beginning to start for the republicans going to iowa this weekend. a cattle call with an agricultural summit we joke these are cattle calls but they are talking ag issues so it makes it more appropriate. what about the jobs today and political impact of that? the biggest impact and we ve been talking about this for months as the economy i am proves it will be less of an issue in 2016. the biggest issue is going to be foreign policy. you saw it at cpac they know, they are reading the poll numbers too. the economy is not the driving issue. the wage issue is and parts of the economy people want to address but it is not going to be the dominant theme the way it was in 12 that foreign policy will take the lead. it s going to be isis and who lost libya and it s also going to be look at the headlines today. the head of the revolutionary guard in iran is now the commanding general of the shiite
isn t political will on a national level to legalize marijuana federally. and something you were saying earlier, a lot of republican lawmakers consider that. but at the same time they see the moral their moral position on more advice and drugs as irreprehensible. nixon signed nit the 70s when pot smoking hippies were his arch nemesis. and one would assume alcohol and tobacco had a big emphasis on making sure it did not become a recreational drug. that big lobby resistance to pot seems to have dissipated. and also i think you re seeing less lobbying by law enforcement, which has been one of the big lobbies in favor of drug prohibition. this is a partisan issue, but it s also a really big age issue. when you poll young republican voters, you find them. it s like gay marriage. and when you poll democrats,
campaign to attack republicans over the wage issue. make no mistake, the white house is fully involved in this campaign as well. the president has held about half a dozen events focused on women and girls this year. there are several more on economic opportunity. even mentioning equal pay in his state of the union address. all of this is a clear sign the administration is going all in on this issue of closing the wage gap in an attempt to gain some traction before the midterms. the effort hit a bit of a bump on monday when critics brought up a study by a conservative group claiming that the white house had its own wage gap. the administration s own figures show that women staffers make on average $9,000 less than men. now, carney pushed back on monday, insisting that those that do equal work get equal pay, regardless of whether they are men or women. for example, we have two deputy chiefs of staff, one man and one woman, and they earn the same salary. we have 16 department heads,
political pressure sufficient that the republicans say, okay, we re going to have to do this to survive as a party. we re not there yet, but that s certainly going to be a big focus for us. you mentioned the discharge petition. are you thinking about going that route? again, that s a legislative term there. essentially a maneuver to force something onto the floor. but is this something you re thinking about in terms of both the minimum wage and immigration? i think there s an expectation that we ll start with a discharge petition on the minimum wage. for those that are around the country saying they support it, this is a way of actually putting their name on the line, literally quite on the line, to force a vote on this issue. it will help if the senate can pass something that will add to the pressure in the house. and if some of the marginal republican members see their republican senators support it, that will also help get them on board. i would expect to see a discharge petitio
been seriously studied and not that big of a deal. i don t have hard facts, you don t have hard facts, this is a work in progress but what we do know, you talk about schenectady. what we do know what is going on in places like schenectady we have lost 6 million manufacturing jobs since the so-called manufacturing renaissance, 580 thousand have come bam and that is hurting out in the middle of american and that is a global problem and that is a problem of our competitiveness all around the world. i think this is where we may disagree. i think we are going to get those jobs back. i think the next 20 years, i think this country is going to have an economic renaissance. mika doesn t agree with you. no. back off the wage issue. 3% of americans in the nbc poll are hopeful or optimistic. i tell you what, man, i m optimistic. up to 4%. i think the next 20 years for this country could be absolutely