we know our economy is stronger when our wives, our mothers, our daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace and free from the fear of domestic violence. tomorrow, the president will mark another milestone for women s rights. he will sign the renewal of the violence against women s act. into law. it s been a long time coming. republicans blocked the law for almost a year. posing its expanded pre eed pro for groups in native america and the l.g.b.t. kmupty. most republicans were still saying no. 138 republicans in the house and 22 republicans in the senate. they tried, but they failed to stop the violence against women act. the president s first act in
the caucus and if that is going to be the case going forward, what does that mean for governing? well, what it means is is that the speaker has essentially abli daabdicated his leadership and his caucus is rung him. they elected him as the leader. they should allow him to lead, but that s not what the situation is. it might come to a point where he has to put his leadership position on the line, and i think frankly, it would be a bold and courageous thing to do and he could go to the american public and say, look, we re going go for a balanced approach. just the other day, we passed the violence against women s act and we violated the hastert rule that says every single republican has to vote toward bill and the bill passed with majority democratic votes. that s exactly what needs to happen here. he needs to break that hard, ideological stand that all of the republicans have to be on the same page. he needs to put the votes together with democrats and we ll be able to solve this
mr. president? harry shapiro. thank you, mr. president. you said a few minutes ago and said repeatedly the country has to stop careening from crisis to crisis. with a few more crises behind us and a few more crises ahead of us as particular debate of the sequester, how do you as leader of country plan to stop the country from careening to crisis to crisis? well, a couple of things. number one is to make sure we keep making progress wherever we can on things that are important to middle class americans and those are fighting to get into the middle class. so, if you set aside budget fights for a second, we ve been able to get now the violence against women s act done. the conversations that are taking place on a bipartisan basis around immigration reform, are moving forward. we ve seen great interests in a bipartisan fashion around how we can continue to improve our education
yesterday, we passed the violence against women s act. it was passed out of the senate. it came over to the house. john boehner put it on the floor and all of the democrats and a few republicans voted for it and it passed. the same thing could happen today if mitch mcconnell would let a bill come out of the senate, let the majority rule in the senate if they passed it over to the house and boehner put it on the floor, you d have 200 democrats and a handful of republicans and we would not have to have this sequester happen. it doesn t have to happen. it s only because mitch mcconnell will not let the majority rule in the senate. it s the filibuster rule in the senate that s keeping any kind of compromise from coming out of the senate. let me hold you right there, congressman. i want people to understand that. when you say mitch mcconnell is using the filibuster rule and blocking this from going before
argument, it came out the same way for every level of government. more people vote for democrats in the senate than people vote for the president. the fact is because of the way people are disproportionate in this country. if you look at the polls, i think you quoted one in your introduction, they remain, pro, including further, taxes in these deals. so there s absolutely no doubt, either in elections or in the polls, where the american people stand on this. joan walsh and ezera cline, thanks for coming on the show tonight. ahead, a major win for women today. but how in the world did 138 republicans vote against against the violence against women s act? and 159 years ago today, the republican party was founded on equal rights and ending slavery. how did it go from lincoln to