Last night president obama kept the door open to changes in the law. What well do is continue to assess if there are roadblocks for people, were going to clear out those roadblocks. Open to whatever it takes. Whatever it takes for people to get what is good Quality Health insurance at cheaper prices. The president was less accommodating when it came to criticism of the person who oversaw implementation of the law, health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Still have full confidence in Kathleen Sebelius. I think Kathleen Sebelius under tremendously difficult circumstances over the last four and a half years has done a great job in setting up the Insurance Markets so that there is a good product out there for people to get. Kathleen sebelius doesnt write code. She wasnt our i. T. Person. No one so far suggested the secretary wrote even one of the estimated 5 million lines of faulty code, she doesnt seem to be going anywhere. Speaking at the Carter Center in atlanta this morning, sebelius remained upbeat. We have had inexcusable Technology Problems with healthcare. Gov. We are making progress toward fixing them, but the new law is more than a website. If sebelius is the happy or happy, president obama was the general taking full ownership of the fiasco. Ultimately the buck stops with me. The question now is how much longer is the aca going to remain something the president feels the need to apologize for. Joining me time editoratlarge Mark Halperin coauthor of double down. Host of nbcs disrupt karen finney. Mark, congratulations on the book. Thank you. I want to start with the interview the the president had with our very own chuck todd. What do you think the apology does if anything . I think it gives the president a chance to edge toward two things that need to be done. The system has to work, not just the computer and website. Its clear theres not enough resources, expertise. Thats got to be done, the substance of governance. The other thing is hes got to have a conversation with the country about how the theory works. Old health care system, complicated, inefficient, winners and losers. New health care system, comp indicated, inefficient, winners and losers. He thinks the second one is better but hasnt discussed the theory. Hasnt discussed the tradeoffs, the difficulty the country is going to have to get it. If he thinks this is the best system we have, hes going to have to fight for and explain it. I think the apology is the beginning of the dialogue with the country. Here are the complexity. Some people might be shortterm losers but overall the country is going to benefit in the longterm. It seems he needs to have that conversation with not only the country but democrats in his own party. The introduction of the Manchin Landrieu bill to allow people to stay on their insurance, even if it goes nowhere. Ill mention a correction, joe manchin is not up for election in 2013. Hes playing like he is. How disruptive if not destructive is it to the narrative. Hugely. Also the fundamental principles of the law. This is democrats playing into the hands of republicans who dont want to fix it. They want to forget about it, destroy it hook, line, sinker. What the president did was he was able to retake the high ground. Look, no more gotcha games. Lets focus on implementing the law. Lets come together and implement the law. Allows him to point his finger and point at the republicans who have made lie after lie after lie after lie about obama care and have not apologized, have doubled down on the lies, death panels or socialized medicine. At a certain point, they have to be held for their lies. I feel like this is deeply cynical of me, karen. I think all this Television Made me into a cynic. Help me. Help me help myself. The problem i see is that republicans dont really care, you know. They will use the tools at their disposal regardless of how bad they may be for the country, and they are going to sort of market this as a failure even if it ends up being a success. The positive that i will throw out at you, i think finally this president , this white house gets that. They are negotiating with people who have no interest in negotiating, fixing the problem, making it better. They see this as a Political Tool going into 2014. The one thing i wish we were talking more about, the fact for a lot of these people if they had the opportunity to see here is what youre eligible for in obama care, here is what you have now. I dont think most people understand their Health Care Plan for starters and dont recognize its not just your premiums, its your out of pocket cost, copays, prescription drugs. I wish people would have an opportunity to have a real comparison. The one thing they should have done and maybe could do is really give people a breakdown so they understand here is what youre paying now. Here is what you get for that. Here is what were talking about under obama care. Even if people pay more. Yes. I think part of this is you cant nothing there are no free lunches. Someone is going to have to pay at some point. This is part of a broader thesis about the american democracy, social safety net that i think president obama has articulated in different ways with different programs but seems so rubbing ant on health care because it was such a highly rancorous piece of legislation. This was entirely the theory behind obama care and individual mandate, people are going to be using the health care system. They are using health care system. Many thousands of people go to the emergency room and cant afford it and we end up picking up the tab. The point is they have to pay up front. He has not sold that enough. Democrats have not pressed it enough. Its not a message that resonates progressive base that wanted a stronger more sweeping health care reform, single payer or broader Government Insurance option. I do think the president was right to acknowledge not everyone under the law is a wirn. Now he gets to talk about the tradeoffs. Even though there may be young people, 20s, 30s, who dont get their insurance electric an employer who may have to pay more now, they are going to be old someday and end up on the insurance market, too. Young people dont like thinking about that. Its important to keep perspective here. 80 of people who dont get insurance through an employer im sorry, get insurance through employer, medicare and medicaid are not affected. Aca as far as we know is the least did he instructive most market friendly tried and tested way to cover uninsured people. Socialism. A couple of points here. I want to get to an anecdote in the book that sheds a little light on this. A professor, constitutional law scholar, intellectually most people think honest and sophisticated in his thinking, he has been remarkably overly simplistic when he explains it to the American People if he explained it at all. I wondered why that happened and what in the inner circle sort of went wrong. From the book you have this moment where you describe president obama confronting his staff after weeks and the sense of sort of personal that they had personally let the president down. Id love for you to elaborate on this. Ill read the excerpt from the book. When we started having these meetings, obama said, i told you that i trusted everyone in the room. But now somebody has betrayed that trust. Unless and until the person who did this comes to me, im going to be basically he cancels the meetings. The teleprompter is screwed up and my cards arent right. Im doing paraphrasing. You told me you were going to read in the voice of burl ives. When somebody is willing to come forward you know where to find me. With that he walked out the door leaving a crashing silence behind him. You can almost trans pose that moment into the health care debate. Did that moment happen or were people so scarred from previous failures or knowing the president didnt want to fail him, bring up the idea it wasnt ready or the thing he had been saying about everybody keeping their plans was not, in fact, the truth. Weve seen a little journalism about why this happened, where the oversight was. Theres a lot more. To take first term singular achievement of the president , biggest thing hell accomplish in eight years and not implement it correctly, its a huge failing. Were going to see more about it. One of the things we get out of double down and thinking about the president as incumbent and candidate for election is a bit of a paradox. He loves governance. As far as hes concerned the campaign is horrible, waste of time, superficial. He wants to be wonky and make the country better. He hates campaigning, yet hes great at campaigning and not as good as governance. Why somebody as talented as he is is not good at something he likes as compared to something he doesnt like. How much does his inner circle affect he now has a Different Team around him. Some folks have said its a b team. I was going to say, having been in these kinds of meetings, i envision this as its communications against policy people. That happens all the time. Usually the Communications People win out. They tend to have louder voices. Maybe the president s ear. So it seems to me like more of what may have happened here, it may not have even gotten to him this is an oversimplification. Somewhere down here they made the decision duking it out we do not have to say that part. Well explain that part later. Thats not to excuse anybody. If i had been there i said say thats crazy. You have to make sure were clear and have the president out there saying something we cant deliver on. I want to add sometimes these decisions are made at the staff level where theres constant tension. There werent enough resources because government doesnt have the kind of Resources Private sector had. The other thing is we saw this in game change and double down, this president likes to rely on a very small group of people. Hes not big on trust. Kathleen sebelius has been as empowered as any domestic secretary has been. Yet my guess is there were a lot of decisions that needed to be made with a lot of juice at the highest level and they are not because that small group of people is dealing with everything else. Also when youre getting every single minute thing you can do picked apart with such counterproductive we just want to destroy this president and this white house, it also puts this sort of premium on not showing any complexity, error, mistake, weakness. When you pass a law in a totally partisan way in the climate we live, you have to build that into the process. Actually wrote a memo explaining predicting everything that happened, there wasnt enough leadership, communication, this was going to happen. My theory as far as the keep your plan promise goes, he was overlearning the lessons from the clinton years. The reason health care failed over and over again for a century is people like their plans and dont want major disruptions. He to kind of give this assurance. He made it to simplistic and definitive. In 2007 hillary kept saying over and over again, if you like insurance you can keep it. That was in the groundwater in terms of talking health care. That got upstreamed. I will say, sally, for a white house that thought, okay, the politically expeditious thing to do here is to be simple. If youre thinking about politics you can project to the future, we know were saying something that is not entirely truthful. We are going to get hammered by this on the right. Shortterm versus longterm. I think im curious marks take on this. I think all along this white house has come in without a deep understanding of the kind of right wing backlash this president was going to inspire. They werent prepared for it at any point. Now they have come to somewhat come to acknowledge it more. They werent really aware of it as some folks in political office, movement have seen right wing populist backlash movements and you cant capitulate. Wasnt the white house experience, the president s experience, he never encountered that. Constitutionally a partisan warrior. I think its worth it to say in this whole apology, whatever, every story of the right surfaced the right unhappy because their quote, unquote, Insurance Plan they supposedly like has canceled. Every story so far journalists have gone and shown why their new plan, new options are actually better. That is part of the problem with this new legislation on the hill, right, its not just landrieu and manchin, begich and manchin. These pieces of legislation exist. John boehner is talking about them. You can sense theres a little bit of blood in the water. If these exchanges are not ready on december 1st, you can bet theres going to be clamoring in the house for that legislation to come to the floor of the senate for a vote and you can bet it will pass in the senate. I just think the ground is seeded for potential future policy catastrophe if anything does not go perfectly. I think things are shaping up, the white house doesnt get things fixed by november, enormous pressure. Probably irresistible pressure, democrats in the senate. The house will pass these bills in a heartbeat. Senator reid is not going there. Senator durbin talked about how there was no talk in the 2014 democrats meeting there was no talk about delay or dismantling. He has to say that. What you said totally awesome and accurate. Think about next year when there are going to be problems under the pest Case Scenario there are going to be problems. The thing about the white house so perilous now is they have lost the media on this. The media is not cheering for this law to be implemented well. Its an unfortunate reality. They have to convince the national dialogue, narrative to be this is great for america. There are going to be problems. Next year can you imagine, we talk about Democratic Senators up, Democratic House members who are going to say i dont want to face my voters without voting to fix this thing. If there are problems the president cant explain by next spring and summer, its going to be very difficult to implement. How does he got it back. Insurance companies are not honest brokers is what were learning. Although they are the president s partners. Unfortunately he gave them a little more trust than he should have. The way to get it back, move forward. Youve apologized, its done. Now move forward. Now you pull in your office whoever you need to make sure you deliver on that end of november promise period. Because theres no room for error of the things that you are now saying you can control. If you think you cant, then you better start premessaging that so when it happens people expect it. Jeff zients, do you hear us. For many Chris Christie is the great hope. For others cyst christie is a great big headache. Did you mean to leave out Chris Christie last night when you were ticking off the various republican governors you wanted to praise. I think i mentioned four governors out of the 30 that are Holding Office today. I would have used up a lot speech time if id have listed them all out. So if i missed anybody, ill try to make them up in the next speech. Electing good, solid, principled republican red state governors in 2014 needs to be the focus all of us have. Its certainly where mine needs to be. Rick perry isnt good at ticking things off the list. Well decide christie enmity next on now. Life with Crohns Disease or Ulcerative Colitis is a daily game of what ifs. What if my abdominal pain and cramps end our night before it even starts . What if i eat the wrong thing . What if . What if i suddenly have to go . What if . But what if the most important question is the one youre not asking . What if the underlying cause of your symptoms is damaging inflammation . For help getting the answers you need, talk to your doctor and visit crohnsandcolitisadvocates. Com to connect with a patient advocate from abbvie for onetoone support and education. You really love, what would you do . [ woman ] id be a writer. [ man ] id be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] id be an architect. What if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you . When you think about it, isnt that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love . Who do you vote for today . Chris christie. 2016. Christie. Who did you vote nor. Rand paul. Who is your number one pick for 2016. Rubio. Plenty of republicans think they have found their man. Chris christies political persona projects straight talk, tough minded thinking, common sense and an instinctive hostility to abstract liberalism disconnected with real world actualities. Sally cohn, we should put that on a tshirt. The republican establishment may have overlooked a major obstacle to Chris Christie winning 2016 primaries. Christie doesnt exactly reflect the current mood of the gop base. Christie openly endorsed gun control, a path for citizenship for illegal immigrants, acknowledged legitimacy of Climate Change. His decision to participate in the expansion of medicaid under obama care. It may be christies problems are deeper than this. Vetters were stunned by garish controversies lurking in the shadows of his record. There was a 2010 department of justice inspector generals investigation of christies spending patterns in his job prior to the governorship. There was a fact christie worked as a lobbyist on behalf of Securities Industry Association at a time when Bernie Madoff was a senior fia official. Cyst ys decision to steer contracts to donors and political allies like former attorney general john ashcroft. Then there was todd christie, the governors brother who in 2008 agreed to a settlement of civil charges by the Securities Exchange commission. Then again, if skeletons in christie closet derail his ambitions, its clear there are plenty of flavors to choose electric. Christie is very liberal. He could run as a democrat. I believe he is plain vanilla. Ted cruz is rooty tooty fresh and fraughty. Hes got fire, angst. The Republican Party needs somebody like ted cruz to really gin up the base and get a fire started. Otherwise the Republican Party is dead, dead in the water. Joining me is filmmaker alexander pelosi. Great to have you on the set. Thanks for having me. I always like it when we have someone say rooty tooty fresh and fruit forecasts. Mark halperin is. Thats what we call him offset. Alexandra, in terms of these reactions of voters opinion new jersey in and around election day, i seems like you have a mixed bag. People say very voted for christie but ted cruz is their guy. He seems not to be a shooin in the minds of voters. I went out on election day to get the pulse, i know theres only one journalist that matters in america but the rest of us have to do something. I wanted to find out if theres any value idahoity to this heir apparent. What i found was people say they loved christie. Who do you want for your press deposition nominee, they did not pick him because they said i dont think hell win. Hell have problems getting the nomination. They know that. They know when you nominate the moderate, they know what happened with mccain, romney, they have seen this show before. I do think hes going to have a problem with the base. Mark, do you think that scepticism is quietly privately shared in the innermost workings of the Republican Party or is theardor for christie as impassioned. Among the wealthiest americans theres a lot offardor and that will be backed. He will have a challenge. 1990 bill clinton was pro death penalty, pro right to work, pro welfare reform, talked in a different way about the right to an abortion. It is impossible to have imagined in 1998 1988 that the democrats would nominate someone like that, yet they nominated bill clinton. Chris christie can convince the party more centrist views are the path to the white house, not ted cruzzian views, has he a chance. That brings forward the question that remains answerless for a year and a half, possibly three. Im doing my math all wrong. Through 2016. Make unspecified amount of time. How much weight does the tea party have . I would argue maybe not really arguing with you but kind of that the left was never as restive or powerful as the far right is in todays Republican Party. In 1988 in the Democratic Party liberal Interest Groups were as powerful. You think they are as powerful now. No, im saying 1988, the analog im using. You think dems in 88. Liberal Interest Groups had a much stronger nomination. In 2012 when the tea party was doing pretty well, mitt romney, a guy who passed health care in massachusetts got the nomination. I would just say if you look at ornsteins book and trace legislative patterns, electoral patterns, governing patterns, the right has swung further right than the left. Moderate mitt. I actually agree with you alex, with all deference to the great grand journalist. I dont think the left, quote, unquote, left of the Democratic Party has never been as left as the right of the Republican Party and held the kind of deference and sway in the Democratic Party that the right has. This is the notion republicans have feared their base in that oh, no we better capitulate them. Democrats fear their base as oh, no, we cant be seen associating with them. No one really strong wanted to jump in in 2012. I dont think that will be the cains 2016. Is are the Democrats Holding sway . You were in monmouth county. When youre in new york where the journalists are you can take the train in five minutes and be in new jersey. We went to new jersey, a survivor story. I went two hours on the train. Why . Because republicans there. Why monmouth county, because i think christie won with 70. 7 of the vote. Is that right . Everybody i talked to it was like my exit poll. Who did you vote for . I wanted everyone to say christie. I looked at the map and thought where. Still saying marco rubio, ted cruz, rand paul. Did you get a sense of what their preerts were as they were saying this in terms of their answers. I think people know with 24 hour media cycle and media beast that hes going to have a really hard time as some of the things that come out of his mouth are not pc and that will be hard to overcome. There were texans in 2000 who voted for pat buchanan, steve forbes, didnt vote for bush. Its true scepticism from the left and right will be a challenge for him. If youre governor and running for president you want polls to show your states are behind you. There are lots that wont be for Chris Christie, lots. The idea its a squish. Its backed up by a solidly conservative record. I dont think hes a switch. I dont know if people examined the death of conservatism or broker bipartisan reform or legislation with democrats. Sure, no, i wasnt suggesting you said that. I think hell have a strong answer to the people who lobbed the charge of him. Hes not mitt romney, the godfather of obama care. Mitt romney still won the election. Chris christie will have a lot of arguments to make about how he was a solidly conservative governor, vetoed infrastructure project, opposed family planning, all over the place on Climate Change and so on. I think the other thing that is tbd is whether jersey style translates to national politics. Calling people jerks and shouting them down in press conferences may not work on the National Stage or may be a totally brandishing an Ice Cream Cone against a constituent while you chase them down plays huge in dubuque. The question is is new jersey real america. Only you can answer that alexandra, bravely going where well see. Filmmaker alexandra pelosi, thank you so much for your time. That is that footage airing somewhere else soon. I do work for hbo. Hbo. Com. Check it out on hbo, period, no dot. Speaking of short listers, rand paul has a problem, his speeches, his column and book have been found to contain possible cases of plagiarism. The kentucky senator has an explanation, which is the paul defense. We will discuss just ahead. Humans. Even when we cross our ts and dot our is, we still run into problems. Namely, other humans. Which is why, at Liberty Mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. See what else comes standard at libertymutual. Com. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . A body at rest tends to stay at rest. While a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. But if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. Prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. Because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. 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What happens . Well discuss rand pauls war with his writing next. Raise your rate cd that wont trap me in a rate. Thats correct. Cause im really nervous about getting trapped. Whys that . Uh, mark . Go get help i have my reasons. Look, you dont have to feel trapped with our raise your rate cd. If our rate on this cd goes up, yours can too. Oh that sounds nice. Dont feel trapped with the ally raise your rate cd. Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. I started parttime, now im a manager. N. My employer matches my charitable giving. Really. I get bonuses even working parttime. Where i work, over 400 people are promoted every day. Healthcare starting under 40 a month. I got education benefits. I work at walmart. Im a pharmacist. Sales associate. I manage produce. I work in logistics. Theres more to walmart than you think. Vo opportunity. Thats the real walmart. So i deserve a Small Business credit card with amazing rewards. With the spark cash card from capital one, i get 2 cash back on every purchase, every day. I break my back around here. Finally someones recognizing me with unlimited rewards meetings start at 11, cindy. [ male announcer ] get the spark Business Card from capital one. Choose 2 cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day. Whats in your wallet . I need your timesheets, larry no one is thinking t. G. I. F. More than rand paul who has had a very bad week indeed trying to prove to america hes not a planlg plagiarize. Buzz feed discovered paul leaned a little too heavily on wikileaks for a recent immigration speech and copied and pasted large passages from think tank reports into his 2012 scholarly masterpiece, government bullies. As charges began to pile up rand paul did not channel american statesman so much as petulant child. I think im being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters. Im not going to put up with people casting aspersions by my character. I think the standard im held to is a little different than everybody else. Unfortunately for paul they will not stop. They were forced to cancel the weekly Opinion Column after revealed paul had been using the space to, well, publish other peoples work. Yesterday buzz feed was back at it digging up additional plagiarized passages in his book. His excuse, thing are done quickly and in a hurry and i literally am riding around in a car between things trying to figure out if i can approve it. This is classic defense one employed by paul the elder when he was in the crosshairs for homophobic, antisemitic under his name. I didnt write them, i disavow them. Thats it. You made money off them. I was still practicing medicine. Probably why i wasnt a good publisher, i didnt read them. I didnt write them, didnt read them at the time and i disavow them. Its legitimate. Its legitimate. These things are pretty incendiary. Because of people like you. Boom, blame the media, its her fault he had anticommitic newsletter. In terms of the line of defense, these things were printing things for me, so busy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The thing i found most interesting, if he thinks this is tough, i dont know what he thinks running for president is like. My friend Mark Halperin i guarantee will you pay some 20 something when you run for president they go through everything line by line. Dude, if you cant take on rachel mod ow, with all due respect. Shes a tough contender. I love rachel but hey. How much of this is an issue for rand paul. Every one of the people considered as a potential president ial candidate with the possible exception of jeb bush is close to the level to dill with the strut any. Thats such a thin skinned thing to say. The time canceled the column, not mother jones. Im baffled. Chris christie on the cover of time this week, getting a lot of attention now. Hes pretty good at handling it in his own way. Even Chris Christie, has a lot. United states senators get no strut any. Hes getting a little now. Even in the partisan time we live its not going to work. If he wants to run for president. He can get away with it senator from kentucky not president. This isnt the first time rand pauls office has come under scrutiny. A guy running around in wrestling mask, southern avenger and took weeks before he was let go. He has liabilities, so reluctant and defensive when they are addressed. Again, hes also setting himself up on this. The kind of false equivalent moral outrage that rand paul has led against the president and democrats. Could you imagine if this were the president having been found to copy wikipedia sections. Not that credible. Hes got definite plausible like im a busy guy kind of thing. For rand paul wielding the pitchfork on that one and has on other issues claim oh, no, poor me, stuff going after me, haters. I will say, and i think i dont mean to sound so disillusioned. On a certain level does it matter if Mainstream Media, vetting organizations that existed to make sure candidates are up to snuff, does it matter if they deem rand paul he doesnt pass the grade. We live in enough of a bifurcated media, hes liberal Mainstream Media activist. Its unclear. Ted cruz shuts down the government and phrases off of it. One thing rand paul has going for him the conservative think attention he plagiarized dont mind it. They are happy the idea was disseminated more broadly. Just answer. Its me calling to turn the phone off. I do think its really awkward and very embarrassing for him. He talks about standards and journalists unfair. They are calling students expelled for less than this. Its not ambiguous. Talking entire sections. Thats how good the book is. Hes getting cables right now. People cant stop. Im going to give you the last word here because youre in demand. Rand paul reached out to donors, big donors to play that. Thats a group that does not want a nominee in 2016 who does not get through this. He wants to expand portfolio, they have zero tolerance. Could cost the whole election especially if secretary clinton is the nominee. The good news, throughout the country, denim and diamond parties to haters and hack parties. Thats good. I was always a fan of denim and diamond. Hacks and haters. Think of the possibles. Dressed up every day. I do love your necklace. Smart politicians should know that. Thank you for being this back to a serious note. More than happy. Seriously selfdefensive note. We will take a break. An actor whose performance highlighted struggles in the community and writer and director will join us in studio just ahead. You get your coffee here. You get your hair cut here. You find that certain thing you were looking for here, but actually you get so much more. When you shop at these small local businesses, you support all the things that make your community great. The money you spend here, stays here. In this place you call your neighborhood. Small business saturday is november 30th. Get out and shop small. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. And that their Homeowners Insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesnt. Stop pretending. Only Flood Insurance covers floods. Visit floodsmart. Gov pretend to learn your risk. Be careful babe. [ doorbell rings ] lets see whats cookin. Look at this. Thats a swiffer. I dont have to climb up. Did you notice how clean it looks . Morty are you listening . Morty . [ morty ] im listening i want you to know. Yes, you are. You look like one. Smell like one. Get started on my funeral arrangements. Been around. Not lately. Since when not lately. About two weeks. T. J. If he came back, i didnt see him. Need to fill this. Thats a clip from the new film go for sisters explores underworld along u. S. Mexico border. It traces the journey of two women, excon and drug addict fontaine and childhood friend and parole officer bernice. When her son goes missing she relies on her connections in the world of trafficking. The fate of bernies son drives the story line, the movies culture is the border towns and people struggling to make a life there whether honest or illegal. Joining me producer and star of the film and the writer and director. Im a fan of both of you. Great to have you here. What is the subject of border towns, cloaked in lore and history but very few people know what happens there. I think the border is where we say this is where we end and somebody else begins. Its kind of how you define yourself. Theres a strange thing in border times, they wouldnt exist except theres a border there. That may be an artificial thing. They are often about what can you get on this side that you cant on the other side. What can you do on this side you cant on the other side. So one of eddies lines in the movie, a lot of great people here, also like a theme park for bad behavior. I guess in terms of bad behavior, your character blurs a line between good and bad, sort of a Police Officer who is forced to resign for cutting a deal with drug dealers and at the same time is porking to help this woman as she tries to find her son. To what degree do you think that character is a statement about life, that people are both good and bad, even the good guys can get corrupted. This is a story about trends and how far are you willing to go for a friend. Its not that i cut a deal with the drug dealers. What it was, i didnt look at my friend who was cutting a deal, who was my best friend. I was turned away from the action and i knew it was going on. I said thats your trip and thats your problem because youre my friend. Do what youve got to do. Thats what the story is about. John has done something ive never seen done in a major motion picture. He has two africanamerican women on a road trip trying to find the son of one of them. Its an extraordinarily different look at america and mexico. Whats going on today amongst the culture and more than anything amongst two africanamerican women. Ive got to tell you, its phenomenal. Its subtle. Its not a film youre going to see car crashes and a whole bunch of stuff, no. Youre going to see two women going through this experience. What do they need, the triangle to get to their final goal of finding the son of this one woman. Thats when they come to me. The funny part is that when you were looking at that little clip in the beginning, if you heard the dialogue, the dialogue is saying, hey, what are you doing. The reason he says that, thats my brotherinlaw. The reason is because my character, freddie suarez, is blind. He cant see. But nobody knows that at the beginning. Then you start to realize and find out. John has built a beautiful pallet and incredible story with really flawed but very concise characters. Incredibly nuanced characters. And lots of them because its a road trip. You also take on the friendship between women, what we do for our friends and loved ones, also if were talking about crime and justice and the notion of who wins and who loses in that system. Theres also the question brings up questions about criminal justice system, recidivism. How do you make it human, the character Lisa Gay Hamilton plays, parole officer, a pretty hard crust on her over the years until her son gets in trouble. Then she knows the Correction System doesnt have anything good to do for my son. Im going to try to do anything i can to keep him out of it, even though i have to brat law. Now that its my life, i know this beaurocracy i work in and in some way believe in is not really sesk human beings. Before i let you go i have to ask you, im a long time fan of your characters and where youve played, where do you sit about where we do from here . Are you fundamentally an optimist . Youve played a lot of dark characters, youve played righteous characters, too. Im an optimist but pragmatic. That becomes a difficult step. Im up but i have my feet well grounded on the ground. Ive got to tell you, were in a lot of well, were now at a point where you cannot turn it around. You see the government and what they are doing. You see their ability to understand us and monitor us on every level every day on everybody, whether you use a cell phone, youre on. So i stay optimistic that humanity will survive. But its a real tough one. It is. I got off with battle star gal galactica. Gore for sisters in theaters in new york, amc and village east and other cities across the country in coming weeks. Thank you both so much for your time. 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