Guests: Eugene Robinson, Melissa Harris-Perry, Chris Chocola, Peter Montgomery, Nate Timm
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, HOST: An unprecedented warning from Standard & Poor‘s today that it might lower the U.S. credit rating if Congress doesn‘t find a way to start repaying its debt sent stocks sliding. Still, Republicans chose today to push for more tax cuts which can only make that situation worse.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS: Breaking news from Standard & Poor‘s.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They downgraded the outlook on our country‘s debt.
CHRIS JANSING, NBC NEWS: Stocks are tumbling on news about the nation‘s soaring deficit.
O‘DONNELL (voice-over): Republican threats of not raising the debt limit are pushing the economy to disaster.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republican members say that the debt ceiling vote has to be linked to some serious cuts.
ED RENDELL (D), FORMER PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR: You shouldn‘t screw around with something like the debt ceiling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you vote to raise the debt ceiling?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO ®, FLORIDA: Not, unless it‘s the last time we ever do it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not raising the debt ceiling could have a devastating impact.
SEN. TOM COBURN ®, OKLAHOMA: We‘re going to have a debt crisis either with this or soon thereafter.
SARAH PALIN ®, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: We didn‘t elect you just to rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.
RUBIO: That would be a disaster, a catastrophe, catastrophic.
O‘DONNELL: Is it possible to balance the budget with just spending cuts?
ALAN GREENSPAN, FORMER FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: We have to allow the so-called Bush tax cuts all to expire.
RUBIO: And ultimately higher taxes.
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: Republicans are using Tax Day to hammer a no new taxes message.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Act within the limits of the Constitution.
O‘DONNELL: Because who needs government anyway.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The National Weather Service is on the ground between 20 and 80 miles.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was like paper doll houses that were collapsed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president has promised federal assistance. There are 12 FEMA teams on the ground. And the governor is working to get even more assistance.
O‘DONNELL: And Republicans are worried their nutty candidates will mean disaster for their party.
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN ®, MINNESOTA: God bless United States of America. Go Tea Party.
MITCHELL: Fight like a girl, Dan. She‘s back.
PALIN: The GOP leaders, they need to learn how to fight like a girl.
DONALD TRUMP, CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATOIN: All I want to do is see this guy‘s birth certificate.
JANSING: Saying that a Trump run for the White House would be a joke.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That he‘s sort of a clownish figure.
KARL ROVE, FORMER BUSH AIDE: He is out there in the nutty right and is now an inconsequential candidate.
TRUMP: I heard Karl Rove today on television. It was terrible. We have a disaster on our hands.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Good evening from New York.
Today is Tax Day, the deadline to file your 2010 tax returns. Tax Day is also the anniversary of the Tea Party movement.
Today, in South Carolina, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann hosted a Tea Party rally to protest high tax rates in the United States, which she doesn‘t realize are at or near historical lows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BACHMANN: Those of us who consider ourselves Tea Partiers—are there any Tea Partiers here today? I knew I liked you. For those of us who are Tea Partiers, we believe we are tax enough already.
We are taxed enough already. You‘re exactly right. Don‘t stop saying it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Today‘s tax deadline is being eclipsed by a much more serious economic story. Today, for the first time in history, the S&P downgraded the U.S. debt outlook—its confidence that the United States will be able to make good on its financial obligations in the future—from stable to negative.
That news triggered a 240-point drop in the Supreme Court today where the Dow partially rebounded to close down 140 points.
What made the S&P lose confidence in the United States? It was not the Republican posturing on the debt limit. The S&P isn‘t even considering that congressional Republicans would actually push the U.S. economy off a cliff by not raising the debt limit when necessary.
The S&P report took aim simply at the intractability of our politics as the reason why the United States is more likely to become a credit risk. U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on a strategy to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address long-term fiscal pressures. We see the path to agreement as challenging because the gap between the parties remains wide.
The S&P cited rising costs of entitlements like Medicare, but it also pointed directly at the extension of the Bush tax cuts in its report. President Obama has already said he will not support another extension of the Bush tax cut for the top tax bracket. However, the budget passed by the House Republicans would lower the tax rate on the top tax bracket from 35 percent to 25 percent. That puts House Republicans at odds with former Federal Reserve chairman, Alan Greenspan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENSPAN: I think this crisis is so imminent and so difficult that I think we have to allow the so-called Bush tax cuts all to expire. That is a very big number. But having put the rates back to where they were in the Clinton administration, I would argue that everything else should be either cutting spending or taking out the subsidies which are in the tax expenditures.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now is Eugene Robinson, a columnist for “The Washington Post” and MSNBC political analyst.
Thanks for joining us tonight, Gene.
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Gene, did you think there would come a day where Alan Greenspan, on the matter of taxation, is to the left of the Obama White House and the Democratic Party? Alan Greenspan in favor of restoring all of the Clinton tax rates instead of just on the top bracket. On every bracket—Alan Greenspan in favor of moving them all up.
ROBINSON: I did not think that was possible in the universe as we know it, Lawrence. But, you know, the ideological universe that we live in now has gone bizarro on us, and so, for example, we‘re having this unreal discussion about the very real deficit. So, I guess anything can happen.
O‘DONNELL: The S&P report, when it talks about the intractability of government, says, “We believe there is a significant risk that congressional negotiations could result in no agreement on a medium term fiscal strategy until after the fall 2012 congressional and presidential elections.”
I share the S&P‘s view of that significant risk that they might not get any kind of real agreement until after the election.
The parties—does either party seem likely to budge as a result of what S&P has said today? Does S&P have more influence over Republicans or over Democrats or none?
ROBINSON: Not very much. This S&P downgrade of the outlook—it wasn‘t a downgrade of our debt. The downgrade of the outlook was the sort of an event that ought to concentrate the mind on getting together on something that charts a path toward some sort of fiscal sanity.
However, are the Republicans going to budge before the election off their “no new taxes” marker? I doubt it. And I don‘t think the math adds up. I don‘t think there‘s a way you could chart a reasonable course toward balancing the budget or reducing the deficit, if you take tax revenues completely off the table, even though they‘ve been there since 1950.
O‘DONNELL: I‘m wondering if the S&P takes these threats about the debt ceiling not seriously enough.
Let‘s listen to what Senator Rand Paul said about the possibility of filibustering the raising of the debt ceiling. He said this on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN: Are you willing to filibuster a bill that would raise the debt ceiling—without any of the things that you‘re asking for?
SEN. RAND PAUL ®, KENTUCKY: I think that‘s yet to be—I think that—I think that‘s yet to be determined. What I‘ve said is there is a circumstance where I will vote for it. And I would say I would vote to raise the debt ceiling if we pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and say, from here on out, this is the last time we‘re doing it. We are going to act responsibly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: OK. Well, he is going to vote against raising the debt ceiling because it isn‘t going to have that constitutional amendment attached to it, and it isn‘t going to be the last time we have to raise it. But the question, the most important question, which I started asking on election night when he was elected to the Senate, is: will he filibuster it? Because, sure, he can vote against it and they‘ll still get majority vote to pass it, but will he filibuster? Because senators are uniquely empowered to filibuster it and stop the raising of the debt ceiling. He seems to be dodging that, which I think is a good sign at this point.
ROBINSON: Yes, that is a good sign at this point that he didn‘t just come out and say, yes, I‘m going filibuster.
O‘DONNELL: Right.
ROBINSON: Look, I think the Republican leadership in the Senate and the Republican leadership in the House neither really wants to see—you know, the United States go into default.
The question really is what happens, what the Tea Party caucus does in either chamber. I have to believe that Mitch McConnell will find some way to keep Rand Paul on the reservation.
O‘DONNELL: Eugene Robinson of “The Washington Post”—thank you very much for joining me tonight.
ROBINSON: Great to be here, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: And joining me now is Melissa Harris-Perry, Princeton professor and MSNBC analyst.
Thanks for joining us, Melissa.
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely.
O‘DONNELL: The dumbing down of the Republican Party on matters of economics is now starting to haunt them at some level. We see this announcement by the S&P. We saw the talk about raising the debt ceiling isn‘t so important. Marco Rubio says you can raise the debt ceiling only if it‘s the very last time you do it—while in the Paul Ryan plan, it requires raising the debt ceiling a minimum of five or six times.
They don‘t even seem to know what their own proposals say about this.
HARRIS-PERRY: Right. Well, so—I mean, I think we‘ve got two sort of things going on here. One is the S&P decision to not downgrade yet, but to sort of warn of a possibility of thinking about maybe downgrading.
O‘DONNELL: You people are scaring us—
HARRIS-PERRY: That‘s right.
O‘DONNELL: -- is what the S&P has said.
HARRIS-PERRY: But the problem is the S&P has a real source credibility problem. Look, the S&P was giving AAA ratings to the mortgage industry as it was collapsing in front of us. You know, they completely failed to recognize what was going on in 2007, in 2008 as the economy was collapsing.
So, part of the problem here, I think, for all observers is we‘re not quite sure whether or not the S&P is chicken little or whether or not because they gave AAA ratings before were actually much worse off than this warning suggests. Yes, there‘s been some dumbing down on the Republican side, but I think the other problem is that we are so absent some serious careful and completely independent capacity to look at where we are.
O‘DONNELL: There are some Republicans who are saying maybe—maybe we have to start looking on the tax side here for a solution, including just eliminating certain kinds of corporate tax breaks, eliminating the crazy tax subsidy for ethanol that we do in this country. And the anti-tax crowd is coming out and saying, no, no, no, you can‘t touch tax rates in any way, and don‘t fool around with eliminating those deductions for corporations or personal because that just, in effect, raises people‘s tax bills. And corporations‘ tax bills.
HARRIS-PERRY: That‘s right. It‘s a really crazy thing that we have in our power a way to solve this problem. It‘s a bit like—we‘ve talked about this sort of, you know, household budget example. It‘s a bit like having an offer to take the second job and refusing to do so because we just don‘t want to work a little harder.
I mean, we have a very real way to raise revenues in ways that will not create enormous pain for ordinary Americans, that will protect the social safety net.
Are we in a financial crisis? Absolutely. Are we going to have to do some cutting? Sure. But the fact is if we don‘t talk about how to raise revenues, we cannot cut our way out of this problem.
O‘DONNELL: And the crossroads is, obviously, going to come as they enter the presidential campaign. All the Republican campaigners are required in order to get past day one to seen a pledge that Grover Norquist gives them saying, “I will not allow any kind of tax increase at all.” So, you‘re going to have all the Republican candidates for president saying that while some people are trying to get some Republican members of Congress to consider moving on that. It seems like that‘s going to inhibit the members of Congress even more.
HARRIS-PERRY: Well, I mean, this is—this is the one sort of maybe brat spot about the S&P, as much as I disbelieve them on a lot of stuff. They‘re saying somebody in the room, please be an adult, right?
O‘DONNELL: Yes.
HARRIS-PERRY: I mean, it‘s kind of a cry for adulthood and for a recognition that we are in this problem and that we‘re going to need more than political posturing to get this done.
You‘re right. 2012 makes it a dangerous sort of moment for us, but the fact is this is bigger than who gets elected or which party holds the House or the Senate. This is really about sort of our capacity.
O‘DONNELL: And if S&P has a bias, it‘s toward rosy scenarios.
HARRIS-PERRY: Sure.
O‘DONNELL: It‘s towards not disturbing the market.
HARRIS-PERRY: That‘s right.
O‘DONNELL: They have plenty of incentives to not say what they said today. I mean, it seems to me their analysts had to be pushed to the point of doing this. They knew they were going to create a big drop in the stock market.
HARRIS-PERRY: It probably means we‘re in even worse shape in a certain way, right? I mean, if they‘re saying that we‘re in bad shape, we are in really, really bad shape.
O‘DONNELL: That would be what their record of it is.
The—going forward politically, do you see any possible solution between what we now have as a Ryan proposal and an Obama proposal that could in any way put anything together that looked leak some kind of governing agreement going forward?
HARRIS-PERRY: I think the problem is the Obama proposal has to be a clearer proposal. I think the president did an extraordinary job of stating a values frame work and clarity about sort of the issues that we will use, but he didn‘t yet tell us what the plan is. And I think part of what S&P was saying is we need to know with clarity what the Obama plan is, and it‘s sort of there, but it‘s not there in a way that you or I or an ordinary American paying their taxes today can say. And so, we need to see more clarity.
O‘DONNELL: It‘s very easy to see where the dividing lines are.
HARRIS-PERRY: Absolutely.
O‘DONNELL: The Obama plan top bracket increase. Republicans, a top bracket cut.
HARRIS-PERRY: That‘s right.
O‘DONNELL: There‘s very, very stark divisions you can see.
HARRIS-PERRY: Well, the very—the key issue is the Bush tax cuts, right? I mean, the question is whether or not President Obama and the White House and Democrats in the House can, in fact, convince Republicans in the House that we have got to let the Bush tax cuts go. That it doesn‘t actually constitute a tax increase, especially for most Americans, that we‘re at the lowest tax rate that we‘ve been at certainly in my lifetime, and that it‘s time to let those tax cuts go.
O‘DONNELL: And one thing that gridlock would deliver is the elimination of the Bush tax cuts because they are all scheduled to expire at a certain point.
HARRIS-PERRY: Exactly.
O‘DONNELL: Melissa, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
MSNBC contributor, Melissa Harris-Perry, thank you.
The lie Senator John Kyl told on the Senate floor about Planned Parenthood is on videotape, but it is not in the congressional record. That‘s in “The Rewrite.”
And conservatives are now worried about taxes and Donald Trump‘s history of supporting higher taxes. So, the “stop Trump” movement is underway.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: How badly is Donald Trump‘s publicity stunt disguised as a presidential candidate hurting Republicans who actually are running for president? The head of the conservative group Club for Growth joins me next to talk about Trump and taxes.
And tonight, a LAST WORD exclusive—the most detailed look yet at the religious zealot who Glenn Beck calls the most important man in America. His named is David Barton, and he is on a quest to mislead people about American history. Glenn Montgomery of People for the American Way is here to connect the dots.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: The field of possible Republican candidates for president is now dominated by a tax-and-spend liberal masquerading as an incoherent country club Republican—as in owning the country club—and that has Karl Rove very worried has taken to attacking Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROVE: His full embrace of the birther issue means that he‘s off there in the nutty right and is now an inconsequential candidate. I‘m shocked. The guy is smarter than this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: No, no, no, Karl. The guy is not smarter than this. He is not smart at all. He doesn‘t know how many members there are in the House of Representatives. He might not know how many states there are.
Every time he opens his mouth now, he displays embarrassing ignorance. But he‘s not smart enough to know he is doing that. Nor is he smart enough to be embarrassed by ignorance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROVE: The idea that President Obama was not born in Hawaii, being, you know, making that the centerpiece of his campaign means that he is—you know, now, you know, a joke candidate. Let me him go ahead and announce for election on “The Apprentice.” The American people aren‘t going to be hiring him and certainly the Republicans aren‘t going to be hiring him in the Republican primary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Trump called Karl Rove‘s dismissal of his candidacy a, quote, “cheap shot” and accused Rove of just wanting attention.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Frankly, you know, Karl Rove got more publicity from this than he has on anything for a while. But, you know, really, probably what bothers Karl—and I understand this, and I can fully—you know, I fully understand this—I am very upset with Bush because Bush had a really bad period of time, and he gave us Obama, and Karl Rove was Bush. I mean, you know, a lot of people say Karl Rove was Bush. So, he can‘t love me. I don‘t expect that he‘s going to love me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Karl Rove is not the only Republican who‘s not going to love Donald Trump. Any Republican with yearning for consistency in a candidate is not going to love Trump. He was pro-choice before he became pro-life this year. He was pro-tax before he became anti-tax this year. He was pro-socialism before he became anti-socialism this year. And he was pro-Obama before he became anti-Obama this year.
Joining me now is Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth.
Thanks for joining me tonight, Chris.
CHRIS CHOCOLA, CLUB FOR GROWTH: Thanks for having me, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Chris, tell us about Trump‘s tax history. That‘s the issue of the day here on Tax Day. He is embracing the Republican doctrine about tax cuts now. Has he been on your team all along?
CHOCOLA: Well, he has been on a lot of teams over the years, I think, Lawrence. You know, when he ran in 2000 we‘ve seen the show before. He suggested that we ought to have a 14.25 percent wealth tax on people and trusts worth $10 million or more. You know, if you want to see—
O‘DONNELL: I love that idea. That‘s a great idea.
CHOCOLA: I thought you might. But if you want to see the flight of capital—capital is the engine of economic growth. Capital and capitalists are mobile. You know, if you want to see people leave this country and you want to see capital and jobs leave this country, just announce we‘re going to have a wealth tax at 14.25 percent.
And so, Donald Trump has embraced a lot of bad ideas in the past, and we think if he is really going to be a serious presidential candidate, it‘s time to pull back the curtain and get beyond the showmanship and just look at the serious analysis of his policy positions. He‘s a protectionist. He wants a single-payer health care system, which you might like as well.
O‘DONNELL: I love that. No, Chris, I love him on—when he was a socialist, what was it, back in 2000 in his book, right, where he says we‘ve got to go single-payer, we‘ve got to go, you know, the O‘Donnell way, the full-on lefty way of health care. What happens to him when he goes into a presidential debate—which he is not going to do, of course. I‘m just pretending because the whole thing is a joke, and he is not going to run.
But he couldn‘t survive, you know, two minutes of a health care discussion in a Republican primary debate, could he?
CHOCOLA: Well, I tell you what. If anybody believes their own press, it‘s Donald Trump, and he‘s got a lot of it. And there‘s an infatuation in the media with him.
And, you know, I‘m increasingly of the mind that he is going to run. I think he is blind to the shortcomings and maybe can try to dismiss his inconsistencies in the past. I don‘t think he‘ll be successful. I think he‘ll ultimately be irrelevant.
But what we really need is someone who is a champion of pro-growth, economic policy. Not someone who is a champion self-promoter—which he is—and people are paying a lot of attention to him, and I hesitate to come on the show because we‘re doing exactly what he wants is talk about him. But I think it‘s worth the risk so people understand really where he is on the issues, which ultimately is what matters, and ultimately I think will show that he is not a serious candidate, but you never know. He may talk himself into a run.
O‘DONNELL: So, Chris, in Washington Republicans like yourself who want an anti-tax, serious Republican conservative candidate, you are—you are now living in enough fear of the possibility of a Donald Trump candidacy that you feel you need to get out here and start talking about what he actually thinks, that those poll numbers he is getting are actually starting to scare Republicans in Washington?
CHOCOLA: We don‘t have fear of his candidacy. All we care about are facts. We just want to make sure that potential voters are informed voters, that they understand who Donald Trump is, and we do this with every candidate. We write white papers at the Club for Growth on every presidential candidate, focused on their economic records.
And Donald Trump‘s economic record is in the private sector. You know, he touts it‘s very good. We think that‘s exactly where he should keep it.
But we aren‘t fearful of his candidacy. We think he can run just like everybody else, and we think facts matter. We think if you want better policies, you have to elect better people. And the only way to do that is to understand what they truly believe, what their core values are, and what they would do in office.
O‘DONNELL: Now, I‘m not aware of any candidate, Democrat or Republican, who has said anything stupider about international trade or China than Donald Trump. He actually advocates, as he did on FOX News, he advocates a 25 percent tariff on all goods we import from China.
What he doesn‘t know is—he really doesn‘t know it. I think he‘s a profoundly stupid man when it comes to these issues. He doesn‘t know that a tariff, as you know, is a sales tax. That is a sales tax on goods sold in the United States from another country. He wants to add a 25 percent sales tax on everything we bring in from China.
That‘s not just against Republican thinking. That‘s against all political and economic thinking across the board in this country. But he is completely ignorant of what that would actually mean.
CHOCOLA: I think you‘re exactly right. I‘m sure people you know well, Robert Reich and Paul Krugman and Art Laffer—they all agree that free trade is a net winner for everyone. It creates jobs. It doesn‘t hit ship jobs to China and places like that.
It does show a stunning ignorance on what creates economic growth, wealth, and jobs. And so, I think his candidacy—if people don‘t understand really what he believes is very counter productive.
And so, again, at the Club for Growth, all we‘re interested in are the facts, make people understand before the show goes on much longer, and find somebody that really promotes pro-growth policies rather than promotes himself.
Give him credit. He is a master showman. He is a master at self-promotion. But that‘s not what we need really from either party running for president.
O‘DONNELL: Chris, you can relax. Don‘t worry about it. He‘s not going to run. May 16th is when NBC announces its new schedule for shows for next year. Donald cannot afford to pass up his paycheck from NBC. There‘s nothing else that gets him through the day. He is going to be an NBC star on television next season. He‘s never going to be a presidential candidate.
But thank you for joining the actual pursuit of real information about candidate Trump.
Chris Chocola from the Club for Growth—thank you very much for joining us tonight.
CHOCOLA: Thank you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Still ahead, Senator John Kyl‘s lie about Planned Parenthood will never be found in the official record because Jon Kyl decided to do his own “Rewrite.”
And later, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is getting ready to launch a new assault on public employees. It‘s a tactic that could go far beyond state government reaching into cities and towns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: As it was worded last week, conservative Republican Rick Santorum‘s presidential campaign slogan has a surprise derivation. “Fighting to make America America Again” is Santorum‘s bellicose and aggressive update of John Kerry‘s presidential campaign slogan “Let America Be America Again,” which was taken word for word from the title of a 1938 poem by Langston Hughes, one of the many works that inspired this country‘s civil rights movement.
ThinkProgress.org was the first to report on the oddity of a right wing Republican using a slogan that was derived from the words of a poet who lived far to the left of the Democratic party. Lee Fang of Think Progress caught up with Senator Santorum to talk about the slogan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEE FANG, THINKPROGRESS.ORG: Today you unveiled your new campaign slogan, “Fighting to make America America Again.” But was it intentional that this line was borrowed from the pro-union poem by the gay poet Langston Hughes?
RICK SANTORUM, FORMER SENATOR: No, because I had nothing to do with that. So—
FANG: Sorry. Thanks. Did you have a clarification there? Is this just a coincidence?
SANTORUM: Yeah, I didn‘t know that. And the folks who worked on that slogan for me didn‘t inform me that that‘s where it came from, if, in fact, it came from that?
FANG: Do you like Langston Hughes? Is he a favorite poets?
SANTORUM: I‘ve read some of his poems. I‘m not a big poetry guy, so I can‘t say I have a favorite poet. Sorry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Later, Santorum added “I‘m not too sure that‘s my campaign slogan. I think it‘s on a website.”
It is, in fact, the very first thing you see on Rick Santorum‘s website. The Santorum camp is no doubt scrambling for a new campaign slogan that does not echo John Kerry or any ultra liberal poets. Might we suggest “Rick Santorum, Not a Big Poetry Guy?”
Up next, tonight‘s exclusive; new details about David Barton, the favorite fake historian of Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee and others.
And Senator Jon Kyl has rewritten some recent history. His lie about Planned Parenthood, using a tactic that only members of Congress can use.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: In the Spotlight tonight, the man who Michele Bachmann calls a treasure of our nation, Mike Huckabee names the single best historian in America today, and Glenn Beck once called the most important man in America.
A report from People For the American Way says “David Barton‘s growing visibility and influence with members of Congress and other Republican party officials is troubling for many reasons. He distorts history and the Constitution for political purposes. He encourages religious divisiveness and unequal treatment for religious minorities. And he feeds a toxic political climate in which one‘s political opponents are not just wrong, but evil and anti-God.”
Here is Barton at work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID BARTON, “HISTORIAN”: Let me start with this book right here. This came out of Continental Congress. This is the rarest—one of the rarest books in America. That little jewel right there is the first Bible printed in English in America.
GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Oh, my God. Up here? One of the first Bibles printed in English in America.
BARTON: It was printed by those guys right there. That Congress printed that Bible. And the original congressional documents say that that Bible is, quote, “a neat edition of the holy scriptures for the use of our schools, end quote.
BECK: I‘m sorry, what?
BARTON: “A neat edition of the holy scriptures for the use of our schools,” end quote. And in the front of that Bible, it has the congressional endorsement.
BECK: But everyone will tell you separation of church and state.
BARTON: And that‘s what they wanted, the guys who came up with that.
So I think they know what the definition is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now, the author of the People for the American Way report entitled “Barton‘s Bunk, Hack Historian Hits the Big-Time in Tea Party America,” Peter Montgomery.
Thank you very much for joining me tonight, Peter.
PETER MONTGOMERY, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: Very happy to be here.
Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: Peter, did we just learn something important about separation of church and state from Barton and Beck talking about this Bible?
MONTGOMERY: No, but you did learn something important about how David Barton operates. He loves to tell that story about Congress supposedly printing Bibles and sending them to schools, because he says it shows how wrong our ideas about separation of church and state are.
But really Barton is telling the story all wrong. The publisher of those Bibles was losing his shirt, and basically wanted a congressional bailout. He wanted Congress to buy a bunch of his Bibles. And they refused. And what they did agree to do, on his request, was to have the Chaplains of the Congress take a look at the Bible and vouch for the fact that it was basically accurate in its translation and printing.
So that shows you how Barton works. He is a historian in the same way that the creationists who teach that the world is 6,000 years old are scientists. They comb through history, and are looking for one little scrap of evidence. And they ignore mountains of evidence to the contrary. So that‘s how he works.
O‘DONNELL: Well—but find a little scrap of evidence, like there was someone who was trying to get a Bible printed, and then just, it seems to me, what you just said, lie about—make things up surrounding this Bible. Everything else he says about it is just untrue.
MONTGOMERY: And he has a long record of doing just that, of putting
out false quotations from the founders, of, you know, misattributing quotes
of citing a letter from John Adams that he said made the point that Adams believed that government had to be basically inspired and run by the holy spirit, and leaving off the next sentence in which Adams makes it clear that he is actually mocking this idea.
So, yeah, accuracy is not his watch word.
O‘DONNELL: Peter, why should we be worried about a quack like this, a Glenn Beck supporting character on a now canceled television show? What influence can he have beyond, you know, Beck fringe TV viewers?
MONTGOMERY: Well, there‘s a few reasons. One is most Americans have never heard of David Barton. But I can assure you that the people who are driving the Republican agenda have.
He is not just a fringe figure to the Republican party. They relied on him in 19 -- they relied on him to help George W. Bush get re-elected by turning out Evangelical voters. He has been recently embraced by likely presidential candidates like Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, as you mentioned.
He is welcomed into the halls of Congress and state legislatures across the country. So he has an influence on people who are making policies in this country.
The other thing that‘s dangerous about him is that by making every
issue a religious issue, and claiming that God has one particular position
and Barton will tell you the Bible mandates the far right position on everything, not just abortion and gays, but immigration and economic policies.
He then says if you are wrong—if you disagree with him, you‘re not just wrong on the issues, but you‘re anti-God. You mentioned that point we made in our report, People for the American Way. We believe that‘s dangerous and it‘s bad for democracy.
But if your opponents are evil, it makes it a lot harder to have a real conversation about policy and to reach compromise. It makes it very hard to solve our problems.
O‘DONNELL: Peter, I‘ve heard a lot of Republican arguments against taxes or higher taxes. Prior to your report, I had never heard this one, Barton‘s argument, which is the Bible is against taxation and government spending. He says “money does not belong to the government. It belongs to individuals and to steal money from individuals, though whatever government spending program, it is taking private property and you‘re not supposed to do that.”
If you, as the government, steal money from individuals to use it on a government spending program.
MONTGOMERY: Yeah. I think a lot of Christians would not recognize the Bible as David Barton promotes it. Those things you quoted, taxation is theft, so it violates the Ten Commandments, and he misuses teachings of Jesus and parables to say that the Bible is opposed to progressive taxation, the capital gains tax, minimum wages, and even collective bargaining rights for unions, which comes in handy right about now.
O‘DONNELL: Now, this is where you start to realize what you‘re up against. When you think you‘re in a discussion about collective bargaining for unions or the minimum wage, and, in fact, whether spoken or not, in some elected officials, you are actually in the theological discussion, where nothing you say can ever move them, because Barton has told them God wants them to oppose the minimum wage.
That is an intractable political situation.
MONTGOMERY: And it‘s an important part of an effort by a lot of Republican strategists and conservative strategists right now to sort of merge the energies of the religious right activists with the Tea Party movement. So David Barton comes along and claims that there‘s a Biblical basis for the Tea Party‘s view of radically limited federal government and for all this right wing economics.
They‘re doing this with an eye to the 2012 elections, of course.
O‘DONNELL: Yes, obviously. It‘s fascinating. Absolutely fascinating and exhaustive report, Peter. Thank you. To see Peter Montgomery‘s report, go to our blog, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. And, Peter, thank you again for joining us tonight.
MONTGOMERY: Thank you very much.
O‘DONNELL: During the debate over funding for Planned Parenthood, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl said that 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does is perform abortions. He was off by 87 percent. How that statement was removed from the official congressional record is next in the Rewrite.
On a local radio show this morning, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker tried to deny the story that he may be trying to take control of some city and town governments. That‘s coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Time for tonight‘s Rewrite, and the most common form of Rewrite that happens in Washington, rewriting the Congressional Record. During the debate over funding for Planned Parenthood that nearly shut down the government, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl got our attention with this one.
(BEGNI VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON KYL ®, ARIZONA: Everybody goes to clinics, to hospitals, to doctors and so on. Some people go to Planned Parenthood. But you don‘t have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked.
If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood. And that‘s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: In the Congressional Record, which is in effect a transcript of the proceedings in the House and the Senate, Senator Kyl‘s speech now reads this way: “everybody goes to clinics and hospitals and doctors. Some people go to Planned Parenthood, but you don‘t have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood. And that is what Planned Parenthood does.”
“And that is what Planned Parenthood does.” What happened to “that is well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does?”
Well, it‘s the kind of thing that happens nearly every day. In fact, every day, repeatedly every day, hundreds and hundreds of times every day. Senator Kyl‘s staff exercised his virtually unlimited right to change anything he says on the Senate floor into what he should have said or what he wishes he said or just something that sounds better. Or what he now knows he should have said after being caught in a lie.
Senator Kyl‘s office initial response to being caught in the lie was the now most ridiculous retraction statement in history, when the senator‘s staff said that his remarks were, quote, “not intended to be a factual statement.”
Senator Kyl‘s press secretary released another statement to the “Arizona Republican” newspaper taking credit for the idiotic remark about it not intended to be a factual statement. Senator Kyl neither saw nor approved that response, according to the press secretary.
The Library of Congress website explains, “the Congressional Record is not an exact record of the proceedings and debate in the House and Senate. As previously stated, it is a substantially verbatim report.”
The operative phrase there, “it is a substantially verbatim report.” Not a complete verbatim report. The explanation continues, “members of both houses are allowed to edit the transcript or their remarks before publication in the daily record, permanent record, or both.”
And there‘s a simple reason why. The Congressional Record is the official account of everything taking place inside the Senate and House every day that they‘re in session. It is an historical document produced by the Government Printing Office.
The right to revise its text was originally created to insert the full text of legislation that is often read only in part on the Senate and House floors, and, of course, to grammatically revise certain remarks and to extend remarks, add thoughts that didn‘t occur to the speaker while extemporaneously delivering those remarks.
The privilege to edit the record has over time also expanded to include correcting factual errors, like Senator Kyl. So the Congressional Record for April 8th, 2011, has one less lie in it.
We‘ll take that as another small victory for truth.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Forbes.com contributor Rick Ungar reports that Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker is preparing a plan that would allow him to force local governments to submit to a financial stress test and allow the governor to take over municipal governments if they don‘t meet certain standards.
Ungar says, “according to reports, the Walker legislation would empower the governor to insert a financial manager of his choosing into local government with the ability to cancel union contracts, push aside duly elected local government officials and school board members, and take control of Wisconsin cities and towns whenever he sees fit to do so.”
Walker says the report is false.
Joining me now, Wisconsin political organizer Nate Timm. Mr. Timm, thanks for joining us tonight.
NATE TIMM, WISCONSIN POLITICAL ORGANIZER: Thank you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Mr. Timm, if this move by Governor Walker is true, what is the next development we would expect to see? He would have to have legislation introduced in the legislature to do this, wouldn‘t he?
TIMM: That‘s correct. We hope that there‘s enough pushback going. I think that we‘ve kind of preempted their plans here. The fact that they have introduced this idea for some time in their—on the website, MakeItSureMilwaukee.com. There‘s plenty of evidence. Anybody can just go there and see for themselves.
They talk about the tool kit to give—empower local governments. They talk about a stress test that would be done through the State Department of Revenue. We know those kinds of things can‘t be done without the governor‘s approval.
There‘s even talk about conversations with the governor and with the state legislature. Those all are evidence that there‘s something been underway.
O‘DONNELL: Mr. Timm, how do you gauge the Republican mood in the legislature to take on yet another highly controversial legislative exercise like this, after having gone through what they‘ve already gone through? Now some facing recall campaigns against them in the legislature.
TIMM: Oh, I think the Democratic legislators are empowered by the—what they see going on with these recalls. As you know, there‘s a number of successful recalls going on. A third senator was recalled today. And there are signs that others are imminent. So that is a very empowering piece of information for our legislators.
O‘DONNELL: And how worried are the Republicans about the recall campaigns mounted against them?
TIMM: Well, we have anecdotal information that some of them have expressed a lot of concern about the type of candidates that are being discussed to run against them. So it appears that they‘re worried.
O‘DONNELL: Nate Timm, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
TIMM: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: You can have THE LAST WORD online at our blog, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. And the conversation continues on Twitter.
“THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” is up next. Good evening, Rachel.
END
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