that was herman cain last night talking about the potential historic moment for two african-americans, one an incumbent president, the other the current front-runner in the republican presidential field facing off. cain s comments came right before the dedication this weekend of the martin luther king national memorial here in washington. is cain right? is this country beyond color? congressman emanuel cleaver is the chairman of the congressional black caucus. sir, thank you for joining us. and nia-malika henderson is with the washington post. thank you, nia, for joining us tonight. this question of these two guys running, i want to show you something from herman cain, congressman, and have your reaction to it. he s talking about some things about the president, which i find interesting. in an interview with bloomberg view, columnist jeffrey goldbele american rather than african-american. then went on to contrast his upbringing with that of president obama. cain is reported to have
and that s his problem. that s his problem with us and we re not terribly happy about that. but, again, the legislative power is going to come from the house and senate. we re hoping to drive it from the bottom up. it sounds like you guys are receding from the fight over the presidency and saying, we don t have a champion, we ll settle and let romney have it if he wants to, we ll vote for him, but we ll control him hand and foot. we ll bind and gag this guy from control in the house and the senate. well, ask me that question in april. i still think that the challenge now is to find someone better. thank you, both. thank you, matt kibbe. thank you, steve. it s a short night for us all. up next, what a great night for our country. we have an african-american in the white house and look at it, another african-american leading the field of republican challengers right now. look how far we ve come. and this is hardball, only on msnbc. sent her back to college for her sophomore
we re bailing them out all over again, i imagine there s going to be enormous political pressure to do just that. if we had teddy roosevelt as president right now, a real trust buster, a real progressive reformer who knew how to do it, could he break these giants into smaller pieces so the american people would be a democratic society again, economically speaking? sure. absolutely. that s good to i don t see why it s only hard because of the influence of money in the political process. because wall street had such sway in the discussion of how to reform them. i smell it every day. thank you, michael lewis. thanks. i m glad to know at least it s possible if we get the right people running the country. up next, herman cain is hoping his candidate sip doesn t melt away lake his choice of ice cream, actually. stick around for the side show. i still think that guy s rocky on the republican side. you re watching hardball, only on msnbc.
power is going to come from the hues a house and senate. it sounds like you guys are receding from the fight over the presidency and saying, we don t have a champion, we ll settle and let romney have it if he wants to, we ll vote for him, but we ll control him hand and foot. we ll bind and gag this guy from control in the house and the senate. well, ask me that question in april. i still think that the challenge now is to find someone better. thank you, both. thank you, matt kibbe. thank you, steve. up next, what a great night for our country. we have an african-american in the white house and look at it, another african-american leading the field of republican challengers right now. look how far we ve come. and this is hardball, only on msnbc. that s good morning, veggie style. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could ve had a v8.
problem. let me go to nia henderson of the washington post in covering this race. is there any way to detect whether this push for mr. cain is real on the republican side? they re not known for running african-american candidates or known since the time of the 60s, going back further than that before roosevelt for being the party of african-americans generally speaking that all of a sudden they have one for their nominee. people are skeptical. you can draw a straight line from michael steele to herman cain, barack obama to herman cain. he set the groundwork for this party and this country being open to an african-american president. if you talk to republicans on the ground and in some of these early states, it isn t really clear herman cain has any kind of ground game, any sort of infrastructure. he s going to report what his earnings and what sort of money he s raised over the last quarter, it s going to be about $300,000, $400,000. so he doesn t have the engine yet behind him