good evening. good evening, thank you. thanks to you have at home. four dominant stories tonight. the health vote is tomorrow. democrats need every single one of their votes. two conserve-a-dems are holding out. it's not who you might think. liz cheney thinks we're heading into halloween, not thanksgiving. her new bee afraid video has back fired. it is john mccain versus lindsey graham. wouldn't they just best friends? and as the economic meltdown continues in california, the governor there says students have to suffer. and i am quoting. the students are not doing so quietly. four dominant stories and this friday we put them in perspective with air america's anna marie cox with nate silver of fivethirtyeight.com and former governor eliot spitzer all alive and together in our studio. weird, right? we begin with the countdown in d.c. 24 hours from right now, we should know whether or not the senate is moving on health reform. that vote is expected at 8:00 p.m. tomorrow night. why 8:00 p.m.? because that is roughly 72 hours from the time that senate democrats unveiled the bill on wednesday night and posted it online. one of the republican demands about health reform was that no debate could happen until everyone had 72 hours to read the bill. another one of those republican wishes the democrats inexplicably granted even though it earned them no republican votes in return. despite republican threats, though, the bill will not be read aloud on the senate floor this weekend. republican senator tom coburn has given up that threat. had the republicans won on that one, too, there would have been probably a vote at sometime around 2:00 a.m. on monday morning. that will not happen. this, it seems, will be settled tomorrow night. and by settled, i mean that we'll know whether or not they're going to start debating it. democrats need 60 votes tomorrow night just to begin debate. luckily for them, there are 60 members of the democratic caucus. but there are still two conservative democrat holdouts tonight. senator mary landrieu of louisiana says she will not announce her decision until tomorrow morning. and conservative democratic senator blanche lincoln of arkansas just hasn't been saying anything publicly at all. we contacted senator lincoln's office again today. and they again failed to tell us anything. they failed to respond to our request for comment again. again, both of these holdouts are just holding out on the question of whether or not they're going to allow debate to start on health reform. if either one of them says no, debate won't start. health reform will stop. and we know what blanche lincoln and/or mary landrieu will be most famous for in their whole political lives. joining us now as promised the former democratic governor of new york eliot spitzer, anna marie cox from air america radio and nate silver from fivethirtyeight.com. we don't usually do this. thank you all for being here. it's really nice. nate, start with you. you wrote in "the new york times" this week about the political context for conservative democrats making these decisions about health reform. would it be good politics for lincoln or landrieu to single-handedly kill health reform. >> it's a tough call because they face somewhat different parameters. for landrieu just reelected last year, six years until she's up for re-election. we don't know what people will think about the health care bill 2014 but lincoln is vulnerable in 2010, a cycle i think bad for democrats. she has more reason to be nervous and not want to take one for the team. that said, if she doesn't vote for this bill she'll lose her fund-raising support, maybe get kicked out of the caucus but you won't have institutional support. that makes things tough. you don't have any friends in your corner, so it's not an easy decision. >> it's hard to imagine republicans rallying behind her. >> she could become a republican. i think that's not totally off the table. we've seen some parties switching one way. it could happen the other way as well i think. >> governor spitzer, on this issue of fiscal conservatism, president obama tried early on to define health reform as the fiscally responsible necessary thing to do. and, in fact, this is the biggest effort at health care cost control ever. you see that reflected in the effect it's supposed to have on the deficits. is part of the reason this has been so hard politically, because that fiscal responsibility message got dropped? >> i don't think they've dropped it intentionally. i don't think anybody believes it. everybody sees the $900 billion, $1 trillion tag over ten years and says it won't increase the deficit. i don't think people believe that because every time in the past there's been an effort to control the growth of health care spending it's failed. i think most of the controls here kick in five, six years down the road. people don't really believe that element of the bill will play out as they're saying. having said that, i think there's enormous public support for health care reform. i doesn't think any democrat and i think each of these two senators tomorrow will say, we'll vote for the debate to make it happen. they don't have -- it would be crazy of them as a political matter, simply crazy to stand up to a new president and say, i am blocking single-handedly your most important domestic agenda item. i don't think they will do it. they shouldn't do it. this is merely to get debate going. fiscal conservatism or not they will safe we must go forward. >> in terms of the fact there are still these holdouts, anna marie, there was reporting last night from abc news that mary landrieu of louisiana, there's one section of the book, late add that specifically increases medicaid subsidies to certain states recovering from a major disaster. >> i believe having a major natural disaster in the past seven years. hmm, i wonld whaer they could mean. >> this big earmark essentially for louisiana. it's big, like $100 million. >> right. >> isn't this sort of like paying ransom to kidnappers? >> it is. i have no idea what blanche lincoln is going to get. they came in a little bit under the colonel 900 billion with the cbo estimates. that gives harry reid basically billions of dollars to play around with in making bribes to people or paying off kidnappers as the case may be. i think they'll both come around for reasons that nate and the governor have mentioned. i just wonder how they're going to do it. i think for blanche lincoln, she has to make it look like she's forced to do it. make it look as though she were forced or given a really, really good -- >> got so much that everybody there says this is good. >> but i think they'll turn around. it's bad for democracy. small "d." >> this is the place for politics. >> but this is the way the legislative process works. it is the reason we all get so frustrated with it because you end up with legislative bills that look horrendous that are essentially the consequence of blackmail. but that's how you get the votes and it's ugly to watch. it's the sausagemaking we all make fun of. >> you end up with the worse bill. there are things he could have done to make the bill better and stay in the fake limit. instead he's using -- we're going to be seeing that used to make the sausage. >> the tough issues still have to be dealt with. there's the issue of how they deal with abortion, choice, will be dealt with between now and when the senate votes final passage and then between the senate and the house. that is going to be a much, much more contentious issue than simply getting an extra vote to begin debate. that one will be hard to watch. >> nate, when you look at issues like this, on the abortion issue, obviously it's the -- in the dictionary where it says contentious issue in american politics the picture next is an abortion rights demonstration. are there electoral consequences on votes or is it just one of the things that drives fund raising and not votes? >> the religious right is organized and motivated. not like the tea party crowd where it's very new and might not have a lot of frblth. anti-abortion forces get people to turn out. even though the country is plurality, pro-choice, some think i'm pro-choice but i don't want federal funding for it. it's a tough thing to decide. i kind of think if you want the most popular bill, you would have a public option and maybe have to accept some compromises on abortion. that's where the polling tends to shake out. >> we are sort of left with the limits of our old political a e analys analysis. i think that's very good at explaining howe the right organized into interest groups and organized within the conservative movement is very good at exerting pressure on their lawmakers. it's all irrelevant to this fight all within the democratic party. the question is whether the left has become sufficiently organized to make people fear voting against a public option. >> but, also, there are even within the democratic party some senators who are avowedly not pro-choice and where their capacity to win next november depend on the marginal voters for whom this may be a critical issue. that's why it's so dicey and problematic for us? >> why does every senator that i've interviewed in the last couple of months on this, last months, i guess, every democratic senator says they'll get 60, they'll definitely get 60. they all say they'll get 60 even while ben nelson is saying i'm not going to vote for it if it's a public option. joe lieberman holds a one man parade. is there any chance they're not just blowing smoke, that they actually know they'll get 60. >> they seem relatively -- i don't know. there hasn't been like a critical mass that's formed against the bill in the senate. there was in the house. i think you have each person operating as an individual. as long as blanche lincoln is just one individual against the whole pressure of the caucus, it's hard for her to vote no, i think. if you had people banding together, you might have more of a problem. you have different concerns from a lincoln or lieberman or nelson in some ways that makes it easier than if you had one concern that you couldn't rectify potentially. >> anna marie, last word briefly. tomorrow do they get 60? >> oh, yeah. >> eliot spitzer, nate silver, anna marie cox my guests this hour. don't go anywhere. i've belted you to the seats. the daughter of dick cheney, liz cheney, has sput out a scary, scary video about michigan of all things today. michigan and terrorism, which is all well and good until you get to the part about mish ganlders totally disagreeing with her about what she says is best for them. carpet bagging gone horribly horribly awry when we return. one more thing about conservative democrats. i've mentioned several times now that joe lieberman will not call me. we've talked about him a lot on the show. and although i live in hope, he so far will not come on the show for an interview. he won't give us statements when we ask him for clarifications on things. in fact, his staff won't even return calls from our staff. even people who really, really hate me are generally nice enough to return a call from the staff if only to say i hate you, thanks for the call. now starks found joe lieberman in person and did a really nice thing for me. he asked senator lieberman if he would come on the show to talk to me. here's how it went. >> you've expressed an interest to have somebody have a serious policy debate instead of all the -- >> oh, yeah. >> i think one of the best folks on the progressive side is rachel maddow. and she's been trying to get you on her show for a really long time. >> she's got a point of view. i think we're going to have this debate on the floor of the senate and i look forward to it. in other words -- >> there's no chance you'd do her show? >> i don't think so. >> so, whoa, no joe. but thank you to mike stark of starkreports.com for trying for me. we'll be right back. 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media matters today also released a long montage of one trope in conservative media getting more and more use recently as a way of ratcheting up the be afraid factor. >> get ready to get gang raped again, folks. >> pretty much raping the pocketbooks of the rich to give to the poor. >> obama said, you get up there and you rape them. >> they're going to rape us. they're gonna bend us over and nail us and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. >> people in new york, you're being raped by your government. raped. >> obama is raping america. obama is raping our values. obama is raping our democracy. >> he's like a lot of other dictators, he's got the private sector and he thinks it's always going to be there to be raped. >> we're the young girl saying, no, no, help me and the government is roman pollanski. >> that is the second time i've seen that last clip and both times i have felt unwell. this is some of how movement conservatives and the conservative media are trying to shach the climate in which we do politics now. back with us former new york governor eliot spitzer, air america correspondent anna marie cox and fivethirtyeight.com's polling expert nate silver. anna marie, this media matters treasury of rape references in conservative media, all of those are from 2009. media matters put out a longer montage that included older references as well. those are just the 2009 ones. is this just conservative media going for it on the psychological fear activation stuff? or is there something more complex going on here? >> i think they're going for it on fear activation stuff but i don't think we can let this pass without noting they're saying they have a black man and a racial tension i find repulsive. it's the second time i've seen it. it's tom 5:00 turning. it's horrifying this is part of the national discourse. the good news is i don't think you win elections with that kind of talk. i really don't. the bad news is i do think you get extremists riled up. you may not win an election but you may get some whacko out there angry enough to do violence. it will be on their heads. >> the common political wisdom, is that politics of fear mostly around terrorism but some around war and everything work for republicans in '02 and '04, didn't necessarily work for them in '06 and '08. i think it's clear that the conservative movement thinks it can work for them again in 2010. is the common wisdom here accurate? >> i think if you look what changed between 2004 and 2008, you didn't have all the national security votes for mccain. that made a big difference, five point difference, five point swing all by itself. i think hare making a mistake taking about terrorism trying to drum up fears on that. the tipping point was rudy giuliani characterized as a noun and a verb in 9/11. after that people were like this is still something we worry about, especially here in new york we think about it but not something at the forefront of our minds. there's a lot of fearmongering in other areas with respect to death panels in the health care bill, climate change. >> socialism. >> are we having rational debate or a shouting match? emotions play a very powerful short-term role. i'm worried as a democrat about 2010, in the long term maybe not. part of it's up to obama, too, who promised to change the discourse. maybe one of the disappointments is he hasn't really. you have the same kind of rhetoric coming from the right. someone has to be there and say this is not okay, guys, to make references like rape when you talk about economic policy. >> is there an effective anti-fear counter point on national security terrorism and these other issues? >> i think what the president should try to do is rise above it and be that wonderful calming voice that he was with respect to race at that pivotal moment in the campaign when he gave his race speech. i think he changed the conversation. he can do the same thing to both the imagery and the conversation about terrorism. and he could use the decision about the trial -- the trial in civilian court in new york city and say, look, we did this because this is what we believe in. this is how we've succeeded. we are doing everything we can about terrorism, but you don't need to use that rhetoric. i agree with anna. i think this is a matter of the right wing radio crazies appealing to their base. you don't get 50 plus one that way. you don't appeal to the centrist, middle of the road voters who want something calm and comforting to the anger that pervades that right argument. >> one of the real buttons has been the khalid shaikh mohammed trial being scheduled for new york city. governor david paterson of new york says that it was not a decision that he would have made. he's your successor as governor. -- how do you feel about it p. >> i'm with the president on this and with the attorney general. interestingly, there was a very good column i thought by jim comey, the deputy attorney general under president bush in "the washington post" where he didn't quite say i agree with it but this is a rational decision, this is the right place for the trial. it should be a civilian trial, proves that our rule of law remains intact, supreme. we will prove the case. he will be sentenced properly. and, yeah, there will be additional security costs. the federal government will pick them up. that is what we stand for. >> nate silver, anna marie cox, eliot spitzer, stay right where you are. it was a point of national interest when a republican no one had ever heard of was pushed out of a race for congress in new york by a conservative challenger from the tea party conspiracy theory world. then it looked like it might happen to charlie crist in florida, too. he did make nice with barack obama during the campaign. maybe that's understandable. now could it be happening to john mccain as well? 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(announcer) they've been tested, built and driven like no other. and now they're being offered like no other. come to the winter event and get an exceptional offer on the mercedes-benz of your dreams. it's our way of showing a little holiday spirit. but hurry - the offer ends soon. that charmer is former arizona republican congressman j.d. hayworth. he was fringy before fringy was cool in republican circles. in congress he represented a district where 60% of registered party affiliated voters are republicans. but j.d. hayworth still managed to lose that seat to a democrat three years ago, in part because he had benefited handsomely from jack abramoff's largest and in part because it wasn't exactly clear he spent all of the money from his political action committee on political action and not on hayworth family projects. despite that baggage, in a potential republican primary for u.s. senate, j.d. hayworth is polling within two points of incumbent senator john mccain in arizona. yes. that john mccain. and, yes, that j.d. hayworth. he and minuteman co-founder chris simcox are both reportedly considering challenging john mccain in the republican primary. they're trying to scozzafava him. and i don't mean to imply there's a correlation here but senator john mccain has also abandoned his previous support for the cap and trade climate change legislation. in the process, he has turned on his former best friends forever, lindsey graham and joe lieberman. they both support cap and trade. still with us, former new york governor eliot spitzer, anna marie cox and fivethirtyeight.com's nate silver. thank you all for staying with us. mccain changing on climate change. tim pawlenty in minnesota also changing on climate change. charlie crist in florida trying to pretend he never supported the stimulus. sarah palin trying to pretend she never supported bailouts. is this what has? is this turn to the right something we'll see all over the country as republicans face primary challengers from the j.d. hayworths of the world? >> yes. moving on to next topic. >> we honestly can. you know john mccain well. did he not mean it the first time around on climate change? >> i think that what he means now is that -- i think his people are worried about a threat from the right j.d. hayworth or someone we don't know. i don't think it will be him. i don't think you get voted out of a republican district over an abramoff scandal and voted back in. and mccain is sno scozzafava. i mean that in the very best way possible. i think there's no other way you can mean that actually. >> your larger point i think is correct. i think that the republican party is looking to appeal to its hardest core base and, therefore, candidates who had been centrist to reach out. mccain had cut a different path. now he's pulling in his wings saying, hey, i've got to appeal to the core foundation base of this party. they're trying to create an ideological argument for themselves. they haven't done it yet but that's what they're scraping around for. until they do, they will wander aimlessly doing things we look at as crazy and reckless. >> this seems like of course they're doing that. maybe nate can speak to this, if it's necessarily the smart thing to do. instinctive to collect your tea party donations and what not. but i'm not sure if it's politically smart. >> between republicans and conservatives almost 100% where you have a quert of the country saying i'm a republican. there isn't a lot of diversity within that caucus. the primary threat is very real to these guys. it's not a bluff. we saw what happened in new york 23 where a candidate was forced out of the race. they don't seem that concerned about electability per se. >> is that electability true? the way we all understand it is that republicans, especially looking from the left, it looks like republicans have to go so far to the right to win a primary now, especially this year, that they have become unelectable in a general election. the conservatives looking at it from the right wing, they do not see it that way. they think what they need is a clear distinction between them and democrats. >> this is the tension always there between the purists who say you're with us or we don't care and those who want to win. the republicans did win a lot of elections this past cycle. count the executive races in nalls au county, suburban counties in new york state where out of nowhere popular democratic candidates won because of a loss of centrist voters who said we're tired of the taxes and spending. there is another message that isn't reflected in this break to the hard right by mccain and others. but is i think more potent in the long run. >> if any of those who won county executive races wanted to move up they're going to run up against the scozzafava'ing phenomenon. >> the psychology three years from now may be we want to win. >> i will tell you that when i look at groups like firedog lake, for example, challenging democrats from the left on health reform saying we will primary you, blanche lincoln, if you do not do the right thing by the country and your constituents on health reform, i look at that from the left as an admitted liberal and say that's going to make blanche lincoln more electable because it's going to ex-sight the base, fund-raising and get national liberals excited in supporting her. republicans look at that and they say, oh, they're screwing blanche lincoln, she'll never get elected in arkansas again. >> this is the powerful op-ed in "the new york times" saying how dare you on the issue of choice abandon us. this is within each party the same tension that you will see on -- replayed every time you've lost -- >> except it's not a mirror because on the right there is a very well organized, well funded conservative movement that can effectively pull the center so far to the right that it is unrecognizable. on the left it's a few blogs and kate michaelman. >> it's also a bigger tenth, though, where you have different constituents within the left and you have to make sure everyone feels like they're getting their kind of fair share of the cake. it's a different equation, different calculus i would think than on the right. because they're so small they have lots of solidarity. that's the advantage to losing all the ind pentsd in the last four years. >> don't get too comfortable in believing they're so small. they're not. they ran the country 20 years. >> that small, democrats don't turn out in 2010, then you might have a candidate that ex-sights the base. sure you can nominate a hayworth and they'll probably win. democrats have to find a by to get the base turning out, too. >> they won't do that by being centrists either. hold on, you guys. having maybe prevented the grace depression, the obama administration is taking renewed you know what for having maybe prevented the grace great depression by sparing our banking system from extinction. i don't quite get it but i'm guessing former new york attorney general eliot spitzer does. he and ana marie cox and nate silver are back in a moment or less. depending, we will hurry. one more thing about rampant scozzafava'ing in the party. the national show case for the purging of moderate republicans is over in the sense that democrat bill owens won the seat. he's sworn in and already cast votes as a member of congress. as the final votes and absentees are counted the margin by which third party conservative doug hoffman lost is bigger now than the number of ballots remaining to be counted. mathematically speaking, it is over. or at least it was. monday on glenn beck's radio show, doug hoffman said he wanted to unconcede the race. then wednesday, even as the mathematical possibility of hoffman winning completely hoffman doubled down sending out and e-mail saying stop another stolen election. he unconcedes, asks for donations and blames the community organizing group a.c.o.r.n. for magically electing the democrat. a.c.o.r.n. has no presence in that district and did no work whatsoever on that race. but don't let that get in the way of the fund-raising. if you keep it up and keep getting booked on glenn beck, you could probably milk this thing for years. olay professional pro-x wrinkle protocol is as effective as the leading wrinkle prescription brand at reducing the look of wrinkles. that's because olay has teamed with a highly specialized group of dermatologists and created a wrinkle protocol that gives you the results of the leading wrinkle prescription brand, without a prescription. olay professional pro-x. this is a guarantee you're guaranteed to love. you know, volkswagen takes care of the scheduled maintenance at no cost. and during the sign then drive event, you can get a cc, jetta, or top safety-rated tiguan for practically just your signature. it's that easy. i can't believe it. 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. >> i agree with almost nothing in what you said and i think almost nothing in what you said represents a fair and accurate perception of where this economy is today. i can't take responsibility is, is for the legacy of crises you -- you gave this president an economy falling off the cliff -- >> treasury secretary tim geithner defending himself against republican congressman ken brady on the hill, the day ron paul's bill to open up the secret federal reserve to be audited passed, the day that the public university system in california announced it's hiking tuition high enough to count as an economic wedgy for the state's 200,000 students because california basically is broke. i think we -- right now, you're looking at police moving in on a live -- this is a live shot of police moving towards student protesters who are mallsed on the campus of the university of california at berkeley. wide shot there. you can see the mass of students there. this makes me feel like saying, even on the eve of big game, go cal. economic pain, economic literacy and economic popularism are the new normal questions for a nation coming out of the great recession right now. joining us again eliot spitzer, former new york state attorney general and governor, ana marie cox and nate silver from fivethirtyeight.com. governor, you want tim geithner's head on the proverbial pike. you have not been shy about saying it. >> haven't said it quite that way. >> violent rhetoric. >> proverbial pipe. aren't we coming out of the recession and we still have a financial sector and they're going to wind down the bailout at some point and we're getting a new regulatory regime. aren't the big picture things he's working on going in the right direction? >> no. no. here's the problem. yes, we saved the big banks from going bankrupt by giving them trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. we did not ask anything back from them in terms of reform, in terms of lending, in terms of creating jobs, in terms of reviving an economy where unemployment has gone up, our deficit is skyrocketing, our trade deficit is huge. the opportunities down the road are increasing. and i said to somebody this morning, when the president went to china, china dealt with us the way a grownup would deal with a teenager who had misspent his allowance. we are in a position where if aig was too big to fail for us, we are too big to fail for china. they're financing us to ease their way out and let us down slowly. they have not come up with a way to get the economy going, nor put in place the reforms we need. and what tim said when he was testifying wasn't quite accurate. he was the one as president of the new york fed who put in place the bailouts that didn't work properly because we didn't get anything back, and he oversaw the banks when they were getting overleveraged and when this system was building up to the point where it then crashed. >> can we get anything meaningful that would have an effect on the economy out of the guilty parties and the people you think -- >> absolutely. they're not lending. in other words, when we gave them trillions of dollars, why did we not say, you must reform mortgages? this administration didn't lift a finger to give bankruptcy judges the capacity to reform mortgages. they didn't go to the banks to say in return for the trillions of dollars we're giving you, we're guaranteeing all your debt, preserving your equity. write down mortgages. 14% of all mortgages are either delinquent or in foreclosure right now. forget moral hazard. the banks have moral hazard. the borrowers have moral hazard. right now, to get the economy going, they should have done that. they didn't. they have -- larry summers, tim geithner have a wall street perspective. give goldman the $12.9 million. read the inspector general's report. it makes your skin crawl. >> watch a very short clip. this is the ceo of goldman yesterday at a financial forum. goldman obviously worried about its image is being mentioned in a lot of sentences like the one you just utd erred. they're donating $500 million, 2.5% of the bonus fund this year to small business development. watch the ceo of goldman here. >> listen, there is a lot of -- there was a lot of negligent behavior, and i think that there is going to be. and it is warranted that there be changes in regulation, tighten things up. we've learned a lot or should have learned a lot -- i know i've learned a lot from this and certainly our industry is responsible things, we're a leader in our industry and participate in things that were clearly wrong and we have reasons to regret and apologize for -- >> regret and apologize for. >> a teachable moment. >> here's the thing. they got $12 pie 9 billion in the counter party payment. three times as much as arne duncan has to reform schools, 1 1/2 times as we put into our high speed rail investments in the stimulus package. one firp. shouldn't have gotten at most half of it. it's insane the white house has not put the right people in charge of our economy. >> in terms of the politics here, either of you, looking at what goldman is saying, they're clearly desperate to do something to not be seen as part of this. the white house has exactly the same problem they do. they need to take real actions. they have bigger responsibilities than goldman does and they have to worry about the political blowback. what's the best way to put their money where their mouth is? >> have a jobs program. it didn't totally blow up. about $200 billion. if you put it in a jobs program you can reduce unemployment by 2% with a well designed targeted program just to create jobs, no window dressing or anything else. that's what they have to do if they want to get reelected frankly in 2010. >> ana marie, i'm conscious of the fact that in the context of all of this stuff there is the ron paul bill also passing. end the fed, audit the fed, stop the stimulus and the bailouts. you see that kind of economic populism being represented not only at the tear parties but also support on the left and across the board. is it no-nothingism or is there a coherent alternative? >> i worry it's no-nothingism. i worry it's a financial version of the anger and the sort of violent rhetoric we were talking about before. i hope it can coalesce around a real economic populism which has always been a disconnect -- conservative party, they basically are the conservative party. but there has been a disconnect covered by tom frank and kansas concerning social policy and conservative economic policy. this will be an interesting time to try to see conservatives or republicans really embrace a true economic populism. it might have some resonance. >> eliot spitzer, nate silver, ana marie cox, thanks to all of you for being here tonight. i hope it's about half as fun for you as it has been for me. thank you all for coming in. i really appreciate it. okay. video of jeff corwin swimming in a giant pile of ocean trash. adorable cheetahs and baby orangutans and a totally news worthy reason to show you all of that next. announcer: trying to be good to your heart? 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sarah palin on the left in red. who is that being held back by the police? our friend the great andrea mitchell. now, andrea mitchell does not have to prove anything to anyone, and she will still do what she has to do to get the story. look at her elbowing in there? (announcer) they've been tested, built and driven like no other. and now they're being offered like no other. come to the winter event and get an exceptional offer on the mercedes-benz of your dreams. it's our way of showing a little holiday spirit. but hurry - the offer ends soon. ah! >> you have seen documentarians and ecotourists swimming with sharks, right, swimming with dolphins. you want to get right down to the nitty-gritty of threats to the planet, though, and all the various creatures in it, adorable and otherwise? then with a you really have to do now is swim with trash. >> i am surrounded by this ribbon of refuse. you have plastic, baby -- you have plastic baby shoes. and i feel things touching up against me. there's glass, plastic bags, human refuse. just imagine the impact that all of this waste, the hundreds and hundreds of tons of it floating just behind me, how this waste impacts the ecosystem in the wildlife. >> jeff corwin, our guest in just a moment. his future earth documentary "100 heartbeats" tracks down the biggest threats to the species we as a planet are most in danger of losing forever. one of those threats is dumping trash in waterways that flow right into the ocean. another, fair warning, this is slightly upsetting, is that we poach and trade endangered animals on the skevy, skevy black market. >> this is a rice paddy turtle. it looks alive. you feel like you just sort of helped this creature out. in fact, it's been boiled. these are geckos right here. these are geckos. these lizards have been freshly gutted. gutted. that's the head of the soft shell turtle. there's the eyes, there's the snorkle. there's the mouth. >> jeff corwin, the host of "100 heartbeats" joins us right now. congratulations on this film. let me ask you about the last upsetting footage we just saw. illegal trafficking in endangered animals like that. i mean, it's illegal. can it actually be stopped? are the laws enforceable? >> they are enforceable, but it's very important we recognize where there are people breaking the law, slaughtering wildlife out in the wilderness, there are people buying it. you have to deal with the consumption, as well as the aspect of the black trafficking. it's a huge industry. i don't think people really recognize how insidious the black market trade of wildlife is. it's a $20 billion a year industry. it's second only to the narcotics and arms trade. >> and dealing with the consumption side of it is both pr and criminal law? >> it is. and basically, animals are killed for a lot of) one is the bush meat trade. it's food for poor people, and it's consumed as prestigious meat as well. you're having a big banquet. your taughter is getting married and you want some fancy endangered species for dinner. it's also as a result of animals slaughtered for the medicinal trade. rino horn, ivory, tiger bones, tiger fat. these parts are harvested and sold for medicine and also for the ornamental trade. for example, a rhino's horn used for a sheathe for a sword in yemen. it's a big, big deal. but what's very important to remember is that it's only one element that leads towards extincti extinction. it works in tandem with habitat loss and climate change and human population growth. >> especially on the issue of habitat loss. when i think about the endangered see sees fights that got a lot of attention in my lifetime. all the spotted owl jokes about the pacific northwest. the way that they are caricatured and really represented is that it's endangered species protected at the cost of human jobs. it's either economic development or it's preservation. humans v animals. we're heading into a very rough economic time that's going to keep getting rougher for a while. what's the other way to frame this argument to make the case that it's worth it to protect these animals? >> for me it's an easy argument. if you look at the fact that 1 out of over 20 jobs is directly impacted or connected towards helping the environment, whether it's commercial fisheries or logging. for example, you could look at the logging industry, very much wrapped around the spotted owl campaign. today, spotted owl are the least of their problems. it's the pine beetle, destroying both redwood and other sorts of confers throughout the northwest. what happened, because of climate change, the winters aren't cold enough. and this beetle which would normally die off are now overpopulating. what should be an intact forest and it's all blighted and brown from this beetle. we know from climate change, our seas are up by seven inches. our atmospheric temperature is up by one degree fahrenheit. and if this melting continues, what people don't realize is that 70% of our family's glaciers have reseeded by 60%. and all that water has to go somewhere. and if the present melting of glaciers stays on course, for example, the arctic right now is losing about 10% every year. if that continues on course, we could have a rise in sea level of 27 inches. you think -- >> talk about changing the world. >> and with regard to the economics, if you're someone who worries about economics, if you worry about business and you worry about money, you better be concerned about climate change because climate change will truly impact that. the outdoor recreational industry is a $750 billion a year industry and that will be hugely impacted by climate change. >> "100 heartbeats" was a year in the making. if you had to give up your job right now, which is admittedly a very cool job and you were going to instead join one of the people you met on this adventure who's doing heroic work to save animals that are endangered who would you work with? >> it's a hard choice to make. i have two children and it's like picking my favorite child, which i have one but i'll never let her know. uh-oh her. i have two daughters so it's oak. i began this project, 100 heart beats out of a paper i read in college. i read this article in the early '90s about the 100 heartbeat club that would someday live in a world where there could be just 100 individuals or less and we laughed about it. and now we're there. there was the inspiration to write the book. and then msnbc sent me on this incredible year-long journey. my friend with the cheetah, she was there to tell me the story, where a cheetah had been killed by a rancher. for me, i would say it's frogs. my dad was a boston cop and we lived in a three decca and he took me out to look for frogs. to give them importance as much as a cheetah, it was a privilege. >> jeff corwin's documentary "100 heartbeats" premier as msnbc's green week on sunday at 8:00 iron, only on msnbc. i've seen it, it's awesome. jeff, congratulations again. thank you so much. appreciate it. all right, international shipping. well that means a lot of documents, waybills and commercial invoices - in triplicate! but if you go online with ups, you could make that paperwork go away... ...making the process faster and easier to manage - not to mention you're saving a few trees. it's not just international shipping. it's paperless international shipping, a first from ups. there. now you're done. duracell batteries. and if you think all batteries are the same, consider this: these batteries are going... to the mattel children's hospital, u.c.l.a . because here they use the most... technologically advanced equipment for the healing... and the play. and to power all those toys the people at duracell... packed up a truckload of batteries. because nothing's better than powering a smile. duracell. trusted everywhere. how much do you pay when you buy a stock? 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'. >> to round out the week, a quick yet compelling cocktail moment. >> with apologies to that great ial yarn american dean martin. ♪ when the trash piles high reaches up to the sky no amore ♪ ♪ no more nuclear waste will it come to the staets to the dumped ♪ ♪ it may come 20,000 tons 20,000 tons ♪ ♪ you tosses. snow that's no bella ♪ ♪ we don't want that imported junk that imported junk ♪ ♪ hold on fellas ♪ skuz me nrc we in old tennessee ♪ ♪ say no more >> ed markey of massachusetts breaking out in song about the radioactive deterrence act, where apparently they always sing like