To reduce the federal deficit, 78% of Americans oppose cutting Medicare, while 72% are in favor of increasing taxes on the rich. Even 54% of Republicans favor this position. These numbers represent a significant majority in our country. Isn’t our government a democracy? If so, shouldn’t our government tax the rich and not cut Medicare in order to reduce the federal deficit? Isn’t that the way the government is supposed to work? Not the way things have been going.
72% of all Americans are for taxing the rich to reduce our federal deficit. According to a Washington Post – ABC News Poll conducted from April 14 through April 17, 2011, with a 3.5% margin of error, 91% of the Democratic voters, 68% of Independent voters and even 54% of Republican voters favor taxing the rich. Doesn’t this constitute a majority? Shouldn’t our Congresspeople vote accordingly?
The problem is that the President and Congressional Democrats compromise with the Republicans. True, the debate begins with the Democracts and Obama proposing to increase taxes on the rich, reduce military spending, while opposing any cuts to Medicare, in opposition to the Congressional Republican counter-proposal to cut every social program for individuals but to support all subsidies and tax breaks for corporations and the rich. So when the Deficit Commission starts talking about compromising, that means that the will of the majority of Americans will continue to be ignored, and Medicare and Social Security will be cut, with very little tax increases on the rich to reduce the federal deficit. But this does not represent the majority of the people, does it?
So whenever President Obama adopts his customary posture of compromise, of appeasement, he is not representing the will of the majority of the people in this country. This is against the implied law of the land, that the government must represent the will of the people. Isn’t this an act of treason, since it sabotages the Democratic governing will of the people? Isn’t this habitual positioning of Obama a felonious crime, since it involves billions, if not trillions, of dollars to be stolen from the middle class of America? If so, isn’t this an impeachable offense, much more serious than a Lewinsky piccadillo of former President Bill Clinton?
When I hear about so-called “bipartisan” groups on Capitol Hill seeking a grand compromise, such as the Senate’s so-called “Gang of Six”, I fear the worse and look for my wallet. When Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat Senator from Illinois, a member of that Gang of Six, endorse a plan somewhere in the middle between the House Republican budget and the President’s plan, I know the Democrats and President Obama will once again cave in to the Republicans and not represent the majority of Americans, the middle class of America, the working people of America.
Our government is not supposed to be a government of compromise; it is supposed to represent the majority of Americans. Didn’t President Obama, Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Mark Warner, and Senator Kent Conrad, ever take a civics class? Compromise? And if the other side were Adolf Hitler, would Obama once again sign a Munich Agreement to meet somewhere in the middle, and throw the Slavs and the middle class under the bus? Or if this were 1861 and the two parties were debating the legality of slavery, and if the majority of the voters were against slavery, would it have been appropriate for Abraham Lincoln to appoint a commission in hopes of reaching a compromise somewhere in the middle: e.g., no slavery in the North, but slavery in the South?! Lincoln did campaign on such a compromise, proposing no slavery in any new states joining the Union, but allowing slavery in existing states; however, in retrospect, was this the right course of action in a democracy, where the majority of Americans were opposed to slavery? Ask any black citizen today, if you are uncertain.
If the super rich paid taxes at the same rates they did three decades ago, they’d contribute $350 billion more per year than they are now — amounting to trillions more over the next decade. Nor does the president’s proposal go nearly far enough in cutting military spending, which is not only out of control but completely unrelated to our nation’s defense needs. If Americans understood how much they’re paying for defense and how little they’re getting, they’d demand a defense budget at least 25 percent smaller than it is today.
No, President Obama, and no, Senators Durbin, Warner, and Conrad. Compromise or reaching the middle ground is not the mandate bestowed upon you by the American people. Your mandate is to represent the majority of the American people, not to appease those who already own 95% of our nation’s wealth. It’s time to stand up to these greedy, voracious predators and defend those who voted for you, and not those contributing to your political campaigns.
No, we do not have a real social security problem. In fact, we now have a $2.5 trillion surplus in social security. And at the present rate, social security will continue paying 100% of retirement benefits for another twenty six (26) years, until 2037; and after that, it will continue to pay 78% of the requirement benefits.
Simpson as Scrooge?
So what’s the problem? The problem is that the U.S. government has been borrowing social security monies to finance tax breaks for the rich, ridiculous estate tax giveaways for the upper .6% of the population, TARP bailouts of the Wall Street crooks, needless wars costing mega-billions of dollars and making defense contractors very wealthy, billions and billions of dollars of subsidies to oil companies (the richest companies in the world), etc. And now these crooks in Washington want to default on their IOUs to the American participants in these retirement programs, as apparent in the declaration of former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson (a former member of the gang of six) that our social security funds are merely “a bunch of IOUs” and not to be honored by the American government as a legitimate obligation! (Why hasn’t that guy died and gone to hell yet?!) They wouldn’t dare default on the IOUs to China because that would create a tsunami in the financial markets of the Wall Streeters; however, they figure you are too stupid to know and care.
Senator Kent Conrad: no need to waste 5 years. Just tax the rich!
So how do we fix social security so that it continues to pay 100% of everyone’s retirement benefits? Easy. Don’t cap the payroll tax. Presently, the rich do not pay their fair share to social security. After the rich earn $106,800 each year, they no longer pay the combined employer-employee social security tax of 12.4%! That’s a big savings for the rich, which you do not get. If the rich paid the 12.4% social security tax on all of their wages beyond the $106,800 cap, social security would be fully funded for future generations. So there’s no need to cut your retirement benefits by raising the retirement age. Just uncap the tax break for the rich.
Senator Crapo full of ?
As you probably know by now, President Obama appointed members from Congress to address our federal deficit, and one of the items receiving its attention is the depletion of funds from the social security trust account. To this commission, not surprisingly called the Deficit Commission, Obama appointed three Republican Senators–Senator Saxy Chambliss of Georgia (the only Republican considering tax increases), Republican Senator Mike Crapo (a very appropriate name for his utterances) of Idaho, and Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma (dubbed “Dr. No” for his fiscal hawk posture)–and three Democratic Senators–Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois (who sounds more like a Republican than a Democrat), Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. Former Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming recently served on this gang of crooks; apparently, he is no longer one of the six. Every night when I say my prayers, I ask God, why haven’t you taken Alan from us? Isn’t it his time yet? Is there a reason why you leave him here to haunt us?
Senator Chambliss: the only decent Republican?
Given the characters on this commission and the remarks of Alan Simpson, Dick Durbin, Mark Warner, et al, do you think they will propose to uncap the social security tax limit on the wages of the rich? Not on your life. This Simpson gang of six will think of a way to steal your social security benefits; and President Barack Obama, in his typical wussy, appeasing, centrist, and corporatist posture, will undoubtedly use the cover of this commission as a political shield and endorse their heist of your retirement monies, excusing it on the grounds, once again, that everyone has to share the pain.
Hey, President Neville Chamberlain, yes, let’s indeed share the pain. Tax the rich for a change! 72% of the American population are in favor of taxing the rich, including a majority of Republicans.
Senator Kent Warner: is junior listening to GOP propaganda?
Oh, President Obama, you don’t want to tax the rich? Why? Oh, because they provide funds to your political campaigns? So, President Obama, why have you run as a Democrat advocating change? Doesn’t it sound like more of the same: screw the middle class and give even more tax breaks to the rich?!
Why doesn’t a progressive challenge Obama in a Democratic primary? Middle class Americans need a voice for change, and not more of the same.
Senator Tom Coburn: Dr. No?
And by the way, Alan Simpson, you old folksy cowboy from Wyoming, Westerners used to hang thieves for stealing horses and cattle, remember? Are you not scheming to steal monies that we contributed all of our working lives and are entitled to receive when we are too old and too sick to work any longer? That’s why social security and medicare are called entitlements: we are entitled to them; we paid for them! So you’re all just a bunch of rustlers, planning to take our retirement and health insurance funds!
UYGUR: We have breaking news out of Nevada tonight. According to numerous press reports, Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign will resign tomorrow. Ensign had earlier said that he would not run for re-election after he was forced to admit that he had an affair with an aide, who is also the wife of his friend and his chief of staff. Same person. We now believe he will resign from the Senate tomorrow. Ensign‘s conduct led to a Senate ethics investigation, which is ongoing. That investigation focuses on former top aide, Doug Hampton, who claimed that Ensign helped him to get lobbying clients. That was after, of course, he had slept with his wife. In March, the senator announced he would not seek re-election next year, but that departure has obviously been dramatically accelerated, I should say.
Joining me now is Jon Ralston, he is a columnist for the “Las Vegas Sun” and host of the Nevada political program “Face to Face.” He‘s been the leading reporter on the Ensign scandal.
All right. Apparently, we have lost the shot with Jon. All right. So—is he still on the line? OK. So here‘s the situation. Let me break it down for you guys a little bit. Now, Doug Hampton is the chief of staff for Ensign. As we get Jon back. Let me tell you of the situation. And he winds up sleeping with Doug Hampton‘s wife, Ensign does. Now, in order to make up for it, he says, all right, let me get you some lobbying clients, maybe, allegedly, of course, right? And after he gets the lobbying clients, well, Doug Hampton decides, you know, what? I still don‘t like that he slept with my wife, he goes and talks about it, and then there‘s a Senate ethics investigation. And Ensign is trying to figure out, can I get past this thing? Maybe he could get past the sex scandal. Obviously, other Republicans have. We‘ve got David Vitter in Louisiana. And you know, he ran as a family values candidate, but so did Vitter, so—all right. And so he figures, maybe I can get past the sex scandal, but you know what, the ethics investigation is a whole different ball game. And that‘s what they were leading into. So, it was surprising that he resigned today, but perhaps there‘s something in the ethics investigation that he knows about that we don‘t know about that made him think, hmm, best to get out of there and not deal with it.
And by the way, of course, remember that Ensign had said about Clinton during his affair, quote, “it was an embarrassing moment for the country.
Clinton has no credibility left.” And here‘s the part I love. That was in 1998.
After he said all that stuff, embarrassing. He‘s like, oh, look at one of my aides. Remember, Doug Hampton‘s wife is also Ensign‘s aide, and he slept with her. Was that embarrassing? It wasn‘t embarrassing enough for him to resign immediately when people found out about it. He‘s like, oh, yes, yes, I did that and I‘m going to run for re-election.
All right. And look, he‘s got plenty of things that he finds immoral, of course, gay marriage, everything else that other people do is immoral. Things that Ensign does, well, let me see how the political fallout goes. So the political fallout, apparently ended his career in terms of running for re-election, but he was still going to stay in office until this very moment. And we‘re trying to figure out what happened there.
So, Jon Ralston has rejoined me. He‘s from Las Vegas, as we told you. Jon, what happened today that led him to this investigation, we think?
JON RALSTON, “LAS VEGAS SUN”: I‘m not sure that anything happened today, but it‘s clear that the only thing that could have pushed Ensign out is that the Ethics Committee did not, as I‘m sure he hoped, drop that investigation. There were some reports out of Washington that they were proceeding. I think he hoped that after he announced that he was going to retire that everything would be dropped. The Department of Justice had already dropped this investigation, although it indicted Doug Hampton. And I think Doug Hampton was eager to get John Ensign up there in front of a jury to talk about this. That could still happen. But it‘s clear that Ensign is getting out ahead of anything coming out of the Ethics Committee.
UYGUR: Yes, here‘s my experience with politics. People don‘t just
resign, right? Especially, I mean you‘re a politician, right? He‘s going he wanted to hang on for dear life. So, obviously, something‘s afoot here, right? And you would think that the ethics investigation is the most likely reason why. What could be in it? So, obviously, we don‘t know yet, but what could be in it? Could it be about Doug Hampton‘s lobbying contracts, could it be about their son, which is a whole different angle on this? Can you tell us about that?
RALSTON: There‘s so much evidence there that Ensign has done wrong, no matter how you define wrong, and I think there was some sentiment, from what I heard, that the Ethics Committee wanted to go where the Department of Justice would not go with all of this. I mean, John Ensign‘s career was over, when he called that press conference on June 16th, 2009. The only person who seemed not to know it was John Ensign. And so he has been dragged, kicking and screaming, every step of the way. People expected him to resign in the summer of 2009. Look how long this has taken. There is a mountain of evidence that Ensign has done wrong. Again, depending on how you define wrong. The Ethics Committee has all of that. Whether or not the Department of Justice ever could have prosecuted him, criminally, we may never know. But to just say that he could be censured by the Ethics Committee, I don‘t think he wanted to stick around under those circumstances.
UYGUR: Jon, real quick, if he does resign, is it over? I mean, does he just get to ride into the sunset and he doesn‘t have to worry about any kind of investigations?
RALSTON: Well, there is no wonder enough, because while we were having those technical problems, he actually put out a release, finally announcing what I reported about an hour ago, which he put out a release, that‘s headlined right in front of me here. Ensign to resign from office. So, he‘s gone as of May 3rd. That‘s the effective date. And so, yes, he‘s done with politics. Who knows what he will do next. He was a veterinarian. I guess he can go back to dealing with cats and dogs. For him, I guess that‘s safer than human beings.
UYGUR: All right. Well, who‘s in more trouble, ultimately, Hampton for breaking the rules or Ensign, you know, if he resigns, if he gets away with it and goes back to cats and dogs. Is the guy, you know, whose wife had an affair with Ensign in worse trouble than Ensign himself?
RALSTON: You know, that is one of the great tragedies of this story, what has happened to Doug Hampton. He was brought to Washington by his good friend, John Ensign. Ensign then proceeds to have an affair with his wife, essentially fires the two of them, pays them off with $96,000 of his parent‘s money, and then one of the sickest parts of this whole scandal, then tries to help Doug Hampton to get lobbying jobs. And eventually, Hampton has had enough, thinks Ensign has not done enough to make up for this, as if anybody could, and so, then he decides to go public with this. And from then on, you see Doug Hampton‘s a broken man. He‘s lost his house, he‘s lost his job. He‘s just—he‘s destitute now.
UYGUR: Right.
RALSTON: And now, what tops it all, he gets indicted and Ensign gets off.
UYGUR: I know, it‘s sick. All right. Jon Ralston, we really appreciate your help tonight.
Now, nothing sinks a president‘s approval rating faster than high gas prices.
President Obama‘s vowing to do something about it. What‘s his plan and can it work?
And now that the numbers are in, and Democrats are on the attack, Paul Ryan isn‘t sounding so tough. We‘ll tell you why he‘s backpedaling and might be in for a world of trouble.
UYGUR: In our “Rigged Game” today—we‘ve got a whole block on it—gas prices are shooting up and the president is doing something about it. The average price per gallon costs 35 percent more than it did just a year ago.
In six states, the average price already tops $4 a gallon. That‘s painful. You know what it cost me? It cost me $60 the other day to fill up my wife‘s car. I didn‘t like that.
And some people are fearing that $5 a gallon is just around the corner. That would be really painful.
So it‘s no wonder that this is an issue that the American people really care about. And that anger might have shown itself in President Obama‘s approval rating.
Two months ago, gas was at $3.16 a gallon and the president‘s approval rating was at 48 percent. But since then, gas prices have jumped 68 cents, which is a lot, obviously, and his approval rating has dropped to 43 percent.
Now, are those two things directly related? Well, of course, it‘s impossible to know for sure, but it seems like there‘s a good chance.
So, today, at a town hall meeting, President Obama announced that the Justice Department is creating a task force that will “root out fraud or manipulation in the oil markets” that could be contributing to these high prices.
Now, it will focus some of its investigation on the role of traders and speculators. However, in a statement today, Attorney General Holder suggested that no evidence has turned up yet of unlawful price manipulation.
Now, let‘s talk about whether that‘s the real problem with gas prices.
Joining me now is Tyson Slocum. He‘s the director of Public Citizen‘s Energy Program.
All right. First, I want to start with, is this a real issue? Are they on to something? Is it possible that the speculators are driving up the gas prices?
TYSON SLOCUM, PUBLIC CITIZEN‘S ENERGY PROGRAM: Oh, absolutely the speculators are driving up the prices. And all you have to do is listen to Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks and one of the largest global traders in crude oil and gasoline products.
A little over a week ago, Goldman Sachs, in a communication with some of its wealthiest investors, said that speculators accounted for about $27 to $30 of a barrel of oil. That translates to about 70 or 75 cents in the price of a gallon of gasoline.
So when a speculator is saying, yes, speculators are playing a significant role in the market right now, I tend to listen to them. And the reason that the speculators—that it‘s obvious is because it‘s a disconnect between the current crude oil prices and the supply and demand fundamentals.
Secretary Chu, the secretary of energy, Steven Chu, said earlier this week—he said, the United States is awash in a surplus of oil and gasoline.
We‘ve got almost two billion barrels of gasoline and crude oil in storage in the United States, 726 million barrels of that is in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Now, when I took economics courses, when you have a surplus, that has a tendency to depress prices. The fact that prices are going up shows that speculators are driving this issue. So if you‘re Goldman Sachs, you‘re making a lot of money. If you‘re a working family trying to get from home to work, or drop your kids off at school, it‘s really—you‘re dealing with a lot of hardship. And that‘s why the International Monetary Fund last week said that these sustained high prices threatened the fragile economic recovery right now.
UYGUR: Tyson, I think if a lot of Americans knew what you were saying, they‘d be quite angry. I‘m already angry.
I mean, if you‘re talking about 75 cents per gallon, that that makes a difference, that it could be that much lower, if I just got 10 gallons, that‘s $7.50 out of my pocket into some banker‘s pocket for some reason. I‘m already livid over it.
So, how does that work? I think a lot of people are probably confused about that, as to how that translates to going into their pockets. What do they do?
SLOCUM: Right. Well, most Americans think that OPEC, like Saudi Arabia or Iran or Venezuela, set oil prices. They don‘t. They try to influence prices by the amount of oil that they‘re producing and exporting to the rest of the world.
Where prices are actually set is by financial firms like Goldman Sachs, like hedge funds, and then some companies like Koch Industries, which is a major trader of crude oil and petroleum products. They do it in exchanges in New York and in another financial centers, and then they also trade in contracts on their own unregulated exchanges, thanks to a 2000 law that deregulated all of this.
And so what the Dodd/Frank financial services bill from last summer, one of the things that it‘s supposed to do is to re-regulate this trading, to bring it under the careful eye of government regulators. It also seeks to limit the positions that an individual trader can take.
Right now a company like Goldman Sachs can sometimes control half of all the outstanding contracts in crude oil. That‘s not competition. That‘s a single company exercising market power.
So what we need to do is to rein in the speculators, reduce the levels of excessive speculation, and that‘s going to bring prices down around 70 cents a gallon. And that‘s going to bring the relief that we need to working families.
UYGUR: Well, Tyson, the Republicans say the opposite. They say, look, here‘s how you solve this—you do less regulation, let the speculators speculate all they like, and let them drive up or down the price, and then if you just do a little bit more drilling, we‘ll be set.
Why do you think that‘s wrong?
SLOCUM: Because it‘s false. You know, we‘ve got Representative Frank Lucas, a Republican from Oklahoma, who‘s introduced a bill, HR-1573, that would deregulate a big chunk of the Dodd/Frank Financial Services Reform Act, which is popping champagne corks on Wall Street right now if this were to pass, because this would do away with these proposed regulations over energy trading, giving huge, new opportunities for Wall Street to keep driving up the price of oil.
And the argument that all the United States need to do is open up new areas to drilling and that will produce prices, that‘s also false. The Bush administration, in 2007, ordered the Energy Information Administration, which is the statistical branch of the Department of Energy, to take a look at, let‘s say we open up all offshore areas to new drilling off the Atlantic Coast, every area in the Gulf of Mexico, California, Alaska, we open it all up to oil drilling. The EIA, the Energy Department, found it would have an insignificant impact on reducing prices and on reducing imports because the United States is not Saudi Arabia.
We only sit on 1.5 percent of the world‘s oil. It is impossible for us to tap into that very small pool of oil and bring prices down by ramping production up.
That‘s why, after the BP disaster that started last year, when Obama had to do a moratorium on deepwater drilling, oil prices did not go up, because all the traders knew that you can‘t send prices up for an area that is not a significant source of global oil and gas production. So Republicans saying that we need to deregulate is really harmful, and their argument that we need to drill more is just ludicrous.
UYGUR: Well, you know, we did a “Rigged Game” segment here. Maybe we should have done a “Con Job,” because as they blame the president for the high gas prices, they deregulate the speculation, allowing for much higher gas prices, and then go, ha-ha, and just blame the Democrats for it. It‘s an unbelievable con job.
But the last thing here, Tyson, any chance that this commission or whatever he‘s going to put together, the president here, that it helps? I mean, are they really going to get tough on Goldman Sachs?
SLOCUM: Well, we have to. You know, definitely investigating whether or not the lack of regulation is encouraging collusive or anti-competitive behavior, the Department of Justice ought to be taking a look at that.
But we can also address this by the president and Congress sending clearer instructions to the agency that regulates these markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to say, look, you‘ve got to enact tough position limits that limit the ability of a Goldman Sachs to control a big chunk of the market, because a company that controls a big chunk of the market, that means you have an uncompetitive market.
We‘ve got to make sure that every trade in crude oil and gasoline is conducted in way that is fully regulated by the federal government, because when we‘ve got regulators looking over the shoulder of—whether it‘s big oil or big banks, that‘s a good thing.
UYGUR: I‘ll tell you what, man. If he did real regulation, and it stopped the speculation, and gas prices dropped, then you‘ve got an easy re-election. So I would think that he would be motivated. Let‘s see how it turns out.
Republicans speak out against the evils of socialism for us, touting the beatitudes of capitalism and how great it is. But remember the $1 trillion bailout of Wall Street that the Republicans all swore that we had to pay for? That all these Wall Streeters and big banks and insurance companies were too big to fail and that we all had to deplete our life savings to pay for their recklessness in the financial markets. And then remember how all those fat cats on Wall Street all got big bonuses that year.
Well guess what? Another big bust is looming on the horizon again, according to a recent S&P study; however, this time the magnitude of the bailout will not be a measely $1 trillion but $5 trillion! And guess who will pick up the tab again? You guessed it: the middle class American taxpayer!
You see, the Republicans don’t believe in socialism for you and me: they want to do away with social security and medicare. But Republicans love corporate socialism (i.e., corporate welfare). British Petroleum gave the GOP in the last election $73 million dollars. Why? Because now the Republicans are trying to waive the $20 billion fine for the oil spill costs last year, and reduce it down to only $2.5 million!!! Are you catching on? It’s all about who’s paying these politicians. If you pay, you get big dividends in return.
And every year the oil companies get $4 billion in subsidies from our government. But these oil companies are the richest companies in the world, making billions of dollars every year, and they do not pay taxes! In fact, they get tax refunds and credits! Neat, huh?
So the GOP doesn’t stand for the Grand Old Party; rather, it stands for the Gas Oil Party.
CENK UYGUR, HOST: Good evening, everybody. I‘m Cenk Uygur.
Tonight, we‘re going to show you parts of a blockbuster interview with Donald Trump that have not been broadcast before, and it‘s good.
NBC‘s national investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff sat down with Trump and questioned him about his business dealings. We‘ll talk to Isikoff in just a few moments about his great interview that finally forced Trump to address the truth about his real record in business.
The questions went to the heart of the very thing that Trump claims makes him a credible candidate—his business success.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NBC NEWS INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: You have clearly had some big successes in the business world, but you‘ve also had some big failures. And let‘s go straight—
DONALD TRUMP, ENTREPRENEUR: No, I don‘t think I have had big failures. Donald Trump has always been very, very successful. And so when you say failures, I don‘t think I have had failures. But let‘s go ahead. Ask me about a couple.
ISIKOFF: OK. Trump Hotels and Casinos filed for bankruptcy protection three times in six years.
TRUMP: OK. Let me explain that to you. Very simple.
ISIKOFF: Isn‘t that a failure?
TRUMP: Not really. I mean, look, it worked out very well for me, it was successful. I then levered (ph) the company, I took it public. So I had a relatively small piece of the company. And what happened is—
ISIKOFF: Wait a second. You were chairman of the board. You were chairman of the board.
TRUMP: Excuse me. I was chairman, but I didn‘t run the company. I had nothing to do with running the company. Management ran the company.
ISIKOFF: You were paid $2 million a year.
TRUMP: Excuse me. I didn‘t run the company. I‘m just telling you.
ISIKOFF: So what were you paid $2 million a year for?
TRUMP: Excuse of my genius. OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: “Excuse me.” Excuse me.”
Genius. He had three bankruptcy filings in six years for Trump Hotel and Casinos. Genius?
But that‘s just the beginning. Trump‘s habit of slapping his name on other people‘s products has also landed him in court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISIKOFF: There are also some ongoing lawsuits in which investors in Trump projects are suing you, claiming they were deceived. They thought they were buying into a Trump project and discovered it was only a licensing deal.
Trump Tower, Tampa, you were down there for the ground breaking. You said this was going to be a spectacular project that was going to redefine Tampa‘s skyline. In fact, you weren‘t an investor in the project at all, and it‘s never been built.
TRUMP: It was just a licensing deal. I was not the developer of those sites. I licensed the name “Trump” to those buildings.
In case you haven‘t heard, there was a market collapse. And these people did better than most other people in Florida because they got some of their money back and they may get more of it back.
ISIKOFF: They‘re still suing you.
TRUMP: Well, yes, I think it‘s working out very nicely. I think it‘s working out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: I‘m not sure the investors would agree. That‘s why they‘re in court. But it does look like these deals do work out for one guy at the end—Donald Trump.
Now, he has a theory as to why that is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISIKOFF: Do you think it‘s fair to say that sometimes you exaggerate?
TRUMP: I don‘t think I exaggerate any more than anybody else. I think that I have a great grasp of numbers. I have a great grasp of values.
I‘m worth many, many billions of dollars. You may very well be impressed, even you, with all your negative questions about very small things.
ISIKOFF: Even one of your friends said that your real genius is for self-promotion. You are a modern day P.T. Barnum.
TRUMP: Well, I think my real genius is not actually in promotion. I think I build a great product, great locations, and everybody says, oh, gee, what a great salesman he is. It‘s this. It‘s not my salesmanship.
ISIKOFF: It‘s what?
TRUMP: This. Do you know what that is? Brain power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: What do you think is stronger, Trump‘s brain power or Charlie Sheen‘s tiger blood? I wish Isikoff would have asked him that.
All right. Well, actually, let‘s bring in NBC‘s national investigative correspondent, Michael Isikoff.
Michael, you asked him plenty of other things. It seemed a bit contentious.
ISIKOFF: Sorry I hadn‘t thought of that one, but I will next time.
(LAUGHTER)
UYGUR: Right.
So, now, he said at the end there, you, with your negative questions about small things. How contentious was this?
ISIKOFF: He got pretty prickly, as you can see from that interview. And I don‘t think he appreciated being challenged on some of his spin on some of what have clearly been business failures.
But, you know, bizarrely, the thing he got most exercised about is what his net worth is. I cited “Forbes” magazine estimate of $2.4 billion to him, and he corrected me. He said no, no, “Forbes:” has more recently, in its international edition, upped it to $2.7 billion.
UYGUR: Right.
ISIKOFF: And, of course, he claims it‘s about $7 billion. We won‘t really know for sure unless he, A, declares for president and then fills out that financial disclosure form.
UYGUR: Michael, we have that piece of the video. I love it, so I want to make sure that everybody sees it. Let‘s run that.
ISIKOFF: Sure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISIKOFF: How much are you worth?
TRUMP: A lot of money, and you may very well see that number in about 70 days or 80 days.
“Forbes” said $2.7 billion. And $2.7 billion is very low. It‘s much lower than the actual number that I may be showing to people and to the rest of the world in a couple of months.
If I run shortly thereafter, I will send a statement of financials and cash, and how much debt and all that. And I think people are going to be very impressed. It‘s actually much bigger than any numbers I have seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Other than being generally unbearable, bragging about his wealth, you know, it‘s a little hard to believe him. And I think that he‘s actually not going to run for that specific reason. I don‘t think he wants the world to know what he is actually worth.
ISIKOFF: That is certainly one theory out there. You know, there was a “New York Times” reporter, Tim O‘Brien, who wrote a book a few years ago, who talked to some sources who suggested Trump was really only worth a couple of hundred million dollars.
Trump sued Tim O‘Brien, the reporter, for defamation, claiming to be called a multimillionaire rather than a multibillionaire had somehow defamed his reputation. The lawsuit got tossed out of court and Trump then appealed.
And, in fact, the appellate argument was heard only a couple weeks ago in a Jersey City courtroom. Trump showed up and was slipping notes to his lawyers.
He clearly is very exercised about this issue. But will we ultimately see that document that lays out his wealth? We‘re going to know very shortly, but that‘s something he‘s going to have to do if he goes through with this presidential run.
UYGUR: Yes. I don‘t believe he‘s going to do it at all. I would be shocked. But we‘ll see if Donald can shock us.
But, you know, you had another great part of this interview about Trump University, which was great. I just want to run that for anybody and then come back and ask you about it.
ISIKOFF: Sure.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISIKOFF: Why did you call it a university?
TRUMP: Because we didn‘t know there was any rules or regulations about using the name “university.”
ISIKOFF: You didn‘t check that out?
TRUMP: I think probably they felt that we would have qualified. If we didn‘t qualify, that‘s fine. We changed the name.
ISIKOFF: And people would pay money to hear you?
TRUMP: Sure, they‘d pay money. Why, am I supposed to do it for free?
ISIKOFF: People have to pay, as I understand it, up to $35,000 for the gold seminars.
TRUMP: And they did. There‘s very little problem with Trump University. There‘s very little—I think we had one or two little lawsuits out of thousands of people that went through it.
We have one or two little lawsuits. There‘s one in California, a little lawsuit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Just a little lawsuit. He seems to be involved in a lot of little lawsuits, but what was this? Was this a real university, did it have classes, professors, or —
ISIKOFF: It‘s not a real university in the sense you and I would understand it. It was basically a series of seminars.
The first thing they ask you to do, according to some of the students who went through it, is up the limit on your credit card to $35,000 so you can then afford the gold seminar in which you really learn the secrets of Donald Trump‘s‘ success and learn how to become a millionaire.
State regulators all over the country have gotten complaints about this. There is a class action lawsuit being filed by former students in California. And as we reported in the piece last night, the Texas Attorney General‘s Office had opened up an investigation into possible deceptive trade practices against Trump University, and only dropped it after Trump University told the state Attorney General‘s Office they would stop doing business in Texas. In effect, they dropped out of Texas entirely.
UYGUR: All right. Michael, stay with us, actually.
I want to bring in MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe to talk about this, too.
Richard, great having you here.
RICHARD WOLFFE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Thanks, Cenk.
UYGUR: All right. Two of the guys that I have talked to the longest probably in my career.
All right. So, Richard, talk to us about the political implications here. I mean, the main selling point of Trump seems to be, I‘m a great businessman. If there‘s some problems with that, is there big problems in his credibility as a politician?
WOLFFE: Well, to any reasonable person, if you piece together Mike‘s interview with Savannah‘s interview the other day, you have someone who isn‘t prepared on policy and doesn‘t have much of a business record. But that‘s actually not what his main platform is here.
His main platform is to be outrageous and to speak to that part of the Republican Party that wants something more and more extreme. In short, they want more change and not less change.
And so the more outrageous he is, the more he gets attacked by respectable media organizations and great reporters like Mike Isikoff, the better it is for him, because this isn‘t about credibility. It‘s who can say the most impressive things that speak to this sense of hurt and rage that they have.
And Republicans have to ask themselves, do they want to be as the Democrats were in 2004? Do they want to date someone like Dean and marry someone like Kerry, or do they want to stick with someone like Dean? If they stick with someone like Dean, they‘re going to have Donald Trump being a front-runner not just a year out from the nomination, but maybe a few months out from the nomination.
UYGUR: But, you know, I know that the Republican voters sometimes aren‘t really deeply attached to facts. But here, the facts seem to be something that they would be bothered by.
For example, when you go to Trump‘s record, yesterday we did a whole segment on how incredibly liberal positions he had back in 1999 — nationalized health care, an enormous tax on the wealthy, et cetera. Now, on the bailouts, apparently he thought that TARP was worth a shot, that Henry Paulson should get an A, and that Ben Bernanke should get a B plus. And he thought the auto bailouts were swell. The government should stand behind them 100 percent, he said.
Now, Richard, the Tea Party can‘t be happy about that.
WOLFFE: Well, they are not. And of course we found in the last few weeks that Trump is willing to say anything, because, actually, the original position he had was the reasonable one.
It was President Bush‘s position. Paulson was obviously Bush‘s treasury secretary. And the policy worked.
But that‘s, of course, not what gets you the nomination now, not what gets you attention. And really, he has been propelled at this point, apart from the media interest, by going after the birth certificate, by being as outrageous as possible, questioning the authorship of “Dreams of My Father.”
You know, it doesn‘t really matter what the policy position is, whether he‘s consistent. It‘s does he speak to that rage out there that 15 percent, 20 percent of the Republican Party is into?
It‘s not the majority of the Republican Party, but in a multi-candidate field. That‘s what puts you as the front-runner.
UYGUR: And Michael, you know, we‘ve had a lot of polls on this now.
And Trump is doing rather well in most of them.
The latest one is a McClatchy one, and he‘s at third, at 13 percent, which isn‘t bad. He‘s been at the top of some of the polls.
What was your sense? I think the question everybody is asking, is this guy for real? Is this all a show to get more attention for the Trump name, or do you think there‘s a real chance he‘s going to run here?
ISIKOFF: You know, it‘s funny, because after this, as you can see, often contentious interview, Trump actually invited me up to his office, upstairs, one floor up, and wanted to talk politics. And started asking me about people like Ralph Reed, who he‘s interviewing to be a campaign manager, what did I think of him.
And I pointed out that he had previously worked for Pat Robertson in the Christian coalition. And he said, “Yes, but that would be good in Iowa.” You know, “That would be good in Iowa.” Tony Fabrizio, a pollster who he‘s been talking to.
So, I‘ve got to say, even though I know there‘s a lot of skepticism out there, and I think for good reason, I think he‘s taking this pretty far. And I think that‘s one reason you are seeing increasing nervousness on the part of Republican professionals like Karl Rove, which is why he came out with that comment that a Trump candidacy would be a joke. He doesn‘t want—the Karl Roves of the Republican Party don‘t want Donald Trump sucking up all the oxygen.
UYGUR: Michael, that‘s a really interesting insight, because it goes to show you, after the interview, he still wants to talk to you.
ISIKOFF: Yes.
UYGUR: He‘s an amazing guy. And he seems to be pretty serious, as you said. I mean, getting down to Tony Fabrizio means he‘s getting pretty serious.
ISIKOFF: Yes, he‘s getting into the weeds.
UYGUR: Richard, the final question for you, real quick, how thrilled is the White House about this development?
WOLFFE: Oh, this is second only to Sarah Palin.
By the way, Mike, make sure that he didn‘t ask you to raise a credit card limit as well when you go up to his office next time.
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFFE: But, you know, the White House would love to see this happen.
This is not how you win the middle ground in America.
It just polarizes the Republican Party as a whole, as a brand. Karl Rove knows that if he‘s going to raise the millions he needs for his outside spending groups, he needs more respectable candidates in there, more realistic prospects to win.
You know, he tried to do the same when it came down to Christine O‘Donnell, and that didn‘t work, either. Karl Rove is not going chase this out of the party. It looks to me that, again, given that choice the Democrats faced in 2004, they are going to go for the more extreme, less electable candidate, because it speaks to how they are feeling, at least, again, that 15 percent, 20 percent, which could be enough in this race.
UYGUR: All right.
NBC‘s national investigative corespondent, Michael Isikoff, with a great interview there, and MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe.
Thank you both.
WOLFFE: You bet.
ISIKOFF: Thank you.
UYGUR: All right.
Presidential hopefuls like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have a big problem when it comes to taxes. We‘re going to show you their hypocrisy on that issue, and that‘s good.
UYGUR: The GOP has a problem. Their party is pushing legislation that‘s just not popular. That would be a big, big problem in politics.
Their plan to effectively kill Medicare, well, it‘s a disaster. A newly released “Washington Post”/ABC News poll shows that 78 percent oppose cutting spending on Medicare in order to fix the debt. That is on top of many other polls that show the same exact thing. When are they going to realize that is unpopular?
As for the relentless push to keep tax cuts going for the wealthiest Americans, also not popular.
Just listen to Paul Ryan‘s constituents booing his plan at a town hall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During this time of prosperity, the top one percent was talking about 10 percent of the total annual income, but yet today we are righting to not let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire?
REP. PAUL RYAN ®, WISCONSIN: We do tax the top.
(BOOING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Look, the guy who asked that question described himself as a lifelong conservative, but he‘s had it. He‘s unequal.
When he said, “We do tax the top,” that‘s a lie. He brings down the taxes from the top from 35 percent to 25 percent. That‘s why they booed him, because they know it‘s not true.
And just look at this poll. Nationwide, 72 percent support raising taxes on those making over $250,000 a year. That proposal has the majority support of Democrats, Independents and Republicans. Look at the number—
54 percent of Republicans saying enough is enough, raise taxes on people making over $250,000.
But despite all this, the 2012 GOP contenders are still denouncing Democrats as depraved tax-hikers. Now, let alone how unpopular that position is, they‘re also not telling the truth about their own record on the issue.
So let‘s take a look at the tax history of the top two Republicans that are likely to enter the presidential race.
First, Mitt Romney.
In this 2007 GOP presidential debate, Romney said that while Democrats wanted to raise taxes while he was Massachusetts governor, he put his foot down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY ®, FMR. MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR: The Democrats—you probably know that Massachusetts is a bit of a Democratic state. The Democrats wanted to raise taxes. I said no way. And, in fact, we did not raise taxes on our citizens, and we lowered them across our state time and again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: No way. Really? Well, then how do you explain this?
Andrew Romano of “The Daily Beast” reports that Romney raised a grand total of $432 million in fee hikes on things like marriage licenses, drivers license renewals, gun permits—oh my God—community college tuition, and even bottle deposits. And he raised more than $309 million annually by closing corporate tax loopholes.
Now, look, I like that policy, and it might have been necessary. But it was definitely tax increases.
Now, how about Mike Huckabee? During the former Arkansas governor‘s last presidential bid, he insisted that he cut taxes more than he raised them.
Just check out a portion of one of his campaign ads.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE HUCKABEE ®, FMR. ARKANSAS GOVERNOR (voice-over): A nation is confused when it forgets who it is. And I don‘t think your value as a human being is found in your checking account.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Yes, that‘s an interesting way to spin it, cut taxes over 90 times. Sure, he did. But did you know while governor, his tax increases outweighed the tax cuts by nearly $500 million.
In fact, he had a number of targeted tax increases including a three percent income tax surcharge on individuals and corporations, three separate hikes on the state‘s sales tax, and taxes on cigarettes, tobacco and related permits. In fact, he was so pro-tax, that once while he was governor he actually begged the legislature to pass tax measures so that he could help make up the state‘s budget shortfall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUCKABEE: There‘s a lot of support for a tax at the wholesale level for tobacco. And that‘s fine with me.
Now, some have suggested the retail level of tobacco. If that ends up being your preference, I will accept that.
Others have suggested a surcharge on the income tax. That‘s acceptable.
Yet others have suggested a hybrid that would collect some moneys from any one or a combination of those various ideas. And if that‘s the plan that the House and Senate agree on, then you will have nothing but my profound thanks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Interesting how much he liked all those different taxes. But funny that now he‘s not exactly offering up his profound thanks to President Obama for proposing to raise taxes on the rich. Funny how that works.
Joining me now is reporter for “The Washington Post” and MSNBC contributor Ezra Klein.
Ezra, two different things here. We‘ve got the Medicare issue and we‘ve got the tax issue.
First, on the Medicare issue, I think they might be done. This is what I mean by that—are they really going up against this buzz saw again?
Unless the Democrats hand them a huge gift and somehow miraculously agree with them, there‘s no way they are going to be able to pass this. And at some point they have to got to give up, don‘t they? The American people just do not want it.
EZRA KLEIN, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: That was not a good poll for Paul Ryan. So, deeper into the poll, they did a very specific question on Paul Ryan‘s budget.
They said, you know, would you approve of Medicare being turned into a voucher program where the government gives you a voucher or a check—so they were pretty careful with their language there—to purchase private insurance? Sixty-five percent said no, that would be a terrible idea.
Then they said to the people who said yes, and what if you know, as the CBO projected, that that plan would mean the private Medicare costs would grow more quickly than traditional Medicare costs? Now 84 percent said no, don‘t do it.
So they are in a bit of trouble. And what compounds the trouble for them is that the Republican Party is more dependent on the senior vote than they ever have been before. The seniors went for them 59 percent in 2010. They were the only age group that voted Republican in 2008.
So they‘re at a bit of cross-purposes here with their core constituency. They want to make very unpopular changes to Medicare, but they rely on the very voters who rely on Medicare most.
UYGUR: And Ezra, I remember during the health care debate, they kept pointing to the polls and saying you have got to do what the American people want. I want Barack Obama. Do want the American people want.
When we look at that poll you quoted, when asked about that specific plan that Ryan has, 84 percent are against it.
Why won‘t the Republicans listen to the American people?
KLEIN: Right. This poll is much, much worse than the Affordable Care Act is. And look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
We have a representative democracy, and Paul and legislators should be able to propose things and try to persuade the American people that they are correct. That said, though we will need, I think, Medicare controls and cuts and reforms going forward. There are a lot of those in the Affordable Care Act and there are more yet in the president‘s budget.
The problem with Ryan‘s plan is the violence (ph) of them. They end up making Medicare more expensive because private insurance is more pricey than Medicare for the same insurance. And then they shift all these costs on to seniors.
So, it‘s fine to say we need to control costs in Medicare. That‘s really not what they are doing.
To go to people and say we need to privatize and shift costs in Medicare, that‘s not balancing the budget. That‘s pursuing an ideological agenda about the entitlement state under the cover of deficit reduction.
UYGUR: I love to make predictions. So here‘s one. They are going to throw this Ryan guy under a bus.
At some point they‘re going to say, what, us? No. Medicare? No that was Paul Ryan. No, that guy‘s crazy.
OK? That‘s my sense of it. Those numbers are too damaging to ignore.
But let‘s go to the tax issue, right? Huckabee, raising taxes tremendously. Romney, doing likewise.
Here. I‘ll give you another one, Tim Pawlenty. I mean, the number of taxes that he‘s raised is through the roof — $200 million when it comes to cigarette tax increase; $109 million in corporate tax increase when he was governor of Minnesota, of course; $2.7 billion in property tax increase. I‘m getting tired of all these tax increases—marriage license, college tuition, parking tickets, et cetera, et cetera.
How did these guys with a straight face say, oh, we are against raising taxes?
KLEIN: Let‘s name a couple more. Ronald Reagan, a number of tax increases after his 1981 tax cuts. George H. W. Bush, a very large spending cut and tax increase bill to balance the budget.
This is what you do when you‘re in charge. And to their credit, a lot of these state Republican governors who are now thinking about running for president knew that.
The problem is the Republican Party has developed as a sort of rhetorical litmus test a completely unrealistic vision of how you do fiscal policy in this country or in any other. And anybody who has actually had to balance the budget before, all these guys are having to come out and say, well, scratch, scratch, maybe we didn‘t do so good.
And the other point on this is that when you can‘t ever say you raised taxes, what you do is you raise things that are unnoticed taxes. So, you brought up user fees earlier, and a lot of those are really regressive.
Cigarette taxes, liquor taxes, hospital bed taxes, park fees, all the DMV fees, all these things that the rich don‘t notice, so they don‘t become as big a problem in the political system, end up being very, very regressive. But they end up being a way to hide their tax increases and call them a user fee. It‘s not better for the economy and it‘s not better for anyone else, but it‘s become a rhetorical go-to for them.
UYGUR: And I don‘t think it‘s a coincidence. It hits the poor and the middle class more. I mean, that‘s a Republican‘s dream. They love that.
So, I don‘t think it‘s an accident that happened, but what I‘m amazed by is how brazen they are. They know they raised taxes and they come out in political ads and say, “I never raised taxes.”
It‘s unbelievable to me. but I guess I should get used to Washington a little bit more.
All right. Ezra, it‘s been a great conversation, as always.
Ezra Klein from “The Washington Post.”
Thanks for joining me tonight. I really appreciate it.
PRES. BARACK OBAMA (D), UNITED STATES: We will absolutely continue to hold BP and any other responsible parties accountable. We have an obligation to investigate what went wrong and to determine what reforms are needed so that we never have to experience a crisis like this again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: That was President Obama last June, promising to hold accountable anyone responsible for the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It was a year ago today that the explosion ripped through the Deep Water Horizon rigged killing 11 workers. Almost five million barrels of oil spewed into the gulf causing an environmental and economic crisis whose impact is still big felt. The scary thing is that it‘s hard to argue which much safer today, cannot report—explosion. Lawmakers have proposed more than 100 different bills to improve government oversight. But they haven‘t passed a single major piece of oil spill legislation. As of today, oil companies still are not required to update their spill response plans ahead of receiving new permits to drill.
And unbelievably, rigs still depend as a last line of defense to stop blow out on the well, on exactly the same faulty machine called the blow up preventer that failed in the BP disaster. Last month, a government commission report found that the blow up preventer didn‘t failed because it was broken, it failed because of a fundamental design flaw. A flaw that still haunts blow up preventers today. This week, the Obama administration said, he‘s going to introduce new rules to improve the safety of those devices. But that‘s down the road. For now, it‘s business as usual.
Still, in recent months, officials have approved 46 new shallow water wells and ten permits for deep water drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico. Projects just like the one in the gulf water disaster. That despite, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar statement this year, the systems that contain oil spills are still quote, “a work in progress.” In other words, they are not ready. Maybe this shouldn‘t be a surprise since the drill baby drill crowd was pushing for new permits even when oil was still gushing from the well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: We need to drill baby drill.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: We must continue to drill.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: If we lift the regulatory burdens and let people go and drill, we will end up with plentiful and cheap energy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
In the middle of the spill.
All right. With me now is Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts Ed Markey, he‘s the ranking democrat on the House Natural on Resources Committee. And a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He warned this week that because of the lack of safety improvements, a disasters oil spill could happen again. Congressman, talk to me about how did this happen? How did we go a year and we don‘t have any piece of legislation on this at all?
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Well, we passed the comprehensive safety bill in the House of Representatives when the Democrats controlled Congress last year, but the Republicans in the Senate killed it. Now, in 2011, as the Republicans control both the House and the Senate, no safety legislation has any chance of passing, even though the Blue Ribbon Independent Commission came back with a whole long list of things that should be put on the books to make drilling safer. Instead, they have revised history instead of revising the safety rules so that they can just say drill baby drill. And they have passed legislation now to open up drilling off of the California Coast, off of the East Coast of the United States, right up to Martha‘s vineyard and just kind of pretending that everything is safe and it‘s OK to go back on the water again and nothing really bad enough that would require a comprehensive review and change in safety regulations ever happened in the first place.
UYGUR: Congressman Markey, I have a theory as to why this might be happening. Let me show you some facts here. First, I want to show you the donations that BP has made to different Republicans and republican committees. They‘ve given to Speaker Boehner, Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, Ways and Means Chair Dave Camp, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton, National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee. Gee, I wonder if that had an effect. And I want to give you a sense of the overall problem here. The oil and gas industry, they have done $146 million in lobbying of the federal government and they spent $28 million to directly give to federal campaigns. Any chance that that‘s part of the problem?
MARKEY: Look, not just this year but every year, GOP does not stand for the Grand Old Party, it stands for the gas and oil party. They, in their budget, did not cut any of the tax breaks for the oil companies even though at $108 a barrel, they are poised to record some of the highest profits of all time. And they don‘t need those tax breaks anymore than a fish to swim or a bird to fly would need a subsidy. At the same time, in their budget, they slash the wind and solar and renewable energy budgets by 70 percent. And so, it‘s all part of a pattern where this rear-view mirrored you of how we should be generating energy in our country, not only wants to preserve itself from any new safety regulations that they have to comply with. But they aggressively go out to kill the alternatives that should be our future in the 21st century. So, the Republican Party adopts that agenda and legislatively, that is what they are trying to implement this year.
UYGUR: Well, Congressman Markey, it‘s funny you bring that up. Because BP was actually getting a subsidy on the Deep Water Horizon. It was a subsidy that gave them over $200,000 a day. Why in the world—they are not even an American company. Why are we giving them a subsidy for something that was so enormously profitable? And then when you turn to what can you do about protecting the American people, protecting the gulf, protecting the workers, well, apparently, the Republicans have three different bills out now. One is called putting the gulf back to work act, the other one is called restarting American offshore leasing now act. And the other once is reversing President Obama‘s offshore moratorium act. It appears that all three of these do not add actual protections, they take away protections. So, it look like we are going in the wrong direction.
MARKEY: Well, you know, this whole issue of what lessons we learned from the BP spill is something that is right at the heart of the energy agenda of the Republican Party. You know, right now, believe it or not, BP is arguing that instead of having to pay a $20 billion fine that they should only have to pay a $2.8 million fine. And they‘re saying they weren‘t negligent at all. And in fact, that‘s, we all know, why they hid the fact that it was not 1,000 barrels per day that were going on into the gulf, not 5,000 barrels per day, not 20,000 but 60,000 barrels a day. They were negligent right along the whole line. And what has happening here is that rather than making BP accountable, we are looking at ways of ultimately rewarding them.
And instead of trying to find alternative ways of generating electricity specially after Fukushima as well, the Republicans are out there, and believe it or not, in their budget that came out this year, they zeroed out the loan guarantees for the wind and solar industry even as they left them in for the nuclear industry and cut no tax breaks out that will going to the oil industry including BP.
UYGUR: Right.
MARKEY: So, that‘s the agenda. It‘s very clear what is going on. And that‘s why I think, once again, like Medicare, like Medicaid, they are stepping in it and the American public is going to fully understand what the real agenda of their party is.
UYGUR: Right. Well, of course. As Joe Biden literally apologized to BP when they‘re the once that caused the mess. So, we have seen this over and over again. Congressman Ed Markey, thank you for joining us tonight. We appreciate it.
MARKEY: Thank you for having me on.
UYGUR: All right. Now, I want to bring in Bob Cavnar. He‘s a 30 year veteran of the oil and gas industry. He‘s currently the CEO of Luca Technologies, which is in the natural gas industry. He‘s also the author of the book, “Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout.”
All right. Bob, of course the question everybody is asking is, given the year that‘s gone by, can it still happen just like it did before?
BOB CAVNAR, FORMER OIL INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE: You know, what‘s so sad, Cenk is that with this being the first anniversary of the blow-out, no one is remembering the 11 men who were killed on the rig that day. And no one is talking about the damage that‘s ongoing in the gulf now. That everyone on the republican side are pushing to go back to drilling. And really, no improvements have been made. The only changes to regulation and to safety that‘s happened so far are those that have related to training and third party certification of the same equipment that failed on the Deep Water Horizon. So, we are issuing drilling permits to drilling companies that have the same equipment that failed so badly a year ago today.
UYGUR: Well, you know, when Ken Salazar said, you know, it‘s a work in progress, I knew we were in a world of trouble. That‘s why I keep going back to that quote. That means they‘re not ready. So, are we still using the same blow-out preventers? And I‘m just amazed that the government says, yes, yes, yes, OK, just keep using the same thing that didn‘t work before.
CAVNAR: Yes.
UYGUR: How about is that?
CAVNAR: It‘s the same blow up preventer, Cenk. Same control system, same blow up preventer. Clearly, the—is going to be better because of the attention that‘s been put on these devices. But you can‘t deny the fact that there was a failure in this blow-out preventer. Now, the forensics report that was given to the Department of Interior had a lot of questions about it. It raised almost more questions than it answered. But we still don‘t know why that device failed, why it didn‘t close. There‘s a lot of speculation. But we are going back to work with that very same device, with the very same blanch—and the same set up as what failed before.
UYGUR: All right. And, you know, they did an oil spill commission and then they didn‘t do any of the things that they recommended. Even one of a former Republicans that were on the commission, former E.P.A. administrator for George H. W. Bush couldn‘t believe it. But now, they do have these three pieces of legislation that we just ask Congressman Markey about, that—has put together. Does that help or hurt the situation here?
CAVNAR: Well, it‘s just incredibly damaging. Instead of spending time working on increasing the budget for the BOEMRA (ph) which is the new agency that oversees offshore drilling and increasing safety regulation and raising standards for drilling, we are wasting time talking about going back to drilling, expanding into Virginia off the coast of California. And all of these areas that won‘t help gasoline prices at all in any form or fashion for ten or 15 years. And we‘re distracting ourselves from protecting the people who work out there and protecting the environment that we so damaged last year.
UYGUR: All right. Bob Cavnar. Thank you for your time tonight.
How can social security have a $2.5 trillion surplus and yet everybody just says that it’s a bunch of IOUs?
Here’s the answer. You paid into social security throughout your entire working life through the payroll tax. And for a long time we collected more payroll tax than we had to pay out in the form of benefits. So we have now accumulated a $2.5 trillion social security surplus. This is what we have now.
But this is what Congress and President Obama fail to tell you. Congress and the Presidents took all of this money out of our retirement fund and spent it on other items in the budget, like needless wars, tax cuts for the rich, oil subsidies to ExxonMobil, Chevron, and others, etc. But the government still owes you that money, as it owes China for all of the money the government borrowed from them.
Now the government would never suggest that we should not pay back China or anyone else that we borrowed money from because that would put in question the full faith and credit of the United States. The financial markets would flip out over that. So they never refer to that money as just a bunch of IOUs.
But when it comes to the money that the government borrowed from YOUR social security surplus that you paid into your whole life, they characterize that as just a bunch of IOUs.
Former Senator Alan Simpson on Obama’s Deficit Commission: “There is no surplus in there, it’s a bunch of IOUs. It’s two and a half trillion bucks of IOUs.”
Since they don’t want to pay you back what they owe you, politicians in Washington are saying that social security is in dire straits! But that’s is totally false! They just don’t want to pay back your social security surplus that they spent on other priorities, like tax breaks for the rich, oil subsidies to ExxonMobil, Chevron, et al, and all the needless wars making defense contractors wealthy.
Deficit Commission: the Gang of Six
But it’s not just Republicans who want to rob you of your social security retirement funds. Here’s Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois: “In 2037 social security falls off the cliff. There’s a 22% reduction in the payment of benefits, which is not something we cannot tolerate.”
So social security will pay 100% of your retirement benefits for another 26 years. And if they don’t fix it, it will then pay 78% of your retirement benefits.
How is that falling off a cliff? But that is Dick Durbin, a so-called liberal Democrat, playing the same exact rhetorical tricks as the Republicans! He’s part of the gang of six senators who are coming up with a proposal for deficit reduction, somewhere between Congressman Ryan’s plan and President Obama’s plan, which means that it’s already on massively conservative ground. And as part of that plan they will “reform” social security.
Now if reform means they raise the cap on who pays the payroll tax and of the upper income brackets have to continue paying the social security at higher levels of income, that makes sense because everybody chips in.
But if they raise the retirement age, that means they are coming to rob you.
They don’t want to pay you your full benefits: they will make you work longer, and not pay you the benefits that you would have gotten if you retired at the present retirement age. If they do this, you should be in open revolt!
Don’t let the Republicans and the Democrats do that to you. Don’t let anybody pull the wool over your eyes on that. The social security surplus is real, it’s money that you paid into a trust fund for your retirement, it’s money that you are owed. And under no circumstances should you let these Washington politicians take that from you.
CENK UYGUR, HOST: Good evening, everybody. I‘m Cenk Uygur.
Today, signs that the so-called birther movement is spinning out of control for the Republicans ahead of the 2012 presidential race. They love insinuating that the president was not born in the country without really owning that kooky conspiracy theory.
But now that Trump is using the issue overtly to ride to the top of the polls, leading conservatives are in a panic that the whole party is going to be seen as illegitimate, so they have now begun denouncing that kind of rhetoric. Drama!
And speaking of which, NBC News investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff sat down with Trump and grilled him about the birther issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, ENTREPRENEUR: And I hope that someday he can produce it, because I think he is toying with the American public. And I will tell you what—people don‘t like it.
I made a speech in front of thousands of people in Boca Raton, Florida, on Saturday, and they are very upset with the fact that if he actually has a birth certificate, he doesn‘t give it. And I hope he does have one.
You know, people say, oh, jeez, supposing he shows it. If it‘s a sealed record—and I had—my birth certificate was sealed, but when I told them it‘s OK to release it, I released it all over the world. It‘s my birth certificate, I don‘t care. Jamaica Hospital, Queens, New York.
Just so you understand, if he has a birth certificate, he should release it. But don‘t tell me about some long-form certificate of live birth because it‘s a much lower standard.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NBC NEWS INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: But do you believe Hawaiian officials are lying about this? Do you have any evidence they are lying?
TRUMP: Well, the governor of Hawaii said he was there when he was born. Now, do you really believe that the governor of Hawaii was there when he was born? I don‘t.
ISIKOFF: I‘m saying the state health director—
TRUMP: So I don‘t know what to tell you. The governor—excuse me.
ISIKOFF: — who personally inspected the files says—
TRUMP: I don‘t care. Then tell Obama to release it.
Look, they are private documents, just like mine is. Nobody can get my birth certificate.
ISIKOFF: Right.
TRUMP: But if I release it they get it. OK? I said release it.
Anybody can have it. Release it. Obama should do the same thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Oh, come on. When is he going to let this go? There were ads in the local papers at the time announcing his birth.
They really hatched that up over 40 years ago because they were sure that biracial kid was going to be president one day? I mean cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
And if you saw giant holes in Trump‘s answers, you‘re not alone. It turns to out more and more Republican leaders agree with you.
The latest development, a surprise veto from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on a birther bill requiring presidential candidates to prove that they are American citizens. As Brewer vetoed it, she even called the measure “a bridge too far.” And Brewer‘s far from the only right-winger now pushing back against the birther movement, some of whom say Trump is ridiculous for embracing it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARL ROVE, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: The idea that President Obama was not born in Hawaii, being—making that the centerpiece of his campaign, means that he is just, you know, now a joke candidate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think President Obama was born in the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you support a Donald Trump candidacy, especially with all of this birther talk?
REP. ERIC CANTOR ®, MAJORITY LEADER: No, I don‘t think he is really serious when we launch—see a campaign launched on the birther issue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY ®, FMR. MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR: I think the citizenship test has been passed. I believe the president was born in the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UYGUR: Look, these guys have figured out that the birther issue is a surefire loser in a general election. They know that Independents who swing national elections don‘t want to hear any kind of nonsense like this. But here is their dilemma. Many on the far right do want to hear it, which is why they like Trump. In the last year, 13 state legislatures have considered a variety of different birther measures, and a new poll finds that almost half of Iowa Republicans don‘t believe Barack Obama was born in the United States. Back in February, 51 percent of Republican primary voters nationwide said they didn‘t believe Obama was born in the country. So, when the Donald uses the birther issue as his trump card, he wins with the Republican voters and loses with the party leaders. And that‘s what‘s ripping apart the GOP right now.
Joining me now is MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan, and Bill Press, host of “The Bill Press show” on Sirius Radio.
It‘s good to have you guys back together.
BILL PRESS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Here we are. Hi, Pat.
PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: How are you?
PRESS: All right.
UYGUR: All right. We got the crew back together. All right. So—
PRESS: The boys.
UYGUR: That‘s right. Pat, let start with you.
BUCHANAN: Sure.
UYGUR: Is this the Republican Party‘s leadership going, oh, no, no, no, get away, run away as quickly as possible from this birther issue?
BUCHANAN: I don‘t think the Republican Party is a monolith at all. I tend to agree with what Mitt Romney said when he said, I believe Barack Obama was born in Honolulu. I believe the newspapers are probably dead-accurate on that. But at the same time, I do agree with Donald Trump when he said, “Why is Barack Obama toying with the American people?” Why doesn‘t he just produce this and end this controversy? I think it shows a real arrogance of power. And secondly, I will say this—why does not the White House press corps really push the press secretary and say, look, end this controversy, produce it, and get it over with?
PRESS: Well, I am a member of the White House press corps, Pat, and I‘ve got to tell you why we don‘t raise it at the press corps, because there are more important issues, like what‘s happening with the debt, what‘s happening with the deficit, what‘s happening in Libya, what‘s happening in Iraq, what‘s happening with jobs. This is a total non-issue. And Pat, in 2007, the president produced his birth certificate. The state of Hawaii, too. They did. They put it up online. That‘s what they do in Hawaii. End of story.
But Cenk is right, too. Do you really think, Pat, back in 1961, that some woman in Kenya who gave birth to a baby said, now, we have to plant a story somewhere—somewhere. Let‘s pick Honolulu and two newspapers, and put two notices in the newspaper because someday, this little kid who is an hour old is going to run for president of the United States and has to have some evidence that he was born in this country? Come on!
UYGUR: That‘s a good question, Pat. Do you believe it?
BUCHANAN: No, I said I think the guy was born in Honolulu, but I want to know why the press corps doesn‘t take one question to the press secretary and—
PRESS: We have, Pat. We have.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESS: We are not going to play your game.
BUCHANAN: Tell me, Bill, when you say to Jay Carney, “Jay, why doesn‘t the president just release the birth certificate, get this over it with?” It is an enormous distraction for the country. MSNBC is transfixed with it. They ought to focus on the issues you talked about—Libya and Iraq. So, please, Jay, ask the president to release his birth certificate for us.
PRESS: Well, I want to do you one better, Pat. If you actually Google, right, “Obama, birther,” and you look at it, then you will find that the person who asked the question in the press briefing room was me, Bill Press, about a year and a half ago, of Robert Gibbs. I didn‘t wait for Jay Carney. And Robert Gibbs laid it all out, Pat.
BUCHANAN: What did Gibbs say?
PRESS: And nobody else is going to go there because we‘re more serious than that.
UYGUR: Pat, but it seems to he me—Pat, you are falling into the same trap. I mean, you are talking about is it birth certificate, or a certificate of birth, when you know he was born in Honolulu. Everybody sane knows he was born in Honolulu. So why are you wasting your time on it and possibly costing yourself a general election?
BUCHANAN: Well, first, I‘m not running in the general election. Second, I‘m wasting my time because you invited me on here to talk about the birther issue.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
UYGUR: That‘s what I‘m asking you, Pat, is it a terrible idea for the Republicans to go down this road?
BUCHANAN: Hold it. Well, for heaven‘s sakes, Republicans taken care of themselves. Look, but here is what I‘m saying, is he did he issue the certificate of live birth. And behind that, clearly, the governor of Hawaii, or health officials, say, I‘ve seen the birth certificate, it‘s right there. And the president will not release it. All I‘m asking is why. I think you were born in Hawaii. Everybody does, Mr. President. Why don‘t you let us see it? It‘s a collector‘s item.
PRESS: He has released it. And this is the issue, Cenk. The issue is that there are too many Republicans like Pat who know it‘s not an issue, but who won‘t just dump on it and just—like Karl Rove has done. Karl Rove said this is a distraction, don‘t talk about it. There are too many who want to have it both ways.
UYGUR: But look, Bill—hold on for one second, Pat. Let me press on that. Is this a Frankenstein that they created and they were very happy with it? Like, insinuating, I don‘t know, this guy is kind of another (ph), et cetera? But now that it‘s real, they‘re like, oh my God, we‘re going to lose the general election, backpedal, backpedal, backpedal. So it‘s their fault, right?
PRESS: Well, the Supreme Court ahs refused three times to hear it. I think they created this, and now it‘s backfiring on them. And the problem is that Donald Trump won‘t shut up. You just saw that interview with Isikoff. He‘s not going to drop it, because look what it has done for him. He went from being a clown to being number one or number two in the polls.
BUCHANAN: But look, you know, let me just say, look, Cenk, the issue of the birthers, before the election I got e-mails on the stuff. And you get them—thanks—you read them and drop them off. I‘ve never raised it, I have never written a column on it, but I have been invited here hundreds of times to talk about the issue. Now, look, first, you‘ve got the birthers who love the issue. Then you‘ve got MSNBC loves the issue. And “The Donald” loves the issue. And everybody seems to be having a nice time.
UYGUR: No, no, because—I‘ll tell you why, Pat.
BUCHANAN: (INAUDIBLE) close to it by asking the president, please, Mr. President—
(CROSSTALK)
UYGUR: Pat, it‘s online already. They already saw it. All those crazy theories have been debunked. Oh, it didn‘t have the number. It does have the number. It‘s already online, Pat. So—
BUCHANAN: Send a copy to me.
UYGUR: Well, I can show you the Web address. But look, one thing. Hold on. Because Pat, here is the thing. The reason why it‘s an important issue is obviously, it is ripping your party apart, right? And it looks like there was basically a memo sent to all the Republicans saying, OK, run away from this. I mean, you‘ve got Rove, you‘ve got Pawlenty, you‘ve got Romney, you‘ve got Cantor. They‘re all saying it at the same time and they‘re throwing Trump under the bus. And that‘s what I‘m asking you about. Do you think the Republican leadership has said, OK, we‘ve got to run away from this thing?
BUCHANAN: All right. Now you‘re talking serious politics. OK? Now, I understand why Romney is saying what he is saying, and Pawlenty and the others. But let me tell you, you‘ve 74 percent if you add the people—half of the Iowa Republicans who say he wasn‘t born in the United States and the 26 percent say they don‘t know, that is three-fourths of the Iowa Republican voters. And if Donald Trump is appealing to them politically, then that is not necessarily foolish politics in the narrow short term for him to out there. And those guys—each of these candidates out there—I mean, Romney is taking a position for the general election, quite clearly. But I‘m telling you, you get 76 percent of the voters out there, or 74 percent, I‘d go out there. And you know what I‘d say? I believe he was born in Hawaii, but I agree with you folks, we ought to see the birth certificate. And then I would move on to my issues.
PRESS: See, that—
BUCHANAN: And I think I‘d do very well, as I did last time.
(LAUGHTER)
PRESS: Pat, you know what your guy once said famously, “There you go again,” Pat. But you know, Cenk, here is the problem, right? At some point, the party has got to decide, are they going to appeal to the fringe—
BUCHANAN: Party?
PRESS: — which—wait, Pat. Wait. I listened to you—in these Tea Party caucuses in Iowa, or do they want to win an election in 2012? They are not going to win on this issue, and they‘ve got to get away from it. And now it has gotten so ridiculous that the statesman person in the party is Jan Brewer, who rose to the occasion last night and vetoed this bill. But in Arizona, they said, well, if you don‘t have a birth certificate, you can give us your certificate of circumcision. I have read the Constitution. I don‘t see where in the Constitution –
–
UYGUR: All right. Pat, last word. Last word.
BUCHANAN: Let me just make one more point here. Look, Bill talks about the Republican Party as though it‘s a monolith or an elite. The Republican Party is going to put down the directive that nobody can talk about this or that.
PRESS: They better.
BUCHANAN: We don‘t want that. We want a robust debate. Frankly, I‘d love Ron Paul in there with his views on foreign policy. I‘d love to see Sarah Palin with her views on right to life and social conservative. I‘ve got no problem with Donald Trump, if he wants to raise that issue or any issue. Let the voters decide, for heaven‘s sake, instead of the party, here‘s what you must do. And Karl Rove telling us the positions we must take, I don‘t care what it is.
UYGUR: Well, all right. Pat‘s very clear on the record. You coming back in, Pat?
BUCHANAN: I‘m thinking of it.
(LAUGHTER)
UYGUR: All right. OK.
PRESS: I want to see your birth certificate. Right now.
BUCHANAN: I‘ve got it, Providence Hospital, Bill.
UYGUR: All right.
MSNBC political analyst and possible future candidate, Pat Buchanan.
PRESS: Heard it here first.
UYGUR: That‘s right. And Bill Press. Thank you both, guys.
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72% of all Americans are for taxing the rich to reduce our federal deficit. According to a Washington Post – ABC News Poll conducted from April 14 through April 17, 2011, with a 3.5% margin of error, 91% of the Democratic voters, 68% of Independent voters and even 54% of Republican voters favor taxing the rich. Doesn’t this constitute a majority? Shouldn’t our Congresspeople vote accordingly? 
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