Guests: Harry Reid, Tom DeLay, Amy Kremer, Max Pappas, Karl Denninger,
Judson Phillips
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, HOST: Republicans are already patting themselves on the back over an election that‘s still days away, but if Republicans take control of Congress, it will be in part thanks to the Tea Party. Yes, the Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Christine O‘Donnell Tea Party that doesn‘t believe in separation of church and state or Social Security.
Good luck trying to govern with those people in the room.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When we promised during the campaign, change you can believe in—
JON STEWART, “THE DAILY SHOW”: Right.
OBAMA: -- it wasn‘t change you can believe in in 18 month.
O‘DONNELL (voice-over): Two years after President Obama brought historic change to Washington, change is coming again.
RAND PAUL ®, KENTUCKY SENATE CANDIDATE: We‘ve come to take our government back.
O‘DONNELL: It started as a movement against spending—
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop spending!
SARAH PALIN ®, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: My kid is not your ATM.
O‘DONNELL: -- but fed on anger and fear.
CARL PALADINO ®, NEW YORK GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: It‘s all right to show people that you‘re angry.
O‘DONNELL: Republicans now embrace the Tea Party momentum.
(MUSIC)
O‘DONNELL: But what happens if the Tea Party candidates help Republicans take control of Congress?
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), MINORITY LEADER: We are not going to be any different than what we‘ve been.
O‘DONNELL: Not so fast, Mr. Boehner. The Tea Party wants to bring change to the Republican Party, too.
BOEHNER: Hell no, you can‘t!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The two most terrifying words in the English language—President Palin.
O‘DONNELL: Tea Party candidates are going beyond right wing extremism, putting the establishment in the corner.
KARL ROVE, FMR. BUSH AIDE: I don‘t like being told the establishment.
CHRISTINE O‘DONNELL ®, DELAWARE SENATE CANDIDATE: I‘m not a witch.
I‘m you.
ROVE: There are just a lot of nutty things she‘s been saying.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I‘m not a witch. And if I am, do you really want to cross me?
MIKE HUCKABEE ®, FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I‘m here for my friend Joe Miller. He‘s willing to make a sacrifice that most of us don‘t even hardly understand.
JOE MILLER ®, ALASKA SENATE CANDIDATE: My opponent is not a witch.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, “HARDBALL” HOST: What‘s this, the Tea Party or the Halloween party?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Good evening from New York. I‘m Lawrence O‘Donnell.
The most important Senate race in the country is in Nevada where Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle holds a slim lead in the polls over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who will join me in a moment.
But Sharron Angle isn‘t just in the Tea Party or the Republican Party. According to audiotapes of an October 10th speech leaked earlier today, she seems to believe she‘s in the party of God.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
SHARRON ANGLE ®, NEVADA SENATE CANDIDATE: We‘re told, and it‘s a promise, in 2nd Chronicle 7:14, “if my people who were called by my name” - - us, that‘s us here in this church—“will humble ourselves and pray, seek his face, turn from our wicked ways,” and we do have some things that we need to be confessing.
We as a nation have been walking away from our constitutional freedom and relying on government instead to take care of the widow and the orphan. Isn‘t that what he says, true religion and undefiled before God is that you care for the widow and the orphan? Isn‘t that the poor and needy among us? And yet we‘re saying, well, the government has all these programs now, aid for families with dependent children and Medicare and Social Security.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Thanks for joining me now, senator.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: It‘s really my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, if you could do the last two years in the Senate over again, what would you do differently?
REID: Well, we really didn‘t have much of a choice. We found ourselves at the beginning of the new Congress in a hole so deep we could hardly see out of it.
We were forced to do something with President Bush, with the TARP. And we worked well on a bipartisan basis to follow through on that. It was tough to do, $700 billion. It‘s all been paid back except $25 billion of it. We‘re going to make money on that deal.
We had to do the stimulus because all the experts told us we had to, including Mark Zandi, John McCain‘s chief economic adviser. But for the stimulus, we‘d be in a lot worse shape than we‘re in. We have a long, long ways to go, but I think we did a pretty good job for the deep hole we were in.
Now, does that mean the economy is all in good shape and we don‘t have to worry about it? Of course not. The 8 million jobs lost during the Bush presidency, we‘ve got about 3.5 million of those back.
We have a long ways to go. But we do have plans in line to make sure we get ourselves out of this as soon as we can.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, how do you imagine the country would look now if you had not taken the action you did on the banking crisis and other matters? What would the foreclosure rate be in Nevada? What would the unemployment rate be in Nevada?
REID: Well, there are people that have written about this. This is not just me saying it. First of all, we would have had, according to the secretary of finance, Hank Paulson, and the entire Bush administration, we would have—we would have had a worldwide depression. We would have gone right of the brink. We were able to save that.
Now, we have had many experts talk about that. We‘ve also had experts talked about the stimulus, what the economic recovery package has done. It has stabilized a lot of places in the country—not every place. But it‘s helped significantly.
We‘re told by these experts, had we not done this, nationwide—nationwide, the unemployment rate would be 16 percent -- 16 percent.
So, housing is still in trouble. We have a lot of work to do there.
But if we had not done that recovery package, that would be—education in America would be in more difficult shape than it is now. Right now, it‘s not good. We‘re 14th in the world for college graduates, where just a few years ago, we were number one.
So, the stimulus bill provided tens of billions of dollars to help with education. And we‘ve done that. College education, we improved Pell Grants by $550. We got the middleman out. We got direct lending with the universities. That saved $80 billion.
Now, young men and women and their parents do not have to suffer.
They have to only pay 10 percent of their net income to pay back the loans.
So, we did a lot of good things for higher education in addition to student loans. We also put money into education as we did here in Nevada - - some $400 million in Nevada for higher education, approximately $400 million for K through 12. And this is all over the country.
Has it solved all the problems? No. But your question is: what would it be without this? It would be an economic disaster. Worse than what we have now by far.
O‘DONNELL: Senator Reid, you‘re running against a candidate who is not a believer in as much activist government as you are. She criticizes what she calls government health care—and yet she and her husband live on a government health care plan, her husband being a former government worker.
Do you—is there some disconnect with Nevada voters on this? Do they—do they feel that it‘s OK if she lives inconsistency with what she‘s saying? We just want to vote for somebody who says the things we want to hear?
REID: Lawrence, not only does she have the same health care I have, her husband has the same health care, but she lives off his pension from the federal government.
Sharron Angle has for many, many years said she wants to get rid of Social Security, phase it out. She‘s changed a little bit, but the words are still code words for getting rid of it. She wants to personalize it.
She has said that Social Security recipients are welfare recipients. She has said about Social Security that it‘s a violation of the First Commandment. I mean, that‘s biblical. She believes that. And recently, she said that Social Security is a wicked program.
So, the people in the state of Nevada, we‘re doing our very best to get this message out. We won‘t get it out through her talking to the press because she won‘t talk to the press. She won‘t tell the press she wants to get rid of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, and the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the EPA. She—or privatize the Veterans Administration. She won‘t tell them that she believes that insurance companies should be required to cover mammograms, colonoscopies or conditions like autism.
I mean, this is really extreme and extremely dangerous. This is a woman that just does not believe in government, period.
O‘DONNELL: Well, you know, she doesn‘t talk to the press, as you know. She said she will talk to the press after the election, which is not easy to believe. But that‘s why it leaves us trying to figure out what she really does think. And you just quoted something she said on October 10th in Gardnerville in a church. And I‘ve been reading it today trying to make sense of it.
She cites wicked ways, a quotation from the Bible, and under the wicked ways, she includes Medicare and Social Security. But since she‘s not here to take questions about that, I wonder what Nevadans think she means about the wicked ways of Medicare and Social Security, and what they would expect her to do about that.
Do Nevadans not support Medicare and Social Security the way the rest of the country does?
REID: You have to take her at her word. You have to take her at her word. She wants to phase out Social Security.
You have to take at her word that she wants to get rid of Medicare. You have to take her word for it that she believes it‘s a violation of the First Commandment. You have to take her word for it that she believes it‘s wicked.
I mean, she does not believe in Social Security even a little bit. And you can‘t ask her to explain this and she wouldn‘t anyway because she can‘t. It‘s not explainable.
O‘DONNELL: In another wicked way that she listed in that talk in that church is divorce. She cited divorce as one of our wicked ways that we have to stop. And in the final sentence of that same thing she said in that church, she praised Ronald Reagan, our first divorced president.
Is this the kind of jumble that you run up against on the campaign trail constantly with her, these inconsistencies that make no sense and are that far out of the mainstream?
REID: You know, your viewers, they know names like Paul Laxalt, Jim Santini, John Ensign—these are just a few of the people I‘ve run against. They all were able to speak in non-code words.
Here is a person I‘m running against, not these men I‘ve talked about now—I‘ve run against women also before, but nothing like this. Never have I run against someone that speaks in code words that are not explainable. This is a situation that I have never, never come across.
And I have to say, Lawrence, the press has given her a pretty easy go. My purpose in doing this interview with you is that people in Nevada have to get out the vote. We have just a few days left. And they have to go to that ballot box and say, we can‘t have a woman that this—that‘s this extreme and this dangerous, someone who wants to privatize the V.A., someone who believes in these crazy ideas.
O‘DONNELL: Are they trying—do you feel they‘re trying to send—
Nevada voters who are polling in favor of Sharron Angle now in fairly large numbers certainly cannot all be Tea Party fanatics. Some of them have to be voters who are just trying to find a way to say “no” to Democratic leadership in the Senate and Democratic leadership in the White House.
What would you say is the best way for those voters who are dissatisfied with the Democratic leadership so far during this presidency to express themselves next week?
REID: I think people have to understand that—do we want to go back to where we were? I mean, we have stopped Wall Street from ever being able to do to us again what they did to us before.
She doesn‘t agree with that. She thinks that that is too much
regulation. Wall Street collapsed because of too much regulation. I can‘t
you can‘t find a political scientist who agrees with that.
She believes the oil spill of BP was of too much regulation, the oil companies. Try to find scientists that will agree with that.
Her ideas are so extreme, and I think the people in Nevada are not as
are concerned about the economy. I think they‘re just reaching out, trying out of desperation. And I understand that. But everyone has to understand that I didn‘t create the problem, this Congress didn‘t create the problem. We‘ve been trying to get out of a hole that was dug for us by the prior administration.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, I have to tell you, I think your job is the toughest job in Washington, majority leader of the Senate. And I wonder if you would be better off campaigning in Nevada this week if you had not been majority leader and just been a freelance Democrat like Ben Nelson in Nebraska who could just go whatever way played best in his state.
Do you think you‘d be better off running in Nevada this year if you were not majority leader?
REID: No, I think it‘s a tremendous asset for the people in the state of Nevada to have someone that guides what goes on in the Senate, and all you have to do is look at Nevada and find what I‘ve been bringing back to the state. I think that—I think—I feel comfortable where we are in this election. I am really putting my foot as far to the floor board as I can because we have the best get-out-the-vote operation in the history of the country, with the exception of presidential elections.
So, we feel OK where we are. But we just want to make sure that everyone in the last few days of this election gets out and stops this extremism, this dangerous—these dangerous positions that this woman has taken.
O‘DONNELL: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, thank you for taking time out on the campaign trail to talk to us tonight.
REID: My pleasure, really, Lawrence. Thanks.
O‘DONNELL: Republicans and Tea Partiers are going to have to work together after this election. Former House Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, “The Hammer,” will tell us if that‘s possible—next.
And later, the emergence of the Tea Party as a political force. There could be as many as five Tea Party senators on Capitol Hill after next week‘s election. Tonight, we‘ll have an exclusive conversation with four different Tea Party leaders.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: If Republicans take over the House of Representatives, they‘re going to have to wrangle the Tea Party. Can it be done? The former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, “The Hammer,” will tell us—next.
And later: the rise of the Tea Party. We‘ll examine how it started and whether the movement can stay a political force past next week.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: In the 1994 midterm elections, after a young, inexperienced Democratic president mounted an unpopular year-long health care crusade, Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 40 years, thereby reducing Bill Clinton to the status of a minor editor of Republican governance for the next six years of his presidency. The Republicans who came to power in that election were disciplined and unified and forcing spending cuts, which combined with an earlier Clinton tax increase led to $1 trillion surplus at the end of the 20th century.
A chief enforcer of that Republican Party discipline was a former exterminator from Texas, the majority whip of the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay. Republican spending discipline collapsed with the inauguration of a Republican president in 2001, and on his way to becoming majority leader, Tom DeLay found himself in some bad company, most notably the craziest and most corrupt lobbyist of the century, Jack Abramoff, now a convicted felon.
Tom Delay resigned from the House in 2006 while under a federal investigation of his involved with Jack Abramoff, and after being indicted in Texas on charges of conspiring to use illegal corporate contributions in the 2002 state elections.
The Justice Department eventually dropped that investigation without bringing charges against Tom DeLay. But beginning Monday, he stands trial in Texas for money laundering and conspiracy. And yes, he is among the distinguished alumni of “Dancing with the Stars.”
Joining me now from Austin, Texas: Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
Mr. Delay, can you explain from your position on the sidelines the—what you see as the rise of the Tea Party and what seems to be its merger with the Republican Party?
TOM DELAY ®, FMR. HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: Well, Lawrence, good to see you, too.
Actually, this reminds me a lot of what happened in 1980, about the time I got involved in politics. I was scared to death. I was angry at the Carter administration. I wanted to get involved and I got involved. Little did I know I‘d end up majority leader of the House of Representatives.
But I was amongst a lot of just average Americans that got involved in their politics, supported Ronald Reagan, supported the Republicans and win and took over the Republican Party in 1980.
So, this isn‘t much different than that. It has more energy because I think the comparison of Jimmy Carter and Obama are very stark differences. Obama is so much more liberal and has done so much more harm to this country than Jimmy Carter ever dreamed about. It has created even more energy, and just average Americans getting involved in the political process.
O‘DONNELL: By the way—
DELAY: And they took over the Republican Party.
O‘DONNELL: By the way, I‘m sorry for rushing into the questions. I did want to welcome you into this show, Tom. I‘m very grateful for you doing it. But I‘m so eager to get to this, having you here that I‘m just rushing into these questions. But let‘s keep going.
DELAY: OK.
O‘DONNELL: The establishment Republican Party, it seemed to me, was reluctant to join forces with the Tea Party at first, but your old Texas Republican rival Dick Armey seemed to jump in early and bring Republicans and Tea Partiers together.
Where would they be now if Dick Armey hadn‘t brokered, from where I‘m sitting, brokered that union between the Tea Party and the Republican Party?
DELAY: I think Dick Armey just saw a parade and jumped in front of it. It would—I don‘t think he did anything to energize the Tea Party movement more than the people themselves. They were going along quite well before Dick Armey showed up. He did help in training them and guiding them and advising them.
But the Tea Party movement, they didn‘t any former politicians. They didn‘t want any Republicans. They were—they were a movement unto themselves and they grew like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Every time President Obama would open his mouth, it probably increased the size of the Tea Party by thousands, and especially when they passed the health care reform. That had more to do with energizing the American people than anything else.
O‘DONNELL: I want to read you something that Richard Viguerie, a long-time Republican activist, said in “The New York Times” recently. He said, “We‘re all on the same page until the polls close November 2nd. Then a massive, almost historic battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party begins.”
Who do you think is going to win that battle?
DELAY: They‘ve already won it. Richard Viguerie is behind the times.
We‘ve just been through a whole party building process, the primaries, going into the general election, energizing people to come work for Republicans, people voting for Republicans, people getting involved in the precinct conventions, their state conventions. And so, all of that work has already been done.
And if you look at the party leaders now, they come from the Tea Party movement. They come from people that have not been involved in politics before. That‘s all been done that‘s what elections are about, building a party. So, Richard Viguerie is way behind the times.
O‘DONNELL: Now, as you know, both parties are polling very unfavorably in the polls. And so we have a Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio distancing himself from the Republican Party. Let‘s see listen to how he did that in this week‘s debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO ®, FLORIDA SENATE CANDIDATE: I‘m not sure there‘s a part we disagree with or not disagree because my public policy isn‘t based on the Republican platform. It‘s based on the things that I believe in. It‘s the things that I stand for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Do you think that was a smart move in that campaign, at that point, to just kind of push the Republican Party aside and try to go straight to the voter?
DELAY: Well, I don‘t know. He is trying to attract independents and he‘s trying to attract Democrats to vote for him. I probably wouldn‘t have said it that way. It kind of pours cold water on the Republicans that are in Florida. But they‘re solidly behind him, and I—this is not the time, and certainly the day after the election is not the time to start inner party rivalries and positioning.
What‘s going to happen—and I‘ve talked to a lot of Tea Party people, what‘s going to happen the day after election, they‘re going to get a hold of those newly-elected members of the House and the Senate, and they‘re going to have a talk to them, and they‘re going to talk about what they want to see happen in the next year or two. And that‘s what I—at least the leaders I‘ve been talking to, that might be classified the establishment, they have heard what the people have said in this election and they intend to do everything that they can, knowing that they have a second chance, to accomplish the things that the Americans are demanding.
O‘DONNELL: Now, one of the animating forces of the Tea Party has been what they consider, many of them, out-of-control government spending and it is not going to surprise you to hear that Dick Armey blames you for part of the Republican downfall, part of the Republican loss of control on spending. In an interview with “The Texas Tribune” in August, when asked if the Bush years were where the Republican Party went astray, he said, “The Republican Congress had the more or less goofy earmark strategy that resulted in this awfully ugly explosion of earmarks—that was a shortsighted political strategy contrived primarily by Tom DeLay.”
How do you plead on that one?
DELAY: Not guilty.
O‘DONNELL: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
DELAY: My last year as majority leader, 2005, we actually reformed every entitlement program in the federal government, saved $40 billion. We actually cut spending for the first time since Ronald Reagan, a real cut in non-defense spending. We did a lot of things to rein in spending.
In fact, you know, when we took over in 1995, all federal spending was over 21 percent of the GDP. Within two years, it went down to 18 percent and it didn‘t get back to 21 percent until the Democrats took over in 2006. So—and Dick Armey was part of all of that until I replaced him as majority leader and Dick Armey was never able to reform every entitlement program and actually cut discretionary spending.
So, I don‘t know what he‘s talking about.
O‘DONNELL: Tom DeLay, I have to ask you, and your long career—what is your biggest regret? Is it hanging out with Jack Abramoff or doing “Dancing with the Stars”?
DELAY: Well, I didn‘t hang out with Jack Abramoff. He was a lobbyist, just like any other lobbyists that I dealt with. And a lot of them did go to prison.
But, no, my biggest regret is we didn‘t start redesigning the government quicker, as I started it in 2004 and really did it in 2005 and wanted to do more, along the line of what the Tea Party people are talking about.
They‘re not talking about cutting spending like Dick Armey is talking about. They‘re talking about fundamentally limiting the size of government and downsizing government. And if the—if those Washington, D.C. people in there don‘t get that message, they‘re going to be in real big trouble come election 2012.
O‘DONNELL: Tom DeLay, the best dancer among former House majority leaders—thank you very much for joining us tonight.
DELAY: Thank you, Lawrence. That‘s not saying much.
(LAUGHTER)
O‘DONNELL: Coming up: we‘ll have an exclusive Tea Party summit here on MSNBC. As some of its candidates for Senate sprint toward Election Day, we‘ll talk to the various leaders of the movement. What does the group stand for? How will they govern in Washington? And what type of change do they really want? Ahead on THE LAST WORD.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK JENSEN, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: As promised, Christine O‘Donnell in studio, “Rick Jensen Show” on WDEL. Also as promised, she‘s going to get your questions. I have one question I‘ve reserved for myself. And I know that Christine wants to talk about things that she wants to talk about, which is fiscal policy.
The county lost about one third of its revenue due to the subprime mortgage crisis, OK? Chris Coons cut his own salary, negotiated the unions to zero pay raises. He cut discretionary spending. My question is this—what would you have done differently?
CHRISTINE O‘DONNELL ®, CANDIDATE FOR SENATE IN DELAWARE: Let me address a couple of those things.
JENSEN: No, what would you have done differently?
C. O‘DONNELL: I‘m getting to that, Rick.
JENSEN: Now you‘re still 800 million dollars in the hole. What would you cut?
C. O‘DONNELL: I‘m running for U.S. Senate. I don‘t have the budget in front of me.
JENSEN: OK, well that‘s the question.
C. O‘DONNELL: Nor should I, because I‘m not running for county executive. I‘m running for U.S. Senate.
JENSEN: But you‘re criticizing him on running for county executive.
C. O‘DONNELL: I want to talk about what matters to the Delaware voters. I want to talk about how we‘re going to get jobs. I‘m going to debate you, Rick, on whether or not I‘m running for county council. I‘m running for U.S. Senate.
(CROSS TALK)
JENSEN: What I‘m doing is I‘m challenging you on your criticism of Chris Coons, and it‘s an honest challenge. So you don‘t really have the answer what you would do differently.
C. O‘DONNELL: I just gave you my answer. I would not have created sweetheart slush funds. I would not have spent money on private casino nights, private—
JENSEN: But there‘s still more money to cut. And how would you make us actually feasible in 2014?
C. O‘DONNELL: I‘m not running for county council, Rick. I‘m running for U.S. Senate. If you would like to talk about what I would do there, we can continue. If not, then bring on whoever is running for county council this year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: In our Spotlight tonight on THE LAST WORD, we have an in depth look at the rise of the Tea Party. The political movement is now on the verge of electing as many as five senators. We‘ll go inside the Tea Party itself, which has seen its fair share of in-fighting. We‘ll have an exclusive debate with four different leaders of Tea Party groups.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: What do these groups have in common? Tea Party Nation, the All-American Tea Party Patriots, the National Tea Party Federation, the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, the Tea Party Express, the Tea Party Business Network, the Alabama Tea Party Federation, the Kodiak Tea Party, the Colorado Tea Party and East Valley Tea Party Patriots? The answer? Less than you think.
We just arbitrarily cut the list of Tea Party groups at ten. With so many different Tea Party groups and candidates out there, we‘ve called in a panel of experts. In our Spotlight tonight, Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation, Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express, Max Pappas of FreedomWorks, and Karl Denninger of Fed Up USA.
Now, I just want to address this first one to all four of you. Will the leader of the Tea Party please raise your hand? OK. Amy, you are the chairwoman of—which one are you the chn1airwoman of? Which group?
AMY KREMER, CHAIRMAN, TEA PARTY EXPRESS: Tea Party Express.
O‘DONNELL: Tea Party Express. You‘re the chairwoman of the Tea Party Express. So you‘re the leader of the Tea Party, aren‘t you?
KREMER: No. I mean, we‘re all leaders of the Tea Party. This movement is made up of millions of Americans across this country. We‘re all leaders. We don‘t have one designated leader. We don‘t need one. We‘ve proven that we‘ve been a pretty powerful force without one designated leader.
O‘DONNELL: What is the difference, Amy, between Tea Party Express and Tea Party Nation?
KREMER: We‘re different groups. I mean, Tea Party Express, we‘re a federal PAC. We‘re a political action committee. We engage in the campaigns. We believe the time has come to put down the protest signs and pick up the campaign signs, because if we‘re truly going to affect change, we‘re going to do it at the ballot box.
We work with all different groups across the country. We find common ground and we unify upon common ground. But we‘re just different groups, that‘s all.
O‘DONNELL: Judson Phillips, you‘re founder of Tea Party Nation. Are these different groups connected in any way? Or is it just a bunch of different people throwing the phrase Tea Party into a bunch of different unrelated organizations?
JUDSON PHILLIPS, FOUNDER, TEA PARTY NATION: Well, it‘s all of us who have the same common cause. We want freedom in America. Some of us work together, some of us work independently. For example, Amy is a good friend of mine who I want to say hello to, because I haven‘t seen here in a couple of months, because we‘ve all been so busy. Max—
KREMER: Hey there, Judson.
PHILLIPS: Hi, Amy.—and the other folks I don‘t particularly know. But guess what, we all work together because—if not together , at least independently for the same goal, because we do all have the same goal. We want to stop the advance of socialism in this country. We want to advance the cause of freedom in this country.
O‘DONNELL: Max Pappas, you‘re with Freedom Works, a preexisting group, existed prior to what we now think of as the Tea Party, with a lot of big Washington connections involved in it, like Dick Armey. What is your connection to the Tea Party?
MAX PAPPAS, PUBLIC POLICY VP, FREEDOMWORKS: Well, we‘ve been working with all of these grassroots leaders that have popped up for the Tea Party movement right from the start. And we have been doing it for a while. We‘ve been fighting for lower taxes and less government since the early ‘80s.
We think it‘s great that there are so many new groups on the scene. We‘re all brought together by our shared belief in limited government, free markets and Constitutional principles. We work with everybody who share those same ideas.
I do know Amy. I don‘t know the other two, but look forward to working with them on those ideas that we agree on.
O‘DONNELL: Karl Denninger, your group is called Fed Up USA. What are you fed up with and are you part of the Tea Party?
KARL DENNINGER, CO-FOUNDER, FEDUP USA: Well, we started in 2008 after Bear Stearns went down, and held a protest on Wall Street and another one in Washington, D.C. The primary purpose behind this was to expose the economic problems that we face as a nation and that what we‘ve gone through is not due to accident or speculation. It‘s due to fraud.
And in that regard, we stand with the Tea Party from a standpoint of trying to get people to recognize that we cannot solve the problems that this country has until we get the fraudulent dealing out of the financial system and the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington, D.C. is closed.
O‘DONNELL: Let‘s try to get these groups described by answering some policy questions and where you stand on things. Judson Phillips, you mentioned that you‘re opposed to socialism. So let‘s start with Social Security and Medicare. I assume that means that your group, Tea Party Nation, wants to abolish Social Security and Medicare?
PHILLIPS: Excuse me, I‘m sorry. We never said that we want to abolish it. We do want to fundamentally change government, because the way government has been working the last 50 years hasn‘t been working very well. You know, you talk about—
O‘DONNELL: OK, can I just stop you right there. Let‘s go back to the full screen of everyone. Let‘s see a raised hand on this one. OK? Let‘s see if we agree—get an agreement on this. Do you all agree that Social Security is socialism?
No one agrees with that? No one thinks it‘s socialism? OK, do you agree that Medicare is socialism?
No one thinks Medicare is socialism. Well, you‘re all wrong on that. Amy, what do you think socialism is? Because those two things are socialistic programs that are run pretty well. There‘s good socialism and there‘s bad socialism in the world, and those are what I think are two examples of good socialism that run well and are popular in America.
But if you don‘t think those two things are socialism, can you name me something that this government does that is more socialistic than government-run health care, Medicare?
KREMER: This is the thing, is they‘re not being run well. Those two programs you just mentioned are not being run well. They‘re on the verge of bankruptcy. We cannot sustain this out of control spending.
O‘DONNELL: Amy, let‘s stick with the question. I want to get to what you people think socialism is, because what we‘ve established is that—
KREMER: It‘s redistribution of wealth.
O‘DONNELL: You don‘t seem to know what it is. Tell me what the government does that‘s more socialistic than Medicare that has to be stopped now. Would you say agriculture subsidies are more socialistic than Medicare?
KREMER: You know, we‘re—the thing is we need to stop this out of control spending.
O‘DONNELL: OK, tell me the one government program you would stop. We agree. I agree with you all that government spending is too high. Now tell me the program, Amy. You tell me the program that you would stop.
KREMER: That‘s exactly—this is the thing is that—
O‘DONNELL: Name a program, Amy.
KREMER: Are you going to let me answer the question?
O‘DONNELL: Yes, if you name a program. If you don‘t, I have to move on to someone else.
KREMER: I am not an expert on the U.S. budget, but we cannot spend more than we make.
O‘DONNELL: OK, Amy, we‘re going to leave it with you and you can reconsider. We—you‘re going to be on for the rest of the show. You can think of it over for the rest of the show about any government program that you want to stop. But as of now, I have you down as not opposed to a single government program.
And now I‘m going to move through the group and see if any of you will name a government program that‘s more socialistic than Medicare. Judson Phillips, go ahead. Is there a government program more socialistic that you want to stop?
PHILLIPS: Programs I would kill? Start with Social Security disability. It is the biggest rip-off in the government. It‘s filled with waste, fraud and abuse. Department of Energy, Department of Education, two programs that have been abject failures.
O‘DONNELL: You would just eliminate both of them.
PHILLIPS: Yes, absolutely. Reduce them to sub cabinet level. Most of what they do—
O‘DONNELL: Wait a minute, what do you do by—when you reduce—you reduced the Department of Education to sub cabinet level. What does that do? Means nothing.
PHILLIPS: It means you start cutting its budget.
O‘DONNELL: To what? Would you cut it to zero? During your lifetime, there was no Department of Education. Why not cut it down to zero?
PHILLIPS: That‘s a great idea. I like that idea. Cut it to zero.
As a program, it‘s a disaster.
(CROSS TALK)
O‘DONNELL: And by the way, do you think that public education is more socialistic than Medicare. Is that why you want to cut education more than Medicare?
PHILLIPS: No, I want education run at the state and local level. I don‘t want a federal bureaucrat deciding what my children are going to study or what they‘re going to do. I want that done by my local board of education.
(CROSS TALK)
O‘DONNELL: I got to get to break. But I want to get Max and Karl in here quickly on naming a government program that you would eliminate because you think it‘s more socialistic than Medicare. Max, go ahead, quickly. Give me one.
PAPPAS: Quickly, you want one. There‘s a new study out by U.S. Perg (ph) and the National Taxpayers Union today that identifies 600 billion in cuts.
O‘DONNELL: Max, name me one before we go to a break.
PAPPAS: How about the Market Access Program that subsidizes the most profitable companies in the country for advertising overseas. That‘s one.
O‘DONNELL: So that‘s a tax break you‘re talking about?
PAPPAS: No, it‘s a subsidy.
O‘DONNELL: And what does it amount to? What tenth of what percent does of the budget that account for? Do you think it accounts for one tenth of one percent of the federal budget?
PAPPAS: It accounts for one billion dollars.
O‘DONNELL: One billion, did you say?
PAPPAS: Yes.
O‘DONNELL: Oh, my god. So in all of this federal spending, you can‘t even think of one percent of it that you would actually cut, that you‘re willing to publicly say you would cut.
PAPPS: That wasn‘t the question. Wait, wait, wait. That wasn‘t the question. You asked me to identify one and I identified one. You want some more?
(CROSS TALK)
O‘DONNELL: We‘re going to be back. Stop. We‘re going to have to take a break. We‘re going to be back with more spending cuts from the Tea Party. You‘re watching THE LAST WORD on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Back with me now is our panel of Tea Party leaders, Max Pappas of FreedomWorks, Amy Kremer of the Tea Party Express, Karl Denninger of Fed Up USA, and Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation.
Now Karl Denninger, it‘s your turn on this question of what government spending do you believe needs to be cut, because it is more, more socialist than Medicare?
DENNINGER: Well, you take the Department of Education and you throw it in the trash immediately.
O‘DONNELL: Zero it up? Just cut that budget down to zero?
DENNINGER: Absolutely, zero. It is a state constitutional requirement. It is not in the federal government. It‘s not in the constitution. Now, you also have to take—
O‘DONNELL: What else?
DENNINGER: You also have to take 50 percent out of Medicare, though.
Half out of Medicare, half.
O‘DONNELL: So you want to cut Medicare by half. How would you do that? Would you have beneficiaries pay that difference in order to cover what they‘re getting now? Or would you simply cut their services in half?
DENNINGER: No, what I would do is reorganize the program and reorganize the delivery. We have to do it. It‘s not a question of whether we want to. It‘s a question of arithmetic. And this—
O‘DONNELL: Can I ask, Karl—first of all, Karl, I want to congratulate you for being the only brave one on the panel who is willing to actually cut a significant thing in the federal budget, something more than a billion dollars.
(CROSS TALK)
O‘DONNELL: This is where the real money is. Do you understand this? Health care spending in this government is bigger than the Department of Energy and the Department of Education put together. When you guys want to get together and talk about cutting spending, you better learn how the government spends the money.
(CROSS TALK)
O‘DONNELL: Now Karl, when you cut Medicare in half, why wouldn‘t you cut it and zero it out just like the Department of Education?
DENNINGER: Because there is an argument to be made that if we‘re going to provide some sort of subsidy—
O‘DONNELL: Some sort of the socialistic subsidy. All subsidies are socialistic.
DENNINGER: Some sort of the subsidy.
O‘DONNELL: Can you say socialist subsidy? They‘re all socialistic.
DENNINGER: Sure. We can say socialistic subsidy. But let‘s face the facts. We pay taxes to cover this subsidy that then comes back to us. So it‘s not a pure transfer. I pay taxes throughout my entire working life, and the same thing with Social Security, which is then at least allegedly returned to me when I retire.
So if you zero the programs, what you‘ve done is you‘ve said, we‘re going to just going to steal this money through the taxes, and you‘re going to get nothing back. That we cannot do.
O‘DONNELL: OK. Let‘s go to another issue that‘s come up in the campaign, separation of church and state. Let‘s see if we can get quick yes or no on this. Amy, do you believe that the Constitution provides for a separation of church and state?
KREMER: Yes.
O‘DONNELL: Max, do you believe that?
PAPPAS: I think in the First Amendment, you have the reference to there will be no establishment of religion and that‘s been interpreted to be a separation of church and state.
O‘DONNELL: Judson Phillips, do you think the Constitution provides for a separation of church and state?
PHILLIPS: The First Amendment says the government shall make no law establishing a religion. The Supreme Court interpreted that way and that‘s the law of the land.
O‘DONNELL: Now you have said—Judson, you‘ve said, “if you read the Koran, the Koran, in no uncertain terms, says some wonderful things like kill the infidels. It says it on more than one occasion. I happen to be the infidel. I have a real problem with people who want to kill me just because I‘m the infidel.”
You were in that piece talking also about Keith Ellison, a Muslim member of Congress. Do you believe that Muslims should not be elected to public office in this country?
PHILLIPS: No, I never said that.
O‘DONNELL: OK. Amy Kremer, where are you on that?
KREMER: No. I mean, I haven‘t said that.
O‘DONNELL: Max Pappas, do you believe that Muslims should be allowed to be elected in this country?
PAPPAS: It‘s a free country. That‘s what you don‘t seem to understand about what brings us together, is an appreciation of freedom and our belief in limited government.
KREMER: That‘s right.
O‘DONNELL: Karl Denninger, can you understand when people make statements about the Koran and about Muslims that way, in referring to a Muslim member of Congress, that people might wonder, as I‘m asking you—and I‘m glad we‘ve clarified this so far—that people in the Tea Party may be opposed to Muslims holding any public office in this country? Can you understand where that question comes from?
DENNINGER: Certainly I can understand where the question comes from. My view is that we judge people on their character and their actions. If you want to pray in a particular way, that is between you and whatever you call God. If you want to, for example, fly airplanes into building, that‘s an entirely different question, and we should have a very strong disapproval of that sort of activity.
O‘DONNELL: I wish we had time for the minimum wage and all sorts of other issue, but I‘m sorry, we are out of time. I want to thank you all, Max Pappas, Amy Kremer, Karl Denninger and Judson Phillips, I thank you all, leaders of various Tea Party groups, for joining me tonight. I wish we could clarify even more. We‘ll be right back.
DENNINGER: Thank you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: That‘s tonight‘s LAST WORD. You can have THE LAST WORD online at our blog, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. A weekend programming note. You can find me tomorrow night on “Real Time With Bill Maher” on HBO. And then join me on Sunday night at 10:00 Eastern for a special campaign edition of THE LAST WORD. “COUNTDOWN” is up next.
END
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