Guests: Ezra Klein, Norman Orenstein, Margaret Carlson, Ron Ellison, Samantha Harlan, Thomas Acker
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, HOST: Going into the lame duck session, members of Congress face their lowest approval rating ever, just 13 percent—which just might explain why they finally decided to work together and get a few things done.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS: And in Washington, where the 111th Congress ended with a bang.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: It‘s been quite an exhilarating week.
GUTHRIE: A lame duck session that was anything but.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The most productive post-election period in decades.
O‘DONNELL (voice-over): As Congress comes to a close, the media marvels at the most accomplished American legislative body since the 1960s.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look what they were able to accomplish in a month.
GUTHRIE: Let‘s talk about the work that Congress just got done.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of these controversial issues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Don‘t ask, don‘t tell” will be remembered as the biggest political achievement.
PELOSI: We passed the COMPETES Act. We passed the procurement bill.
We passed the food safety bill.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An 11th hour deal revived the 9/11 health care bill for workers at Ground Zero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It‘s because of everybody‘s hard work that this Christmas will be the best Christmas that I‘ve ever known.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: The 9/11 bill I think is a model in working with the other side.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: Legislation is the art of compromise.
SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D), NEW YORK: Democrats and Republicans came together to make sure that we could fulfill our undeniable moral obligation.
O‘DONNELL: The fast-moving lame duck session shows Republicans and Democrats can work together.
SCARBOROUGH: Could peace be breaking out in Washington?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Washington can accomplish things, especially when you, you know, are able to cross party lines.
PELOSI: We came here to do a job. We got much of it done.
O‘DONNELL: But will a bipartisan peace and progress last after the holidays?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Peace could be breaking out in Washington up until possibly January 5th. When Republicans take over the House and the Democrats lose a bit of their majority—not a bit, a significant chunk of their majority in the Senate.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: My prediction, the next six months will be more like the lame duck, where there was a lot of productivity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be wonderful if they could do it again with the 112th Congress.
PELOSI: Get some rest. We have important work to do when we come back.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Good evening from Los Angeles. I‘m Lawrence O‘Donnell.
The 111th Congress ended with that old college try. Members of Congress and college students usually end their terms by cramming all their work into the last couple of weeks. Ratifying the START treaty, confirming judges, passing the food safety and 9/11 first responders bills, repealing “don‘t ask, don‘t tell”—all after reaching a huge tax cut compromise deal that also extended unemployment benefits. Some are calling it the most productive Congress since the 1960‘s Great Society, comparable even to the 1930‘s New Deal Congress.
So, why are others calling it one of the most politically dysfunctional congresses ever in need of rules changes to reduce obstruction? Perhaps, it has something to do with this graph.
It shows the dramatic rise in procedural blocks in the Senate in recent years. How a procedure that was once meant for extreme circumstances is now used casually to clog the entire system. When the 112th Congress takes over on January 5th, will filibuster reform be the next big fight on the Hill?
Joining me now are: Norm Orenstein, congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; and Ezra Klein, columnist for “The Washington Post.”
Ezra, to start with you—that graph is yours on what‘s happened in terms of clogging up the system with cloture motions. I don‘t like to call them filibusters because technically they aren‘t filibusters, but I might slip into the casual usage of it here. And that does bring up the question of filibuster reform as a first day order of business coming up.
But—but help me here. I am having trouble thinking that we‘ve just seen a hugely productive Congress and a hugely productive Senate and that we, therefore, must change the rules of the Senate because the Senate isn‘t getting enough done. Can I hold both of those thoughts at the same time?
EZRA KLEIN, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: I think you can, although I‘d rephrase the latter.
O‘DONNELL: OK, go ahead.
KLEIN: It‘s not that they‘re getting enough done. The way to look at it is it‘s been a very, very productive Congress but it‘s been a productive Congress because you saw majorities you have not seen in Congress since 1975.
So, this was a moment when everything, every force was aligned. It was as good as it gets for legislating. They did quite a bit with it. But you‘ve got to look forward, too, and you got to ask yourself, OK, coming up, are the dangers to the country that Congress will do too much or too little?
And the way I put it is this: all the things we should worry about are on auto pilot. Health care costs, we do nothing, we go bankrupt. Carbon in the atmosphere. We do nothing, the earth heats. Infrastructure, if we do nothing, it crumbles.
So, the harder you make it to do things in normal times, not these sort of generationally odd moments where you‘ve got 60 Democrats for the first time since ‘75, but normal everyday sessions, the less likely it is we won‘t take action on any of those pretty important fights. And if we don‘t, then the consequences will be terrific.
So, I go back to that graph you showed. I don‘t think that shows a functional body. And the fact that they were able to get things done at a moment of real—of true sort of—a moment where they had an enormous number of votes does not mean they‘ll get it done next time when we need them to.
O‘DONNELL: Norm Orenstein, no one has a fuller historical perspective of these things than you do. How does this Congress compare to these congresses going back historically to the ‘60s? And then do we need a rule change to have a more productive Congress, given that the rules that they were operating under in the ‘60s when they were so productive were even more difficult in some ways than these rules?
NORMAN ORENSTEIN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Yes, and, of course, in some ways, Lawrence, let me say: the problem is not the rules per se. We‘ve operated under these rules and it hasn‘t been so bad. It‘s the way the culture has changed and been debased and it‘s the way the minority exploited the rules and used them in ways that it was never intended.
It would be nice to change the culture. That‘s much harder. You‘ve got to change the rules first and hope that the culture will follow or at least break the back of some of the worst dysfunctional elements of it.
But with all of that, and I actually wrote a piece a year ago saying that we were on track to having the most productive Congress since the New Deal. Even without START, this was before health care passed, but expecting that it would and that there would be Wall Street reform. And a part of it was that even in the stimulus package that passed, when you began to parse it out into the individual pieces, it was extraordinary legislative accomplishment.
If you move beyond even the big three: the stimulus, the health care, the Wall Street reform into some of the smaller things, we had a huge change in the social fabric, from credit card reform to the biggest public lands management bill that we‘ve seen in a couple of decades, to enormous changes in energy and the environment and then some of the things done in the lame duck.
But even before we got to the lame duck it was damned impressive. It just happened to happen under the most dysfunctional political environment that I‘ve seen in 41 years of watching this up close.
O‘DONNELL: Ezra Klein, there is a move to change the so-called filibuster rule in the Senate and there‘s a theory that it can be done on day one and only on day one, with just 51 votes, that they won‘t need the mythical 60 to get it done. Tom Harkin has been involved, Chuck Schumer has been involved.
What is that it they think they want to change? And exactly what kind of change is it they‘re thinking of trying to introduce that day?
KLEIN: They‘re less sure about that second part. So, we‘re talking about a constitutional option. It‘s really being pushed by Tom Udall of New Mexico. And his argument is that in the Constitution, it says each body will be able to determine its own rules.
And so, at the beginning of each Congress, they essentially have to vote or at least to accept the new rules. At that point, before Rule 22, which is where the filibuster lives, comes into effect, it‘s a simple 51-person vote. It‘s a simple majority.
So, if you could make a change right then, then you can simply change the votes. You don‘t need the 67 votes you need for an official rule change. I should say and Norm can speak to this, that there are other ways to do it midsession with 51 votes according to many scholars of the rules, but they‘re more complicated and more to the point seem more controversial.
The question of what they want to do is more difficult. As of yet, they really don‘t know. They want to give Harry Reid leverage in negotiating with Mitch McConnell for the filibuster for next session.
Senator Jeff Merkley has, I think, a very smart filibuster reform package out which would make—you were saying that you don‘t want to call it filibuster, it would make what we now do look more like a filibuster and force people who want to filibuster to actually be on the floor, to be talking out. Twenty of the minority wants to never stop debating the motion. You wouldn‘t be able to filibuster motions to debate because that‘s just stopping people from debating.
So, it‘d make the filibuster a lot more like what we saw in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” But there‘s no real sense yet whether that particular package of changes has anything near unanimity in the Democratic Caucus.
O‘DONNELL: Norm, one of the things they‘re thinking about is dropping that 60-vote threshold to maybe a 55-vote threshold. I can tell you, when I worked in the Senate, we had 57 Democrats. I hated the 60-vote threshold. As soon as we became the minority and I was still there, I loved the 60-vote threshold because we were able to get in the way of things.
Isn‘t that one of the dynamics here that as soon as one party becomes the minority, they suddenly love this rule that they used to hate?
ORENSTEIN: Oh, absolutely. And, of course, that‘s one of the things that Chris Dodd, among others, has been warning the younger members against.
I would tell you, though, Lawrence, they‘re not going to change the threshold from 60. I‘ve been talking to and working with a lot of the younger members, including a lot of the younger Democrats—Mark Udall, Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley and a whole series of others, Amy Klobuchar, who‘s been one of the foremost figures in this as well, and some of the more senior ones.
And the idea is here to cut out the underbrush. The problem, you mentioned, is cloture motions. Some of those cloture motions, to be fair, were filed by the majority and filling the amendment tree that try and cut off a potential filibuster and the Republicans didn‘t like that very much. But a lot of it was a deliberate attempt to use all the rules, including the fact that it takes two days once you have filed a cloture motion to actually get a vote on that cloture motion, that you can have several bites at the apple, a motion to proceed, the bill itself, you can do it on amendments.
The idea that after that, there are 30 hours of presumed post-cloture debate, Republicans use the 30 hours without even debating and they, of course, file these—or attempted these filibusters or said they were going to filibuster even on unanimous or near unanimous bills and nominations. So, if you can cut out a lot of that stuff and make sure that the rules used just for obstruction goes away, and there‘s a price to be paid by a minority if you feel intensely about an issue of great national significance, you‘ve got to be there and you‘ve got to debate continuously.
There are ways of doing that. And that‘s, I think, what we‘re talking about here.
O‘DONNELL: Well, I for one am hoping for a big dramatic showdown on Senate rules on their first day back to be covered here on THE LAST WORD.
(LAUGHTER)
O‘DONNELL: Norm Orenstein and Ezra Klein—thank you both for your scholarship tonight.
KLEIN: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: And still ahead, Jon Stewart took on Senate Republicans over the 9/11 first responders health care bill. Now that it‘s passed, did pressure from Jon Stewart make the difference?
And later, Conan O‘Brien takes over in tonight‘s “Rewrite,” giving a contemporary spin on the classic Christmas tale “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” He‘s even added a new character to the story. That‘s coming up here on THE LAST WORD.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Coming up: Jon Stewart‘s transformation from comedian to advocate. He is getting credit for getting the 9/11 health care bill passed, from the White House, from members of Congress and the mayor of New York.
And later the KIND fund, Kids in Need of Desks. Your generosity grows as Christmas nears. We‘ll reveal the latest numbers from UNICEF and show you why the program will make such a huge difference in Africa.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Yesterday, the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act passed both the House and Senate. The bill provides $4.2 billion in health care to those who fell ill from breathing toxins at Ground Zero. Getting the bill passed was not easy.
As of last week, two Senate Republicans refused to let the bill come to a vote. Republican Senator Tom Coburn was threatening to block it. To get the bill passed, it took the work of both New York senators, plus all of those who lobbied Washington, John Feal and the Feel Good Foundation, former New York City mayor, Republican Rudy Giuliani, current New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and, according to Mayor Bloomberg‘s Twitter, it also took a comedian.
“Big thanks to Senator Gillibrand, Senator Schumer and Jon Stewart at ‘The Daily Show‘ for work to pass the Zadroga act.”
When asked about Jon Stewart‘s influence this morning, Senator Schumer had to agree.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCARBOROUGH: Some of the media have noted that Jon Stewart actually took this—
SCHUMER: He was great.
SCARBOROUGH: -- matter up and worked aggressively on it.
SCHUMER: Well, one of the things that had to happen is that this had to become a national issue, not a New York issue. It took a while on Stewart, I think, that was a seminal moment because he nationalized the issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: It was Thursday when Jon Stewart dedicated his entire show to attacking Republican opposition to the bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
JON STEWART, COMEDIAN: The House of Representatives passed it and it would pass in the Senate if it came to an up-or-down vote. They have more than the 50 votes they need. But the Senate Republicans have filibustered it, won‘t allow the bill to come up for a vote. Luckily, yesterday, there was some good news from the Senate. The logjam broke.
DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS: Today, the Senate passed that bill to extend tax cuts to all Americans, including the wealthiest by an overwhelming 81-19 vote.
STEWART: Yes! That is astoundingly good news for firefighters that make over $200,000 a year.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
O‘DONNELL: Stewart also featured a panel of first responders suffering from various diseases and cancers due to the breathing in of toxic fumes at Ground Zero, as well as a guest appearance from Mike Huckabee, who encouraged fellow Republicans to pass the bill.
Joining me now: “Bloomberg News” columnist Margaret Carlson.
Margaret, let‘s listen to Jon Stewart‘s interview with Rachel Maddow last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART: But the one thing I don‘t have that you have is the ability to really do something about it. You‘re in the game. Like—
RACHEL MADDOW, “TRMS” HOST: You‘re in the game, too. We‘re in the same game.
STEWART: I don‘t think so. I think you‘re in a better game than I‘m in.
MADDOW: How? What‘s the difference? What‘s the material difference?
STEWART: You‘re on the playing field and I‘m in the stands yelling things. The next thing I can do is step onto the field and go, so, now, here‘s what we‘re going to do, people, Jones, you get over there, Brooklyn, you grab the canteens. We‘re going to have to. But I don‘t.
That‘s my failing and my indulgence—but it‘s done because I feel like I am where I belong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Margaret, what game is he in now? He‘s getting credit from the White House, from Robert Gibbs, from everybody who‘s looked at this. He is getting credit for having gotten this bill passed.
MARGARET CARLSON, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Well, if he were to get into Rachel Maddow‘s game, he would be competing, say, for instance, with you, Lawrence. And these others, he‘s set apart by being a comic.
And, you know, being earnest and—look at Dennis Miller, having become earnest and a little bit sweaty. These are the enemies of comedy. And it‘s Jon Stewart stepping out of that and into doing his entire last show as a serious matter that helped it. Not that he in and of himself doesn‘t have a megaphone, but if he did that every night, I think he would lose some of his clout.
O‘DONNELL: Let‘s listen to what Robert Gibbs had to say about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: If there‘s the ability for that to sort of break through in our political environment, I think there‘s a good chance that he can help do that. I think he has put this—I think he has put the awareness around this legislation. He‘s put that awareness into what you guys cover each day and I think that‘s good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Now, Margaret, this is all good and well, and Jon Stewart deserves all the credit he‘s getting.
But they are leaving out someone else. Let‘s take a look at what Shepard Smith had to say about this on FOX News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHEPARD SMITH, FOX NEWS: Again, this is the picture of Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. He is the man who is vowing to slow this down or block it, so that the necessary funding for the illnesses of the first responders who made it to Ground Zero to try to save lives on the day that America changed, remember? This is the senator who is vowing to block it so that it doesn‘t make it through, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. The man who vows today to block or delay the 9/11 first responders bill, despite the fact that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York say they have the votes to get it done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Now, Margaret, after that Tom Coburn entered direct negotiations with Chuck Schumer and got this done. Let‘s think about the numbers.
Jon Stewart‘s show—by the way, both of those guys much higher ratings than mine. Jon Stewart, 1.25 million people watched that 9/11 episode of his. In fact it was a lower than average rating for him in the month of December.
Shepard Smith had 1.8 million people watching his show. We can, I think, guess that a lot of them, if not most of them, were Republicans.
And if you‘re trying to move Tom Coburn, Republican senator, which is more effective, Shepard Smith on FOX News putting his face up there and hitting him as hard as anybody has ever been hit on FOX News or Jon Stewart on Comedy Central? Which one of those shows do you think has greater effect on a Republican senator from Oklahoma?
CARLSON: Well, Lawrence, that‘s like Sophie‘s choice. But the Republican FOX Network certainly does matter. And, you know, one of the surprising things about this is that the Republicans have always owned 9/11. You know, we were going to let the terrorists win if we didn‘t do everything that Cheney and Bush said due to 9/11. And then they let this one go.
And partly this end run was because the Republican Party, at the end here in this lame duck session, stood for nothing and were happy to stand for nothing but tax cuts for the wealthy. They did it loud, they did it under the lights, and there was this, you know, incredible move to, you know, not be known for anything else. I mean, imagine holding up first responders for tax cuts for the wealthy.
O‘DONNELL: Margaret, you‘re not alone in our frame tonight. It‘s a very Christmas-looking shot there. Thank you, Margaret Carlson of “Bloomberg News” for joining us tonight. Who was that?
CARLSON: This is Anna Carlson Yarkin. Thank you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Anna Carlson—thanks for joining us, Anna. Coming up—
ANNA CARLSON YARKIN: Merry Christmas, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Thank you.
Coming up: Sarah Palin and Conan O‘Brien is tonight‘s special celebrity guest “Rewrite.”
Also, the latest update in our effort to help get desks for Malawi schoolchildren and a report on why African schools need this help so urgently—ahead on THE LAST WORD.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Ahead on THE LAST WORD: more on my trip to Malawi that sparked our effort to get students there up off the school room floor and into desks.
And we‘ll introduce you to this teacher who after seeing my reports, decided to remove the desks from his classroom for just one day to show his students how lucky they are.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: And now to what I did on my summer vacation. I know. I‘m a little late with my report, but there‘s a reason. I had a week in August when I could go anywhere in the world and do anything. So naturally, I went to Malawi.
Malawi is not a big vacation destination. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. The entire country is a high-risk Malaria zone. HIV/AIDS has spread to 12 percent of Malawi‘s 15 million people. Life expectancy is 53 years.
Riding into town from the airport in Malawi, I gazed across the African landscape and said to my jovial driver, who had never seen another country, it‘s beautiful here. He said really?
I went there because a few weeks earlier, a friend who created a charter school in my old neighborhood in Boston told me about her trip to Malawi. She visited schools there and asked teachers what they needed most. I guessed paper, pencils.
No, the deprivation level in Malawi defies our untrained imaginations. You have to think even more elemental than paper and pencils. Where would the kids put the paper and pencils if they don‘t have desks?
No desks, not one. No desks for students or teachers in any of the schools my friend visited. This is what going to school in Malawi looks like. In most schools, the kids are sitting on dirt floors. In the better schools, they sit on cracked cement floors seven hours a day.
And the teachers stand on those floors for seven hours a day. Every teacher says the same thing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This school has no chairs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: We need chairs. They don‘t ask for desks and chairs. Desks would be great, but first, they just want to get those kids off the floor. Chairs are a dream to Malawi teachers. Not an item on any reasonable wish list. Most Malawi teachers have never seen a desk or chair in a classroom. A teacher asking for chairs in Malawi is asking for too much. None of them expect to ever get chairs in their classrooms.
But if you ask them what they need most, which very few people ever do, the first word they say is always chairs.
When my friend told me this, I suddenly heard myself saying well, I can get them chairs, can‘t I? I met with some people in New York who run charitable organizations in Malawi, but none of them had any idea how to get school furniture in Malawi.
I didn‘t want to buy a bunch of desks in New Jersey and ship them. If I was going to spend money, I wanted it to go into the Malawi economy. By the time I was on my way to Malawi, I didn‘t think I was going to be able to find desks or chairs there. I was only hoping to do an initial round of fact-finding that would enable me to maybe come back later and get something done.
The first two days of my week in Malawi, I visited schools and tried to find chairs. A typical Malawi classroom is about the size of a typical American classroom, but a typical Malawi classroom has about 90 students in it, literally falling all over each other as the day wears on.
One first grade I visited has about 120 students and no classroom. They sit outside in the dirt. If they come back to school next year, they will get to see the inside of a classroom for second grade. But a lot of them won‘t come back next year because the conditions in the schools are so discouraging.
None of the schools have electricity. Light comes from windows that are usually crude holes in a wall. Most classrooms don‘t have doors. But if they do, they are left open so some sunlight can come in.
On the third day, I found a hardware store with a back room woodworking shop. The owner, Moshen Musa (ph), had a prototype of a student desk and chair and a teacher‘s desk and chair, and was gearing up to make some for UNICEF, which has begun a program to rebuild and properly outfit Malawi schools.
I told them I wanted to outfit one classroom this week; could he make 30 student desks and one teacher‘s desk in two days? Moshen said no problem. He would just hire extra workers and put his little factory on 24 hours shifts.
Moshen‘s desks are a brilliant design. Made to UNICEF‘s specifications of durable wood and steel, each one is designed to seat two children on this bench, attached to the desk. Forty eight dollars each, 24 dollars per student.
But in the overcrowded classroom I was going to furnish, three kids could easily squeeze on to this little bench. Needless to say, obesity is not one of the perils of the childhood in Malawi. At three kids per desk, for 16 dollars per student, the price of a Manhattan movie ticket and popcorn, I was going to be able to get 90 kids off the floor.
Sure, there are more important things to do in Africa, stop genocide in Darfur, get clean water supplies, fight AIDS. And better people than me are trying to do those things every day of their lives.
Get some kids off the floor, well, that‘s the best I could do. How important is it? Try sitting on a cement floor. You‘ll be uncomfortable in ten minutes or less. Then you will be in pain, your back, your hips, your bum. Now stay there for seven hours. Now try doing that five days a week.
And don‘t forget to read and write while you‘re sitting on that cement floor. And while you‘re at it, try to learn something, anything, a language maybe, something that requires real concentration.
We live in a culture that expects us to give up our seats on a bus or subway when someone gets on who needs the seat more than we do, an elderly person, a pregnant woman. And we do it without hesitation.
Sometimes right here in New York, a tough town, we actually compete to give up our seats faster than anyone else because it‘s important, because we know that that pregnant woman really needs to sit down, and we don‘t give her the seat forever. We give it to her for eight minutes, 18 minutes, maybe 30 minutes if she‘s going all the way to Brooklyn. And we think that‘s worth it.
So how important is it to get chairs in a classroom in Malawi? It seemed important to me. Moshen made good on his promise and delivered the desks on Friday morning to a school bubbling with anticipation. Victor Chinyama (ph), a UNICEF official who help me find the desk maker, told me what it was going to be like when the kids saw the desks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can tell you that the desks delivered at this school, that‘s Christmas for these kids. Christmas comes in December 25th and pretty much nothing happens in their lives. When a desk is delivered to them at the school, that is Christmas. You have made their day, you have made their year, you have made their lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Malawi is a musical country. Kids burst into song when they‘re happy. Moshen brought some workers with him to unload the desks, but he didn‘t need to. The kids rushed the truck and did it themselves.
In the space of a few minutes, this classroom became this classroom.
I make no grand claims about what will happen in those kids‘ lives because they don‘t have to sit on the floor anymore. Maybe they‘ll just be more comfortable. And to me, that‘s enough to make it all worth it. Just as it is on the bus when you give up that seat to the person who needs it more than you do.
But if we give someone a seat in an educational setting, the theoretical potential for what could happen is unlimited. Maybe, just maybe in the back of one of those classrooms right now, struggling to see his teacher is Africa‘s next Nelson Mandela or a future Bill Gates or future Nobel Prize winning scientist.
And maybe by lifting that child off the floor, by giving her what will feel like a throne, and the surge of empowerment that could come from that, maybe by giving children their own little stage from which to perform, maybe by giving students their dignity, maybe by simply giving a student eye contact with a teacher, that classroom miracle can happen that transforms an unreachable student into a great student. And that great student could go on to do great things, for Malawi, for Africa, for the world, for all of us.
Maybe, just maybe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be an accountant.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: I didn‘t want to tell you about all of this until I could offer you a way to do something for Malawi kids in need of desks. This is the season of giving. But this is not a good year to ask people to make more charitable contributions, unless you‘re one of those top tax bracket people who‘s getting a big Christmas present from Congress. If you do have something left to give, 24 dollars will get a child of the floor; 48 dollars will purchase a desk like this one, that countless students will use for years and years.
You can contribute online at LastWordDesks.MSNBC.com or on the phone at 1-800-FOR-KIDS. Click on the link, Kids in Needs of Desks, KIND.
That will connect you to the KIND Fund, set up for THE LAST WORD and administered by UNICEF, to deliver desks to Malawi classrooms. The money you spend will be paid to workers in Malawi to make these desks, and deliver them to schools.
If you join us in this unique partnership between MSNBC and UNICEF, you will be lifting the Malawi economy, and you will be lifting students off the floor. For the hungry families of the workers who will be paid to make these desks, and for the students, you will change their world.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: The segment you just watched about my trip to Malawi first appeared on this program exactly one week ago. Since then, your response has been far more generous than what we thought possible in this difficult economy, and at a time when you and your families are so busy with preparations for the holidays, and in a world that already makes so many worthy claims on your charitable giving.
Staying mindful of all of that, I have been careful not to so much ask you for money, as simply let you know how to participate if you are so moved. As I have already reported, you contributed 400,000 dollars last Friday, the day the KIND Fund was opened.
Then over the weekend, without any further prompting from me, another 200,000 dollars came in. After I reported the 600,000 dollar total on Monday‘s show, you were inspired to give me. On Tuesday, I told you our total was 727,991 dollars.
I also told you that Ann Coulter had said something on Fox News about liberals being stingy about charitable donations. That sparked an even bigger overnight surge of contributions, another 145,520 dollars. I have thanked Ann both publicly and privately for being a good sport about this and helping us raise that money.
So last night I was able to report that we had reached 873,511 dollars. Far be it from me to go all Jerry Lewis on you and start begging you to push us over the top of a million dollars. A million dollars? A million dollars for a fund that I was secretly hoping might eventually be able to raise maybe 50,000? Fifty thousand that would have thrilled me and changed the lives of a lot of people I know in Malawi.
I wasn‘t going to ask you to get us to a million. But I had my secret hope. Since last night‘s show, you have contributed another 138,405 dollars for a current total of 1,011,916 dollars. That is just over 21,000 desks that will seat over 40,000 students per year for many, many years, hundreds of thousands of students over the life of these sturdy desks.
We‘re still not close to providing a desk to every student in Malawi, but the KIND Fund is forever. My new best friend, Miles Nidal (ph), has pledged 36,000 dollars per year for the next four years. On our blog, LastWordDesks.MSNBC.com, we‘re finding some brilliant ideas about how to raise more money for desks.
I mentioned one last night from a high school teacher in Pennsylvania who joins us now from his classroom at the Jim Thorpe Area High School in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Ron Ellison, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Tell us the story of how you presented this to your students.
RON ELLISON, HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER: Hello, Lawrence. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this. I didn‘t expect this at all.
When I watched your program last Thursday, I really was touched by the whole story. Being a teacher, I was definitely touched by the whole story. I was just like what can I do to do something, to get my students to do something. And how can I make them understand the urgency of doing this?
So I asked my principle if I could take the desks out of my room. So I did that on Friday night. Then Monday morning, I had the students come in different classes, and they all had the same kind of astonished look on their face as they walked in the room and saw none of the desks there.
O‘DONNELL: and so you had them sit on the floor for some portion of the class or for the whole class?
ELLISON: The whole class is about 45 minutes long. They sat on the floor for the whole time. I did some regular class work that I had to do, test review and stuff like that. And then I showed them your video clip. And then I talked to them about Malawi, about what we were going to do. You know, I wanted to get the students to come up with ideas to raise money.
I came up with the idea of matching the money, you know, as much money as they raise. I‘m going to contribute 25 percent up to the first thousand they raise. I have no idea how much they‘re going to raise at this point.
O‘DONNELL: Well, let‘s check with some of your students. Samantha Harlan, your teacher here is stuck for 250 dollars if you can get this up to 1,000 dollars or more. Before we get to that, please tell me what it felt like, what you thought when you walked into your classroom and saw that there were no desks, and you realized this class is going to take place with us sitting on the floor.
SAMANTHA HARLAN, STUDENT: Hi, Lawrence. Well, when I first walked into the classroom, like everybody else, we were astonished. We were like what‘s going on, why are we sitting on the floor, are we protesting? And Mr. Ellison had us do some regular class work.
And after we did our class work, he showed us the video. And we were really, you know, touched by it, especially me and a couple of my other friends. We all decided we wanted to do some type of fund-raising. When he told us that he was going to match 25 percent up to the first thousand dollars, we were pretty psyched, and we were like we have to have at least a thousand dollars, so he can put in some money.
O‘DONNELL: And beside you is Thomas Acker. Thomas, when you had to go through your class—the social studies class sitting on the floor, how did it feel? I mean, physically how did it feel? Would you like to be doing that five days a week in every one of your classes, as the kids in Malawi—they‘re sitting in that same room five days a week, seven hours a day, many of them on dirt floors, some of them on cracked cement floors? And I can tell you having watched them, it becomes physically grueling.
What is it like to do it for 45 minutes?
THOMAS ACKER, STUDENT: I absolutely hated it. I couldn‘t stand it at all. I was complaining the whole time. I stood up and I wanted to leave the room, to be honest with you. And after I watched the video clip that he showed me, I just really seemed sad about it and wanted to do everything I could to help the people in Africa and show them how—just to show them how it feels to sit in a desk and how it‘s very much appreciated here in the U.S. And it‘s just a big deal.
I was very shocked when I walked into the room and saw that there was no seats. So I was very upset about it also. And I really just wanted to leave the room, to be honest with you.
O‘DONNELL: It is one of those things—
ACKER: After the video, I felt good.
O‘DONNELL: Sorry, Thomas. It is one of those things that makes you realize how much we take for granted here. I can tell you, Thomas, that the kids there get through the whole day that way. And they‘re so used to it and it doesn‘t inspire pity when you see them, because they are so noble and so strong about it, and so actually full of amazingly good feeling as they get themselves through their school day.
But Ron Ellison, I just want to thank you for doing this, thank you for showing your students this example. And where do you take it from here?
ELLISON: Well, I tasked my students with brain storming ideas over the Christmas break. And when we get back in January, we‘re going to tackle it, figure out what kind of ideas we‘re going to come up with. We‘re probably going to expand it to the rest of the school district. We have two K through eight buildings in our district, and probably will do some presentations with them.
We may consider challenging other schools in the area. I‘m going to do anything I can. My basic thing is, you know, if people want to give money to me, give it to me. If they want to donate online, donate online. If they want to donate to some other cause, donate to some other cause. As you said, it‘s the season of giving and I think people should give if they can. Find the charity that matters to them and just give money.
O‘DONNELL: Ron Ellison of the Jim Thorpe Public School in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, thank you very much for joining us, Ron. Your students are lucky to have you. Thomas Acker, Samantha Harlan and all the rest of the students there, thank you very much for joining us.
HARLAN: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: Again, if you‘re still looking for a last-minute Christmas
present, go to our website, LastWordDesks.MSNBC.com to find out how to
donate online or on the phone. >
Coming up, a celebrity holiday Rewrite by my old college pal, Conan O‘Brien. Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer gets the Sarah Palin treatment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Time for tonight‘s Rewrite. Conan O‘Brien has done our work for us by Rewriting the classic Christmas story Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And he added a new character, the most recent vice presidential candidate who will never be president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONAN O‘BRIEN, “CONAN”: Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer was just on TV. And did you notice, they updated it to make the Rudolph story a little more contemporary. I don‘t know if they should have, but take a look.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Something wrong with your nose? My name‘s Clarice. Hi.
Rudolph, I think you‘re cute.
SARAH PALIN, FMR. GOVERNOR OF ALASKA: It‘s a great feeling of accomplishment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: And that‘s our celebrity Rewrite. Before we go, I‘d like to thank you one more time for your generous outpouring to the KIND Fund we announced for Africa just one week ago. You can find information on how to use the KIND Fund for last-minute gift giving on our website, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. Happy holidays to everyone. “COUNTDOWN” is up next.
END
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