Guests: Susan Molinari, Ron Silver, Doug Brinkley, Terry McAuliffe, Janeane Garofalo, Sam Seder, Mike Barnicle
JOE SCARBOROUGH, HOST: We‘re live from Herald Square in New York City, which is the center of the political world tonight. We‘ve got a lot of Kerry supporters out here. Protestors have been lining the street all night and right now, a little past 12:20 on the night that George W. Bush was renominated for the Republican party.
We‘ve got a lot of people outside booing. Mainly booking buses, Ron, as they go by...
RON REAGAN, CO-HOST: That‘s right.
SCARBOROUGH: ...they understand that those buses are filled with Republican delegates.
REAGAN: The Fox News van had a hard time getting through.
SCARBOROUGH: Oh really?
REAGAN: We got a lot of boos, too.
SCARBOROUGH: Was that the one that was overturned?
REAGAN: That was a crescendo of boos you heard...
SCARBOROUGH: OK.
REAGAN: ...as the Fox News van went by.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, of course we are at MSNBC‘s wrap party for the Republican National convention. All week, politicians and celebrities have taken the stage to remind America of George Bush‘s commitment to the country.
Tonight, the president got a chance to speak for himself, accepting his party‘s nomination and trying to lay out his plans for the next four years. I‘m Joe Scarborough.
REAGAN: And I‘m Ron Reagan. This is AFTER HOURS live from New York‘s Herald Square, where protestors and police have gathered. We‘ve got a great show for you tonight. We‘ll be talking with DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, Air America radio host, Janeane Garofolo. And it‘s the return...
SCARBOROUGH: No way.
REAGAN: ...of triumph, yes, yes.
SCARBOROUGH: No way. Triumph is meaner.
REAGAN: A (UNINTELLGIBLE) comic dog.
SCARBOROUGH: Watch.
REAGAN: Back with us tonight, jazz artist of the year, Matt Shulman and the Shulman System Trio.
(MUSIC)
SCARBOROUGH: You know, I‘ve always thought, Ron, the Democrats have better beat, better rhythm than Republicans.
REAGAN: That‘s true.
SCARBOROUGH: And if you‘ve noticed, while this jazz band is playing, Kerry chants are going along with it.
REAGAN: That‘s true.
SCARBOROUGH: In perfect timing. Republicans...
REAGAN: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: ...it‘s kind of hard to do that like with Garth Brooks songs. But you know...
REAGAN: That‘s true.
SCARBOROUGH: Anyway, let‘s start tonight‘s AFTER HOURS party with actor Ron Silver, Mike Barnicle of “The Boston Herald, and by the way, Mike reigns from a town where there‘s a baseball team that‘s only 2 ½ games behind the New York Yankees. We also have former Congresswoman Susan Molinari, now the chair of the Century Council.
Mike Barnicle, you‘re from the loyal opposition of sorts. Tell me how did George W. Bush do tonight?
MIKE BARNICLE, “THE BOSTON HERALD”: Well, first of all, let‘s have the correction box time. I‘m sorry to have to report, John Kerry is wrong, Red Sox are still 3 ½ games behind the Yankees because both teams won tonight.
SCARBOROUGH: Why would John Kerry give me a false sense of hope tonight by telling me that my Red Sox are only 2 ½ games out? Hey, get out of my face!
All right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A little early for that now.
SCARBOROUGH: It‘s a little early. That‘s right. We‘re going to be drawing - actually going to be drawing the guns at 1:30.
Mike, let‘s talk about the president.
BARNICLE: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: Obviously this is a man who has been challenged rhetorically in the past. I thought in Philadelphia, his speech was very clipped, very awkward. How did he do tonight, four years later?
BARNICLE: I think he did spectacularly well this evening. I was particularly impressed as a viewer, as a citizen, with the constant use of the phrase, I believe—which I think set him apart greatly from what we saw in Boston. I believe in this, I believe in this, I believe in that. Very firm, very strong. I was struck by the language, Joe, the Republican language this evening as opposed to some of the language we‘ve heard in Boston. It was like Mickey Spillain vs. James Joyce. It was direct, it was simple.
REAGAN: Yes.
BARNICLE: It was understandable, clear. And I think people, you know, took from the message that—I think he had a very strong evening.
SCARBOROUGH: Moral clarity seemed to be the theme tonight, of course. Republicans love that. That‘s the sort of thing, though, about George W. Bush that drives some of his detractors crazy that sometimes he doesn‘t understand nuance.
But here‘s George Bush telling Americans that they‘ll always know where he stands.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In the last four years, in the last four years, you and I have come to know each other. Even when we don‘t agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.
(APPLAUSE)
You may have noticed, I have a few flaws, too. People sometimes have to correct my English. I knew I had a problem when Arnold Schwarzenegger starting doing it.
(APPLAUSE)
Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called walking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was a great line.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it was great.
SCARBOROUGH: I tell you what, you know, the first part of the speech, Ron, and John Kerry did the same thing. It seems like when they talk about domestic issues, it‘s a laundry list.
REAGAN: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: They‘ve got to tick them off. Tonight George W. Bush‘s weakest part was when he was going through that laundry list. But I was struck at the end, for the first time, I think in a formal setting, George w. Bush actually looked kind of relaxed.
REAGAN: I thought he very relaxed through the whole thing. He often looks stiff in front of a big audience when it‘s a big occasion. I mean, you get a little tight. That‘s understandable, but he was very relaxed and showed some emotion at the end.
I thought the end of the speech was really the best moment for him where he was talking about the, you know, the sacrifice that people have made and what it meant to him. And you could tell he was getting a little bit choked up, which if you can hold it together is a very effective thing.
SCARBOROUGH: Very effective.
REAGAN: A little bit of emotion. Not too much. You don‘t want to get all weepy on them, but it was good thing. Yes, good speech..
SCARBOROUGH: Susan, what did you think?
SUSAN MOLINARI ®, FMR. U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN: I think, you know, we said before that President Bush had to give the speech of his life. He laid forth - now he did have to tick off the domestic agenda, which frankly John Kerry didn‘t do. He laid off a very long laundry list of what he was going to do domestically over his next four years.
He did the school uniform thing, if you will. He talked about city colleges. He talked about, you know, going back and working harder on education, doing all these things he needed to do to keep this nation together internally.
And then he became the commander-in-chief in a position that John Kerry compare to. He was controlled. He was measured. He did not race the clock. He challenged the networks to keep going with his speech, which I thought said an awful lot about his confidence level.
SCARBOROUGH: You know what that reminded me of? Because John Kerry obviously raced through it in Boston. But he reminded me as far as pacing goes of Bill Clinton. Because Bill Clinton used to drive Republicans wild. But when you gave Bill Clinton the microphone, it was his microphone.
MOLINARI: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: And he wasn‘t giving it up until he was ready. We sort of saw that with George W. Bush tonight.
MOLINARI: He took some time to speak to the truth, you know, take an advantage of the fact that as the president of United States, he could do that. And it worked.
REAGAN: Ron Silver, a little bit of stagecraft. You know, he did this thing in the round tonight.
MOLINARI: Wasn‘t that fabulous?
RON SILVER, ACTOR: Which staged unbelievably well. Extraordinarily well.
REAGAN: Now you were in the hall. You were actually up there in the family area.
SILVER: Well, I was there for two reasons.
REAGAN: Yes.
SILVER: Actually to represent the heart and soul of GOP values. With that purple tie, I don‘t believe so.
REAGAN: That‘s your prince pie buddy.
SILVER: And to make sure that the balloon drop worked because...
REAGAN: I was down here, though. Was there actually a hitch in the balloon drop? (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
SILVER: It went beautifully well.
REAGAN: OK. Somebody on the radio was saying, hey, there‘s still some balloons in there. OK. Because that would have disappointed me. The Republicans can be counted on for a balloon drop.
SILVER: You made a good point before though about the moral clarity. That seems to tick off a lot of people, this certitude, this moral clarity.
But the founding documents of this country, the greatest speeches that we look to, whether it‘s Lincoln or Roosevelt in times of crisis, boy, are they morally clear. Boy are they—there‘s a degree of certitude about what this country‘s about, what our goals are and what we‘re willing to sacrifice to get it. This is very much within the American tradition of what we do in this country.
And we live in such a relativity type of era of making everybody feel good and seeing the other point of view, that it ticks people off that somebody says I think this is right, this is wrong. Samuel Johnson once said the fact of twilight does not mean there is no day or night. This guy sees day and night. That‘s not a bad thing.
SCARBOROUGH: At the 2004 convention, of course, President Bush spoke about our nation‘s future and the opportunities that were squandered by the Clinton-Gore administration. Let‘s take a look at what he said then and what he said tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S.: America‘s way is the rising road. This nation is daring and decent and ready for change.
(APPLAUSE)
Our current president embodied the potential of a generation, so many talents, so many charm, such great skill. But in the end, to what end? So much promise. To no great purpose.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUSH: To everything we know there is a season. A time for sadness, a time for struggle, a time for rebuilding. And now we have reached a time for hope. This young century will be liberty‘s century.
(APPLAUSE)
By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America. Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America. And tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed.
(APPLAUSE)
Now we go forward. Grateful for our freedom, faithful to our cause and confident in the future of the greatest nation on earth. May God bless you and may God continue to bless our great country. Thank you all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REAGAN: All right, well, we‘re down here with two men who know John Kerry rather well, Doug Brinkley, who‘s written a book about John Kerry, “Tour of Duty” of course, and Terry McAuliffe, head of the DNC.
A rather extraordinary event tonight. We saw George Bush wind up his convention here. And then, minutes later, John Kerry took the stage in Ohio and had some very tough things to say about the criticism that‘s been heaped on him over the last few days.
Doug, let me start with you, because you know John Kerry very well. Were you saying boy, it‘s about time?
DOUG BRINKLEY, AUTHOR: Yes, I think so. Everybody who likes and knows John Kerry thinks he should have maybe the last week got out there and did what he did today. But he timed it to give the president his chance to say his speech, to give the Republicans a chance to have their four days.
And I think from now ‘til November, it‘s going to be a sprint. I think you‘ll John Kerry going overtime. In many ways, tonight was the opening salvo of the last part of this campaign, these last two months. And that‘s when he traditionally proves to be the strongest, at least when you study his political record in Massachusetts, he always comes in strong at the end.
REAGAN: Terry McAuliffe, John Kerry has been taking it on a considerable chin for some time now. Did he wait too long? Why did he wait so long?
TERRY MCAULIFFE, DNC: Well, I would say to you, first of all, we had a great spring. We had a great two weeks after the convention. He had a great two weeks after the convention.
He went all coast to coast across the country with John Edwards. You know, record crowds everywhere. This was their week. Last week was the lead up to the convention, but we are ready to go. We got 60 days to go.
You saw a masquerade ball, a charade up here for four days. And then George Bush‘s speech tonight, it was like he wasn‘t the president the last four years. He did not talk about one single accomplishment he had in the last four years because he didn‘t have any.
He sat and gave a litany of things he wants to do. Where were you George Bush the last four years? That‘s what I‘d like to say to him.
REAGAN: Like I said, John Kerry‘s been taking it on the chin for a while. And not just about policy issues, but really going after his honor, his patriotism, his fitness to lead the country. Why didn‘t he start hitting back right away?
MCAULIFFE: I think when the swift boat ads first came out, John Mccain came out that first day and said Mr. President, tell them to take those ads down. I think what John Kerry thought is that the president would listen to John McCain. He didn‘t. But you know what? We are now moving forward, Ron.
If you look at the electoral college, we are very closely split today. The good news for us, these independent, these swing voters, they have seen George Bush for four years. They have decided they‘re not going with him.
We haven‘t closed the sale with them. We‘ve got 60 days to do that, but we are dead even or maybe a little bit up in the polls with 60 days to go. We got money in the bank. We got a candidate ready to fight. I am excited about where we are as a party.
REAGAN: Doug, we sat together and watched Kerry‘s speech as he was giving it. Is—did he do enough? Was he tough enough? Is this going to be it and then he‘ll go back to the usual calmer John Kerry? Or is he going to keep this stuff up as the campaign continues?
BRINKLEY: I think, Ron, he‘s going to keep this up and it‘s going to get stronger. What was important - it was from Ohio and that‘s the state that‘s being, you know, vied for. And standing there at Springfield at midnight, I think gave a sign of - that he‘s going to be doing a lot of evening rallies for now on, too.
It‘s not just going to be—he‘s acting as if the election‘s a week from now or two weeks from now. And he‘s had some shake-ups as you mentioned. Lockhart coming in now to help deal with the cable world, to help deal with the press a little bit.
And you—John Kerry goes up - a sign of his whole career is a bit of a roller coaster at times. He did have a low in August. And he‘s got to pick up the space here in September. And he will.
REAGAN: Terry, just real quick, before we go back to the panel, is John Kerry going to be doing any wind surfing between now and election day?
MCAULIFFE: No, I think John Kerry is going to be campaigning every single day for the next 60 days. He is not taking a break. No vacations. He‘s taking it right on. He is taking that swift boat and he is taking it right at these folks and telling the truth and getting people excited for the election.
REAGAN: All right. There you are. Back to you, Joe.
SCARBOROUGH: Thanks a lot, Ron.
Right now, we‘re very pleased to welcome to our show, the talented and lovely Janeane Garofalo.
JANEANE GAROFALO: Oh, my goodness.
SCARBOROUGH: Actress, comedian and Air America radio host.
GAROFALO: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: And a personal friend of mine.
And also, the host of “Majority Report” writer Sam Seder.
Janeane, I‘m sorry for lying on TV. I hope I didn‘t embarrass you by calling you a personal friend. This is show business. You understand this.
Let me ask you, you covered the Boston convention. You were here covering this convention for Air America. Give us your take on it.
GAROFALO: Well, I didn‘t get to be on the floor or anything like in the Democratic National convention, but we have been watching the C-Span coverage all around—around the clock, if you will. And it‘s a - you know, I think the tone of it is - you know, the keynote speaker Barack Obama at the Democratic convention really made a nice statement. And then Zell Miller also...
SCARBOROUGH: You‘re so funny in contrast.
GAROFALO: ...makes its own statement.
And the reason I came here is to talk to Ron Silver, who is so smart and so emotionally and politically mature. And I watched the coverage until 5:00 in the morning. And...
SCARBOROUGH: Stay in there.
GAROFALO: ...I feel like.
SCARBOROUGH: Fight back.
SILVER: Get out of my face.
GAROFALO: You‘re a Reagan Democrat.
SCARBOROUGH: You want to do another duel?
GAROFALO: You‘re a Reagan Democrat. And last night, and I took notes on Howard‘s new chapter I want to give you later about from “The Zinn Reader,” which you probably have, about aggressive liberalism. Because you were talking last night about you know expanding. And you said the Mexican War, which now brings us from sea to sea.
But I think that there‘s actually, what can get confused in some people‘s minds is a lot of the negative repercussions that happened with expansion that are not being discussed at this convention. And I think - and I do think you‘re so smart and so thoughtful. And it drives me nuts to think that you‘re not...
SILVER: Smart enough to agree with you?
GAROFALO: No, no, no. I think you‘re a Democrat. No, I think You‘re a Democrat. And—but beyond that, I feel that this convention, like most conventions, is very showy and very propagandistic. And a lot of the RNC videos are just - you know, obviously they‘re not for me. They‘re not targeted to me. And so maybe I can‘t appreciate them.
But I feel like when Bush was speaking tonight, I just feel like there‘s—that he‘s lying to me. Like I feel like he‘s treating me disrespectfully because it seems like a lot of things that he says, A, you could say these things you say I will do, I will do, I will do. Why haven‘t you done them four years ago?
SILVER: In all fairness now, you‘ve read the Woodward books. You‘ve read the 9-11 Commission report. And you know he was not lying. You may not like the guy, and I understand you may not like his policies, but you know because you‘ve read those books he is not lying to anybody. And your party should stop saying the man is lying because he is not.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, Ron, with all due respect, what in those two documents suggest that he‘s not lying?
SILVER: Lee Hamilton and Tom McCain said he was not lying.
SAM SEDER, AIR AMERICA RADIO HOST: I‘ll tell you something about why we have to question...
SCARBOROUGH: Wait, hold on. Let‘s get a little more specific...
SEDER: OK.
SCARBOROUGH: ...and talk - let‘s talk specifically about what you think George Bush is lying about. WMDs?
SEDER: Well, listen...
SCARBOROUGH: Yellow (UNINTELLIGIBLE), what?
SEDER: ...I think it‘s clear that he sold the war in Iraq because there was an imminent danger to Americans. And that was clear that it was...
SCARBOROUGH: Based on WMDs?
SEDER: Well, listen, WMDs is a very vague term.
SCARBOROUGH: Right.
SEDER: It takes a ton of ricin to kill 100 people on a battlefield. It is not a weapon that posed an imminent threat to this country.
SCARBOROUGH: Right.
SEDER: Now George Tenet may have said it‘s a slam dunk that there‘s weapons of mass destruction there. And I think people could have guessed that you‘d find some ricin, maybe some anthrax. I mean we sold it to them 10 years earlier. Perhaps it was still around.
SILVER: The fact (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
SCARBOROUGH: Hold on, hold on. One at a time. Go on.
SEDER: But that does not mean that this country was under an imminent threat. And that is the way that that was sold to this country. And that‘s why we went to war. And in fact, there was no imminent threat.
GAROFALO: Wait, but...
SILVER: I challenge you to say where he said an imminent threat. That is a myth.
SEDER: If you want to tell the American public that the president in this administration was not implying that—and Cheney said it many times that there was nuclear capacity. And...
SILVER: Imminent?
SEDER: Yes.
SILVER: He never used the word imminent.
SCARBOROUGH: OK.
SEDER: Well, if you want to tell the American people that they were not under threat from Saddam Hussein and that this was a war of choice, that would be the truth.
SILVER: So you don‘t feel challenged by Saddam being alive in a post-9-11 world with his policies, his power...
SEDER: I‘ll tell you something.
SILVER: ...and his sympathies with terrorists.
SEDER: I feel far more challenged now with a failed state in Afghanistan and a failed state in Iraq.
GAROFALO: Failed state in Afghanistan?
SEDER: Which is what we have. Yes.
GAROFALO: You think it was better before when the Taliban were beating women on the street for being women?
SEDER: I‘ll tell you something, the Taliban...
GAROFALO: That was better?
SEDER: Ahmed Karzai has invited the Taliban into his next government. The Taliban still exists. The Taliban still exists.
GAROFALO: The Taliban does not have the control that they have had...
SEDER: They don‘t have the same control, but they‘re not eliminated. They‘re not eliminated. They still are there.
SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second.
SEDER: And even in Kabul, even in Kabul, you have terrorists blowing up trucks. You have terrorists blowing up cars.
SILVER: Janeane, Sam, can I ask you question? President Kerry, on November 5th, is faced with an Iran that is going nuclear. The U.N. is feckless, wont‘ do anything. The EU says yes, they‘re going nuclear, but we can‘t do anything about. What does President Kerry do about Iran?
GAROFALO: He waits for attack.
SEDER: I trust John Kerry‘s judgment on war about any situation that comes up.
SILVER: Sam, what does he do?
SEDER: I am not qualified to be president. I‘m saying John Kerry is.
SILVER: But you‘re qualified to say what he‘ll do.
SEDER: And I‘ve seen what George Bush has done. And this country‘s seen what he‘s done in the past four years.
SILVER: Sam...
SEDER: And it‘s been nothing.
SILVER: What would you suggest President Kerry do, faced with a nuclear Iraq, that the EU and U.N. will do nothing about. Are you prepared to state...
SEDER: I can assure you John Kerry will not appoint me in a position where I‘ll have to make that decision, but I trust him more than I trust George Bush.
SCARBOROUGH: Let‘s hold it right there. Hold on. Applause line, great applause line. Give him applause.
Very good. All right, I‘ll tell you what. I want you all to stick around. We‘re going to be holding it over. We‘ll be right back in a second. We‘re going to be taking your phone calls, 888-MSNBC-USA.
That much more when AFTER HOURS returns on Herald Square.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCARBOROUGH: And welcome back to MSNBC‘s AFTER HOURS. We‘re live of course from Herald Square. Last night of the Republican convention, George Bush took to the stage and actually delivered a pretty good speech rhetorically.
And Susan Molinari, again, this is a guy that doesn‘t do well in formal situations. But you know, we have this debate that‘s been raging now for about a year and a half, leading up to the war in Iraq. I think, though, we‘re about to go into a different phase. And I want to ask all of you about this.
You know, it‘s very interesting. John Kerry takes the stage and he starts talking about domestic policies tonight, which I believe is the Republican‘s party‘s weakness in this campaign. He‘s - I think he‘s going to try to leave Iraq behind, leave the war on terror behind.
It‘s very interesting. George Bush‘s campaign has been exclusively talking about John Kerry. But we see the script tonight of a new commercial coming out tomorrow and they‘re talking about domestic policy. Are these debates going to be a thing of the past as we go into the last 60 days of this campaign?
MOLINARI: Well, no, obviously the debate over the war in Iraq and liberty and the position of our troops around the globe and protection from terrorism is going to be a discussion that we‘re probably going to have in every presidential election in our lifetime. And certainly it‘s not going to go away from now until November.
But yes, the campaigns have turned a corner. And I think you heard it from President Bush tonight, where he spent a significant portion of the front part of his speech doing a whole laundry list of domestic agenda reforms that he says have taken place over his last four years and what his priorities are going to be over the next four years.
And so, I do think that the new ideas, the new initiatives, the new Bush mission for the domestic agenda was - beginning of which was laid out this evening.
SCARBOROUGH: Janeane, I‘ve been asking this question all week. I want to ask it of you all. So we hear about Iraq. We see protesters in the street. It seems people on the right, people on the left want to talk about Iraq, want to talk about the war on terror.
But in these swing states like Ohio and Iowa, what do you think say a paralegal that makes $22,000, $23,000 a year is more worried about as a single mom? Do you think they‘re worried about Iraq and the war on terror? Or do you think they‘re worried about losing their job and wondering where the hell they‘re going to get health insurance to take care of her kids?
GAROFALO: I would say they‘re extremely concerned about domestic issues much more so. But then of course, there‘s always the fear factor that the administration constantly pushes upon us. They need to use anxiety to try and push that to the forefront, because I guess polling shows that Bush does very well if people are frightened and they think of national security. And he does very poorly if you‘re talking about domestic issues, like healthcare and the economy and education and things of that nature.
And I think that, unfortunately for most people, they‘re pretty selfish with their voting. And it tends to always come down to money. And we‘re not a very communitarian society in that way. And that‘s why the claims of taxes - I mean no taxes or claims of no taxes seems to really motivate people.
When unfortunately, I think what is lost is the message of we do need to pay into the system. Taxes are part of our responsibility as a citizen. You need to pay taxes for the infrastructure to function. You need to pay taxes to pay for education. You need to pay taxes to pay for the military. You need to pay taxes for the highways that we drive on.
And you know, the ownership society that George Bush talks about so much really what it seems like to me is what he‘s saying is I‘m going to take taxes away from people who make their money through investments. But if you‘re trying to save money or if you can‘t save money, because you‘re living from paycheck to paycheck, you‘re sort of out of luck.
The ownership society to me seems like a real Trojan horse. And I apologize for using lame - a real Trojan horse. I sound like a pundit there. But I think that...
MOLINARI: It doesn‘t make you a bad person.
GAROFALO: No, it doesn‘t make you a bad person. It doesn‘t make you a bad person, but it makes me feel like I‘m just being (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
I think that ownership society seems like a scam. And like death tax is—I can‘t stand things like that. It‘s an estate tax, like partial birth abortion. It doesn‘t exist. There‘s dilation, extraction. That‘s like calling it an appendectomy and organ ripper. You know what I mean? It‘s just false language that‘s there to try and con people into voting against their better interests.
SCARBOROUGH: All right, Janeane Garofalo, as always, wonderful punditry. Sam, thank you so much for being here.
SEDER: Thank you, Joe.
SCARBOROUGH: And congratulations, Air America is on the march.
SEDER: They‘re picking up new affiliates every day actually.
SCARBOROUGH: Actually, your grades are actually much better than mine were in high school. That‘s not saying a lot, but it‘s a start.
GAROFALO: You too can grow up to be Joe Scarborough.
SCARBOROUGH: I think you just insulted him.
The Republican convention may be over, but AFTER HOURS wrap parties are just getting started. You‘re not going to want to miss a minute of it. Taking us to break is Matt Shulman and the Shulman System Trio. We‘ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCARBOROUGH: You‘re watching AFTER HOURS on MSNBC. Ron and I will be back in just a minute. Stick around.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
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