what has happened to that particular group of people. i think this is an important moment for all of us, not just the church, not just the young man, not just you and i, the president has to step in and speak at about this moment and say this is not acceptable. the president really saying nothing. recently with representative steven king, steve king, and his comments around white nationalism, mum is the word from the white house, there have been several other incidents that have come to light, this lawsuit filed in the state of ohio, gm plant where workers say racism was prevalent, nooses and whites only signs hung to intimidate there and this video posted to twitter, this from oklahoma the state of oklahoma, ou, students there wearing black face and allegedly, possibly saying a racial slur. all of this on the heels of martin luther king day. it is one of those things where some people thought this sort of thing was gone, but really it is
779 billion. next year thanks in large part to paul ryan and his party it s expected to hit 1 trillion. joining me to discuss ryan s legacy, charlie pierce and direct from ryan s home state, ruth coniff, editor of the progressive magazine. let me start with you, ruth. paul ryan crafted this image in d.c. as a kind of wonk, the rare wonk, the person who really genuinely believed in what he was doing. i wonder what his reputation was like in wisconsin and what is he going back to? that s a really good point, chris. paul ryan had two images. one was in washington where he was celebrated as a boy genius and back in wisconsin he would run ads on television saying things like he opposed trade agreements that exported jobs. in his district of janesville where the gm plant closed they lost 50% of manufacturing jobs so this was very important to his constituents but those tv ads had nothing to do with the
d.c. as a kind of wonk, the rare wonk, the person who really genuinely believed in what he was doing. i wonder what his reputation was like in wisconsin and what is he going back to? that s a really good point, chris. paul ryan had two images. one was in washington where he was celebrated as a boy genius and back in wisconsin he would run ads on television saying things like he opposed trade agreements that exported jobs. in his district of janesville where the gm plant closed they lost 50% of manufacturing jobs so this was very important to his constituents but those tv ads had nothing to do with the votes that he supported which supported every single trade deal. he has two images. he s seen as a friendly guy. very easy to talk to. i have watched him give these powerpoint presentations where he flashes up bar graphs and people try to follow it.
million assembled vehicles later, the lordstown gm plant is on the list to close. that move will leave 1,600 workers out of a job. with me now the mayor of lordstown, ohio. mr. mayor, welcome sir. my goodness, first just out of the gate, the president s tweet of we re looking at cutting all gm subsidies, what s your response to that threat? well, you know, you can t say that when he says he wants to do something he s going to go in at full force. i guess i can appreciate that, if he wants to keep general here. i ve heard that many times. it was about six, eight months ago when they moved the hatchback production to mexico. he said something similar to that about tariffs. i m hoping that we have something, a product here. they said they re ceasing production. they haven t said they re
happier. gretchen: it s called go janesville. brian: the man behind that movie, brad. welcome. what timing. when did paul ryan gets the nomination, you taped paul ryan, but you re not going to use him. why? we actually tell such an intimate story, i thought of five people in janesville over the course of five i m sorry. overt course of three years that i followed and three of them are laid off workers. one is a business leader, one is a political leader. and it just didn t really fit o have paul in the film because we were telling such a close-up, personal story and he was mostly in washington most of the time we were filming. gretchen: why janesville? i think janesville for a few reasons. one, my wife is from there. i knew about the community and the gm plant. when it closed, i wanted to tell a story about our economic crisis that would be