Guests: Ezra Klein, Jon Erpenbach, E.J. Dionne, Cecile Richards
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, HOST: The Wisconsin standoff continues with no one giving ground and a deadline looming Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: Day seven, the standoff continues.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What they are expecting here is tens of thousands to be perhaps bussed in from across the state.
CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS: Governor, are you comfortable being known as a union-buster?
GOV. SCOTT WALKER ®, WISCONSIN: No. Because in the end, what I am
I am a budget balancer.
O‘DONNELL (voice-over): The unions say they will accept the financial burden, but the governor won‘t budge on ending collective bargaining.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: To give this much of your salary, I would say that is meeting the governor halfway.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM ®, SOUTH CAROLINA: The governor of Wisconsin is doing what he campaigned on.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: This governor of Wisconsin is not setting out just to fix a budget. He is setting out to break a union.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We‘re going to find out whether the governor thinks that he can really jam this thing down through the legislature.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We plan to stay here right now until the governor responds.
MITCHELL: How much longer can this go on though?
O‘DONNELL: A crack in the Republican wall as a lone GOP state senator proposes a compromise. The governor still says no.
WALKER: You cannot have a short-term fix.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No compromise on backing of the bill.
O‘DONNELL: Only 14 Democratic state senators in Wisconsin stand in the way of the end of the American labor movement as we know it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This could be a watershed, waterloo moment for the unions.
DURBIN: Do not destroy decades of work to establish the rights of workers to speak for themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a historic right to stand up for working people in the state of Wisconsin.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The world as we know it in this country was built for working people by unions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This may happen in other places.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: Good evening.
All of Wisconsin‘s Democratic senators continued to stay away from the state capitol as thousands of protesters rallied for a seventh straight day against Governor Scott Walker‘s so-called “budget repair bill.” The protesters were joined by Tom Morello, formerly of the band Rage Against the Machine, and by the most famous co-pilot in the world, Jeff Skiles, who along with Captain Chesley Sullenberger, landed their U.S. Airways plane on the Hudson River in 2009.
Over the weekend, Wisconsin union leaders agreed to the financial terms in Governor Walker‘s bill, but are holding the line against the governor‘s proposed reduction in their collective bargaining rights.
In a press conference today, the governor remained unwilling to compromise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: There are protesters here each and every day, and they have every right to be heard, at least those from Wisconsin. I know, increasingly, they are more and more from around the state. But those from Wisconsin, they have every right to be heard.
But I also want to make it clear, particularly to those union leaders coming in from outside the state of Wisconsin that when given the choice to stand with them or to stand with the millions of hardworking taxpayers all across Wisconsin, many of whom are paying much more for health care and retirement benefits than the modest amount we‘re asking for in this proposal, I‘m going to stand with the hardworking taxpayers of Wisconsin.
We are broke. We don‘t have anymore money. We have $3.6 billion budget deficit. And you really can‘t negotiate when you don‘t have money to negotiate on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Republican state senators aren‘t budging on that issue either. And they plan to convene tomorrow to start voting on non-budget bills where they won‘t need a quorum of 20 senators as required for budget bills.
Joining me now live from an undisclosed location, Democratic Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach.
Senator, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
ST. SEN. JON ERPENBACH (D), WISCONSIN: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, once again today, the governor called for you and other Democratic senators to come home, to get this budget repair bill debated on and voted on. Listen to the reason he gave today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: That $30 million, if we don‘t get it by starting our health care and pension contributions by April 1st, translates in this budget which ends June 30th to the equivalent of 1,500 state government employees being laid off. Now, that said before, I don‘t want to lay anybody off. Now, the equivalent at the state level for the next budget would be 5,000 to 6,000 state government employees being laid off, and 5,000 to 6,000 local government employees. That‘s teachers and city workers and county workers and others out there.
In this economy, even though our unemployment rate is better than national average, it‘s still 7.5 percent. That‘s unacceptable to me. That is an option we can avoid if the state Senate is able to convene. And it‘s yet one more reason why Senate Democrats need to come back home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Senator, the governor is putting it there in terms of if we don‘t get this deal—which he says by the way is a deal to preserve jobs—he says he doesn‘t want to have any layoffs, but if he doesn‘t get this deal, he‘s going to have to move to layoffs. What‘s your response to that?
ERPENBACH: Well, actually, knowing the governor‘s track record as a county executive, I think he would like to layoff every public employee and privatize everything. That aside, I know we need to collect the money in the public employees, at the local and state level. And the teachers have already said, fine, here, take the money. They‘ve offered up every single penny that the governor has asked them to do.
So, the deal is sitting on his desk right now. As long as we get rid of the language in there that goes after working families in the state, we can have a deal.
But the interesting part of all of this, at least to me, I‘m still trying to figure out, he wants us to come home and debate this proposal. At the same time, he says it‘s not negotiable. So, I‘m trying to figure out how we are supposed to go home and debate a bill that‘s not negotiable. That simply makes absolutely no sense.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, he has also said today that there is a debt restructuring component to the bill that has to be authorized by Friday. If it‘s not authorized by Friday of this week, that will also involve costs to the state that he says can lead to layoffs.
ERPENBACH: Right. It‘s about $165 million. The governor has done this. We either have to do this or we‘re going to layoff 5,000 to 6,000 state employees. We either do this, or we‘re going to cut 200,000 kids off the BadgerCare program in the state of Wisconsin.
That‘s simply ridiculous. He‘s got the deal on his desk now. It‘s a balanced budget. Everybody has agreed to give him the money.
The thing that he wants now and probably wanted from the very, very beginning, is the language that‘s an assault on all the workers in the state of Wisconsin, which is not a fiscal item. All he has to do is remove that language and we can up in Madison tonight and vote for it.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, as you know, over the last few decades, union membership as a proportion of the labor force has declined. And—but the one place where it has gotten a foothold, a stronger foothold than used it have is in government and in state workers. If these union rules go through, if these new negotiating rules go through, which in effect remove the union‘s ability to negotiate anything significant that actually kind of puts the negotiations on auto pilot, limits them to costs—to inflation level increases, that sort of thing, it in effect eliminates the need for a union as we know it.
This would, it seem to me, encourage other governors, other state legislatures Republican controlled, to do the exact same thing around the country.
If state workers and state worker unions are so threatened, isn‘t this the most serious harm that could possibly come to the American labor movement at this point?
ERPENBACH: Absolutely. I agree with you. And I think Wisconsin is the biggest domino in the chain of 50 dominos that are out there. That once we fall, if we fall, which I don‘t think we‘re going to fall, a lot of other states fall as well.
But I got to give Governor Walker some credit. I don‘t think anybody in recent history has done more to galvanize a union movement and labor movement across the United States than Scott Walker. So, at the very least, all the unions are starting to rise up. They‘re all on the same page. They‘re all in this together. And that‘s really neat to see.
O‘DONNELL: But, Senator, that galvanizing of the unions comes because of what I think is the most serious threat the American labor movement has faced in its long history. Its long history up now has been one generally of forward progress. This would be one, as far as I can tell, the most serious reversal in its history.
ERPENBACH: Yes. Well, if you know the state of Wisconsin, and I know you do, we‘re known for Packers, we‘re known for or cheese, we‘re known for our dairy products. But we‘re also known as a very strong pro-worker state. And when you take a look at the fabric of Wisconsin, deeply woven in that is the labor and union movement. We have generations of union families all over the state of Wisconsin.
And the governor just wants to rip that apart. Our state is so divided right now, and I really don‘t know how as governor he can continue to take us down a road being so divided. And we‘re talking about some deep, deep wounds here that we‘re about to inflict on our self if the governor gets his way, and wounds that won‘t heal for a long time.
So, yes, what‘s going on in Wisconsin right now really is an assault on American workers. There‘s absolutely no doubt about that. And it needs to stop.
O‘DONNELL: Democratic Senator Jon Erpenbach of Wisconsin—thank you very much for joining us.
ERPENBACH: Thank you. Thanks.
O‘DONNELL: While the Wisconsin state senate has yet to debate the budget repair bill, the state assembly has been visibly involved in a very heated back and forth. On Friday, Republican state representatives voted on Governor Walker‘s bill before the scheduled 5 p.m. start time, and before Democrats had shown up on the floor.
That prompted this frustrated response from Democratic Representative Gordon Hintz.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ST. REP. GORDON HINTZ (D), WISCONSIN: Got an e-mail from the gentleman from the 69th that said, “Be here by 5:00.” So, it was three minutes to 5:00. And as I was walking here from caucus, saw that we were actually voting.
Again, when you send an e-mail, gentlemen from the 69th, that says 5:00 -- you know, 5:00 means 5:00. But once I heard you guys already decided to vote on things, well then I realized that, you know, why would that happen, and then I‘m like—oh, that‘s right, it‘s consistent with how everything else has been handled.
Like last Friday morning, when I was driving to a school business administrator‘s meeting in De Pere, and I turned on the radio, and there was an ad saying, “Hey, support Governor Walker‘s budget Republican bill, paid by the Club for Growth.” Well, guess what? I had never been given a bill. I hadn‘t even been given talking points yet.
And I know we‘re in a minority, but I‘m elected the same way you‘re elected, by the same public from the state of Wisconsin and I deserve better than that. It is bad enough—it is bad enough that I‘d hear it from a radio ad from Washington, D.C., and then show up at a meeting with no details.
So, what we heard that we may or may not get an emergency bill. We may get a repair bill, I found out from the radio, from a Washington, D.C. interest group. What does that have to do with Wisconsin?
And then it‘s 144 pages. And then we get briefed on Monday, and I‘m told we‘re going to vote on Thursday or Friday. And then when we asked for public hearings, and the public wants to speak out, you cut them off.
This isn‘t how we do things to each other. It‘s not how things get introduced. And it‘s just simply not what we do to the public.
If you want to jam through a bill, you got to sift through the messy process that is democracy. When we sat down in 4th grade, we learned about Wisconsin government and we learned about U.S. government, we learned how amazing it was they came together. But we also learned it was bloody, that people had to fight for it, and they wanted to make it hard to do big things.
You‘re supposed to be a deliberative body. You‘re supposed to have discussions, and you‘re supposed to be transparent, because the public matters in all of this input.
And then when we keep the hearings going and we honestly look at the bill, it‘s 144 pages, we find out that there‘s things like $47 million of federal aid cuts. And my city rights to me and said, yes, we will have to close our bus system. And when I have an honest amendment to carve that out and I want to get it submitted, we show up here, and you guys are going to vote without us three minutes before you told us to be here.
Are you seeing a pattern here? I find out from the radio, from some group I don‘t even know who it is. And then when the public wants to talk, you cut them off.
And then when we show up to vote, when we show up to vote, I am elected. I get it, I‘m in the minority. You‘re right, there‘s only a bunch of us.
But if you want to know why there are 35,000 people here, look at yourself in the mirror. And how about a little respect, at least for your colleagues?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O‘DONNELL: That was Wisconsin State Assemblyman Gordon Hintz expressing his exasperation with how this budget battle is playing out there.
Coming up: How the anger in Wisconsin is poised to explode nationally; and the similarities between Governor Walker and Speaker John Boehner. Ezra Klein joins me.
And the Tea Party has been dismissed as a joke. But as E.J. Dionne points out, joke or not, they have successfully co-opted the national political dialogue.
And, the uprising in the Arab world now centers in Libyan, some Libyan diplomats quit today, accusing dictator Moammar Gadhafi of genocide as he desperately tries to hold onto power.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: In Washington, D.C., the looming threat is a government shutdown. In Wisconsin, the looming threat is the end of unions as we know them. Ezra Klein is next on the Republican Party and the politics of overreaching.
And later, one of Sarah Palin‘s closest aides opens up in a tell-book to expose the truth about why Palin quit her job as governor.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: In Madison, Wisconsin, Ian‘s Pizza reports that it has received orders from 38 states and 12 countries, including Egypt, China, Turkey, and Germany, from people who want to send pizza to the protesters camped inside the capitol building.
Liberal Democrats are hoping that Wisconsin‘s Republican Governor Scott Walker reawakened a demoralized Democratic face when he attacked the state‘s public employees.
Act Blue, a political action committee that supports Democrats, has raised over $300,000 to support the 14 Wisconsin Democratic state senators who fled the state on Thursday to avoid voting on a bill that would eliminate collective bargaining rights.
But will the enthusiasm of the protesters and their supporters match an equally determined Republican Party that wants to do long-term damage to public employee unions, a key source of Democratic fundraising? How will the outcome in Wisconsin impact the future of labor as similar dramas unfold in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even Washington, D.C.?
Joining me now is Ezra Klein, columnist for “The Washington Post.”
Ezra, the Republicans are staking out this position now which is very, very clearly about union-bashing, about limiting unions‘ ability to negotiate, to the point where the union, in effect, becomes irrelevant. There‘s nothing accidental in this. This is about their ability to eliminate them as a significant political force in the state, isn‘t it?
EZRA KLEIN, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: And it‘s more than that, because you can tell that Scott Walker, he‘s being notably cagey about that. You watch him on a television show, you watch him on his press conferences, and he says what we‘re doing here is modest. There will still be collective bargaining in our state. There will be still unions. We are just trying to get this small, this totally reasonable change to help pensions and health care funded.
So, the unions say, we‘ll give it to you. You can have the change.
Just don‘t take away our right to bargain, essentially, our right to exist.
And now, he‘s not taking that. And so, Walker has sort of backed himself a little bit into a corner here. He does have the votes to do it. And if he does do it, the long-term consequences for unions within his state and nationally could be dramatic.
But he‘s also taking such a hard line position and the state is under such turmoil for it that I do wonder how long it can be sustained. I was reading, I believe it was “Capitol Times” in Wisconsin today, they endorsed him as a paper that was pro-Walker, and they said take the deal. Get out of this. Take it, undo the health care and benefits, and let‘s figure it out again in two years. He may be isolating himself now.
O‘DONNELL: Ezra, it seems to me his personal political ambition is served by trying to get the full deal. If he were to actually get this thing through and get his Republican senators a chance to vote on it, he would instantaneously become the greatest hero in the Republican Party nationwide, I think would go to the top of Republicans‘ lists for possible presidential nominees in the upcoming election, because I don‘t think there‘s an accomplishment quite like this out there that any other Republican can point to that would thrill the Republican base as much as this.
KLEIN: He‘d become a hero. I don‘t know—I don‘t know if he has enough time to go for 2012. But, you know, Chris Christie has become a very prominent Republican, in part through some very well-publicized showdowns with union employees and union members at essentially press conferences.
Walker is being able to do something he didn‘t dream of, and it‘s very important to say this. This is now about power. It is not just about union power, but political power in Wisconsin and elsewhere. If you—if you take down public employee unions, which are essentially the last place of the union movement in American still has any real support, density, or dues, the possibility of union resurgence at any point in the future becomes essentially nonexistent. You essentially destroy union movement forever. I mean, the stakes for labor and through labor, the Democratic Party are very, very, very high.
O‘DONNELL: Ezra, he seems to me to be capitalizing on a message that‘s been coming out now rather relentlessly for the last couple years that is anti-public employee union message, especially in the area of education and teachers unions, “Waiting for Superman,” the documentary about public education has a very strong anti-union teachers message in it, which has been, I think, successfully delivered as a precursor to this kind of movement.
In the past, public school teachers were one of the most sympathetic set of employees out there in our political landscape. Now, they‘ve become the targets of blame for so much in our educational system. Is it all of that coming together in this Wisconsin political laboratory that we‘re seeing in the last week?
KLEIN: I think it‘s part of it. And I want to say there‘s no truth to the critique of public employee unions in education, but there‘s not this much truth to it and it‘s been overstated. But I think there‘s a lot of blame to go around here. I think that it has been fascinating to watch the transference of anger in this country from corporate, from Wall Street investors and corporations in 2007 or so, which Barack Obama blocked, told the banks “I‘m the guy standing between you and the pitch forks,” blocked that bill in the House trying to ratchet backbone uses at AIG, had to help them, had to make sure that we keep confidence in the financial markets.
Without a villain, without Barack Obama letting people have the villain they sort of seem to want, the Republican Party stepped in and said, you know what? It‘s government and it‘s public employee unions that are the cause of your problems. And now, it‘s people like Walker who are being able to pick up on that.
There‘s a void left in the national narrative of what has gone wrong in our country over the past couple years. Barack Obama did not effectively fill it for reasons good and bad. And Walker and others have been able to step in there and use it to try to accomplish some very long term GOP priorities here. Some of them may make sense, some may not.
But I do think there‘s a large political story here, and it does have to do with failure of the Democrats to articulate a narrative that made sense to people and made them feel like they actually have a plan for how to get us out of here.
O‘DONNELL: Ezra, quickly before you go—the governor today, you heard him say in his press conference that there‘s a Friday deadline looming on restructuring of the state‘s debt. If that isn‘t met, that could lead to some very—some layoffs, fairly quickly. Do you think that deadline is real? And do you think it might force the hand of the Democratic senators?
KLEIN: I don‘t know how real it is, and I don‘t know whose hand it forces. I think the deadline is complicated. But either side, for Walker, if he‘s already been given the money now and he can‘t say, all right, let‘s try to vote on the collective bargaining again in three months, he‘s willing to let the state forego $165 million in order to get a long term win for the GOP‘s power in Wisconsin. That is the sort of thing that I would be surprised if the residents of Wisconsin continue to think is a good idea going forward.
O‘DONNELL: Well, he has now been making fairly regular statement. With today‘s press conference, he has just announced, Ezra, as you‘ve been speaking, that—the governor has announced he will be addressing, as he puts it, addressing the people of Wisconsin tomorrow at 6 p.m. in Wisconsin. This sounds not so much like a press conference as a specific address by the governor, probably, possibly with some announcement or new announcement of what happens next.
Ezra Klein of “The Washington Post” and MSNBC—thanks for joining us tonight, Ezra.
KLEIN: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: Coming up, the escalating crisis in the Middle East. Protesters in Libya appear to be on the brink of toppling Moammar Gadhafi as people there accuse the government of opening fire on its citizens to quell the uprising.
And later, the revolt within team Palin. A former close adviser of Palin decides if Palin gets to cash in, he‘s cashing in, too, and he‘s telling all the insider secrets, including the real reason Palin resigned as governor of Alaska.
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O‘DONNELL: Tonight, the deadly situation in Libya has taken a bizarre twist. Dictator Moammar Gadhafi went on state TV for what amounted to mere seconds, sitting in a Jeep, holding an umbrella. He refuted rumors he fled the country for Venezuela, insisting he was still in the capitol of Tripoli.
At this hour, Libya may be on the verge of becoming the next dictatorship to fall in the historic wave of unrest across the Middle East. What little is coming out of that nation shows a people unwilling to stand down, even in the face of being fired upon by the military.
And in the face of this crackdown, Gadhafi‘s own United Nations delegation is choosing a side: the people. Here is NBC‘s Ron Allen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RON ALLEN, NBC NEWS: Tonight, reports from Libya describe a growing rebellion, with reports of government buildings in flames during the course of the day, an uprising racing across the country—while Moammar Gadhafi vows to fight to the finish, to the last woman, man, last bullet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Allahu Akbar!
ALLEN (voice-over): These pictures posted on Youtube claim to show Libyan war planes indiscriminately bombing protesters in the capitol Tripoli. Muammar Gadhafi‘s ruthless retaliation against a popular uprising, say it is now or never, no turning back, as they confront security forces who, witnesses say, are firing into the crowds.
Most of the brutality hidden from the outside world. Phone lines down, the Internet shut off. Foreign reporters banned. This woman was reached by phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We saw the airplanes go by over us. We still hear gunshots, and it is getting by—one of my doctors—had to go to the hospital. They were shooting the doctors and people at the hospital.
ALLEN: Libya‘s own representative at the United Nations repudiated Gadhafi, calling him a war criminal.
IBRAHIM DARASSHI, LIBYAN DEPUTY AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: When peaceful people are demonstrating in the streets and orders are given to the armed militias and (INAUDIBLE), what do you—what can we call that?
ALLEN: In Benghazi, Libya‘s second largest city, epicenter of the uprising, mourners buried their dead, gunned down by troops using heavy weapons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pretty much every victim, the guy was either shot to the head, chest, neck or on the leg.
ALLEN: Today in Benghazi, celebrating protesters claim they control the city, with the help of sympathetic soldiers who have turned on the regime.
Gadhafi was last seen Sunday on state-run television. Gadhafi‘s western educated son, Seif al-Islam, went on television to say his father would never flee.
“This is not Egypt or Tunisia,” he said repeatedly, warning of civil war and rivers of blood if the protests continue.
Today, new signs of cracks from within. Two Air Force colonels reportedly refused orders to attack their countrymen, and flew fighter jets to Malta to request asylum.
And several members of Gadhafi‘s government, including diplomats posted abroad, announced support for the people fighting the regime.
Foreign oil companies began evacuating workers and families, joining an exodus of thousands.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It has been quite frightening. We‘ve had gunfire in the night. And we saw some chaos in the streets. But it is getting worse, not better.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: Tonight, protesters call for another night of defiance. But at the same time, there are reports of a growing military strength inside the city, warning people to stay inside their homes. All of that as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today, for the first time, now is the time to end this unacceptable bloodshed. What are some describing as the first significant U.S. statement about the crisis.
Now back to you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Ron Allen of NBC news, thank you.
In the United States, the Tea Party does not have a majority in the House or the Senate. But you could never tell that by listening to the political debate in this country. Coming up, how Tea Party priorities have trumped all other national issues.
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O‘DONNELL: In tonight‘s Spotlight, House Speaker John Boehner has a lot to lose if the federal government really does shut down at the end of next week. Just ask Newt Gingrich how well it worked for him back in the ‘90s.
But already, there are winners in the budget battle: Tea Party Republicans, as “Washington Post” columnist E.J. Dionne Junior explained today. “No matter how much liberals may poke fun at them, Tea Party partisans can claim victory in fundamentally altering the country‘s dialogue.”
Joining me now, E.J. Dionne of the “the Washington Post.”
E.J., what has the Tea Party already won?
E.J. DIONNE, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Well, when you look at what we‘re talking about compared to what‘s happening in the country—it is good to se you, Lawrence—you know, take—what are we worried about in the country? Well, we have nine percent unemployment. Lots of working class people have stagnating incomes. Lots of working class kids can‘t afford college.
A lot of communities around this country are going broke. But what are we talking about in Washington? Only two things, and they‘re really overlapping things. One is cutting programs, including programs to help some of the people who are suffering. And the other is cutting the deficit.
So you have the Tea Party over here cutting programs and Washington elite opinion saying, if we‘re not focused only on the long-term deficit, we are not serious. What about all these other problems? I think the Tea Party can claim some victory in shifting the whole discussion away from a lot of problems that I at least think we ought to be talking about.
O‘DONNELL: E.J., what I loved about your column today in the “Washington Post” is it raised issues that we have forgotten about, and forgotten about over a matter of about, I don‘t know, two months. We have this highest unemployment rate that we‘ve seen in a few generations. And we‘re talking about cutting spending while there‘s still no jobs recovery here.
It is one of the questions I throw in every once in a while. Why are we cutting spending at all? But it feels as if it is an unwelcome and strange question to be asked in this momentum towards deficit reduction now.
DIONNE: It is really strange that as long as you want to increase the deficit by doing tax cuts, that‘s a stimulus that the Tea Party and Republicans can support. But if you‘re going to hurt the economy by cutting some of these programs, that is somehow OK.
John Boehner‘s famous—I think he‘s going to be hearing about a long time—so be it quote. It is strange. We really shouldn‘t be doing a whole lot of deficit reduction for probably another year. I mean, nine percent unemployment is an enormous amount of unemployment. And we had years when we were down at three or four percent.
I don‘t understand how the dialogue moved that quickly, except that the Tea Party dominates all the news broadcasts. They dominate the Republican party. And President Obama who got through for about two weeks with his win the future theme, I think he‘s been overwhelmed by all of this, too.
O‘DONNELL: It concerned me that the president in his State of the Union and budget was giving up too much in the direction of deficit reduction right off the bat. I remember asking David Axelrod at the time of the State of the Union, how can you talk about so-called investments, which we know is increased government spending, while you talk about all these budget cuts at the same time. How can you possibly execute that?
And what I think the question now becomes is how could they have thought they could have politically executed it, which is to say that all the talk of investments has just disappeared, and all we talk about every day is cutting spending.
DIONNE: Right. I mean, it is a rational but complicated argument. They want to say, well, we‘re willing to cut some things to afford these other things. And by the way, they do pay for some of this stuff with taxes. No one is talking about the fact they want to get rid of a lot of tax breaks for oil companies. Those have also disappeared.
But I agree, there‘s a kind of strategy of preemptive concession that they‘ve engaged in for a couple of years here, where the Republicans pocket the concessions and then move on from there. And they make a lot of their own people unhappy.
I was passing through security in Boston a few months ago, after he froze the wages of federal workers. And a penny was left at the bottom of a bin. One of the security workers held it up and said there‘s your Obama pay raise. Those used to be friends of the president.
O‘DONNELL: E.J., not to delve in ancient history, but it reminds me of 1992, with Ross Perot running for president basically on deficit reduction and nothing else, if you actually listen to what he said. As soon as Bill Clinton becomes president, he became the president of deficit reduction.
So sometimes the policy winners are not necessarily the election winners, but they win the policy argument.
DIONNE: And the flip side of that is, at the end of this whole process, the only good news I see for Democrats is that the cuts the Republicans are doing—and then you saw it earlier in the show in Wisconsin, the kinds of things that are happening in the states—progressives are starting to wake up after having been asleep for about a year, certainly on election day in 2010.
So you may have this same disconnect, a certain policy victory accompanied later by political defeat. It was the flip on healthcare. Democrats won the policy, lost the election.
O‘DONNELL: E.J. Dionne of the “Washington Post,” thank you for allowing me to talk about maybe we should be doing something other than deficit reduction tonight. Tomorrow night, I will go back to nothing but deficit reduction again, I am sure. Thank you very much.
DIONNE: Take care.
O‘DONNELL: In an unpublished manuscript leaked over the weekend, a Palin aide called his former boss “vindictive and petty.” Could this be the tell-all book that Rewrites Palin‘s image as America‘s favorite Mama Grizzly? That‘s coming up.
And last week, in an effort led by Republican Congressman Mike Pence, the House voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Coming up, we will talk to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards on what that means for women‘s health in this country.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Time for tonight‘s Rewrite. The book‘s title is “In Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, a Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years.” Its author is not Todd Palin, but it is someone who used to be politically and professionally close to Palin, Frank Bailey, a former Palin campaign aide, who started working with the Palin family in 2006.
The book has, as source material, thousands of e-mails that, in effect, rewrite Palin‘s memoir, “Going Rogue.” The first e-mail, cited on the first page of the book, was sent to Bailey by Palin on April 28th, 2009. It says simply “I hate this damn job.”
She resigned from that damn job two months later, having completed a little over half her term as governor of Alaska. Bailey says that already waiting for Palin when she resigned was a multi-million dollar deal for an autobiography, and plans for marketing and speaking arrangements that would net millions more.
Bailey writes “all those promises to deliver a better Alaska to our children and use her job to usher change were uttered before she understood how un-fun and un-glamorous being governor would become, a realization more apparent after biting the apple of national acclaim as the future of the Republican party.”
In the e-mails, Palin is shown as vindictive and overwhelmed with her job. In September, 2007, Palin wrote to Bailey, who was also stressed, saying “I‘ll get fired before you will. And some of my mismanagement manifestation may catch up with me a lot sooner than I‘d hoped.”
When rumors surfaced about Palin‘s family during the gubernatorial campaign, Bailey says she was enraged about the issue in e-mails to her inner circle. In January 2006, Palin wrote “Todd just told me you had spoken with him a while back and reported that some law enforcement friends of yours claimed some dumb ass lie about Track not being Todd‘s son. This really disgusts me and ticks me off. This kind of bull ... lie about family that will keep me from running for governor. I will pull out of the race because it‘s not worth it at all to let my family be victims of dark, ugly politics like this.”
But, when Sarah Palin enjoyed politics, the family didn‘t matter quite as much. Another Palin e-mail, sent just five months later, reads “Bristol is mad at me, says this isn‘t fun. Too bad.”
Bailey explains Palin‘s behavior, writing, quote, “while Palin‘s charisma energized followers, her fragile emotional makeup was unnerving. To stay in her good graces, counter attacking anyone opposing became the top priority.”
Bailey outlines how Palin insiders used friendly blogs, fake op-eds, rigged polls, anything to take down Sarah Palin‘s enemies. Quote, “an opponent uttering a statement Sarah regarded as an attack demanded retribution, and, if possible, the destruction of that person‘s reputation.”
The e-mails also outline Palin‘s strategy to only talk to Fox News after getting negative press. Palin wrote “what good does it do to ignore Fox and keep talking to networks? I am through with the idiots that use and abuse us. Lesson learned. Networks are not our friends.”
Gee, Sarah, was it something we said?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Last week on the House floor, what began as yet another Republican congressman talking about abortion, even though it had no relevance to the bill being debated, ended this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JACKIE SPEIER (D), CALIFORNIA: You know, I had planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman from New Jersey has just put my stomach in knots, because I am one of those women he spoke about just now. I had a procedure at 17 weeks, pregnant with a child that had moved from the vagina into the cervix.
And that procedure that you just talk about was a procedure that I endured. I lost a baby. For you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly, or done without any thought, is preposterous.
There is a vendetta against Planned Parenthood, and it was played out in this room tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Congresswoman Jackie Speier then joined me here to discuss how difficult it is to debate a woman‘s right to choose on the House floor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: It doesn‘t feel to me like anything gets through to the men of the House of Representatives who think like Congressman Smith.
SPEIER: Well, for many of them, it is all about a message. And they don‘t think much beyond the message. And they don‘t think about the experiences that women endure when they have to go through something like an abortion. And I guess for a moment on the floor last night, there was a reality check for many.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now, the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards. Thanks for joining me.
CECILE RICHARDS, PRESIDENT, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Sure, thanks for having me.
O‘DONNELL: Congresswoman Speier went on to give an eloquent defense of Planned Parenthood and what it would mean with this government funding cut? What does it mean to your budget?
RICHARDS: Well, what it would literally mean is millions of women in this country would no longer have access to any kind of health care from Planned Parenthood, which primarily is preventive care. It is birth control. It is cancer screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer. It‘s well women checkups.
And so, I think as the congresswoman said, this was really playing politics with women‘s health care in a profound way.
O‘DONNELL: There was some surprising responses to this. I want us to listen to what Congressman Steve Lynch had to say about this. He is a pro-life congressman. Let‘s listen to Congressman Lynch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEVE LYNCH (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Look, I am a pro-life Democrat.
I am a pro-life Democrat. And my faith informs my position on this issue. And there used to be I think a general agreement—as divisive as this debate is and has been in this country for years, there‘s been a level of agreement that we have reached where we—I think we agreed at one point in this country that the best way to reduce abortion in this country is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
We used to agree on that. This bill, this amendment will increase the number of abortions in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Steve Lynch, Irish Catholic congressman, heavily Irish Catholic district that he represents, did that surprise you to hear that from him?
RICHARDS: I thought it was a very brave and bold statement, and completely accurate. I mean, this is the thing that I think was completely missed in the debate in Congress, is that Planned Parenthood alone prevents more than 600,000 unintended pregnancies each year in America.
For the folks on the House floor who want to reduce the number of abortions in America, they should be funding Planned Parenthood to do more family planning. We‘re the single largest provider of family planning in America. This sort of political vendetta is not going to do anything for women‘s health care.
In fact, I think as Congressman Lynch said, it is going to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and the number of abortions in this country.
O‘DONNELL: Are you worried about might what happen on this provision in the Senate?
RICHARDS: Of course, we take it very serious. This is the biggest war on women‘s health care that we‘ve ever seen in the U.S. House of Representatives. I think that we have—Planned Parenthood has very strong support in the United States Senate, on both sides of the aisle. And I think that what we‘re seeing across the country is that women really are paying attention.
Just since this bill passed the House on Friday, we‘ve had 466,000 women e-mail us and e-mail Congress in opposition to this bill.
O‘DONNELL: You know, the normal bargaining process between House and Senate on these numbers, this is going to look like a number thing to them. The House wants zero, so the Senate wants what, 50 percent of the funding? I mean, this does seem like a real threat when the House and Senate go into conference over this.
RICHARDS: Here is the important point, Lawrence: is that what the House did by saying Planned Parenthood can no longer be a provider of family planning and preventive care, didn‘t save the taxpayers a dime. It didn‘t do anything to reduce the deficit. It was strictly a political move.
So all of this I think is literally not doing a thing to address the problems that I think the American people have asked them to address: jobs, the economy, the deficit. It was simply a political move to get back at an organization that one in five women have been to in America.
O‘DONNELL: As I said about this, Congressman Smith knows someone who‘s had this procedure. He may not know that he knows someone, but he does. It is just too common.
RICHARDS: Correct.
O‘DONNELL: Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
RICHARDS: Thanks for having me.
O‘DONNELL: You can have THE LAST WORD online at our blog, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and follow me @Lawrence on Twitter.
That‘s tonight‘s LAST WORD. “THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” is up next.
Good evening, Rachel.
END
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