THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW
October 12, 2012
Guests: Raquel Lopez, Frank Rich
ED SCHULTZ, MSNBC: Good evening, Rachel. Great job quarterbacking
the show last night.
I used to be a quarterback, but I`m just your offensive lineman right
now. I kind of -- I really do enjoy that, by the way.
RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Ed, there is nothing offensive about you
anymore. Thank you.
It was a great night. I am so looking forward to Tuesday, I can
hardly stand it. Usually I look forward to the weekend. Now I just can`t
help but look forward to the next debate.
SCHULTZ: I hear you. Great job. Have a great weekend.
MADDOW: Thanks, man, you, too.
All right. Thanks to you at home as well for staying with us for the
next hour.
We do have to start tonight with breaking news. We have more details
for you about the breaking news that is just in tonight about this shot,
this gunshot fired at the Obama campaign`s headquarters in Denver,
Colorado, late today. These are pictures that we`ve got of the shattered
window front of the Obama campaign office.
According to the reports that we have so far, there were people inside
the campaign office at the time of this incident, which is in part what
makes this a story of national significance. Again, there reportedly were
people inside the Obama campaign headquarters when the shot was fired that
broke this window at the front of the headquarters.
Thankfully no one inside, nobody involved in this incident at all
appears to have been injured.
The Obama campaign is as of now declining comment on this incident
today in Denver. They have been referring all questions to the police.
Joining us now on the phone is Denver police spokesperson detective
Raquel Lopez.
Detective Lopez, thank you very much for your time tonight. We really
appreciate it.
RAQUEL LOPEZ, DENVER POLICE SPOKESPERSON (via telephone): Sure.
MADDOW: What can you add to what we understand so far about this shot
fired at the Obama campaign headquarters?
LOPEZ: Sure. The information I can give you is that we received a
call at about 3:00 p.m. on a criminal mischief in progress. When officers
arrived they did observe a shot had been fired into the structure. Like
you said, thankfully nobody was hurt, because there was folks inside the
office.
Right now, this case is an active investigation so we are looking, you
know, for any witnesses that can come forward or any information that they
can provide to us, to the detectives on this.
MADDOW: Is there a person of interest or a vehicle of interest or any
other leads you`re pursuing on this?
LOPEZ: It`s an active investigation. They`re looking at avenues. We
don`t have a description we can provide but the detectives are working on
this actively.
MADDOW: Detective Lopez, were there any threats made known to the
local police about this specific incident? Any politically relevant
threats that had been reported either physical threats or verbal threats?
LOPEZ: No. Not that I`m aware of. Like I said, this is the only
incident, it sounds like it`s an isolated incident with the one shot being
fired into the structure. As far as I know, there has not been any
threats.
MADDOW: One last question for you, detective. I understand that this
was on West 9th Avenue near Acoma Street in Denver. Tell us what that
neighborhood is like. Is that a relatively densely populated urban area or
was this a sort of a spread out spot?
LOPEZ: It has -- there`s, you know, folks that actually live -- it`s
off of, like, Santa Fe and 9th Avenue. We do have a lot of different
businesses. It`s a popular area. A lot of art studios.
So there`s just a variety of people that do live in the area.
MADDOW: But this is not the --
LOPEZ: And have businesses in the area.
MADDOW: Sorry to interrupt you there.
This is not a neighborhood where you`ve frequently had to deal with
sort of stray bullets and people, and gunfire being associated with other
types of crime, is it?
LOPEZ: Right. Right.
MADDOW: OK. Denver Police Detective Raquel Lopez. Thank you very
much for your time tonight. I appreciate it, ma`am.
LOPEZ: Sure. Have a good night.
MADDOW: Thank you. We will, of course, keep you posted as we learn
more on this tonight.
But, again, a bottom line is a shot was fired at the Obama campaign
headquarters in Denver tonight as you heard the detective just say there.
It`s a populated area, an area that has a lot of retail. There were people
inside the headquarters when the shot as fired into the building and
shattered that glass.
Nobody was injured. It is an active investigation. They`re not
releasing any sort of description of a suspect or anything of that sort.
But we will keep you posted.
All right. On to today`s news.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hi, Liza, how are you? Hi,
Liza. How you doing? Hi.
Wait a second, is this Charlie? No, that`s Sam. I know Sam.
Hey, Charlie, how are you doing, buddy?
CHARLIE RYAN, PAUL RYAN`S SON: Good.
ROMNEY: Hey, man. Nicely done, my friend.
REP. PAUL RYAN (R-WI), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Thank you.
ROMNEY: Way to go. Way to go. Way to go. Way to go. What a job he
did. Oh, he was fabulous. Great job.
JANNA RYAN, PAUL RYAN`S WIFE: I was OK.
ROMNEY: Ann was so nervous for me.
P. RYAN: You know, he was acting so (INAUDIBLE).
ROMNEY: Careful.
(LAUGHTER)
P. RYAN: Oh, yes. I didn`t see that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan earlier today on an
airport tarmac in Columbus, Ohio, pointing at something, and ix naying any
(INAUDIBLE) about the debate day because of that icrophone may.
What they were pointing out there, Mitt Romney was alerting Paul Ryan
to there, a suspicious looking boom mike that was hovering up above that
was capturing what Mitt Ryan -- Mitt Ryan? -- what Mitt Romney and Paul
Ryan were saying.
The point Mitt Romney interrupted Paul Ryan is when he was saying, he
was just acting so -- Romney jumped in, careful, careful. Ixnay on the
(INAUDIBLE).
At his post-debate appearance today in Wisconsin, Vice President Joe
Biden took the final topic of last night`s debate, the issue of abortion
rights and hit Paul Ryan with it pretty forcefully.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If anyone had a
doubt about what`s at state in this election, when it comes to women`s
rights, and the Supreme Court, I`m sure they were said last night. It was
made clear last night that they don`t believe in protecting a woman`s
access to health care. It was made very clear that they do not believe a
woman has a right to control her own body. These guys have a social policy
out of the `50s.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That was Joe Biden`s first major campaign appearance today
after last night`s big event with Paul Ryan.
Now, Paul Ryan`s first public appearance after last night`s debate was
not that moment on the tarmac with Mitt Romney with the funny microphone,
it was actually this. His campaign did one of those odd way too personal
things where they allowed the press in to witness his family doing an
otherwise normal family thing -- in this case eating breakfast. It quickly
becomes an awkward not at all normal interaction because of all the press
that are there. Everybody`s trying to pretend like it`s normal but it
really is not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: So how did Biden do, you think?
RYAN: I felt great about it.
REPORTER: Did you feel knocked around by him?
RYAN: No. No. It`s what I expected. All right.
REPORTER: Do you regret sending those two letters to him for the
budget?
REPORTER: For the stimulus?
RYAN: We`re going to eat breakfast now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Obviously his family should be allowed to eat breakfast in
peace and he should be allowed to peruse the menu and order. The campaign
did allow these reporters in to watch them eating breakfast. He did agree
to start taking questions from them.
You can`t really be shocked what the reporters wanted to ask about was
the stimulus moment, the biggest oof moment of the entire debate which
we`ll play for you in just a moment.
But I think even as people realized that that stimulus moment, the
letters thing was probably the most devastating moment of the debate last
night, I think the more important thing is that moment, itself, fits a
pattern. It`s about this problem with Paul Ryan`s brand which I think
earned him the vice presidential nomination -- Paul Ryan`s brand as a
serious, principled policy guy, right?
The more attention Paul Ryan`s record gets, the less that brand for
him makes sense to an almost ridiculous degree now. Some of these things
got called out last night directly by Joe Biden in front of that giant TV
audience. But not all of them got called out. I mean, say it this way.
The first one happened right away, right at the top of the debate,
where you could see this huge distance between what Paul Ryan says he
believes and how he has behaved when he`s had choices to make about these
things that he says he has these beliefs about.
This was the beginning of last night`s debate on the topic of Libya.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: When we look weak our adversaries are much more willing to test
us, more brazen in attacks --
BIDEN: With all due respect, that`s a bunch of malarkey.
MARTHA RADDATZ, MODERATOR: And why is that so?
BIDEN: Because not a single thing he said is accurate. First of all
--
RADDATZ: Be specific.
BIDEN: I will be very specific.
Number one, this lecture on embassy security. The congressman here
cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: That is true. Paul Ryan`s house Republican caucus where he
is the budget guy proposed slashing hundreds of millions of dollars in
funding for embassy security last year. Paul Ryan is saying this embassy
security has been under-resourced. Paul Ryan proposes cutting hundreds of
millions of dollars from embassy security.
That little perfect instance of hypocrisy as well as the stimulus
hypocrisy were the things that got called out most overtly last night. But
there are a ton of these problems in Mr. Ryan`s record. And there`s never
been a brighter spotlight on it than there was last night. Like there was
this exchange on the military.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: You don`t cut defense by $1 trillion. That`s what we`re
talking about. This invites weakness. Look, do we believe in peace
through strength? You bet we do and that means you don`t impose these
devastating cuts on our military.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: When Paul Ryan condemns defense cuts as a nefarious
Democratic idea that he is fighting valiantly against, he did not mention
he voted in favor of those exact same defense cuts.
Also on the issue of Medicare -- I mean, maybe it`s been said enough
now that it doesn`t need to be said every time, but once again at the
debate Paul Ryan pounded his chest and criticized Democrats for a change in
Medicare funding that he`s denouncing on the campaign trail. Last night as
a $716 billion cut to Medicare. Well, that`s a cut to Medicare that he put
in his loan own Paul Ryan budget.
You can be before that thing or you can be against that thing, but you
cannot simultaneously be for that thing and against that thing, not if
we`re supposed to take you seriously on policy which is supposedly the
whole idea of you -- which brings us to the issue of the stimulus. Today
TiVo said, not your personal TiVo but TiVo the company, said this was one
of the top two most watched moments in last night`s debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: Look at just the $90 billion in stimulus. The vice president
was in charge of overseeing this -- $90 billion in green pork to campaign
contributors and special interest groups.
BIDEN: I love my friend here. I`m not allowed to show letters but go
on our Web site. He sent me two letters saying, by the way, can you send
me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin? We
sent millions of dollars.
RADDATZ: You did ask for stimulus money.
BIDEN: Sure, he did.
RYAN: On two occasions we advocating for constituents who were
applying for grants. That`s what we do. We do that for all constituents
who are applying for grants.
BIDEN: I love that. I love that. This is such a bad program and he
writes me a letter saying, writes the Department of Energy a letter saying
the reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs. His
words. And now he`s sitting here looking at me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: The other nice additional hypocritical element of that is
when he says, green pork? At the top which I think is supposed to sound as
disgusting as it is. It`s the idea there would be alternative energy,
green energy stimulus projects.
The "Associated Press" today published the letter specifically for
Paul Ryan asking for green pork stimulus funding for his district.
Specifically, like electric cars and stuff. Paul Ryan was begging for that
money.
There is -- there is a pattern of hypocrisy here. Paul Ryan gets all
of his credit as being a principled guy who stands by his convictions but
that brand is not supported by his record and that has been true of his
record forever, as long as he`s tried to do that as a congressman but
campaign a different way. It`s always been true of him, but now it is
finally getting pointed out on live TV in front of 50 million people.
Here`s the other thing, though. What you just saw in that clip was
Joe Biden sort of teaching other Democrats I think you can actually defend
Democratic policies. You can actually defend even the stimulus -- you can
defend the stimulus as good policy, good policy that even Republicans admit
is good policy, instead of just leaving it out there as low hanging
political fruit that you are refusing to pick because the Republicans have
said mean things about it.
Joe Biden did not call out Paul Ryan on all of these instances of
hypocrisy last night but he did call him out on his hypocrisy and on the
malarkey of their argument against the stimulus bill.
Democrats have been totally afraid to run on the success of the
stimulus. But by hitting Paul Ryan on it like Joe Biden did last night,
maybe this opens up new political territory for Democrats to take advantage
of.
We`ll talk about that next, with the great Chris Hayes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: The one and only Chris Hayes joins us next. And Frank Rich
is coming up, too. We`ve got a big night.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
CALLER: I assume you voted against the stimulus and I`m just curious
if you accepted any money in your district?
RYAN: No, I`m not one who votes for something then writes the
government to ask them to send us money. I did not request any stimulus
money.
REPORTER: A report came out again today in the "A.P." It was a
repeat of the "Wall Street Journal" article from a couple years ago where
you had asked for stimulus money for your district. Is that report
accurate?
RYAN: I never asked for stimulus. I don`t recall -- I haven`t seen
this report so I really can`t comment on it. I oppose the stimulus,
because it doesn`t work. It didn`t work.
Look at just the $90 billion in stimulus. The vice president was in
charge of overseeing this -- $90 billion in green pork to campaign
contributors and special interest groups.
BIDEN: I love my friend here. I`m not allowed to show letters, but
go on our Web site, he sent me two letters saying, by the way, can you send
me some stimulus money for companies here in the state of Wisconsin? We
sent millions of dollars. You know why he said --
RADDATZ: You did ask for stimulus money, correct?
BIDEN: Sure he did.
RYAN: On two occasions, we advocated your constituents applying for
grants. That`s what we do. We do that for all constituents.
BIDEN: I love that. I love that. This is such a bad program and he
writes me a letter saying -- writes the Department of Energy a letter
saying the reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs.
His words. And now he`s sitting here looking at me?
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: Paul Ryan, no, I`m not one of those people who votes for
something and writes to the government to ask them to send us money. I did
not request any stimulus money.
Paul Ryan -- no, I never asked for the stimulus. I oppose the
stimulus because it didn`t work. Paul Ryan -- yes, on two occasions, I --
it will create growth and jobs was the quote. Paul Ryan last night being
amazing.
Joining us now is Chris Hayes, the host of MSNBC`s weekend show "UP
WITH CHRIS HAYES." Chris` new book "Twilights of the Elites: America after
Meritocracy."
Chris, thank you for being here tonight.
CHRIS HAYES, "UP WITH CHRIS HAYES" HOST: Great to be here.
MADDOW: We watched two elite Washington operators last night, two men
who spent their whole adult lives in Washington. Does that mean that Paul
Ryan`s sin is such a common sin that it`s not an important one?
HAYES: No. No. It is very important, and it is very common.
But here`s why it`s so important. There seems to me sometimes a
desire on the part of the Romney campaign and equal desire sometimes among
liberals and the Obama campaign to talk about this grand ideological battle
about the size of government. Really what we`re having, we`re fighting
about the size of government and there is nothing in the record of the
Republican Party to suggest that they will shrink government.
It just doesn`t -- it`s not there. You`ve written about this in your
book "Drift," under Reagan, we`ve seen it under George W. Bush. Government
grew as a share of GDP, security spending, even things like Medicare Part
D, right?
So, the question is, who will government benefit? That is question at
issue in the campaign.
Do not let yourself -- the reason that hypocrisy is so important, do
not let yourself get suckered into the belief that this is a battle over
how big government is going to be. I don`t think that`s actually what`s on
the table. What`s on the table is: are the poor going to see their
Medicaid cut and the Pentagon get $2 trillion, or is the balance in the
other direction? That is what is on the table.
MADDOW: It`s not just a false debate about the size of government.
It`s a false debate about whether or not government works. The thing that
I thought was important last night about Biden and the reason that we cut
that sound bite as long as we did there, so you can hear what Biden says,
is that he doesn`t just say, ah, you`re a hypocrite, you wanted this money.
He says, you wanted this money because as you argued to me, this
spending works. It would work in your district. If you believe it would
work in your district, how could you argue it wouldn`t work in the country?
HAYES: And as you argued in 2002 when you got up in the well of the
house and made an impassioned argument for Keynesian stimulus when it was a
stimulus plan being put by George W. Bush, and when you voted for $700
billion in stimulus, $700 billion in stimulus which was the Republican
stimulus package that was passed by -- that was voted on by the Republicans
in the House, in parallel to the actual Recovery Act.
So, again, they can`t -- what they want to do now in opposition is
create this ideological vision of smaller government, of going after
malformed bureaucracies. When they are in power, they do not do that. No
one should be suckered into thinking that they will.
MADDOW: So here`s my question. When it comes to smaller government
and malformed bureaucracies what you get from the Democrats is arguments
against all of those things. You get the argument from the Democrats
saying, we are also against all of those sorts of things.
HAYES: Yes.
MADDOW: We are just interested in reforming things in a more
compassionate way. So they`re still arguing the Republicans` line on this
even though they`re pursuing policies that are more defensively
distributive.
HAYES: Yes. What I thought was important is that Joe Biden defended
the stimulus last night --
MADDOW: Yes.
HAYES: -- in that moment.
And people should read Michael Grunwald`s "New New Deal" which I`ve
talked about before on air because he lays out in some ways what Joe Biden
did in overseeing that stimulus spending. It wasn`t some petty
undertaking. It was actually really remarkable.
In fact, they lived up to despite all the Solyndra demagoguery that`s
come from Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney they lived up to an incredibly high
standard in terms of the efficiency and prudence of spending that much
money in that period of time.
It was in some ways a great testament to effective bureaucratic
deployment. It was a great testament to government doing what it should
do. And that story has remained woefully untold.
MADDOW: We went through this process with the Democrats on Obamacare
which involved them embracing the term Obamacare, which is when they had
been running away from their achievement in health reform because they
didn`t like the way Republicans talked about it and then something click,
Democrats -- a few braves one first, started running on it saying we see
this as a great political asset.
Are we due for that with the stimulus, too?
HAYES: I would like to say yes. I think the stimulus, when the
recovery happens, and if the recovery happens under a Barack Obama
administration in the second term, retroactively, the stimulus will take on
this very haloed view. People will go back and look at it and say it in
incredibly favorable light.
But everything hangs, as much does, as much as, frankly, the general
opinion of the liberal project hangs on the re-election of Barack Obama,
frankly. How that story is written is a story that is written about
whether Barack Obama is re-elected or not.
MADDOW: That`s exactly right. You`re very smart.
(LAUGHTER)
MADDOW: Chris Hayes is the host of MSNBC`s weekend morning show "UP
WITH CHRIS HAYES," which is going to be the bomb tomorrow. Chris` new book
is "Twilights of the Elites."
Chris, thank you. Appreciate it, man.
HAYES: (INAUDIBLE)
MADDOW: All right. Last night`s vice presidential debate was full of
obvious entertainment value but also two really important and substantive
policy issues that finally became part of the campaign that I think changed
the campaign in a really serious way. Two issues, have not been the focus
of the news about the debate today, but they`re about to be the focus of
this show.
That and Frank Rich coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: Twenty-five days until Election Day. Mitt Romney has been
campaigning for president for longer than today`s kindergarten students
have been alive.
And in this moment, this close to political judgment day for Mitt
Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan, at this moment, 25 days out, the
Republican ticket as yet has nothing coherent to say about one of the only
things a president is directly and personally responsible for under the
Constitution of the United States. What I think is the most shocking and
consequential revelation of last night`s debate is coming up next with
Frank Rich.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: You know, honestly, personally, I have never had more fun
watching a debate in my entire life. When we got off the air last night,
somebody sent me a note that there had been a big -- a physical fight, a
physical altercation at a debate in California between two congressional
candidates this week, and so I thought -- oh, no, maybe this Joe Biden/Paul
Ryan thing wasn`t actually the single most entertaining and illuminating
debate of my adult lifetime.
But then I watched the supposed big California congressional debate
fight and it was really just this, this one guy weirdly aggressively
awkwardly hugging the guy really hard. That was it. So who cares? The
record stands.
Paul Ryan versus Joe Biden in Centreville (ph), Kentucky, last night.
Come on, this is add good as it ever gets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BIDEN: Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me
something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take
responsibility.
RYAN: This is a plan that`s bipartisan. It`s a plan I put together
with a prominent Democrat senator from Oregon.
BIDEN: There`s not one Democrat who endorses it. Not one Democrat
who signed the plan.
RYAN: Our partner is a Democrat from Oregon.
BIDEN: And he said he does no longer support you for that.
RYAN: We put it together with the former Clinton budget director.
This idea --
BIDEN: Who disavows it.
RYAN: This idea --
BIDEN: This is a bunch of stuff. Look, here`s the deal.
RADDATZ: What does that mean, a bunch of stuff?
BIDEN: Well, it means it`s simply inaccurate.
RYAN: It`s Irish.
BIDEN: It is. We Irish call it malarkey.
RADDATZ: Thanks for the translation.
BIDEN: The idea -- if you heard that -- that little soliloquy on 47
percent and you think he just make a mistake, I think you`re -- I got a
bridge to sell you.
RYAN: With respect to that quote, I think the vice president very
well knows that sometimes the words don`t come out of your mouth the right
way.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: But I always say what I mean. And so does Romney.
RYAN: We want --
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: The right is all upset today because vice president Joe Biden
interrupted a lot and smiled a lot and openly laughed at Paul Ryan all
night long. I can see why they would be upset.
But, you know, here`s the thing. We knew from the Democrats saying it
all week long that they thought Mitt Romney`s effectiveness in the first
debate last week was largely due to him saying stuff that was not true,
denying the existence of big fundamental parts of his record. The
president at that debate apparently came prepared to debate Mr. Romney on
his record but he was not prepared to make Mr. Romney admit what his record
is against his will.
The Democrats had over and over and over again this past week that
they were not going to make that mistake again at the second debate. They
were not going to let matters of truthfulness and the Republican side`s
record just slide. They were going to be aggressive on that.
And Vice President Biden`s way of being aggressive on that was to
laugh in Paul Ryan`s face. Thus signaling to the moderator, to the
audience and importantly to Mr. Ryan, himself, essentially, OK, man,
seriously, this has got to be a joke. I`m not going to let you get away
with that.
And that strategy put Mr. Ryan on the defensive. It rattled him.
That drove the right nuts.
And listen, both sides do this. Both sides complain like this, but
when you complain like this, it really is one of the ways that you can tell
you`re losing, on both sides. Look, last week, even during the
presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, the Obama
campaign tried to push on Twitter the idea that Mitt Romney was being
inappropriately testy. They tried so hard to push the testy Mitt idea.
They tried so hard to make that into a thing that people should feel about
that debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANIE CUTTER, OBAMA CAMPAIGN: He got testy about it. He got
testy about being on defense. I think that came across to the American
people.
JIM MESSINA, OBAMA CAMPAIGN: A testy Governor Romney who spent the
entire time on defense.
DAVID PLOUFFE, OBAMA CAMPAIGN: I think for some folks at home it
probably came across a little testy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Yes, no. Nice try.
I mean, maybe Mitt Romney was testy, at the presidential debate, and
maybe Joe Biden did laugh in Paul Ryan`s face all night at the vice
presidential debate. But that is in part because these guys, Mitt Romney
and Joe Biden, were pumped and they were pumped because they were obviously
winning their debates. And complaining about that does not change that.
But the other person who was pumped last night and whose performance
was both winning and, therefore, grating to the side that came out the
worst last night, was the moderator, ABC`s Martha Raddatz. She did not
favor one candidate over the other. She interrupted both candidates at
roughly the same rate.
She gave both candidates almost exactly equal time. But Martha
Raddatz who I officially would now support for president, herself, Martha
Raddatz kept it moving and stopped these guys from diving down talking
points rabbit holes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
BIDEN: With all due respect, that`s a bunch of malarkey.
RADDATZ: And why is that so?
BIDEN: Because not a single thing he said is accurate. First of all
--
RADDATZ: Be specific.
Wasn`t this a massive intelligence failure?
Was that really appropriate right in the middle of the crisis?
You have refused, and, again, to offer specifics on how you pay for
that 20 percent across the board tax cut. Do you actually have the
specifics, or are you still working on it and that`s why you won`t tell
voters?
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: And when he wouldn`t give her the specifics she followed up
by saying, OK, no specifics.
By knowing what she was talking about particularly on foreign policy
but essentially the whole night, and by interrupting judicially and ab
libbing appropriate follow-up questions, Martha Raddatz covered a lot of
ground that did not get touched if last week`s debate, that has not been
touched in the campaign much at all really and importantly, she helped
expose some big blank spots on the policy map for the challenging party in
this presidential race which before last night had been able to get away
with zero specifics on anything they did not want to be specific about.
So last night Paul Ryan either had to give specifics or we finally,
finally got a giant national spotlight shining on the fact that he had no
specifics to offer. That`s why this debate was awesome. That`s why this
debate went fast.
This was an exhilarating amount of ground to have covered in 90
minutes, an exhilarating amount of new information and new political truths
that we did not know about before last night, but that we know now. It
started right away, started right away.
Paul Ryan saying we should have apologized for U.S. Marines urinating
on Taliban corpses in Afghanistan but he would not say when asked directly
and when pressed with a follow-up, he would not say if the U.S. was right
to apologize for burning Korans. No answer. No position on that.
George W. Bush administration apologized for that, the Obama
administration did, too. Paul Ryan is running with a guy who literally
wrote a book called "No Apologies." Does he also mean no apology for that?
No answer.
Asked directly if a military strike on Iran would technically be an
effective means of stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon -- Vice
President Biden said yes to that question, Paul Ryan, no answer.
Asked what a Romney/Ryan administration would do differently on Iran
and Syria than is more strong than what the Obama administration is doing
since they`ve criticized the administration as weak, what would they do
that would be stronger? No answer from Paul Ryan, which led Joe Biden to
say, hey, the only other thing we`re not doing that we could be doing is
war. Are you saying you want a war? No answer.
Here`s my favorite one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RADDATZ: Let me ask you quickly -- what`s your criteria for
intervention?
BIDEN: Yes.
RYAN: In Syria?
RADDATZ: Worldwide.
RYAN: What is in the national interest of the American people, what
is in the national security of the American people. It`s got to be in a
strategic national interest of our country.
RADDATZ: No humanitarian?
RYAN: Each situation will come up with its own set of circumstances
but putting American troops on the ground, that`s got to be within the
national security interests of the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: So, Congressman, how will you make national security
decisions about sending troops abroad? We will make those decisions by
considering national security. Yes, Congressman, that`s the topic at hand
here.
On what are the grounds on which you would make that decision? Yes,
we would make that decision about the national security. We would base it
on national security. Hall pass for the bathroom, please.
Mr. Ryan also flatly denied his campaign`s stated position that
military spending should go up by $2 trillion. Mr. Romney has been
guaranteeing that he will reserve a specific proportion of GDP to be spent
on the military no matter what our defense needs are. That is a promise of
a huge, huge increase in military spending. A huge increase that the
Pentagon says it does not want. It`s been called a force-feeding plan for
the Pentagon -- the Romney/Ryan spending plan here.
But last night, Martha Raddatz`s questioning and Joe Biden`s badgering
got Paul Ryan to disavow this plan altogether, saying he does not want an
increase at all despite the fact it is what he and Mr. Romney has been
campaigning on.
Paul Ryan broke new ground on saying how and why he and Mitt Romney
would overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion criminal. His answer on rape
in particular has people going nuts today for obvious reasons. We`ll be
covering that in future shows.
Joe Biden also dipped Paul Ryan in tar and rolled him in feathers on
the issue of the stimulus. And Mr. Ryan`s supposed principles on that
issue. We talked about that moments ago with Chris Hayes.
But there are two things that I think are hugely important to the
presidential campaign that happened last night. Two things that I,
frankly, never thought we would get to. And that we got to and, boy,
howdy, is this new territory. First was this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You asked, do I feel free?
Let me put it to you this way. I earned capital in the campaign, political
capital and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That`s what
happened in, after the 2000 election. I earned some capital. I`ve earned
capital in this election, and I`m going to spend it for what I told the
people I`d spend it on, which is you`ve heard the agenda. Social Security
and --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Social Security, first on the list.
When George W. Bush won re-election in 2004, the first thing he said
he wanted to spend his political capital on, first on the list was Social
Security. Specifically what he meant was privatizing Social Security. No
more Social Security safety net, just hand it over to Wall Street and hope
your numbers come up as cherries instead of lemons when the Wall Street
slot machine dial stops spinning, minus the fees from your broker, of
course, grandma. Did they warn you about those fees?
The Republican plan in the second Bush term to privatize Social
Security was a political disaster. The more President George W. Bush
traveled around the country and talked about this idea, the less popular
the idea became and it started off about as popular as food poisoning.
And at the time George W. Bush was traveling around the country
promoting this disastrous idea, back in Washington, back in the House of
Representatives, a young radically conservative congressman from Wisconsin
was promoting legislation in the house that would privatize Social Security
even faster than the Bush plan, and more radically than the bush plan and
with an even bigger direct payoff for Wall Street. Even the Bush
administration at the time denounced Paul Ryan`s version of privatizing
Social Security as irresponsible.
But he really believed in it and he did not give up on it. After
trying and failing along with George W. Bush to privatize Social Security
in 2005. In his budget in 2008, he said we should privatize Social
Security. In his budget in 2010, he said we should privatize Social
Security. It was not until last year that Paul Ryan dropped privatizing
Social Security, that old disastrous George W. Bush idea from his Paul Ryan
budgets.
So there was some suspense heading into last night, right? This is a
big, potent political issue. And the Democrats have been keeping their
powder dry on this.
Is Biden going to hold Paul Ryan to it? Is Paul Ryan going to have to
disavow something he`s been working on since even before the P90X workout
was invented? Is he going to have to disavow this thing he stood for, for
so long now that he`s trying not to stand for it on the national stage?
How is he going to handle this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RADDATZ: You were one of the few lawmakers to stand with President
Bush when he was seeking to privatize Social Security.
RYAN: For younger people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: This is what Bush said back then, too. Just for younger
people. Don`t worry, grandma. We`ll privatize it for everyone who isn`t
getting it yet.
So you`re grandfathered in, grandfather, but then we`re killing it.
This is the same old George W. Bush argument. They thought that this made
it seem less scary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: For younger people. What we said then, and what I`ve always
agreed, is let younger Americans have a voluntary choice of making their
money work faster for them within the Social Security system. That`s not
what Mitt Romney`s proposing. What we`re saying is no changes for anybody
55 and above.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: When Charlie Pierce from Boston wrote up that moment from the
debate at "Esquire" magazine today he wrote this: "You could hear the
screams from Romney headquarters all the way up the Charles to where I was
watching."
Democrats have so far been keeping their powder dry on this very, very
potent issue, on the Republicans wanting to privatize Social Security. Not
just privatizing Medicare, and thereby getting rid of it, which has been an
issue in this campaign, but privatizing Social Security and thereby getting
rid of it. Before last night, that was Paul Ryan`s record and it was
George W. Bush`s record.
But nobody knew if Romney and Ryan were going to try to drag that old
disastrous idea over the threshold of the White House with them. Now we
know they are dragging it with them, which is amazing.
When I said there were two points from last night, and one last thing
I think needs to be mentioned that I think changed the race last night.
And it`s the war.
Before the debate started, there was a really weird moment. This was
yesterday, but before the debate. It was on FOX News. It`s a weird moment
when George W. Bush`s Iraq war spokesman, Paul Ryan`s senior staffer on
this campaign, a man named Dan Senor, and he went on FOX News yesterday
afternoon to try to explain what the Republican position is on the war in
Afghanistan.
Dan Senor said Romney and Ryan support the president`s timeline for
leaving Afghanistan in 2014 but then he also screwed up and said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN SENOR, ROMNEY SENIOR ADVISER: So this is important. Governor
Romney has always said it is a mistake to broadcast timelines, if you`re
the commander-in-chief, to broadcast timelines so our enemies are in the
know about our next move.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: It`s a weird mistake, right? I mean, you can`t be onboard
totally with the timeline and then say the timeline is a huge mistake,
broadcasting a date to our enemies.
So that was a weird thing that happened on FOX News before the debate,
Paul Ryan`s senior staffer on the campaign. Then at the debate, it turned
out that was not a mistake. They are trying to say this is a policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: With respect to the Afghanistan and the 2014 deadline, we agree
with the 2014 transition.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Oh. OK. You agree with the timeline to leave in 2014. So
you don`t agree with your senior staffer guy who went crazy on FOX News
today and said a timeline is a big mistake, a broadcast to our enemies?
You agree with the transition, you agree with the deadline of 2014. It was
-- I`m glad to know you agree with that because it was crazy when your
senior staffer guy said that would be a big mistake.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: We don`t want to broadcast to our enemies, put a date on your
calendar, wait us out, and then come back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: What used to be frustrating is that the Republican side in
this campaign was not capable of or willing to talk about the war in
Afghanistan for which they would be assuming responsibility if they were
elected. Eek.
Last night, they finally did have to talk about it because the debate
was really good. And their position apparently is that we should leave in
2014, because saying we are going to leave in 2014 is a huge mistake.
We used to talk about something called a commander-in-chief test in
vice presidential politics. Last night was that test for Congressman Paul
Ryan. How would you grade him on that test?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RYAN: Joe and I are from similar towns. He`s from Scranton,
Pennsylvania, I`m from Janesville, Wisconsin. Do you know what the
unemployment rate is in Scranton today?
BIDEN: I sure do.
BIDEN: I sure do.
RYAN: It`s 10 percent.
BIDEN: Yeah.
RYAN: You know what it was the day you guys came in -- 8.5 percent.
BIDEN: Yeah.
RYAN: That`s how it`s going all around America. Look --
BIDEN: You don`t read the statistics. That`s not how it`s going.
It`s going down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: It is going down to 7.8 percent nationwide. One of many
insta-fact checking moments courtesy of Joe Biden in last night`s debate.
Joining us now is Frank Rich. "New York" magazine`s editor at large,
his next feature story is out next week. It`s called "The right will
triumph in the end.
Frank, thank you for being here on post debate Friday.
FRANK RICH, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Delighted to be here with you.
MADDOW: I had such a good time watching that debate. It moved so
fast. Martha Raddatz made it really substantive. And I hope the
interrupting was not pointless. I thought the interrupting was sort of an
accountability thing.
What did you think?
RICH: It was an accountability thing. And so, it was conversational.
It wasn`t stagey. It didn`t seem like a stunt put together, although
probably it was.
Also I think a thing that worked for Biden he comes across as genial
and having a sense of humor and that makes his interruption seem not so
bad. Except obviously to Republicans who are now saying he`s an alcoholic,
drug, pill-popping maniac out of a horror movie.
Stop being cry babies, boys, I would say.
MADDOW: Well, they`ve said that it was very, very damaging for the
president to be scowling and it was damaging for Vice President Biden to be
smiling.
(LAUGHTER)
RICH: What are they supposed to do, look constipated the whole time?
The thing though, what I liked about it is, I don`t think a vice
presidential debate really has consequence in the election. But there was
a softening up here that really sets the stage and hopefully he`ll live up
to it for the president to come in and do a knockout or some kind of
knockout Tuesday.
MADDOW: I think that, you saw my introduction there. I think that
the privatization of Social Security has been waiting in the wings as a
very potent domestic issue for the Democrats. They haven`t much touched it
even it is there in Ryan`s records.
I don`t if last night means they`re going to go with it, but they
certainly have room to go with it after his answers.
I also think the stuff on the war was a bit of a commander-in-chief
test and I thought Paul Ryan was terrifyingly vacant and coherent on the
subject. I thought those were the most important things.
RICH: I think they`re both very important.
On the Social Security privatization, that is a ball waiting to be hit
out of the park. You know, you work through a scenario in the privatized
Social Security. You could have bought stock in General motors in 2004 and
then in 2008 let Detroit go bankrupt. That`s one example of what that`s
about and that should seize it.
In the case of national security issues, his tutor, his minder, Ryan`s
minder, is Dan Senor, who is sort of the Baghdad Bob of the American side.
He is the flack who lied about the state of the situation during the
occupation of Iraq by -- in the early days of the war.
So that this guy, who is one of the most failed records in the history
of foreign policy, is essentially given Ryan cliff`s notes that he
regurgitated not terribly well. Couldn`t improvise beyond the talking
points he had and the simplest questions whether from Raddatz or from Biden
that penetrated that, he didn`t have an answer.
MADDOW: What I thought was going on last night on the issue of
Afghanistan was the issue that Paul Ryan was confused and did not realize
that he was giving an incoherent answer. That he sort of got lost in his
words. He may not have understood what the words meant. He was sort of
repeating things he`d been told. So, he didn`t get the incoherence.
That was my take on it last night. My take on it changed when I went
back and looked at the tape of Dan Senor just before the debate saying the
same thing.
I mean, what does it mean to have as their on purpose, overt, not
screwing it up strategy that they`re going to leave in 2014 the way the
president wants to and that leaving in 2014 is a mistake. And saying we
will leave in 2014 is a mistake and we`re saying we`re going to leave in
2014. I mean --
RICH: It`s like everything because it`s not a real foreign policy.
There`s no intellectual basis to it. It`s the charged of sort of the
neocon remnants of the Bush years, and being pushed by the same guys and
so, it`s basically they take whatever Obama is doing and they make it
slightly more truculent. So we`ll do something more active in Syria or
with Iran.
MADDOW: Stronger.
RICH: Stronger, but there are about as many details as there are in
their tax numbers. There`s no details.
And so what -- so they have this preposterous, it`s like a Rube
Goldberg contraption about leaving Afghanistan, of course, it makes no
sense. But they were trying to find some desperate distinction from the
policy that`s in place, even if it`s meaningless and it makes them look
stupid.
Right now, I don`t think Ryan has the knowledge -- by the way, neither
does Romney. Romney has absolutely no foreign policy experience or
background and said almost nothing about foreign policy until this entire
campaign until he made that wonderful trip to London and insulted our
closest ally.
MADDOW: And to Canada.
RICH: Yes.
MADDOW: Frank Rich, "New York" magazine`s editor at large. Next
feature story is, "The right will triumph in the end," which is smart, but
obviously wrong.
RICH: I hope I`m wrong. Thank you.
MADDOW: Nice to have you here.
We`ve got more ahead. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: We want to bring you more details about tonight`s breaking
news of that gun shot fired at the Obama`s campaign field office in Denver,
Colorado, late today. A gun shot was fired when the offices were occupied.
Earlier this hour, Denver police spokesperson, detective Raquel Lopez told
us that no one at the site was injured although the site was occupied when
the shot was fired.
A campaign official also confirming to NBC News tonight that the shot
was fired and that everybody at the Denver office is OK.
While the Denver police told us they can`t comment on this ongoing
investigation, detective Lopez told the "Denver Post" tonight that the
department has a description of a possible vehicle of interest. That word
vehicle perhaps indicating that the incident may have been a drive-by
shooting.
We`ll bring you more information on tonight shooting at the Obama
field office in Denver, Colorado. We`ll keep you posted on this evolving
story here at MSNBC, as we learn more.
That does it for us tonight. We`ll see you again Monday night. But
now it`s time for a special live Friday campaign edition of "THE LAST WORD
WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL."
Have a great weekend.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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