THE ED SHOW
November 13, 2013
Guest: Joan Walsh, Zerlina Maxwell, Lizz Winstead, George Miller, Bernard
Sanders
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAMUEL JACKSON: I have had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on
this Monday to Friday plane.
REP. DARREL ISSA (R-CA), HOUSE OVERSIGHT CMTE CHAIRMAN: But those
people were being instructed by people at the White House.
NORTON: Nobody, for one second, believes how that group of (ph)
Darrell Issa who wants to fix anything.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why it had to be snakes?
ISSA: Don`t answer yet.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D) MARYLAND: Nobody in this room, nobody in
this country believes that Republicans want to fix the website.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s protected by a micron a (ph) .
ISSA: Could you please wrap up?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the American people do no want to see a
kangaroo court here.
ISSA: Kangaroo court`s.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: . by using.
ISSA: . is quite an accusation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why he just wanted ask you a question?
ISSA: I hope the gentleman from Tennessee, when he uses the term
kangaroo court in the future will think better of making an accusation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Protected by a micron.
ISSA: This is a pattern that has to stop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ED SCHULTZ, MSNBC HOST: Good to have you with us tonight folks.
Thanks for watching.
You know, I learned a long time ago in this business that if you`re
going to have any kind of longevity at all, you got to have two things.
You got to have a great wife and you got to have a loyal dog because if
you`re in this business long enough, you`re going to say things about
people at the end of the day. Those are the only people that are going to
be left that love you.
So tonight, I`m probably going to sever a few ties with some Democrats
but, I think it has to be said.
Now, would you agree that we are in a PR war when it comes to health
care in this country? Can we agree on that? I think we can. Can we agree
that the lies and misinformation by the conservative media, I mean, it is
paramount, it is front and center. It is infiltrating the Democratic
talking points, case in point, former President Bill Clinton, who I happen
to like.
So President Clinton gives an interview and says that the government
should honor the commitment that they made, that if you like your
insurance, you should be able to keep it. Well, it`s nice to know that
President Clinton is out there fending and going after and taking care of
the junk insurance industry.
ObamaCare is about making the market better, getting rid of junk
insurance. There are a lot of Americans in the private market that don`t
have very good insurance and it doesn`t cover very much. And when they get
sick, the cost goes up for all of us. This is about reform. It`s not
about appeasing people when they get upset, when they get a cancellation
notice in the mail saying you got lousy insurance. It doesn`t meet the
standards, go to the federal market.
Do we need like a health care summit so we can get all the good guys
around the table to figure out what the hell to say to the cameras?
President Clinton dropped me an e-mail. Tell me what good that interview
did when you said that there are three things wrong with ObamaCare?
There are people out there who are sitting on every word wondering,
"Who do I believe? Do I believe in the lies and misinformation? Whoa, is
Ed lying to me? Or what`s going on? Is there really a junk insurance
industry out there?" Absolutely, there is.
And the whole point of this is that American consumers have had lousy
insurance policies but now, we`ve got President Clinton. Things are so
mixed up. He`s out there saying, "Well, you know what, if we told people
that they could keep their insurance that`s way it ought to be.
President Obama said that because if there were a lot of people in
this country who are on the fear fence, worried about what`s going to
happen to them. Are we going to lose our insurance? Yes, if it`s lousy
you are. Just say it. Instead, we`re mopping it up and now they`re
throwing up some possible legislation that might fix this.
You know what will fix this? People go to the website, be patient,
sign up, and get after it and get covered. Well, so and probably we`ll be
talking to him any time soon.
We begin tonight with, I guess, with all breaking news. Now, don`t
throw up at the dinner table on this one. The Department of Health and
Human Services has released the ObamaCare enrollment numbers. Holy smokes,
we`re 100 percent higher than yesterday? What? 106,185 people have
enrolled in the private health care plans through ObamaCare. How about
that? And that`s just for October. But here`s the kicker.
Nearly a million people have been approved for a private plan under
ObamaCare. They`re still shopping. They haven`t chose and it`s the
shopping season. They haven`t chose to the final plan.
This is the way the law was designed to work. To give you options.
The one who`s holding a gun to your head that you have to do it in the next
six hours. Then of course, we have this guy. Darrell Issa, the wealthiest
man in the Congress. Issa isn`t going to like the last number we just
brought up. He`s a mean son of a gun and he has a questionable past.
Check it out of yourself.
Issa is the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee but he`s really
the toxic leader of manufactured crisis in Washington DC. The guy`s a
joke. He has wasted an enormous amount of tax payer time and money
investigating bogus scandals.
Well, let`s see. There`s Benghazi. There is the IRS Scandal.
There`s Fast and Furious. You know what came of those hearings? Nothing.
Absolutely nothing. The list of fake scandals from Issa, is an attempt to
do what? Tear down the President of the United States, get the impeachment
talk going in the House.
Earlier today, I say hell to another one of his dog and pony show
hearings. His questionable hearing today was on the tech problems with
ObamaCare. It was an attempt to take away your health care as what it is.
And I think it`s ironic that the richest member of Congress wants to take
health care away from the poor in this country. We learned a couple of
things from this hearing today. First of all, HealthCare.gov is working
better everyday. I know that`s positive news and I hate to bring it to you
tonight but it really is working better everyday.
Second, Darrell Issa cherry picks Fox, cherry picks them and will
smear the reputations of good Americans to get his way. And third of
course, Darrell Issa has absolutely no respect for his Democratic
colleagues. It all started last week when Issa accused ObamaCare`s chief
technology officer Todd Park of misleading Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DARREL ISSA (R-CA), HOUSE OVERSIGHT CMTE CHAIRMAN: Jay Carney is
paid to say things that aren`t so. But in this case, Todd Park and other
people who knew the facts, who had to know the facts and the facts were
from documents we received from lead contractors that they slow down to an
acceptable level at 1100 users, well, in fact, Todd Park was telling us
that it`s 60,000 was the target we`re going to have Todd Park said a number
of other political appointees who are part of this pattern of interference
and false statements related to this site and we`re going to try to get to
the bottom of why politics went ahead of best practices.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Well, Issa has to have been a colleague of Obama
Administration officials paid liars. This has the ranking member of the
Oversight Committee Elijah Cummings furious. He started by correcting the
record in the hearing today and Issa wasn`t happy about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D) MARYLAND: The reputation in so many
procedure unfortunately, however, last week (inaudible) appeared on Fox
News and accused you another political pointing is of engaging in a
"pattern of interference and false statements related to this site."
That`s a serious attack against your integrity. I don`t want to get into
anyone`s intent or motives here. But I do want to give you an opportunity
to respond directly.
TODD PARK, U.S. CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER: It was the case absolutely
that volume was a key issue that hit the site. It`s still an issue for the
site. There are other key issues that have to be addressed with the site
in terms of its performance, in terms of its stability, in terms of its
functionality, and there are aggressive efforts happening to do that which
are making great progress as it`s getting better and better each week.
CUMMINGS: Let me ask you this way, did you engaged in a "pattern of
interference in false statements?"
PARK: No, I didn`t. I did it with my best understanding at that time
and I`ll continue to do that. As eventually it gets better, I will relay
that absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Mr. Park doesn`t sound like a paid liar to me. Thankfully,
Congressman Cummings set the record straight today. Meanwhile, Darrel Issa
had a number of hidden exchanges during the hearing today. He had no
problem cutting Democratic members their time short.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUMMINGS: But I understand that the .
ISSA: The gentleman`s time has expired. Please terminate.
CUMMINGS: Just asking for the same amount of time here.
ISSA: I let you ask the last question after your time had expired,
with that, and it was completed. We now go to the gentleman from Florida
for five minutes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, I know.
CUMMINGS: Mr. Chairman can we just.
ISSA: I think it was about four minutes that you exceeded your time
by that. Is there .
CUMMINGS: I went to one question after the end which was to Mr. Chow
(ph) which I gave my (inaudible)
ISSA: Four minutes.
CUMMINGS: You know.
ISSA: So, I`m merely asking is it critical or whether it not be
(inaudible)
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That gentleman is recognized.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But you`re not going to run a fair hearing here
and you`re just going to club (ph) and do this all the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: No, he`s not going to run a fair hearing. Congressman Issa
has never run a fair hearing in his life. Ranking member Cummings didn`t
appreciate some comments Darrel Issa made about his staff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUMMINGS: Let me be clear that we have staff who work just as hard as
yours. It`s not about self-serving, it`s about giving the truth. And I
would not insult your staff and .
ISSA: I wasn`t insulting your staff.
CUMMINGS: Well, I take it as an insult.
ISSA: What I said was .
CUMMINGS: It`s not about self-serving. It`s not about
rehabilitating. It`s about trying to get to the truth. Period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Today`s hearing was typical Darrell Issa. There he was
grand standing misinformation and disrespect towards Democratic members of
Congress who care about consumers. One thing we did learn, HealthCare.gov
is growing stronger day by day.
Meanwhile, all of this negative press of ObamaCare is starting to
reach the President. A new poll shows President Obama`s approval rating at
a record low of 39 percent. It has a lot to do with the corporate media
lapdogs out there, like Fox News and all they`re talking points that are
now infiltrating the Democrats because they`re getting a little shaky in
the knees on confidence.
We told you about the bogus reporting on junk insurance. Now, we have
another example. Right after their botch reporting on Benghazi CBS News,
they got another dandy problem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tonight we have learned that the project manager
in charge of building the federal health care website was apparently kept
in the dark about serious failures in the website security. Those failures
could lead to identity theft among people buying insurance.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Identity theft. Now, if you want to scare the living hell
out of the public that`s all you got to do is say that on TV. But you know
what, that`s only half of the story.
Their report on security risks was based on a partial transcript from
none other than Congressman Darrell Issa, CBS News failed to mention
security risks relate to a part of the website that will be activated until
spring of 2014. Plenty of time to fix the problem if there are any
security concerns.
I think yesterday on this program that I think the mainstream media
wants ObamaCare to fail. I feel stronger about it today.
This is a cultural war at this point we have to find our moral compass
if we are going to succeed. They are gathering every morsel of information
in using it against ObamaCare that will definitely save lives. Why?
Because of corporate interests more to come.
Get your cellphones out. I want to know what you think. Tonight`s
question, does Darrell Issa want to hurt President Obama or help Americans?
Text A for Hurt President Obama, text B for Help Americans to 67622. You
can always go to our blog at ed.msnhbc.com. We`ll you the results later on
the show.
For more on this let me turn to my friends from the Washington Bureau
Chief, Mother Jones.com and MSNBC political analyst David Corn. David good
to have you with us tonight.
What`s your reaction to CBS using a partial transcript from Issa on
their report?
DAVID CORN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, the interesting thing
Ed is this is not the first time. Not talking so much about CBS but their
eyes that has a long history now on Benghazi, on IRS scandal and on
ObamaCare oversight hearings are releasing partial information blowing it
up and trying to find a scale somewhere and often it gets caught out
sometimes by Elijah Cummings and the Democrats for this takes root.
But in this instance CBS fell for it hook lines sinker (ph) in the
same they felt for that phony report on Benghazi. It`s really time, it`s
really time for there would be some sort of independent review of what`s
going on at CBS. And I hate to say this because I like a lot of reports at
CBS and 60 Minutes has done great things over the years. But they really
pulled up some real boneheaded mistakes recently and you got to ask
yourself, why.
SCHULTZ: Do you think the mainstream media is grabbing for negative
material on ObamaCare?
CORN: I don`t think they do it from a political agenda. I think they
like a fight. They like drama and I think one of the problems we`ve had in
Washington over the past couple of years is that they like to see
everything on balance, you know, they make it all symmetrical.
So, if Republicans come out and start attacking ObamaCare or raising
Benghazi or the IRS scandal, they like the heat. And so, they don`t see as
their job to douse (ph) scandals if they maybe phony scandals. It`s just
like take the drama and keep selling it and make a good story.
SCHULTZ: So, the conservatives know the culture of the media and
they`re gaming the media as best they possible can.
CORN: Darrell Issa is the best gamer. He`s released time and again
as you know postural transcripts and all this terrible, you know, would be
scandals.
You know, I`m reminded about -- there is a great line in movie social
network about Facebook in which the Mark Zuckerberg character says to some
of the guys if you invented Facebook you would have had invented Facebook.
I feel like what Darrell Issa, if these are scandals they would be
scandals. We know, you have the information and a lot of these are
incredibly important issues. But the IRS does, what happened in Benghazi,
what`s happened to ObamaCare and they all deserve oversight. But oversight
is not the same as scandalmongery.
SCHULTZ: Let`s talk about Bill Clinton. What do you make of his
interview pointing out some negative things about ObamaCare which he was
wrong on.
CORN: Yeah.
SCHULTZ: He was simply wrong on. He says that they have to go back
in making adjustment if people don`t like their -- if they like their
insurance they can keep it. The fact is the insurance industry has
delivered junk policies to a lot of consumers and that has brought a custom
of the health care coverage in this country up. What`s President Clinton
up to?
CORN: You know, I don`t know what he was thinking when he do that. I
don`t think he`s doing anything deliberately to help the Republicans and
hurt Obama.
But I do know this. If Hillary is going to run for president I make no
assumptions here. She needs ObamaCare to succeed.
SCHULTZ: OK.
CORN: If ObamaCare doesn`t thrive then the question would be, "Hey,
what would you do about health care?" And then, you know what? It`s back
from a time machine to the early `90s, `93 when Bill Clinton and Hillary
Clinton really screwed up health care reform. They didn`t get to pass,
they made it hard for anybody to deal with it for two decades. She doesn`t
want to revisit that past. She would like to have health care off the
table as a political issue.
So Bill Clinton better figure out if he is a secretary of explaining
stuff, what stuff it is his explaining?
SCHULTZ: Well, he cuts right to the heart of the law by saying that
if you like your insurance, you can keep it. That`s not what it`s about.
What it`s about is raising the standards and making sure that the industry
is going to be fair to consumers.
CORN: Right.
SCHULTZ: How can -- Are the Democrats have a hard time talking about
this?
CORN: Well, I think they get kind of nervous, they see the website
not working.
SCHULTZ: There are nervous about savings lives, they ought to be .
CORN: They`re nervous politically of members of the Senate, and
others talking about legislation too to put off some of the, you know, the
time deadlines and so on.
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
CORN: And so, they, you know, they see Obama`s number is dropping and
they start working well, I`m not running, they`re not running to the Hill
yet, but they`re looking for the Hill.
SCHULTZ: Yeah, it`s not about President Obama`s number because he`s
not running for reelection. This has to go through, all Democrats have to
support this because number one, it`s good, there`s a lot of misinformation
that`s out there. Consumers are finding out that this is going to be a
better world for them, it`s going to bring down cost.
CORN: Yeah.
SCHULTZ: But the misinformation campaign seems to be infiltrating
some of the most prominent Democrats.
CORN: But there`s also a bigger issue here. Republicans have
basically taken all their chips and they bet on the failure of ObamaCare.
SCHULTZ: No question about it.
CORN: Not just because they don`t like ObamaCare.
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
CORN: This is about whether the government can do anything, and their
all line is the government can`t help your problems, if ObamaCare works,
there`s no raising (inaudible) for the Republican Party.
SCHULTZ: David Corn, Mother Jones good to have you with us.
Coming up, the food stamp cuts Republicans want will leave veterans
very hungry. And more on Bill Clinton`s off the wall comment about
ObamaCare. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHULTZ: Time now for the Trenders, social media this is where you
can find us, facebook.com/edshow, twitter.com/edshow, and ed.msnbc.com. On
the radio, noon to 3:00 Monday through Friday SiriusXM, Channel 127. And
tomorrow we make our announcement about the Ed Tour 2014.
Ed social media nation has spoken and decided and we are reporting,
here are today`s top Trenders voted on by you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don`t be jealous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The number three Trender, reaching new heights.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chicago`s Willis Tower is stripped off its title
as the tallest building in North America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The new World Trade Center.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 12 years in the making, 104 stories of steel,
glass, and hope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was officially named tallest in the nation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has tower envy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The experts decided the building`s (inaudible)
aims an integral part of its aesthetic design.
MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL, (D) CHICAGO: If it looks like an antenna, acts
like an antenna. Then guess what it is an antenna.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The number two Trender, just nuts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Time to make the doughnuts.
SEN. RAND PAUL, (R) KENTUCKY: They`re coming up to your doughnuts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The federal government plans to face out trans-
fats from the food we eat.
PAUL: Did you hear that coming out to the trans-fat your doughnuts.
MARGARET HAMBURG, DOCTOR: It`s artificial trans-fat represents a
serious threat to health.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rand Paul is in sweet on the FDA`s trans-fat band.
PAUL: Somebody might someday say we`re going to band the Big Gulp.
How would that be?
We`re going to have an anti-state and everybody`s got to eat the right
thing and you can`t eat the doughnut. Maybe we ought to just enforce on
the government workers first.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Forbidden doughnut.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And today`s top Trender, food fight.
SCHULTZ: Republicans don`t want you to pay attention to the real
scandal, because it is a scandal that they created.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The government is talking about deeper cuts to
the SNAP program that means less money in food stamps.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republicans wrap themselves in the flag.
SARAH PALIN, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: We are here to honor our debt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republican National Committee has put aside
enough money to keep the World War II Memorial open for veterans.
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: Out veterans should be above politics.
SCHULTZ: But are leaving veterans out in the cold.
If Republicans had their way in fact they would go so far as to slash
another $40 billion out of the food stamp program.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 900,000 veterans rely on food stamp. They were
getting $200 a month.
SCHULTZ: Republicans are the ones shoving folks over the edge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were there for them, I can`t say if they`re
there for us.
SCHULTZ: Grab that number folks 900,000 veterans depend on food
stamps. I`m joined tonight be Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Chairman
of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
Senator great to have with us. How do you honor veterans by taking
away their food stamps? I need to figure that one out.
BERNIE SANDERS, VERMONT CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE VETERANS AFFAIRS
COMMITTEE: Boy, you`re going to have to spend the long time Ed trying to
figure it out.
It is an absolute outrage of the average veteran is not a wealthy
person. The average veteran is elderly. And the average veteran is
struggling. The reality is that 76 percent of the people who receive food
stamps are either elderly, it`s they`re either disabled of they`re in
families where there are low-income kids.
And to cut those programs is to simply make people in this country go
hungry. And I got to tell you, Ed these are the same folks who are cutting
food stamps for kids and for veterans who want to give huge tax breaks to
billionaires and large corporations. That is not what the American people
want.
SCHULTZ: Senator on one hand they wrap themselves in the flag saying
that they support the vets. They don`t want to make it a political issue
but then again they`re willing to go ahead and cut the life line, $200
bucks a month to a vet who is down on his or her luck, having a hard time
getting back into the economy.
I mean what do you say of these Republicans?
SANDERS: Well, what I say to them is they have got to listen to what
the American people want. And what the American want, Ed is not to cut,
make the stress to cuts and the food stamp program, not to hurt our
veterans, not to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, education, the
WHIP program.
What the Republicans are trying to do is balance the budget on the box
of the most vulnerable people in this country and meanwhile at the same
time, they`re working as hard as they can to provide huge tax breaks or
maintain huge tax breaks for large corporations one out of four cooperation
to this country does not pay a nickel in federal taxes.
SCHULTZ: Those are the numbers. And finally Senator, are there any
Republicans that are against this?
SANDERS: We will see. I would hope that the American people can talk
sense to them and to make it clear, that we have got to create jobs in this
country. We need a fair budget and we cannot continue at a time when
poverty and more people living in poverty today than any time in the
history of this country. You can`t keep beating down on people who are
already hurting, that`s veterans, that`s the kids, that`s the elderly.
SCHULTZ: Senator Bernie Sanders with us tonight. Thanks so much for
joining us. I don`t know how the Republicans can say that they are
supporting the vets and do something like this.
Coming up, President Clinton is inserting himself under the biggest
political story out there. This time, I think he should step aside. Plus,
members of the House are coming together to stall the momentum of a trade
agreement that is bad for America and American workers. But I`m taking
your questions next, Ask Ed Live coming up on the Ed Show on MSNBC. Stay
with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Welcome back to the ED Show. Love this segment, love your
questions and thanks for your all questions. We love here from our
viewers. And our Ask Ed Live segment tonight. Our first question comes
from Bern O`Malley. How can we get our politicians out of the pockets of
the lobbyists?
Well, it didn`t going to happen any time soon. And the only way it`s
going to happen as I see it is if the liberals, the real liberals we`re to
take over the House, the Senate and the White House. And make a pledge to
the American people that they`re going to go with public financing of
campaigns. I don`t know how else you would ever get the lobbyists out of
the way.
Next question comes up from Effriam Tyson (ph). He wants to know will
former President Clinton`s suggestions on the Affordable Care Act hurt
Hillary with Obama voters?
I don`t think so. But I think there`s a very interesting dynamic
playing out right here. I don`t understand why President Clinton would
pick a negative and throw it out there. Or say that adjustments have to be
made when it`s all about standards and making the bill better.
Is he giving Hilary Clinton a little wiggle room if ObamaCare were to
fail? Maybe, so. But I do think that there is such a big split in this
country politically and there`s a lot of liberals. There`s a lot of
aggressives, there`s a lot of senators who are thinking we can have those
nut jobs in. They`re going to vote for Hilary, that`s the way I would call
it,, that`s way it`s pulling right now.
So, I don`t think that President Clinton comments on the Affordable
Care Act would Hilary in any way.
Stick around more on Clinton`s comments when we come back with the
Rapid Response Panel.
SEEMA MODY, CNBC MARKET WRAP CORRESPONDENT: I`m Seema Mody with your
CNBC Market Wrap. The DOW and S and P 500 vote take record high, the DOW
jumping 70 points, the S and P 514, and the NASDAQ added 45.
Stocks were driven Macy`s update third quarter earnings the top
expectation. Macy`s reported a 31 percent jump in earnings or share from a
year ago.
And the number of mortgage applications dropped last week, down 1.8
percent Volkswagen will unveil its new electric car in Los Angeles next
week. The e-Golf has a battery recharge good for 70 to 90 miles.
That`s it from CNBC. First in business worldwide.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHULTZ: Welcome back to the Ed Show. Words matter, right? Words
matter.
No one can question the effort former President Bill Clinton made to
reelect President Obama. I mean Clinton did some heavy lift on the
campaign trail. Time and time again, the focal point was ObamaCare.
Clinton fought to keep the principles our President stood for firmly in
place. Couldn`t have been better down the campaign trail every American
needs access to health care and that`s what the election was about in many
respects.
Well, in the midst of a fever-pitched battle to implement ObamaCare,
President Clinton, I think went off the rails and defended the junk
insurance industry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: I personally believe even if it takes to changing the law,
the President should honor the commitment the federal government made in
those people they`re going to keep what they got.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: The commitment the President made that the federal
government was going to allow you to keep your insurance if you like it. I
don`t recall President Obama making a commitment. He made a passing
comment that if you like your insurance, you can keep it.
Well, guess what? The devils in the details just like mission
accomplished on the aircraft carrier, sometimes people kind of screw up
just a little bit, you know what I mean? Bottom line here is as if we are
in a dog fight, a cultural fight to make sure that health care succeeds in
this country. Any word, any morsel information is going to be turned about
the conservatives.
So here is former President Bill Clinton now gathering a new
fraternity brother. Listen to Dick Cheney.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: On the time they agree with Bill
Clinton that something that ought to be attempted but given the complexity
of the system you`ve already got people now lost their policies and can`t
get new ones.
These policies have been declared by law to be inadequate because of
the standards that are written in the federal regulations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Did he say, lost their policies and can`t get new ones.
Another Cheney lie. Simply not the case.
Here`s the bottom line. These two gentlemen right here have something
in common. They had bad hearts, they had the best doctors in the world,
they got reworked, and now they`re experts on junk insurance. Now they`re
out defending the very policies that would have never covered them. What
the hell is going on here?
Mr. President, step aside on this one. Let President Obama do the
heavy lifting on this. It`s ObamaCare for a reason, it`s not ClintonCare.
You made a big mistake there saying this. We need to move forward with
this law. We need to get rid of the junk insurance industry and ObamaCare
does that with standards, I find it hard to believe that former President
Bill Clinton doesn`t understand standards when it comes to this new law.
We`ll just choke it up this kind of lousy interview and leave at that.
I`m joined tonight on a Rapid Response panel by Author Lizz Winstead,
the Grio Contributor, Zerlina Maxwell with us tonight, and Joan Walsh of
salon.com.
Joan, put this together for us. What was the mission here by Bill
Clinton, was this just a misstep? What do you make on those?
JOAN WALSH, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, I really do think if
it`s a misstep and, you know, when you got Dick Cheney agreeing with you
politically, Ed that`s all an occasion for Democrats to do some soul
searching because you just have to be wrong.
And I think President Clinton is wrong is this case. There are
certainly true stories, there really are true stories of people who`ve lost
policies that they want. I don`t know how many of them there are but the
kinds of fix is it, what President Clinton did is only dangerous in the
context of particularly red state Democrats panicking, and you even have
somebody like Jeff Merkley joining the clamor to do something about this.
No one has shown how you do something about the truly unfortunate
cases without upending the entire insurance full. So I think it this might
be another where the former president winds up coming up and clarifying
some of what he said.
SCHULTZ: I spoke with Senator Merkley today and he explained to me
that he things that if they were to pass something that would allow people
to keep the "insurance" that they would find out how bad it is and they
would eventually end up in the exchange.
I have to disagree with that. The private insurance industry makes up
only 5 percent of the American people anyway. So why not just get done
with it and put standards on the industry that they have to live with and
place forward, Zerlina that seems like that the Democrats are stumbling on
the way they want to communicate this.
ZERLINA MAXWELL, POLITICAL ANALYST: I think that they really are
stumbling and I hope that President Clinton clarifies and this isn`t some
sort of 2016 triangulation trying to distance himself from bad ObamaCare
news, I really hope that`s not the case because I think that, you know, one
of the things that he said and one other things that President Obama said
last week in his interview with Chuck Todd was that the system is going to
have to change. People are not, I mean he was -- he`s streamlining the
words that the he used saying, "Oh, if you want your plan you keep it," but
that is not necessarily true because there are changes that needed to
happen and that`s what we`re seeing here.
SCHULTZ: I just wonder if Dick Cheney thinks that every American
should have the kind of health care coverage he`s have. Lizz.
LIZZ WINSTEAD, AUTHOR: Well, you know, the problem with this junk
health care plans is that if you`re even lucky enough to get anything
closer what Dick Cheney surgery is, you`re going to get Dick Cheney`s
crappy old heart and, you know what? This is the kind of things they`re
offering and so to defend that is really, really foolish but -- go ahead.
SCHULTZ: Well, the thing is that they say that well you`re going to,
you know, get cancellation notice, you`re going to lose insurance. What do
you think that insurance companies haven`t been cancelling any insurance
policies up to now?
WINSTEAD: Right.
WALSH: Right.
SCHULTZ: You get sick, you get cut off.
MAXWELL: Like recession. That was something that happened before
ObamaCare. It`s almost like before (inaudible) before ObamaCare, you could
get dropped whenever they wanted.
SCHULTZ: So Lizz, why couldn`t Bill Clinton just explain that in a
short sentence?
WINSTEAD: Right. You know, because I think what Bill Clinton sees
and the thing when I heard, this is the case, right. I think the biggest
fundamental problem that the President made when saying, "If you have -- if
you like your health care plan, you can keep it" was that they assume that
small percentage was going to sound good to people but when you parse that
out to millions of people .
WALSH: Right.
MAXWELL: Right.
WINSTEAD: . that`s where it got bad. And I think that that is where
this whole thing went. It`s like you have the tiny dot of people but it`s
millions of people but still, it goes back to where you all have to say
which is, "Oh my god, they`ve been doing this way before ObamaCare and this
is going to stop."
SCHULTZ: Joan what about rate increases? We`ve seen rate increases
in health insurance over the last 15, 20 years. And during the Bush years
it were double digits many of those years. People are acting now like,
"Well my insurance is going up a little bit under ObamaCare. It must be
bad."
WALSH: Right.
SCHULTZ: It`s simply not the case. How do they fight back against
this?
WALSH: I think they fight back because they got news today on the
number of enrollments.
SCHULTZ: Do you like the numbers?
WALSH: I like the numbers. The numbers aren`t perfect but there, you
know, they`re better than the Massachusetts` numbers were in the first
month. They`re higher percentage of the uninsured who bought insurance. A
lot of people are browsing. We know they`re going to buy much later. So
those are good numbers.
I don`t, you know, it goes back to what the President said and now
that we parse it, it wasn`t true. And that`s what`s causing the trouble.
If those representations hadn`t been made, we wouldn`t -- I don`t think
we`d be happy .
WINSTEAD: That`s right.
MAXWELL: Right.
WALSH: . with controversy. But for President Clinton to make it
sound like, you know, it was written into the law .
WINSTEAD: Right.
MAXWELL: Right, right.
WALSH: . that if you write your policy, you can keep it to make it
sound like the federal government made this promise. That`s really not
what happened.
WINSTEAD: Well after (inaudible) to Kennedy and stubbornness are a
horrible recipe and so I don`t know where else on in people`s lives. They
would fight to keep some crappy thing that they have to pay monthly for
when they have offered something better for the same price.
WALSH: Well, that`s not what`s happening.
SCHULTZ: I think everybody knows.
MAXWELL: You didn`t realize, I mean, you know, a lot of people don`t
realize that their plans are crappy until you get an injury or you got to
have some illness.
WINSTEAD: Right.
SCHULTZ: You got a timeframe in there. Oh, by the way, this is a way
it really is.
WALSH: Well, hey, what about setting up a public option for people?
MAXWELL: Right, exactly. I`m glad you mentioned that.
(CROSSTALK)
WALSH: And line up with terrible, you know, terrible .
MAXWELL: That would fix a lot.
WALSH: . insurance choices. I don`t know but I think the President
has to entertain this. I think he has to have conversations with these
Democrats but I just don`t see a solution that`s going to not append the
entire .
SCHULTZ: Get the people in the federal exchange and get it rolling.
They`re going to get a better deal out of that anyway.
MAXWELL: Right.
SCHULTZ: Most people don`t even know they got a rotten insurance
policy until they get sick.
MAXWELL: Right.
SCHULTZ: They just say, "Oh, it`s a low rate," you know.
WALSH: Right.
SCHULTZ: So gosh, I`m going to go ahead and take it. Geraldo Rivera
President Clinton is just setting up his wife`s candidacy with his comment.
Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERALDO RIVER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The toxicity bill that you suggest is
exactly why Bill Clinton abandoned the President. He is looking to his
wife`s perspective candidacy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: Is Bill Clinton abandoning ObamaCare? I wouldn`t go that
far.
WALSH: No, I don`t .
SCHULTZ: But I do think making an adjustment to the law would be the
wrong mix right now.
WALSH: I agree.
WINSTEAD: When you got, I mean, we all know that you have to have
people enrolling in exchange for the exchange to work.
WALSH: Right.
WINSTEAD: Healthy people have to fund the sick people. So to tell
them to have a law that keeps people drives ...
MAXWELL: But, (inaudible) .
WINSTEAD: Right.
WALSH: (inaudible) this is something that he did to help his wife. I
think that`s crazy.
SCHULTZ: No.
WALSH: I don`t think it helps. I don`t think it helps Hillary
Clinton.
WINSTEAD: Right.
WALSH: I think ObamaCare has to work. I don`t think she has any
capacity to put daylight between herself and the president on his signature
accomplishment. So I assume he`s freelancing out there whatever he .
MAXWELL: Right.
SCHULTZ: I don`t understand why some -- the Senate Democrats don`t
stand up and say, "We are going to stop the junk insurance industry and its
tracks." That`s what ObamaCare is all about.
It`s -- That`s not hard to say.
WINSTEAD: You know, there are -- I think it`s because they are so
mired in the website part of this .
WALSH: Right.
WINSTEAD: . and they do not understand technology. I really do think
it`s as simple as that. We don`t get this and if they`re talking about the
technology, I don`t know how to weight in. I think it might be as simple
as that.
SCHULTZ: All right. Great to have all of you with us. Liz Winstead,
Zerlina Maxwell, Joan Walsh, thank you.
Coming up, yours truly seems to have some fans at Fox, the Fox Five
landing tonight`s Pretenders. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHULTZ: And in Pretenders tonight. Secret admirers right across the
street, the five. Fox News has a little show called The Five. Yesterday,
all those people put their heads together and couldn`t think of anything
else to talk about except Big Eddy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to play, I want the first clip from Ed
Schultz because Democrats are busy right now trying to figure out who to
blame. Listen to Ed Schultz, he says that Republican should be apologizing
for this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: The way I saw the interview is the President was apologizing
for the inconvenience that people are having to go through to actually go
to a policy where they`re going to get some real coverage.
The apology should be coming from the conservatives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can tell why their ratings are so bad. I
could not watch that except for -- I read it this morning then I had to
watch it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We owe our viewers an apology for putting that
buffoon on our air.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: First of all, five people trying to generate content for
that program and they still need me. Look, actually the show ought to be
called The Six.
As far as ratings, we`re doing just fine as CNN and headline news for
that matter. The bottom line, The Five, they need my material. The Fox
remain conservatives still owe an apology to the uninsured Americans on
this country for obstructing their care. The Five, they don`t owe me an
apology maybe just a production credit for the show. The Five needs my
material apparently. If the Five want me to believe that they`re not Big
Eddy fans, they can keep on pretending. By the way, Eric Bolling drinks
cheap whisky.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHULTZ: Welcome back to the Ed Show. This is the story for the
folks who take a shower after work, the American workers. The Obama
Administration still fixated on approving the Trans Pacific Partnership
known as the TTP by the end of the year. The sweeping trade agreement, the
free trade agreement with 11 Pacific nations has been deliberately
negotiated in secret by the corporate boys, the light bulb is finally
starting to turn on for some members of Congress 153 Democrats in the House
have signed a petition to stop the trade agreement, the TPP is bad for
American workers. Period.
Separate groups of Republicans and Democrats condemn the TTP on
Tuesday and wrote strongly worded letters to President Obama. Tea Party
Minnesota Republican Michelle Bachmann is among the signatures on the
letter from the 22 House Republicans and I`ve been asking Tea Partiers
where are you on the sovereignty issue? Well, there they are.
600 corporate advisers have been given access to the content of this
agreement, well the public has been kept in the dark about what`s being
negotiated on behalf of the corporations. The Administration is asking for
fast track authority which allows the President to send bills directly to
the floor for a vote with no amendments or debate. The lack of
Congressional oversight is generating major opposition but can it be
stopped?
Congressman George Miller of California joins me tonight.
Congressman, good to have you with us.
REP. GEORGE MILLER, (D) CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Ed.
SCHULTZ: How do you -- there are two issues here, fast track and the
trade agreement itself. Where are we? Is this going to go through?
MILLER: I think it`s going to be a big struggle to get this through
the Congress in any time soon. I think what you see now is a very
substantial. Almost half of the Congress and the House of Representatives
has very serious concerns not only about the trade agreement, but then
about the fast track procedure which basically takes members of Congress
out of the process where we can speak up on behalf of our local
communities, our states, our -- the citizens that we represent about the
impacts to these trade agreements on them, their likelihood for their jobs
and their economic future.
And this is the way trade agreements have been done in the past. And
American workers, American families, American industry has paid a huge
price for this trade to agreements. Yes, there are some winners, big
international corporations that rule around the world, you know, directing
governments what to do. You know, they win.
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
MILLER: But a lot of local industries and manufacturers have been
hurt ever since NAFTA. The job loss has been tremendous.
SCHULTZ: Congressman, if enough members oppose this deal and it`s
bipartisan, it`s not very often you get Republicans and Democrats in the
number of 22 on the Right and saying this is a bad deal working with
Democrats on it, will the President turn on this? He`s an advocate for it.
He wants it.
MILLER: Well every president has been an advocate for it, every
president wants this trophy to bring home but this time we just went
through the Colombia Free Trade Agreement that has turned out to be
terrible for workers in Colombia and that allows Colombia to compete with
us on a non-level plain field because the workers are, you know, they don`t
pay him. They don`t have the right to organize.
And so I think, you know, when we look at Colombia and you`re talking
about doing fast track on this one, without adequate protections for
workers` rights, to the environments, for people`s access to courts, I
think they`ve got a big problem here. I think they`ve got a real big
problem here.
SCHULTZ: Well, the main concerns in this trade deal differ from the
others, are about food safety, intellectual property, privacy, and health
and domestic auto industry. I mean, there`s a lot of staff here and
privacy on the internet is a big issue with this trade agreement.
MILLER: Right, right.
SCHULTZ: . which I find unbelievably hard to understand how this
would infiltrate into this. But when you talk about intellectual property,
now you`re cutting to the heart of entrepreneurial spirit in this country
or am I wrong on that?
MILLER: No. That`s exactly it. I mean, that`s our engine of growth
of the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the discoverers that America has
always produced in our education system and our economic system and you
want to make sure that they`re free to participate.
Obviously, some of our competitors would like to be more restrictive.
The Europeans would like to be more respected and the Asians because the
Asians are major competitors in somebody`s field but we`re the leading
entrepreneurs. And that`s the concern.
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
MILLER: What you do is you get a group of people in secret and they
want to become an alternative government on all of these issues at one
time, one agreement without public participation or congressional
participation.
I`m sorry. That`s not our system of government. We`re democracy. We
have a right to participate and know what`s happening in the full daylight.
SCHULTZ: What are the scary things here is that there are going to be
some provisions in this trade agreement that are going to force us to take
foreign food without inspection, without standards, that scary stuff. I
think most Americans care about what`s on their kitchen table.
MILLER: Well, you just saw the uproar over the Chinese doggy treats .
SCHULTZ: Yeah.
MILLER: . that came in and were tainted were contaminated, and if
you`re over that. Imagine when you find out this is happening to your
children as you`re feeding these foods from overseas and they don`t have to
pass the same food standard.
SCHULTZ: Congressman, great to have you with us tonight, George
Miller from California.
MILLER: It`s a kitchen table issue.
SCHULTZ: It is. No question about it. It is a kitchen table issue.
MILLER: I could resist.
SCHULTZ: Thank you Congressman. That`s the Ed Show. I`m at Ed
Schultz. Politics Nation with Reverend Al Sharpton starts right now.
Good evening Rev.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
Copyright 2013 Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by
United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed,
transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written
permission of Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark,
copyright or other notice from copies of the content.>