. You too, reverend. You too, rev. Coming up president obama on fire today talking about republicans bamboozling folks with middle class talk. There is this old saying that you cant just talk the talk. Donna . You got to do what . You got to walk the walk. Plus as we get ready for the oscar, we look at remarkable year of performances and also a year of serious snubs. And im giving out my weekly report card. What grade will sarah palin get tonight . It might surprise you. What makes thermacare different . Two words it heals. How . With heat. Unlike creams and rubs that mask the
pain, thermacare has patented heat cells that penetrate deep to increase circulation and accelerate healing. Lets review heat, plus relief, plus healing, equals thermacare. The proof that it heals is you. Some exciting programming news to share. Next wednesday msnbc and tell mundos jose diazbalart is moderating a town hall with president obama. The president will answer questions directly from the audience and through social media. You can submit questions right now with the obama town hall. And we asked our social media fans what they would ask. Mike wrote on facebook we can what can democrats be doing now to increase voter turnout in 2016 . Krixx posted what do you deal with the attempts of adversarial undermining and attacks on your authority . Good question, krixx. Michael asks what do you see as the future of labor unions . Again, that town hall is
wednesday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on msnbc and telemundo. Please keep the questions coming in either on our Facebook Page or tweet us politicsnation. But they were not only business partners, they were brothers. Competitive. Stubborn. And always pushing each other, the way only brothers can. One hundred years later, their spirit lives on. Mama sherman and the legion of super fans never fail to get Richard Sherman his campbells chunky chicken noodle soup. Mmmm. Looks good. Hahaha chunky chicken noodle now tastes even better
no matter what your political party, theres no denying the u. S. Economy is bouncing back. More jobs higher wages, the auto industrys back and the deficits down. This all happened on president obamas watch. And in a strong speech to the dnc today he cheered our progress and reminded the crowd
about the naysayers weve seen along the way. We were told by our good friends the republicans that our actions would crush us explode deficits, and destroy the country. I mean i want everybody to do a fact check. Thats right. They predicted chaos, not a comeback. But they but they are doing it all over again. Now that theyve been proven wrong. Now that their grand predictions of doom and gloom and death panels and armageddon havent come true the sky hasnt fallen chicken littles quiet the new plan apparently of Congressional Republicans and this is progress the new
plan is to rebrand themself as the party of the middle class. Everyone from john boehner to ted cruz to jeb bush is talking about income inequality in the middle class these days. But what does it actually mean . If youre just trying to repackage the same topdown economics and use the words middle class attached to it if youre just going to keep on cutting taxes at the top and not raise minimum wages for folks who are struggling then its just spin. Trying to bamboozle folks. Real change from the gop would be great, but thats not what weve seen. Im encouraged that theyre speaking about middle class and
speaking about wages, but there is this old saying that you cant just talk the talk. Donna . You got to do what . You got to walk the walk. Tell us how youre helping middle class families because we got an agenda and we know it works. If the gop wants us to buy this new message theyre selling, theyve got to start walking the walk and so far all weve heard so talk. Joining me now are political strategist angela rye and ryan grimm bureau chief for the huffington post. Thank you both for being here. Thank you reverend. Thank you, rev. Angela was the president s speech today a road map for democrats for how to talk about their agenda . You know rev, he laid out this road map before the election in november. Hes been very clear not only
about his economic record but about how democrats should talk about it. The problem is they didnt follow the road map. They did not follow that trail. They ran in the other direction, which is why we suffered the greatest consequences ever in this election. But what i will say to you is that today he did lay out some very clear talking points based upon his accomplishments. Thats what talking points should be about, they should be about your priorities. Hence his little bit of shade to the Republican Party for them talking the talk and not walking the same walk. Ryan republicans are in a tough place. They were against the policies that got the economy moving. So what can they say now . Well what they can say now is exactly what they are saying that actually they deserve credit for all this and they saw all of this coming. You know and you can tell the president is kind of really feeling it when he goes into his kind of standup comic routine. He gets the crowd chuckling and he kind of feeds off of that. And he was doing some of that. And riffing off of how republicans said well actually the reason the economys kind of surging right now is that republicans were elected to take over the senate and people were so happy about that that magically the economy just started booming. So thats absurd and the crowd can laugh at it but whats underneath that is the broader republican strategy to just say it and just to repeat things. Let me show you, angela one of them thats been saying it thats just been talking the talk and thats Mitch Mcconnell. Mitch mcconnell. Listen to what president obama said about him. Our republican leader in the senate, as he was coming in after having tried to block every single thing that weve done to strengthen the economy, starts looking at job numbers and says you know its Getting Better because we just got elected. And people are feeling more optimistic. Which okay. I diplomat knowdnt know thats how the economy worked, but maybe. You know mcconnell claiming credit for the recovery pass the laugh test angela . You know it doesnt pass the laugh test rev. We know since Mitch Mcconnells not a scientist, hes clearly not an economist either. The president jabbing him there was a good one and and effective one. It would be good to see what kind of middle class economics are you touting when the only concerns youve had is my ceo bonus wasnt quite large enough. At some point your rhetoric has to match the policies that you push and they wont even consider a minimum wage raise in the senate and the house. This would be all very interesting. You know, ryan besides taking credit for the recovery lots of republicans all of a
sudden have discovered and become interested in inequality. Listen to some of this. Today americans across the country are frustrated. They see only a small portion of the population riding the economys up es k later. Hard working men and women across america hurting. This socalled 1 that the president s talking about have done quite well. The president s policies have made income inequality worse. But theyre against minimum wage hikes, theyre trying to take away health care. How can they be worrying about inequality ryan . I mean its a real credit to kind of the Progressive Movement and to a more populous movement that Elizabeth Warrens been spearheading, that theyre forced to even talk that talk. Clearly, like you said theyre not walking it yet. Theyre not following up those soundbites with and so therefore
we should raise the minimum wage or therefore we should hike taxes on Capital Gains and dividends. It kind of stops at that point. But getting to that point is meaningful because it opens up space where things can start to happen. Look at what walmart did, you know in raising its minimum wage. You know its not high enough. But getting it up to 9 an hour thats a real benefit. And that comes from a Political Movement political pressure put on walmart by its own workers, from outside unions, responding to that. And theyre responding to the same energy that people like ted cruz and john boehner and Mitch Mcconnell are feeling. Mitch mcconnell probably wanted to spit after he used the phrase 1 but he did it anyway because he knows thats where the politics are right now. But angela were not seeing the policy. No. Were not seeing the legislation. They control the senate and the congress. If they were serious, why dont they come forward with some policy and make it law . Well it would be very hard to do that and keep their base happy. Whether youre talking about the fact that dhs funding runs out next week and theyre holding that up because of their inability to get their party to move on Immigration Reform or the fact that again, they wont even consider a minimum wage increase or the fact that they blank at tax balk at tax breaks. They never supported these policies, we cant expect them to do it now. Angela rye and ryan grim thank you for your time tonight and have a great weekend. You too. You too. Still lead