Transcripts For MSNBC Martin Bashir 20131107

Their speaker. He said its because theres not enough compromise. Shame on congress. I think it is terrific that hes brash and outspoken. Maybe the folks in washington, d. C. , should tune in th their tvs right now. Its been a great working relationship. President obama called Chris Christie to congratulate him and he got crap for that. Its all about Chris Christie. Way, hawing, look hey, washington, look at me. How about christie spending one day campaigning for Ken Cuccinelli. Look at the knives coming out. Its okay, chris. A very good afternoon to you, and if you needed any further evidence that Chris Christie is now the anointed establishment frontrunner for the 2016 republican president ial nomination, then look no further than the knives that are out against mr. Christie from his socalled republican friends. Thats the real clue beyond the launch of the ready for christie Political Action committee, complete with brand new website. Its the key indicator, much more than time magazines incredibly subtle cover, the elephant in the room. Yes, christie barely had time to bask in the glow of his 22point reelection victory in the new jersey governors race before the pesky president ial chatter reached a deafening pitch. That means im continuing to do my job well. If im doing my yob well, that is good for the people here. I dont see it has a burden. You have to have a huge ego. Its such a burden for you to be speculating about me being the leader of the free world. Oh, stop. Thats a pretty huge ego. Its complimentary, its flattering, and i have no problem with it. Sure. He and his incredible humility have no problem with it. As for the rabid right wing media, not so much. You have got so many people in the media celebrating the christie win as the road to the future for the Republican Party. What does that tell you . You know what . For one, im tired of the media picking our candidate for us, and theyre trying to do it here. Hes wrong in terms of the conservative base on immigration, on guns, on the economy, on Green Technology being the future. How does he win in a red state . Gee, with endorsements like that, how can he lose . It appears dear mr. Sean hannity is still seeing red over the hug that broke a thousand romney supporters hearts. I didnt hear him call president obama a liar on health care and that bothers me. Hes giving him a big bear hug a week before the election with romney last week. Disgraceful he came into the direct physical contact with the president and he wont even call him a liar. Its enough to make senator ted cruz wonder if christie has the cojones to play with the big boys in washington. I think its terrific hes brash and outspoken and that he won his race. I think we need more leaders in washington with the courage to stand for principle, and in particular obama care is not working. You have got to hand it to him. That man can take a line and ride it like a rodeo cowboy, and its clear christies sins are adding up. Hugging the president , not calling him a liar, expanding medicaid in his state, and dont four get christie had the nerve to wrack up 51 of the latino vote. But dont go thinking hes the great hope of the hispanic gop. Please, dont. Marco rubio implores you. Its important to remember every race is particular to the state its run in, so there are factors in new jersey that i think are individual to that race. Governor christie has certainly shown a way of winning in new jersey and states like new jersey. Got that, jersey boy . Dont make him say it again. Lets get right to our panel. Here in new york is msnbc contributor joy reid who is the managing editor of thegrio. Com and also my stand in, and in washington msnbc political analyst david corn of mother jo jones magazine. A republican wins a 22point election in a blue state and conservatives act like a baby seal, he needs to be clubbed for their coats. Whats happened . I think its clear Chris Christie cannotgate rig get rig he asks to see the president s birth certificate. He got that obama on him. Oh, my god, he touched him. The thing about Chris Christie is he is a master of selfmarketing. He spent 25 million to do gauzy commercials about how awesome he was after sandy. And he spent another 25 million to make sure that cory booker wasnt even in the state when he did his reelection. Thats really great for padding your margin of victory and making the really desperate republican establishment feel like you might be the guy to save them from the tea party. So up to now hes done everything right in terms of getting establishment support. The problem is the base of the Republican Party is really sick of the establishment of their own party, and they really dont like the guy who seems to be teachers pet, and right now Chris Christie is teachers pet and medias pet. He is. David, we know rand paul called christie the m word, a moderate, but salon posted a piece on its website, dear everyone, Chris Christie is conservative. He vetoed a minimum wage hike. He vetoed legislation designed to eliminate the gender wage gap. He killed a new jersey version of the dream act and cut funding for Womens Health services, including eliminating funding for planned parenthood. David, this isnt christie the moderate as opposed to cuccinelli the extremist. This is the dinosaur versus the desembleer. A man who is kuning in the way he plays his conservatism. I thought it was mothra versus godzilla. Christie is conservative. On almost every issue hes been conservative except one. He has been willing to work with barack obama when it has helped him and new jersey. Thats the one thing hes not conservative on. You know, he did accept the Medicaid Expansion as part of obama care without setting up an exchange, but by and large on the issues when it comes to bashing teachers unions, on the budget cuts and all that remember the speech he gave at the Tampa Convention for the republicans last year. Look at all the conservative things i have done in new jersey while people still think im a moderate. The bottom line is not that hes not conservative enough. Its that he has obama cooties and the whole Political Science experiment were going to see in the next year or two on the republican side is whether anybody can get rid of the obama cooties once they have them. So, joy, what does mr. Christie need to do . Does he need to become divorced in some formal way from the president of the United States . Does he need to say offensive things . Does he need tro perhaps introduce a few racist gibes or introduce the idea of birtherism . You laugh, but isnt that necessary . Chris christie who was able to win in large part because he could push off the tox republican brand, 57 of the voters in the exit polls said they do not like the Republican Party but they separate him from it. Hes going to be head of the republican governors association. Hes clearly going to run for president. When he has to go to iowa, he will have to do a few things to gain credibility. Look what marco rubio had to morph himself into. He had to turn against Sonia Sotomayor and against the dream act and every other form of Immigration Reform. He tried to softly jump toward Immigration Reform and got shellacked. Shes now on the sidelines just wishing he could be Chris Christies friend. If he doesnt want to be marco rubio, hes going to have to not an apostate ever again. He has to go way to the right just goet the base on his side. There is way out for Chris Christie . He hopes for a circular firing squad with cruz, rubio, rand paul, they all can sort of divide up the base. He gets through to new hampshire, and hes readymade as a republican in the primary in places like pennsylvania, ohio, you know, california, maybe even florida. I mean, in the right given the right set of circumstances, coming across as a brash guy who can sort of still tout conservative credentials, hes not out of the picture. Now, i think in a onetoone race with a tea party guy, anybody probably loses given where the base of the party is, but there may be a way to thread a needle. I know when were talking about Chris Christie, threading a needle is not the image that comes to mind. There may be a way to do this and still keep his appeal to a more general election electorate in some of those midwestern dont i dare mention i wouldnt dare. I was going to say what david just said, that was the Rudy Giuliani strategy. He got one delegate. Okay. But here is a question, on a day where weve seen the house refuse to take up what the senate has passed in relation to not discriminating against people because of their Sexual Orientation or identity, do you think someone like Chris Christie would support that kind of legislation . Given his history on gay rights in new jersey, the answer would probably be no because he was against this is the test. Exactly. And he has set himself very far to the right on gay rights issues. Because he has what david calls the obama cooties, he can only afford to be an apostate on so many issues. He cant really go left on too many things. He cant do gay rights as well as i dont know what other options are out there for republicans at this point, but he has to try to stay as far to the right as he can. David go ahead quickly. The interesting thing about him is he will not be running an ideological campaign. You watched his speech the other night, its not ideological. Its like im a tough guy, i can make things happen its about governance, its not about politics. It was, indeed, some of the methodology Rudy Giuliani tried to use and failed. It will put him at the wrong spot with some of the members of the base of his party, but he will be in that way at least refreshing in the sense he wont be part of the kamikaze club. If he runs on governance, the risk in doing that is then reporters will stop being in awe of him and thinking hes awesome and start looking at his record. If you run on governance people are going to look careful as what you did as governor. Sandy job is not over. He laid down a big chip the other night. He said my job mere here is to h this mission. We will be talking in a moment about the great Ken Cuccinelli. Have fun. Joy reid and david corn, thank you both. Coming up, what good is a budget if paul ryan will not budge . Perhaps the World Economy should go all in on twitter. Hungry for the best . Its eb. Want to give your family the very best in taste, freshness, and nutrition . Its eb. Want to give them more vitamins, omega 3s, and less saturated fat . Its eb. Egglands best eggs. Ebs. The only eggs that make better taste and better nutrition. Easy. Egglands best eggs. Better taste. Better nutrition. Better eggs. Its eb. Yes, the twitter ipo, up big, over 70 on its first day. Just like the quarterly gdp numbers today, everything is going gangbusters, well, on the surface at least. Dig down into the great economic number we saw today, the gdp report, and we find that people actually pulled back on their spending in the last quarter. Look closer and you will see that the sequestration cuts have taken an enormous chunk out of this economy. With the white house today estimating that the shutdown and debt ceiling fight cost up to 120,000 private sector jobs in the first two weeks of the quarter, it becomes obvious the politics of shutdown and irresponsible cuts are jeopardizing an economy that is still struggling towards recovery. Joining us now is democratic congressman Chris Van Hollen of maryland, Ranking Member of the house budget committee. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, martin. The budget process that youve been arguing for for several months came to a crashing halt even as it started with congressman paul ryan saying he will not budge on tax cuts, and yet fitch last month said the reason it may downgrade the u. S. Is because people wont budge on the budget process. So how do you negotiate with a man who states his uncompromising position from the absolute beginning . Well, martin, youre absolutely right. Look, the good news was after eight months we finally got our republican colleagues to the negotiating table. The bad news is that the first thing they did was start taking things off the negotiating table. As you said, the sequester, which are these very deep, immediate cuts in important investments, are hurting the economy. The Nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has told us that we will have 800,000 fewer jobs in this country this Time Next Year if we keep that in place. So what weve said is lets replace it. We can achieve the same amount of longterm deficit reduction with much smarter cuts over a long period of time, but also the elimination of a lot of these tax breaks, including tax breaks that encourage American Companies to ship american jobs overseas. So you can both raise revenue to replace the sequester, which is killing jobs, and reduce the incentive, the tax incentives, for many American Companies to ship jobs overseas. You would think that would be a w win win, but our republican colleagues dont want to talk about it. Is paul ryan as ideologically fixed on the economy as Ken Cuccinelli is on social issues . Arent they cut from exactly the same uncompromising cloth that is preventing any kind of progress in terms of governance here . Well, martin, certainly the republican ryan budget in the house is a purely ideological document. Its an inflexible, uncompromising partisan document. So the question is whether as we go into these negotiations our Republican House colleagues, including paul ryan will show the kind of willingness to compromise that the American People want to see, and what the American People have said is that they want long term deficit checkpoints. Theyre willing to make some targeted cuts for the long term but its really hard to stay with a straight face that deficit reduction is the most important thing and then turn around and refuse to close a single loophole. Of course. A single loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit. He can do it with a straight face. Lest anyone think that democrats have not compromised, let me show you and show all our viewers where we are in terms of deficit reduction. Including the current sequestration cuts, we will have cut 4 trillion, thats trillion with a t, through 2023. Whats more, only about 1 in 5, 20 of savings, have come from revenue increases. Everything else spending cuts. And i suppose, you know, mr. Ryan will only be happy when that first number is zero in five, is that right . Well, look, youre absolutely right, martin. If you look at the progress waef made over the last several years on deficit reduction. Its overwhelmingly come from cuts that will be made in the next ten years. Cuts that are already in place. Very little has come from revenue. That was when we allowed finally the tax breaks for folks at the very high end of the income scale to lapse last january. That brought in a little bit of revenue, but you still have these huge tax breaks for millionaires as well as for corporate special interests that we should use to reduce the longterm deficit, because if you dont ask them to put in one more penny from closing these tax breaks, it just means that everybody else in the country gets hit that much harder. We should be focused on job creation, as you said. The Government Shutdown and the threats not to pay our bills have already cost the economy dearly. They have already resulted in 120,000 fewer jobs in october, 24 billion in lost economic activity. So instead of the politics of shut down, which weve seen from our republican colleagues, we should finally get to growing the economy, reducing the deficit in a sensible way, which means closing some of these tax breaks that have no economic benefit for anybody other than some of these special interests. Sure. Finally and briefly, are we going to make any progress, sir . Well, it really depends on the answer to the question youre posing here. Are republicans ultimately willing to make some compromises for the greater good of the country or are they going to hold out to try to protect the special interest tax breaks which only benefit a very few at the expense of everybody else . We have said, the democrats have said, we want to focus on job creation. We want to increase our investment in important priorities. We want to reduce the deficit, absolutely, in a balanced way. Were willing to make more cuts but for goodness sakes, republicans have got to ask, you know, some of these very special interests to take a little less in terms of their tax breaks if they really care about longterm Economic Growth and the deficit. Congressman Chris Van Hollen. Thanks for joining us. A quick programming note, dont miss chuck todds exclusive interview with the president airing tonight on politic nation right here on msnbc. Theres been a footnote frenzy going on. 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Get help right away if you have swelling of the face or throat, or trouble breathing. Tell your doctor your medical history. And find an Arthritis Treatment for you. Visit celebrex. Com and ask your doctor about celebrex. For a body in motion. We could not allow this moment to pass without conveying our warmest good wishes to kentucky senator rand paul. A day after the Washington Times canceled his column amid what paul has called a footnote frenzy, he has been awarded by a new writing gig. Hes joining an outfit that invented a chuck of hagel speech to the friends of hamas and pushed every birth fiction they could find regarding the president. We are pleased to add senator paul to our lineup of fearless original thought leaders. Fearless, maybe. Original, well, we now know the written word speaks for itself. We should note that buzz feed today found just the latest example of a rand paul cut and paste, this time from a number of scholarly articles right into his 2012 book. Were sorry to say we have now lost count. Stay with us. A special screw the cuch edition of top lines is coming up. But first governorelect Terry Mcauliffe checks out his new digs. No doubt, it will need a thorough cleaning. Youve been great. Its quite a place. A lot of history. Lets go eat. You tell us what you want to pay, and we give you a range of coverages to choose from. Who is she . Thats flobot. Shes this new robot were trying out, mostly for, like, small stuff. Wow look at her go shes pretty good. Shes pretty good. Hey, flobot, great job. Oops. [ powers down ] uhoh, flobot is broken. The name your price tool, only from progressive. Call or click today. dad just feather it out. son ok. Feather it out. dad all right. Thats ok. dad put it in second, put it in second. dad slow it down. Put the clutch in, break it, break it. dad just like i showed you. Dad, you didnt show me, you showed him. Dad, hes gonna wreck the car dad hes not gonna wreck the car. dad no fighting in the road, please. dad put your blinker on. son you didnt even give me a chance dad ok. mom vo we got the new subaru because nothing could break our old one. dad ok. son what the heck . Let go of my seat mom vo i hope the same goes for my husband. dad you guys are doing a great job. Seriously. announcer love a car that lasts. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. From losers without grace to winners without glory. Here are todays top lines. Thats what friends are for. Losing speeches by definition should be graceful. We said this race was a referendum on obama care and although i lofs. Respectful and brief. This race came down to the wire because of obama care. Nobody tunes in to listen to the loser. Loser. Youre a loser. If you send a message to the president obama youre a loser. So, yeah, Ken Cuccinelli lost. Were losing the republicans have decided they are not sweating it. Obama care actually could have been the reason that cuccinelli had a late surge. They are not worried. He sought to make this election a referendum on the bosched rollout of obama care. The working class americans. We won the latino vote. Blacks and hispanics, thats our party. Hes wrong in terms of the conservative base on immigration. Find another republican in america. On guns, on the economy. Who has won the latino vote recently. A lot of cuccinelli supporters a little bitter. The establishment seemed to abandon cuccinelli. I tell you its a shame what happened to Ken Cuccinelli. The establishment let cuccinelli down. He was betrayed. Hes trashing rand. We need moderates like Chris Christie. Hes trashing cruz. But i didnt hear him call president obama a liar. He seems to be at war, like the establishment, against conservative tea party members. To win the latino vote in this state. As we saw with Chris Christies convention speech, its all about Chris Christie. Friends like you, who needs friends. Lets get right to our panel. Joining us now is Maria Teresa Kumar who is president of voter latino. Msnbc contributor jimmy williams, and dana milbank, who is a political columne esist fo the washington post. Dana, you have to help me. I dont understand the right wing reaction to this election. Theyre attacking Chris Christie who won his election but the cuch who lost is now being elevated into a martyr for what . His crusade against the affo Affordable Care act . Well, they want to figure out a way to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. Exactly. Look, i think there is an element within the party, the Republican Party, the tea party, that would rather have some sort of a heroic defeat, a heroic failure, than an actual victory. Theres a path to salvation staring them in the face and thats Chris Christie, by far and away the candidate most likely to have a victory in 2016. And hes the last guy they want to see get through a republican primary. So i think this is its sort of the purity test gone mad here and the idea is wed rather go down in flames and be pure about it than actually win an election. Jimmy, it hasnt even been a full 48 hours since the cuch slumped to defeat and the daily caller reports hes being urged by conservatives to run for the u. S. Senate next year against democratic incumbent, mark warner. What do you think of that . Fe doesnt like losing by two points to Terry Mcauliffe, he probably shouldnt run against mark warner. I think thats not a smart thing to do considering his poll numbers. This is the problem with the republicans right now. They have this harry potter moment, which is the people that are only magical families as opposed to the half breed families or the mug bloods. Thats whats happening right now. The Tea Party People are the pure conservatives, and here they are attacking someone who is prolife, antigay marriage, antigay rights, et cetera, et cetera, and they think hes bad . He just won new jersey by 30 points . That guy is not bad, hes won. Thats absurd. But im never going to be a democrat thats going to get in the middle of a gop Bottle Rocket fight. I think thats fantastic. Maria teresa, the wacko birds arent merely angry at governor christie because he won his election. They also say, and this is his words, thatsaar sabotaged cuccinelli by not campaigning for him. Take a listen to this. If he had not held a special election for the senate seat to replace Frank Lautenberg and last night the vote had been between steve lone gan and cory booker, lonigan would have bon but his ego got in the way. Were it not for christies big ego, mcauliffe would have been defeated by the tea party. What evidence is there . Thats never never land. The reason he held a different election date for cory booker was because he was afraid of his own candidacy. You would have the Democratic Base come out and he would his governorship itself would be contested highly by buono. Lets take a step back. I think what were really seeing right now is a fraction not only within the Tea Party Movement but the tea party media movement. If you look at a quiet election that took place in alabama with the candidate who was a pro business guy that got heavily funded by the Business Community and was supported by senator flake and mitch mcconnell, they actually started they used it as a test case to see what could happen if big business starts putting forth candidates and actually basically breaking down the Republican Tea Party machine. And thats one of the reasons why mcauliffe won in virginia, because he reached out to the Business Community and said, hey, you know, im actually very pragmatic democrat and i can reach across the aisle. Thats one of the reasons governor christie also won in new jersey is he wasnt so polarizing. What i suspect is were going to see a lot more republicans and the business machine coming in and start bringing in and elevating their own candidates against tea party members. Dana, do you think that republicans might have been happier if Chris Christie had actually lost . Yes. Well, yes, i think the short answer is yes. They would have hang on, dana. We have to repeat what you just said. You believe that they would have been happier if christie had lost. Well, because its all about purity, and its about proving an ideology can work. Thats whats going on in virginia. Theyre saying because cuccinelli lost by 2. 5 percentage points, its the fault of the establishment for not doing more to help him. If they merely had an establishment candidate there, it wouldnt have been a close race in the first place. The republicans would have cruised to an easy victory. Theyre looking for the more difficult answer and there seems to be some masochistic pleasure in this adversity. Yisnt that what ted cruz ha been arguing in exactly the same way but hopelessly, and that is what hes looking for is people of purity and principle to stand up while mr. Cuccinelli did so and he didnt do so well. Thats right. But also ted cruz is now backtracking every so slightly on that when he walks into the mansfield room in the u. S. Capitol last weekend to his caucus and says to his own colleagues, republican senators, im not going to campaign against you even know your former colleague jim demint is going to run ads against you. Now even ted cruz is getting wishy washing when it comes to purity. Joe Scarborough Lakes it say, if republicans want to win, they better put up candidates who can win races instead of using races. Thank you so much all of you. Coming up, what if the gop numbers guy, paul ryan, had his way with the Global Economy . A worst Case Scenario Survival Guide is straight ahead. Avo the volkswagen sign then drive sales event is back. 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[ female announcer ] with nice n easy, get the most natural shade of you. I know halloween is long past, but imagine a world in which paul ryan, the gops budget guru, got his way, and austerity with its massive indiscriminate cuts affecting mainly the poor was the dominant economic principle since the financial collapse five years ago, because that is what is causing the pains you see right across europe where today investors were spooked when the head of the European Central bank, their ben bernanke, said he would lower rates. The reason . In a word, deflation. Here to explain and bring that home to us is jared bernstein, senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities. Jared, can you give us a short explanation for deflation because its something that has frightened economists here in the u. S. Immediately after the financial collapse and its certainly frightening people in europe today. Well, it should. Its quite a frightening phenomena although it doesnt sound that bad when you say it this way. Deflation means declining prices. Some people might think that sounds pretty good. That means ill have to pay less for stuff. From a macroeconomic perspective, from the perspective of the overall economy, growth, jobs, gdp, deflation is a symptom that your economy is growing too slowly. Exhibit one would be europe where recession has been the norm for the past couple wers. Couple of years, jared. Were talking about five years. Were talking about a continent that has employed virtually the ryan budget word for word. Right. We have seen repeat double dip, in some cases triple dip recessions, and now the fear of deflation. Thats my point. That, in fact, europe was hit by the same downturn we were in the late 2000s, but because they embraced these austerity measures, many countries in the eurozone in general went back into recession where theyve been for the past couple of years. Now theyre looking at the threat of deflation. And by the way, to be very clear with our listeners, what austerity means is that as your economy, particularly your private sector, is weakening, instead of trying to replace some of that lost demand with government spending, you go the other way. You actually decrease your Government Support of the economy while the private sector is still weak. The fear is that that will somehow lift growth. The evidence is the opposite. Now, jared, you have got a column out today online for the new york times. The gist of it suggests that were now seeing the effects of prolonged political dysfunction in our economys very potential. In your words, congress ised a minute steering austere fiscal policy that is perfectly analogous to medieval leeching. Could you explain that to us . Very much so. Medieval leeching was an idea that was supposed to make you better, but made you worse. Lets be very clear, martin. If you go back to 2009 when the budget deficit was 10 of gdp, in 2013 it was 4 . That decline, that 6 percentage point decline, is the largest decline in the budget deficit over four years going all the way back to 1950. We are simply not supporting our economy enough either. Were doing our own version of european austerity. What i wrote about today in the times was the extent to which thats not just a temporary problem. Its causing lasting damage on the potential of the economy to grow in the future. Absolutely. Jared bernstein, as ever, thank you for educating us on deflation. My pleasure. Still ahead, standing up to stand your ground. But will florida lawmakers voting this afternoon agree . Stay with us. Huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Everybody knows that. Well, did you know that when a tree falls in the forest and no ones around, it does make a sound . Ohhh. Ohhh. Oh boy im falling. Everybody look out ahhhhh. Ugh. Little help here. 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And now after the outrage and the sadness, after a trial in which the killer was acquitted of murder charge, after the thoughtful commentary of everyone from the childs family to the president of the United States, one thing is crystal clear. Nothing has changed. As we speak, floridas Republican Controlled Legislature is actually hearing testimony about its controversial stand your ground law. A law which makes it legal to use deadly force with no responsibility to retreat if you feel your life is in danger. While its uncommon for the legislature to put much effort into a measure thats unlikely to pass anyway. They were forced to take it up after the dream defenders held a 31day sit in at the florida capital demanding they reconsider the law. While todays hearing may yet prove to have an act of futility, something needs to change when innocent people throughout the country continue to be killed by armed and legally protected citizens. For more now, im joined by Trayvon Martins family attorney, daryl parks, who is live from florida, and msnbc contributor Professor James peterson. Mr. Parks, stand your ground was not used as a defense in the George Zimmerman trial, but jurors have since said that it was discussed as part of their deliberation. If this law had not been on the books, do you feel that the incident in which Trayvon Martin lost his life would have been different . I certainly think it would have been different for many reasons. Martin, stand your ground law was actually throughout the Trayvon Martin case. As you may know, when the case first started as George Zimmerman was going through the process, he continued to say that theres a strong potential we may put forth a stand your Ground Defense. Ultimately they decided not to, but you saw them putting it in there. However, even at the very beginning, when the police chief refused to investigate and arrest George Zimmerman, that was part of the stand your ground. And then lastly in the jury instructions, we saw that George Zimmerman had the right to stand your ground. The jurors made it very clear that they were confused about this law, and thats the main problem with the law. The law is very confusing to people and in this application. Its a law that needs changing. However, it probably wont happen today in front of this group. This group has a reform bill before them, a repeal bill, and that may not go. However, theres another bill that reform it is in the state of florida. I think were having a flat form where people are discussing it, and youre starting to see some of the dynamics here. This is not about gun rights. Im a concealed gun carrier and, you know, its not about that. This is about a very urban state that has to deal with the issues that its a very urban complex with a lot of different people. And we should not make it a situation where there are people who, you know, are allowed to take advantage. Just today down in tampa bay there was a group of people who were trying to get a parking spot at a walmart and they end up brandishing a gun and it made the front page of the tampa bay time times. Florida is far from the only place the stand your ground laws are leading to the death of innocent people. In detroit this weekend a 19yearold africanamerican woman named Renisha Mcbride was looking for help after a car accident, knocked on the door of a house, and was shot in the head and killed. Her aunt Bernita Spinks asked this question. You see a young black lady on your porch and you shoot . And we should make the point that stand your ground laws apply in that state. They absolutely do. In fact, because this maybe took pla place, the house is your Castle Doctrine may apply. Its important we understand that there are women also who are victims of these same kinds of crimes. Its important to acknowledge publicly the work that attorney parks and attorney crump have been doing around these issues is very powerful and very, very important. I hope they continue to do it. I think at the end of the day theres too much subjectivity in the stand your ground law and in those policies. What that means is our system, our entire criminal justice system, is contaminated by racial bias. So for the system to be biased is one thing, but then for the system to endorse that kind of bias in our society is why this ends up being so dangerous. When people make decisions around safety and security and their home and their person, those decisions are informed by race. Not everyone is racist. Just all those decisions often times are informed by race and, unfortunately, were seeing awful consequences as a result of this. We have to continue the fight, and i sympathize with the dream defenders who are there right now and theyre saying the lobbyists are in there, the money is in that room right now. Its unfortunate we wont have a revolutionary outcome for todays particular legislative process, but i hope we continue to fight because at the end of the day stand your ground when you just look at the data, the consequences are dire, particularly based upon those from certain racial backgrounds. Indeed. Mr. Parks, there does seem to be a racial discrepancy in the application of stand your Ground Defenses, and yet we heard senator ted cruz say he thought the law actually benefited africanamericans. Its absurd. In florida the data show that africanamerican defendants have availed themselves of the stand your Ground Defense more frequently than have anglo defendants. Mr. Parks, your brief response to that. Well, i think that the one thing thats come out even here today in this hearing justifiable homicides have gone up 200 in our state. What we have to stop is the mentality of people who want to result to guns at every instance. That mentality is very hard to be in an urban situation. Mr. Parks and Professor James peterson, thank you so much for joining us. Well be right back. If yand youre talking toevere rheuyour rheumatologistike me, about trying or adding a biologic. This is humira, adalimumab. This is humira working to help relieve my pain. This is humira helping me through the twists and turns. This is humira helping to protect my joints from further damage. Doctors have been prescribing humira for over ten years. Humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. For many adults, humira is proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage. 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