in washington almost nobody speaks for the majority of voters. you are either a libertarian zealot controlled by the banks talking about cutting entitlement. or worse you are a deck trust fund socialist. what there is not is a caucus that represents from most americans are. fairly traditional on the social issues. imagine a politician who wanted to make your health care cheaper but was not excited about partial birth abortion and respected the nuclear family but was willing to take your side against credit card companies bleeding you dry at 35% interest. would you vote for somebody like that? of course you would. who wouldn t? that candidate will be elected in a landslide.
there s been a sorting process. democrats could never nominate anti-abortion candidate and the republicans could never nominate a choice candidate. in 2004 there was a little bit of talk about how the democrats should soften their portion on abortion. hillary clinton was part of that, of that movement. i think that s gone. that s gone. i think that s very gone. very much gone. let me get back to a guy like pataki. a guy like pataki, he could stick around far lot longer than anybody anticipated because we ve said this before, too, if i m pete peterson and chris christie is not going to carry my message of cutting entitlement, i m just going to pay for pataki. stick around. thank you both. that is all in for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts now. good evening. thanks, my friend. thanks for joining us at this hour. this is kind of an amazing story.
that the president s proposing is higher than the ratio of cuts neil: i guess we can go back and forth on the math. you expressed some reservations about the formula the president will use on social security and whether that represents cutting entitlement. i take it the president could have more difficulty getting this past democrats than republicans? he s going to obviously have to explain to democrats exactly how he does that calculation and demonstrate in fact what he s proposing reflects the true cost of living increases for seniors. so but i should say on that point, earlier today you heard the head of the national republican campaign committee attack the president s budget with this opening line. the president s budget is an attack on seniors. this is exactly what we do not need if we make progress.
another campaign to get both democrats and republicans working together to avoid the economic mess that looms ahead, the so-called fiscal cliff. well, today he met with labor leaders and leaders in the progressive opportunity to soften the ground for a deal and found out how much leeway they will give him on cutting entitlement. here is afl-cio president richard trumka immediately after the meeting. we re very, very committed to making sure that the middle class and workers don t end up paying the tab for a party that we didn t get to go to. and the president is committed to that as well. are we going to collectively stand up and make sure that workers get a fair shake in all of this? absolutely we are. do we believe that the president is committed to that same thing? absolutely we do. but in a prior interview with salon, trumka took a harder line saying, quote, if any bipartisan deal includes cuts in social security, medicare, or medicaid or extends the bush cuts for the top 2%, w
will give him on cutting entitlement. here is afl-cio president richard trumka immediately after the meeting. we re very, very committed to making sure that the middle class and workers don t end up paying the tab for a party that we didn t get to go to. and the president is committed to that as well. are we going to collectively stand up and make sure that workers get a fair shake in all of this? absolutely we are. do we believe that the president is committed to that same thing? absolutely we do. but in a prior interview with salon, trumka took a harder line saying, quote, if any bipartisan deal includes cuts in social security, medicare, or medicaid or extends the bush cuts for the top 2%, we will oppose it. whenever something is good for workers, we ll support it. if it s bad for workers, it doesn t matter who proposes it, we won t be on board. we won t be taken for granted. it doesn t sound as if he s giving the president much room at all to negotiate.