Guests: Ezra Klein, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Nicholas Kristof, David Corn, Alex Wagner
LAWRENCE O‘DONNELL, HOST: Senator Chuck Schumer accused the Tea Party of hoping for a government shutdown. Republicans spent all day attacking him. But did they spend any time finding a compromise to stop a shutdown? Senator Schumer will tell us.
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(MUSIC)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We‘re not take anything off the table at this point.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I‘m not going to put any options on the table or take any options off the table.
O‘DONNELL (voice-over): The president pushes his strategy in Libya.
The Republican speaker can‘t push his plan to cut spending.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Budget talks have stalled.
BOEHNER: Our goal is to cut spending.
LUKE RUSSERT, NBC NEWS: Thirty billion dollars, they would have taken that in a heartbeat.
O‘DONNELL: Even if Republican leaders want to compromise, the Tea Party won‘t let them.
RUSSERT: The Tea Party has moved these negotiations to the right.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC ANCHOR: Is your party showing leadership on this front?
TIM PAWLENTY ®, FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: Not yet.
BRZEZINSKI: OK.
PAWLENTY: Not yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now, we‘re just 10 days away from a government shut down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it will delay your tax refund.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If they shut down the government, will they shut down the war in Libya?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
O‘DONNELL: The president continues to defend his decision to take action in Libya and wins over some adversaries.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN ®, ARIZONA: I believe the president‘s decision to intervene in Libya deserves strong bipartisan support.
OBAMA: We had a unique circumstance to save a lot of lives.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: How does it end?
PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You‘ve got a wounded snake there, and you‘ve got to kill it.
OBAMA: I consulted with a bipartisan group, including the speaker of the House, including the Republican leader.
MCCAIN: I think his actions were in keeping both with the constitutional powers of the president.
O‘DONNELL: And just when Sarah Palin thinks she finally has this whole foreign policy thing down, the king of FOX News turns on her.
BILL O‘REILLY, FOX NEWS: She‘s not engaging directly—asked her specific some questions, she didn‘t want to answer. She wanted to give a speech.
SARAH PALIN ®, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: The Obama doctrine is still full of chaos and questions. It is dodgy, it‘s dubious.
OBAMA: I think it‘s important not to take this particular situation and then try to project some sort of Obama doctrine.
O‘DONNELL: And, finally, a real Republican presidential candidate who‘s ready to take on Donald Trump.
PAWLENTY: I, for one, do not believe that we should be raising that issue in the sense that I think President Obama was born in the United States. I am not playing into that.
BRZEZINSKI: Donald Trump?
PAWLENTY: I think he‘s talented. I think he‘s funny. I think he‘s interesting.
DONALD TRUMP, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: The greatest president in the history of the United States, me, Donald John Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Winning!
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O‘DONNELL: Good evening from New York.
We are once again days away from a deadline for funding the federal government. Talk of a shut down is once again in the air, and this time all sides are promising it won‘t be like last time. Four weeks ago when the Congress voted to simply continue temporary funding for a few more weeks.
Speaker of the House John Boehner—approaching this deadline with all the certitude and determination that he has brought to all the other deadlines—blinked today and tried to restore the possibility of doing yet another temporary budget extension.
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BOEHNER: I‘m not going to put any options on the table or take any options off the table. Our goal is to cut spending because it‘s going to lead to a better environment for job creators in America. That‘s our goal. We‘re going to continue to pursue our goal.
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O‘DONNELL: But the option of a temporary bill was immediately taken off the table by house majority leader, Eric Cantor, who is so close to Boehner‘s throne that he is known to want it for himself, and who someday might try to lead a Tea Party against Boehner if the speaker makes the mistake of alienating or disappointing the Tea Party in any way.
Democratic Chuck Schumer describes Boehner‘s conundrum this way.
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SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: The speaker has said all along, he wants to avoid shut down at all costs. And, Madam President, I believe him. He‘s a good man.
The problem is a large percentage of those in his party don‘t feel the same way. They think compromise is a dirty word. They think taking any steps to avert a shut down would mean being the first to blink.
So, Speaker Boehner is caught between a shut down and a hard place.
He‘s caught a tiger by the tail in the form of the Tea Party.
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O‘DONNELL: On Thursday, Tea Party supporters will descend on the Capitol to protest the, quote, “lack of leadership,” end quote, lack of courage that has led members of Congress to abandon service to the people by passing continuing resolutions instead of cutting the hundred billion they pledged.
Potential 2012 candidate for president, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, will headline that rally. Newt Gingrich will also be at the Capitol on Thursday, speaking to House freshmen. There is no chance that Gingrich will say anything like what he said when he was in a similar situation as speaker and actually had the responsibility of governing.
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REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), DEMOCRATIC WHIP: Newt Gingrich gave a speech when we reached the ‘98 agreement between Clinton and Gingrich, and he said to his what he called “perfectionist caucus,” look, they elected a Democratic president, some Democrats in the Senate and then in the House, and, by the way, a number of Republicans in the Senate who don‘t agree with the Republicans in the House, and the American public expects us to move forward. If the perfectionist caucus in the Republican Party wins and shuts down the government, it will be to the great detriment of our country and our economy.
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O‘DONNELL: Joining me now, the senior senator from New York, Senator Chuck Schumer.
Thanks for joining me tonight, Senator.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Nice to be with you.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, any progress today in the negotiations on possible budget compromise?
SCHUMER: No, I don‘t think there was too much progress. The bottom line is the Tea Party continues to pull at Speaker Boehner, say don‘t come to any compromise. Their positions continue to be extreme. And we know that H.R.1 will not pass the Senate and the president would veto it.
O‘DONNELL: And—
SCHUMER: So, their solution just doesn‘t work, and would lead—if they stick with it and if Boehner sticks with them, it will lead to a government shut down.
O‘DONNELL: What is the Democratic Senate proposal on the budget compromise at this point?
SCHUMER: Well, we propose something very reasonable. We met them halfway. They want 60 billion in cuts below the president‘s number. We were happy to stick with the freeze at the president‘s number, but we‘re willing to meet them halfway.
And, today, Leader Reid said that we are willing to cut $30 billion.
So, we are trying to reach out and compromise and meet part of the way. And, as I said before, I believe Speaker Boehner would like to do that, but he‘s got a tiger by the tail, the Tea Party, who believes compromise is a dirty word.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, there are many details in a version of a budget bill, including, for example, the defunding of Planned Parenthood. If that was in the house proposal and insistence on complete defunding of Planned Parenthood, would you in the Senate be able to accept that?
SCHUMER: No. There was some talk today about some riders being accepted by Leader Reid. But let‘s be clear, those would be the kinds of noncontroversial riders we haven‘t heard about.
The bottom line is that whether it‘s Planned Parenthood or EPA, we will not accept those riders. And any thought to the contrary is wrong. We believe that they don‘t belong in a budget bill. There can be debate on these issues. We believe they would be defeated in the Senate.
But to try to get them part of this budget bill will just ruin the ability to come to a fair compromise and keep the government running.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, “The New York Times” reported you had a conference call with the press about this situation, and apparently the call was open sooner than you quite realized and you were overheard—according to “The New York Times”—prepping the other senators for that call by saying, “I always use the word ‘extreme,‘ that is what the caucus has instructed me to use this week.” Is that a true report of the way this call developed?
SCHUMER: Yes, and there‘s no news to it. I used the word “extreme” on the floor a few hours before. I‘ve used the word “extreme” repeatedly. I have no problem that reporters heard me tell my colleagues on the phone that I‘ve used the word “extreme.” And many of them have as well.
Our caucus had a meeting a few weeks ago where we decided to call the H.R.1 extreme, and it is extreme. For instance, cutting cancer research, I think that‘s extreme.
How about cutting meals on wheels? Which feeds home bound senior citizens while refusing to touch the oil companies. That‘s extreme.
Cutting boarder security when there‘s a clamor to stop illegal immigration. That‘s extreme. And Jon Kyl has said that‘s a bad idea.
And, of course, these riders, defunding Planned Parenthood are extreme. And Republicans like Susan Collins and Scott Brown have said that those are wrong to be in the bill.
So, yes, H.R.1, the bill that the Tea Party sticks with and that they are not budging from is extreme. And I‘ve said it before, I said it on that call, and I‘ll say it again. That‘s not news and I‘m—I have no problem that reporters heard that, heard me say that.
O‘DONNELL: Senator, before you go, I just want to get one question about the situation in Libya, your reaction to the president‘s speech. And have you been surprised by the amount of criticism the president has received in Washington given that on March 1st, you introduced a resolution in the Senate which passed unanimously—unanimously—condemning Gadhafi‘s abuse of human rights in Libya and calling for a U.N.-enforced no-fly zone. That was voted for unanimously by the Senate.
SCHUMER: I think the president has done two things I think are well-received by the American people.
First, the mission is limited. It is to the air. It is to, first, humanitarian purposes, as the resolution called for, to prevent the massacre of hundreds of thousands of innocent Libyans in Benghazi.
And second, to, of course, the second part of the mission, which I think Americans support, is from the air to disrupt Gadhafi‘s control and command and supply lines.
But the second part of this I think is really noteworthy—we are fighting two land wars in Asia, we have huge domestic needs, and the president, in a relatively short period of time, has brought others in to take a major share of the fighting. NATO is in charge, the British and French are out there, we even Arab nations are out there.
And this is a template to the future, there has to be other nations of the world stepping up when there are humanitarian crises, and the president has done it and done it very well.
O‘DONNELL: Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York—thank you very much for joining us tonight.
SCHUMER: Thank you. Nice to talk to you, Larry.
O‘DONNELL: Joining me now is Ezra Klein, columnist for “The Washington Post” and MSNBC analyst.
Ezra, thanks for joining me tonight.
EZRA KLEIN, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Good evening.
O‘DONNELL: What is the state of play on the budget stalemate on Capitol Hill right now?
KLEIN: Stale and grim. I woke up today, I talked to people, and I became very pessimistic there would be a deal and I am more so now. There are a couple of things that are very important to understand. When we began this process, when Paul Ryan came out with the first number Republicans wanted to cut, it was $32 billion. Then there was Tea Party revolt in the House, and they said, fine, you win, $64 billion.
So, now, they are $64 billion and the Democrats have moved all the way to where Paul Ryan was when he began. So, even if they get that number, which I think now in sort of Washington would be considered a win for the Democrats, they‘ve gone all the way over to where the Republican leadership thought their opening bid would be.
So, now, I don‘t think we‘ll get a deal. But when we actually do get a deal, I think the cuts are going to be really dramatic, much more so than the adults in both parties thought were wise a couple months ago.
O‘DONNELL: Yes, there is no version of this that you can see that isn‘t a Republican victory, whether the Republicans understand that or not is what is now unclear. I mean, as you say, they moved all the way over to the Republicans‘ opening gambit, but what would be the possible solution to getting something that passes the House and Senate? Can, for example, John Boehner abandon the Tea Party and create a package that is voted for by enough Democrats and enough Republicans in the House to get something through the House that then Harry Reid can get through the Senate?
KLEIN: I don‘t believe he can. What the Tea Party, but also other parts of the Republican Party have become good at doing last year, to really demonstrated their capacity to do is hurting their own incumbents. They‘re actually not all that great at winning elections, Republicans are, but the Tea Party isn‘t always. But they are very good at knocking off Republicans incumbents.
And the guys standing right behind John Boehner, Eric Cantor, has better relationships with those freshmen, is a newer face in that party. And if John Boehner, early only abandons all the energy in his party and moves over to get a deal with the Democrats, they are going to depose him, and he knows that. So, he is between demands from them that can‘t pass the Senate, and so, he goes into a government shut down, which he does not think is going to be good for his side and the other option which is not good for him. So, he‘s in a bit of a tough spot right now.
O‘DONNELL: The conventional wisdom in the media has always been that the government shut down that Newt Gingrich was part of in the ‘90s was bad for the Republicans and was good for President Clinton. But what Newt Gingrich is going to tell the freshmen on Thursday on Capitol Hill is that when the government shut down, the next election, 1996, Newt Gingrich won that election, that the Republicans continued to win the House and the Senate, and after having been in the minority in the House for 40 years, the Gingrich thinking about the Gingrich shut downs were that they were successful politically for the House and Senate Republicans.
KLEIN: And, as you know Newt knows, Bill Clinton also won that election.
O‘DONNELL: Right.
KLEIN: So, there‘s good evidence from political scientist who, look, you don‘t have a lot of shut downs at the federal level, but we had about 170 either very late budgets or shut downs in on the state level. And what they found is a shut down under divided government tends to do two things: it helps the executive, he gets a boost in the next election, and it hurts every single incumbent, every Republican or Democrat congressional legislator.
So, what will likely happen in shut down is that Barack Obama will look presidential, will try to bring two sides together, tell them to stop squabbling, the business of the nation needs to be moved forward and members of both parties in Congress will look bad and will have a harder time telling other voters why they should be reelected.
So, it isn‘t necessarily partisan outcome one way or the other, according to this research. What it is, is congressional versus presidential. And if I were John Boehner or Harry Reid, I would not want this to happen.
O‘DONNELL: Ezra Klein, staying with us for the 10 more days of drama before the possible government shut down—Ezra, thanks very much for joining us tonight.
KLEIN: Thank you.
O‘DONNELL: Still to come: the president‘s speech on Libya did little to slow criticism from the right or left, and John McCain has finally snapped out of his reflexive position of anti-everything Obama and become one of the president‘s strongest supporters on Libya. Nicholas Kristof of “The New York Times” joins me.
And, is Donald Trump pandering to the birthers, or does he actually believe the nonsense he is spreading about Barack Obama‘s birth certificate? And how much harm is Trump doing to the Republican Party? That‘s coming up.
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O‘DONNELL: Still to come: the first rule of birtherism, if you‘re going to reveal your own birth certificate, get it right the first time. Donald Trump tripping over his own birth certificate, is coming up.
Plus, Bill O‘Reilly takes a swipe at Sarah Palin. What‘s the wizard of FOX up to now?
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O‘DONNELL: One day after President Obama addressed the nation on the situation in Libya, the question is: what is our end game? NBC‘s Brian Williams asked the president that today.
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OBAMA: Our role is to provide support, intelligence, jamming capabilities, refueling capabilities. And so, we have been able to spread the burdens of maintaining a no-fly zone and protecting civilian populations, and we can do that for quite some time.
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O‘DONNELL: Criticism of the president continues from his left tonight. Congressman Dennis Kucinich sent a letter today to members of Congress, calling for support for his amendment to cut off funding for the operation in Libya. It read in part, “Last night, the president said it took one month to put together a response to the situation in Libya. The president had time to consult with the international community but had no time to come to the United States Congress?”
Brian Williams also pressed the president on that point.
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BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Tempers are still pretty frosted in Congress over the lack of consultation, as you know, and people have been reading back this quote from candidate Barack Obama in 2007. Quote, “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. History has shown us time and time again, military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the legislative branch.”
What happened in this instance?
OBAMA: Well, keep in mind that we had to move quickly to save lives. Gadhafi‘s forces were on the edge of Benghazi. I consulted with a bipartisan group, including the speaker of the House, including the Republican leader in the Senate, and made sure that they knew this was a possibility that might take place, but we might have to move quickly.
Now, since that time we‘ve had extensive consultations with Congress, and the key point here is that this is not a situation analogous to Iraq in which we are devoting ground troops and a long, protracted battle that puts American lives at risk. Obviously, there are always costs and risks involved in a war as I indicate.
But for us to take this limited action, limited in both time and scope, to ensure that potentially thousands of people were saved in a neighborhood that could be profoundly destabilized, Libya borders on Egypt and Tunisia, two countries that are going through peaceful transitions, and we have a huge stake in making sure that those were successful, I think was the right thing to do.
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O‘DONNELL: Joining me now, “New York Times” columnist Nicholas Kristof—thanks for joining me tonight, Nick.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NEW YORK TIMES: My pleasure.
O‘DONNELL: First of all, what was your reaction to the president‘s speech last night and the amendments to it through Brian Williams today?
KRISTOF: I thought it was very good. I thought it was important to layout the basis by which we do have humanitarian interventions. And, you know, the oldest problem of international relations, what you do when a leader is devouring his people? I think we‘re beginning to answer that.
O‘DONNELL: And in foreign policy, there‘s always a craving for a doctrine. There are always craving for precedent for show us what our historical precedent is for doing this, and if there isn‘t any, have we just established a new doctrine that says we must do X in the future if it fits near this. Aren‘t we really in a situation, a universe here, where you can‘t get doctrines out of these individual decisions that presidents make?
KRISTOF: You would have thought after eight years of George W. Bush that we‘d be kind of fed up with doctrine era approaches, with more ideological approaches. I tend to think that there‘s really danger in a bunch of people sitting around a conference room in Washington and coming up with necessary and specific conditions for intervention and laying out an end game, because it‘s never going to fit those circumstances. And I think it‘s a much better to adopt just a, you know, fit the case model, and it‘s less satisfying intellectually, but it‘s more likely to result in a successful outcome on the ground.
O‘DONNELL: Let‘s listen to what the president said to Brian Williams today about exactly this issue of: does Libya set a policy standard?
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WILLIAMS: So, when people hear words like “values” and “interests” and your phrase the flow of commerce, which some people couldn‘t help but substitute oil, they shouldn‘t think there is any blanket policy. This may be an ad hoc business if this so-called “Arab Spring” turns into Arab summer and we keep at this, watching countries change.
OBAMA: Well, what is absolutely true is that when you start applying blanket policies on the complexities of the current world situation, you‘re going to get yourself into trouble. And so, in each of these situations, the application of force is something that from my perspective you preserve and are very careful to use. That does not mean, though, that you don‘t continue to apply all the other range of tools that you‘ve got available to see if we can make a difference, and move history in a better direction.
It‘s in America‘s interest for the Middle East and North Africa to be more democratic, more free.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Is that a fair statement of America‘s interest in that region?
KRISTOF: Yes, it is, and I think that the left has overdone the argument that we‘re inconsistent. Of course, we‘re inconsistent. Of course, we‘re more likely to intervene in a country with oil rather than one that doesn‘t.
But at the end of the day, there is no chance that we‘re going to get the African Union or Arab League to approve of other interventions. There is no way we can build that kind of a multilateral coalition for intervention in other places. And I would much rather inconsistently save some lives than consistently save none.
O‘DONNELL: And isn‘t there, in fact, a military consistency within this inconsistency in the sense that they look at the terrain, they look at Libya and they say, you know what, our equipment, our planes, our big weapons, they‘ll work there. We can actually beat back what Gadhafi is trying to do with the technology we can bring to this, whereas they may look at some other country, an African country, a jungle environment, a Vietnam-type environment, and say we are not successful in that kind of environment, so we‘re not going in.
KRISTOF: I think there‘s an element of that. But I think maybe the more important element is the question of how the local people will react. Now, if we were to go into Yemen, for example, or where you have a nasty dictator, the Yemenis would be aghast. They would be fighting us.
One of the reasons I think it wasn‘t safe (ph) to go into Iraq is that ordinary Iraqis did nor want to us to go in. On the other hand, there is no doubt that ordinary Libyans, especially in the east, are overwhelmingly behind this intervention.
O‘DONNELL: When you look at that list of qualifications that the president provided last night about what he needed to see in order to do that, you don‘t see that in any of the other cases that we‘ve talked about, the population wanting us there, the U.N. acting—everything that came together.
KRISTOF: Right. I mean, this is really something unique. Historically, what has happened when you have a leader threatening or attacking his people is we all wring our hand and watch massacres and that very slowly over a period of years, public pressure builds to intervene. This time, we did it in three and a half weeks. And I think that I hope that is a stepping stone to something in the future where we‘re more likely to help avert massacres.
O‘DONNELL: And he did consult with leadership of the Congress, including Republican leadership. Do you suspect if any of those Republican leaders he consulted with told him don‘t do it, we‘d be hearing him say that today?
KRISTOF: I would say so. And, you know, at the end of the day, you had Libyans fighting right in front of the hotel in Benghazi where foreign reporters were staying. There was a firefighter there on to Sunday of the intervention. If we had waited another day, there would have been blood in the streets of Benghazi.
O‘DONNELL: Nicholas Kristof of “The New York Times”—thank you very much for joining us tonight.
KRISTOF: My pleasure.
O‘DONNELL: Coming up, it looks like the honeymoon is over between Sarah Palin and Bill O‘Reilly, because when Bill O‘Reilly starts comparing her to the president of the United States, he doesn‘t mean it as a compliment.
And the flip flop of the year goes to Tea Party Senator Rand Paul on Libya. He can‘t remember what he voted for just 29 days ago. That‘s in the “Rewrite.”
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DONALD TRUMP, “THE APPRENTICE”: I want him to show his birth certificate. I want him to show his birth certificate. There‘s something on that birth certificate that he doesn‘t like.
JOY BEHAR, “THE VIEW”: Oh, my god.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: In the Spotlight tonight, thanks to Donald Trump, the phony issue of President Obama‘s citizenship is back. So much so that when Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty visited “MORNING JOE” this morning, Mika Brzezinski had to ask.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC ANCHOR: What do you make of this angle with the Birther controversy?
TIM PAWLENTY, FORMER GOVERNOR OF MINNESOTA: I, for one, do not believe that we should be raising that issue, in the sense that I think President Obama was born in the United States. Should his policies—
BRZEZINSKI: You‘re not playing into that?
PAWLENTY: No, I am not playing into that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: That‘s what the adults sound like in the Republican presidential campaign. To prove his citizenship, Donald Trump released his certificate of birth yesterday. Unfortunately, it was not an official birth certificate. It was a hospital issued certificate of live birth.
The only authority that can issue official birth certificates in the state of New York is the Department of Health. That document would include the Health Department seal and city registrar‘s signature. Unlike this certificate of live birth the Obama campaign released in 2008, Trump‘s document could not be used to get a passport.
After learning of his mistake, Trump provided a copy of his official birth certificate to ABC News today. Here it is. It is issued by the Department of Health and signed by the city registrar. So I, for one, am now willing to accept that Donald Trump is officially eligible to continue his fake run for the president until he has to go back into production for episodes of his NBC show, which I believe has something to do with firing people, which I further believe is not the best imagery to carry into a presidential campaign during the highest unemployment rates of the 21st century.
Joining me now, Washington editor of “Mother Jones,” “Politics Daily” columnist and MSNBC analyst, David Corn. Thanks for joining us tonight, David.
DAVID CORN, “MOTHER JONES”: Good evening, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: David, is it politically wise for Tim Pawlenty to so clearly divorce himself from the Birther movement?
CORN: Well, I think it shows that Tim Pawlenty has a set of principles. He is willing to pander to the Tea Party, but not to the Birthers. He is very clear on that. That, as you say, makes him one of the few adults in the room.
But it does show, to be less glib, that he is serious about his candidacy because anybody that runs for the Republican party nomination is going to have to run in the general election. And they‘re going to have to bring in more votes than just the Birthers. They are going to have to appeal to independents, maybe even to some Democrats, and get Republicans to think that they are serious minded people.
Talking about Obama‘s birth certificate when we have three wars and still almost double digit inflation shows you‘re not serious. I think Tim Pawlenty—I assume Mitt Romney when he comes on the show and Mika asks him the same question, will have to take this position. They can‘t be sucked into this vortex of craziness.
O‘DONNELL: Now, no less an authority on crazy ideas than Ann Coulter has condemned the Birther movement. She says it‘s the worst thing Republicans could get involved in, makes Republicans look crazy. It will sully their nominating the process if they‘re talking about Obama‘s birth certificate.
Ann Coulter thinks they‘re nuts to be focusing on this. But Donald Trump is leading the party in this direction. How much do Republicans regret that Donald Trump opened has his mouth and stepped into this Birther controversy?
CORN: Well, I‘ll say this. Even a stopped clock is right once or twice a day. That‘s where Ann Coulter is on this. I don‘t think Republicans need to take their cues from her.
I actually think right now, at this moment today, what Donald Trump is doing is making Tim Pawlenty look good, which is more than what Tim Pawlenty is doing for Tim Pawlenty. So, you know, the Republican nomination is going to really divide into the serious and the less than serious.
And Donald Trump, who because of his name recognition, because of his billions, if he wanted to be a serious candidate and talk about a jobs program, talk about how his business experience could be put to good use, make the case, in the White House, could be in the top tier.
I, like you, don‘t think this is for real for him. But he could be there. But he has decided to stay in crazy town. That makes the non-crazy candidates look a little bit better. I don‘t think they‘re pulling them down yet. It is giving Tim Pawlenty some stature.
O‘DONNELL: Now, Donald, of course, is trying, in every way he possibly can, as he always does, to pump up ratings for his TV shows. NBC has not ordered any new episodes of his show for the next season. They probably won‘t make that decision until they get to their so-called up fronts in May. That‘s the point at which Donald will presumably drop out if they offer—if NBC orders new episodes in production.
But if they don‘t, he may hang around in this campaign for awhile. But do you see any possibility Of trump actually getting any traction, or being able to change the subject away from the birth certificate if he wants to, now that he‘s made it his number one issue?
CORN: I think this guy knows media. He certainly knows publicity. Not so sure about hair styling. But, in any event, if he wanted to be a serious candidate and start talking about issues and about things other than himself and Obama‘s birth certificate, he could be—he could get in the race and have an impact.
I‘m not saying he could win, but I think he has enough—there‘s enough interest. He is intriguing enough that he could do that if he wants to. So far, he looks more like a media creation of his own doing.
O‘DONNELL: Washington editor of “Mother Jones,” “Politics Daily” columnist and MSNBC analyst David Corn, thank you very much for joining us, David.
CORN: Thank you, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: Coming up, the confusing Tea Party response to President Obama‘s address last night. Tea Party Senator Rand Paul was in favor of everything—everything President Obama has done in Libya before he was against it.
And Sarah Palin can‘t seem to understand a word the president says.
They both get tonight‘s Rewrite.
And later, Bill O‘Reilly goes after Sarah Palin for her inability to answer a question directly. Why the Fox News king is going after his princess, coming up.
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O‘DONNELL: Time for tonight‘s Rewrite. The Tea Party reaction to President Obama‘s Libya speech is in. And it is dazed and confused.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ALASKA: It is very disappointing that we didn‘t hear that commitment from our president that America‘s interests lie in Gadhafi being ousted. And without that being met, you know, I have to again ask why in the world will our military might be used, according to the U.N. and Arab League desires and NATO‘s leadership, in this skirmish or this war or whatever it is that Obama calls it or doesn‘t want to call it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Well, actually, what the president called it last night was a military operation. He also called it a military mission. So you can call it that, pick either one of them or both, or you can call it a war, as some people have. But if you are going to comment critically on what is happening in Libya, you should be able to make your own decision about what to call it.
Now, I‘m not well versed enough in Palin-speak to know what else she just said in that muddle of words. So let‘s see if she made any more sense when she continued.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PALIN: Yet, the inconsistency lies with the questions now being asked, well, why not Darfur? Why not North Korea? What are we going to do about Syria, all these other areas where I guess America could intervene with our power and resources to help humanity?
He did not make the case for this intervention. U.S. interests have got to be met if we are going to intervene. And U.S. interest can‘t just mean validating some kind of post-American series of intervention wherein we wait for the Arab League and the United Nations to tell us thumb‘s up, America, you can go now, you can act.
Then we get in the back of the bus and we wait for NATO. We wait for the French to lead us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Well, I have no idea what post-American means. For something to be post-American, there would have to be no more America. So, you know—and I know Sarah Palin has no idea what post-American means.
But I think I understand what she‘s actually trying to say in the rest of that thing. But that‘s not the way this happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean. European allies declared their willingness to commit resources to stop the killing. The Libyan opposition and the Arab League appealed to the world to save lives in Libya.
And so at my direction, America led an effort with our allies at the United Nations Security Council to pass an historic resolution that authorized a no-fly zone to stop the regime‘s attacks from the air and further authorized all necessary measures to protect the Libyan people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: There was no waiting for the French to lead us, as Sarah Palin has imagined. But she is not the Tea Partier who is most confused by Libya. That prize goes to the new Tea Party Senator Rand Paul. Senator Paul took to Youtube last night to respond to the president‘s speech.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL ®, KENTUCKY: In 2007, then candidate Obama said that the president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
I agree with the candidate Obama. Unfortunately, President Obama has failed to heed his own advice. He has ignored our Constitution and engaged us in a military conflict without congressional debate and approval.
While the president is the commander of our armed forces, he is not a king. He may involve those forces in military conflict only when authorized by Congress or in response to an imminent threat. Neither was the case here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: It turns out freshman Senator Paul agrees with candidate Obama and President Obama. What he left out of his Youtube commentary last night is that 28 days ago, Senator Paul voted for Senate Resolution 85, which was proposed by a bunch of liberal senators, including Bernie Sanders. That resolution, quote, “strongly condemns the gross and systemic violations of human rights in Libya, including violent attacks on protesters demanding democratic reforms. Calls on Moammar Gadhafi to desist from further violence, recognize the Libyan people‘s demand for democratic change, resign his position, and permit a peaceful transition to democracy.
“And urges the United Nations Security Council to take such further action as may be necessary to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory.”
So Rand Paul voted in the Senate for regime change. He voted in the Senate for the imposition of a no-fly zone. He voted for everything—everything President Obama has said he is in favor of doing and everything President Obama decided to do. And he voted for it weeks before President Obama decided to do it.
But because the news media virtually ignored the March 1st Senate resolution until I happened to mention it on this network yesterday afternoon, Rand Paul and his staff managed to forget, along with the news media, that Senator Paul, like every other United States senator had voted their support for everything President Obama has done weeks before the president took action.
Senate flip flops rarely get clearer or stupider than that. Rand Paul‘s foreign policy, humanitarian interventionist one day, isolationist the next, on exactly the same issue.
So much for Tea Party diplomacy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O‘DONNELL: Sarah Palin‘s slide off the Republican A-list continues this week with her Fox News boss taking a swipe at her, even going as far as to compare her to President Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL O‘REILLY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The same thing is happening to Sarah Palin. Her favorability among Republicans and independents has dropped four points in a month. The reason I think it‘s dropping is because she‘s not engaging directly, you know.
When I had her on this program, I asked her some specific questions. She didn‘t want to answer them. She wanted to give a speech, this, that, and the other thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O‘DONNELL: Bill O‘Reilly, the communicator in chief at Fox News, also found fault with Tea Party Republican Christine O‘Donnell when she ran for the Senate in Delaware. So O‘Reilly has found—has O‘Reilly found his calling in Republican politics, bullying the nuts off the stage to make room for viable candidates?
Joining me now is Alex Wagner, “Huffington Post” correspondent and MSNBC analyst. Alex, thanks for joining us tonight.
ALEX WAGNER, “HUFFINGTON POST”: Thanks for having me.
O‘DONNELL: I think this O‘Reilly thing is serious business, the way he talked about Sarah Palin. I don‘t think he would have done that awhile ago. She‘s a very valuable asset, or has been considered such for Fox News. But O‘Reilly is a much more valuable asset for Fox News.
He seems to be saying don‘t pay attention to the freaks. I think he wants people to concentrate on real viable Republicans.
WAGNER: Right. Nothing to see here, folks, keep moving. I think two things are going on. One, you know, they‘ve historically had this kind of Henry Higgins, Eliza Doolittle (ph) relationship, where, you know, they have had spats before over immigration, over her experience, over the BP oil spill.
This seems to be—but the rhetoric seems to be ratcheting up. I think the hard balls are coming a little bit faster and from other corners. Karl Rove another example. And I think what that represents is, to your point, this idea that the establishment GOP does—understands that folks like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann pose a very real threat to the 2012 presidential candidacies.
And regardless of whether they actually run, if their rhetoric dominates the stage, it is potentially detrimental for moderates like Mitt Romney, who is right now the GOP‘s greatest hope.
O‘DONNELL: Now, isn‘t it proof that O‘Reilly is the absolute king of her Fox News world, that she has not immediately Tweeted some sort of attack of Bill O‘Reilly for slighting her in any way. If anyone else had said that, there would be—the Palin attack machine immediately reacting.
WAGNER: Absolutely. And she has been quiet. You look at the Twitter feeds and the Facebook feeds, and there hasn‘t been any knee jerk sort of reaction. It‘s somewhat like “the Wizard of Oz,” calling down onto Dorothy.
At the same time, I think it is because there is an unspoken understanding that look, the Republican party is in some trouble here. You look at what‘s happening on the Hill. You look at the veritable insurrection that‘s happening amongst the establishment and the Tea Party folks in Congress. And I think the Republicans are worried.
Sarah Palin understands that. And picking a fight right now with, you know, the denizen of all things media in terms of conservative circles is not a prudent thing to be doing.
O‘DONNELL: O‘Reilly has never liked Limbaugh, never likes to mention him. He has never liked those people there to the right of him. Limbaugh is definitely to the right of O‘Reilly. Palin is, too.
Does he see, at this point in his career, it‘s time for me to start playing king maker in Republican party politics. Limbaugh can‘t do that;
I‘m the guy who can do that?
WAGNER: Well, yes, to a certain degree. I also think he is involved in the news. If you look at where the country is at—look at the Census results from last week. The Hispanic growth in this country—it is 45 percent in the last ten years. Black population 11 percent; white population one percent.
I think there is some sense of, if not history, the electorate here and the American public. Perhaps O‘Reilly is cognizant of where—that where folks like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann take the Republican party on issues like immigration and what they mean in terms of the future of the Republican party.
O‘DONNELL: We will keep our eye on O‘Reilly versus Palin. Alex Wagner of MSNBC and “Huffington Post,” thanks for joining us tonight.
WAGNER: Thanks, Lawrence.
O‘DONNELL: You can have THE LAST WORD at our blog, TheLastWord.MSNBC.com. You can follow my Tweets @Lawrence. “THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW” is up next. Good evening, Rachel.
END
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