toess we were seeing. among the images we aired was one of the romney family that showed mitt romney's grandchildren, including his adopted grandson, who's african-american. given my own family history, i identify with that picture and intended to say positive things about it. whatever the intent was, the reality is that the segment proceeded in a way that was offensive. and showing the photo in that context, that segment, was poor judgment. so without reservation or qualification, i apologize to the romney family. adults who enter into public life, implicitly consent to having less privacy, but their families, especially their children, should not be treated callously or thoughtlessly. my intention was not malicious, but i broke the ground rule that families are off-limits for that i am sorry. allow me to apologize to other families formed through transracial adoption because if we suggested interracial families are in any way funny or deserving of ridicule, on this program we are dedicated to advocating for a wide diversity of family ls. it is one of our core principles. i am reminded when we do so, it must be with the utmost respect. we're generally appreciative of everyone who offered serious criticisms of last sunday's program, and i am reminded that our fiercest critics are sometimes our best teachers. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ we are entrepreneurs who started it all... with a signature. legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses, turning dreamers into business owners. and we're here to help start yours. i takbecause you can't beatrning for my frzero heartburn.n.. woo hoo! 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[ male announcer ] it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪ i just served my mother-in-law your chicken noodle soup but she loved it so much... i told her it was homemade. everyone tells a little white lie now and then. but now she wants my recipe [ clears his throat ] [ softly ] she's right behind me isn't she? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. this week in national attention turned to new york city for a moment widely recognized was the start of something new for our country. no, i do not mean the whole countdown and ball drop in times square to mark the beginning of the new year. i'm talking about what happened hours later when new york city ceremoniously inaugurated its brand-new mayor, bill de blasio. his decisive, landslide victory has been hailed not only has a mandate for progressive economic and soeshl cial reform in new y city but part of a larger shift in american politics. because he made a reality out of what had previously been a political pipe dream for democratic candidates in a major election. to run and win on a far-left progressive platform. now, new york voterers responded overwhelming to his campaign theme of a tale of two cities. he's promised to address the widening gap between the city's rich and poor with policies like these. >> we will expand the paid sick leave law. we will require big developers to build more affordable housing. we will fight to stem the tide of hospital closures. and we'll expand community health cents into neighborhoods in need. we will reform a broken stop-and-frisk policy. we will ask the very wealthy to pay a little more in taxes so that we can offer full-day universal pre-k for every child in the city. and after-school programs for every middle-school child. we will not wait. we'll do it now. >> now, but maybe not quite right now because no sooner had he taken office then all of the day one items on this populist agenda got moved a little further down the list by development that demanded his immediate attention. he would first have to contend with the winter storm that cut a path across the midwest this week before moving on to the east coast. the blizzard dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on the mid-atlantic part of the nation. he had to clear the way for the rise of the people because first he had to plan for the plows to clear the ice and make sure the people wouldn't slip and fall. it's a reminder of the relatively mundane day to day work of governance, especiallily comparing it to the big ideological questions of policy and progress that characterize a campaign. snowplows and salt don't sound as sexy in a stump speech as justice and e equality. but for a city turning a new page on the government that serves the needs of its most vulnerable, they tear tools to take the earliest measures of mayor's ability to deliver on those high ideals. this was photo that became symbolic of mayor bloomberg's perception as an out of touch elitest when a storm poumded new york city 2010. much of the rest of the city remained blanketed in nearly two feet of snow. he paid a political price with his botched handling of the snow emergency, caused his poll numbers to plummet. on the optics, at least, de blasio is off to a promising start. this was the morning after snowmageddon image for new york's new mayor. bill de blasio shovel in hand pulling a cory booker clearing his own sidewalk while giving reporters an update on progress of the city's response to the storm. his performance on this, his first big test as mayor of the country's largest city, matters to more than just snowed-in new yorkers because there's a national spotlight on the new york mayorality. also the first big test of whether or not this waive of nascent progressive populism is just a passing moment or a growing sustainable movement of meaningful reform. if mayor de blasio is to take his populist promises from ideas to implementation, he'll have to effectively marshal the city's considerable resources of municipal government, 300,000 employees, a $70 billion bum et in service of his agenda. liberal reformers beyond the city's five boroughs will be watching the city not only as a test case for the populist movement but also for its possibilities because over the past four years the most consistent prevailing image of populism in american politics has looked like this -- the tea party, fiscally conservative, opposed to tax increases and above all adherence to a view that the federal government has encroached too far into the lives of ordinary people. the beginning of the de blasio rather in new york pushes the boundaries of that brand of populism to embrace an alternative. whether it is providing safety and security, access to a good education, an affordable place to live for a snow-free street, there is a place among those ordinary people for good government that works to make their lives better. marc steiner, host of the marc steiner show on weaa 89.9 fm and founder for the center of e emerging media. lorraine miller, interim ceo of the naacp, katrina, editor and publisher of the nation magazine and author of "the change i believe in: fighting for progress in the age of obama." robert george, associate editorial page editor of "the new york post." thanks to all of you. >> thank you. >> i sort of teased there about the new mayor pulling a cory booker in that these images of actually being out with the people in the neighborhood, you know, clearing snow, but how important or rather how well the sort of image aspects have to line up against the real capacity to deliver policy that is in line with what he says he wants to do? >> very important he passed his first test. because i think to be an effective progressive leader you need to show confidence. don't forget the lindsey storm of 1969 when scores of people died. that hit him badly. you need to show confidence. you need to show in terms of public safety and a whole set of other issues while he still stays true to his promise to repair a broken stop and frisk system and rebuild relationship relationships with communities. toward the end of july, a lot of people said how noble of you. it would be weiner and spitzer in this city. there was a moment. >> that happened. yep. that happened. >> i say this with humility. i've spoke on the people around bill de blasio and i don't think he fully understood how important his campaign was as it moved forward. but he did have this very coherent, important message about tackling inequality and rebuilding a city for all pre-k, universal, is his signature policy. he will need to move. the good thing about bill de blasio is he comes out of a politics of community organizations, of mobilizations in this city that were under the radar for daek aides in bloomberg's new york. so i think the one thing i would say, melissa, going forward, being careful about using the word populist, progressive, but i also say we should never say that tapping inequality is a right or left issue. it is about right and wrong. >> so i love sort of the language you have laid out here around bill de blasio and the kind of excitement in this moment. marc, i have to say one of the joys that i have about living not in new york, living in new orleans, is, you know, i'm constantly pushing back on my producers that, hey, actually what's happening in new york is -- i know it seems like it's national news because it's happening here and all of the media are here, but is there any evidence from your perspective, marc, that -- you ambassador live in the city -- what is happening in new york is actually indicative of a growing populist progressive movement more broadly across the country? in other words, electing a democrat as mayor of new york may be a little like saying it snows in winter. right? >> you had bloomberg. >> granted. granted. >> it's been 20 years since a democrat was here. >> i think, in jackson, mississippi, or elections all around this country, in our cities, progressives are growing. the movement is growing politically on the democratic side. as importantly to me are all the people around the country who are mobilizing in north carolina, in georgia, in baltimore, at home in new orleans, you know, that communities are rising up. what has to happen, we'll see fit happens, can that progressive democratic movement that seems to be pushing the party, which clinton and everybody else to a certain direction, can that meet in the middle of all the people who are rising up around the country, demanding change? that's where we he'll see the dynamic. >> so this notion of the people rising up, this is in part why i wanted to put my finger on the idea that the most effective in terms of organizational capacity and in terms of impacting our government populist movement has not been progressive but conservative. we really have been the tea party since 2009 and when i think about populism occurring in louisiana, new orleans now, it's not huey long populism but tea party populism. >> and that strain, just as the populist progressive strain is pushi ining democrats to the le the pob you list, tea party strain is pushing the republican party to the right. what i think is going to be interesting, if you start seeing in louisiana, north carolina, and so forth is whether those strains will actually start -- because those are carbon monoxide of the state where is you might see -- particularly north carolina where it's a purple state. you're going to see how those populist strains will clash and which ones will come out on top. obviously, a bill de blasio might possibly a few years down the road, you know, run for governor. he could win here. but in a lot of these urban areas that are in red states, it's not quite clear whether that populist strain is going to be able to win statewide. i don't think it will win statewide in texas, for example, at least not anytime soon. >> in north carolina, where our state conference chair, the reverend, moving with the moral monday, it is the coalition -- i think it's a social justice movement that is really bubbling up, that people -- there's a need there. and he's felt that need and he's been able to mobilize people. the same thing in florida that we have with one of our local branches, miss ellison. they've got this huge school to prison pipeline that she worked with the school superintendent and the parole officers and the courts to come up with an agreement that we'll address. it's social justice issues. >> even the language of moral monday, right, this goes to your point about this is not a right/left issue but a right/wrong issue and part of the brilliance of that. stick with me. we'll stay on this topic. i want to talk more about the dream defenders and what's going on in florida and the universal pre-k, one of the preaspects and the stop and frisk. how identity and populism come together. that talks about protecting, even after eating and drinking. crest pro-health has always done that. and addresses all these other areas as well. rinsing with pro-health after brushing can take your oral health to a new level. now that's the new you need. 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[ male announcer ] go pro. with the brand you can trust, crest pro-health. welcome back. it seems to me what the populist movement as done is it has a language of what constitutes populism in terps of strategy and it is tax cuts, what the government can do to ease life for ordinary people is tax cuts. is that a reasonable populist discourse going forward for the right? >> it's tax cuts and complementary aspect is size of government. >> right, right. >> yeah, it's kind of -- it comes from that sort of don't tread on me sensibility. look, the belief is that if the, you know, average family has more money in their pocket to, you know, allocate as they would, that's -- in certain ways the best kind of freedom. so that is sort of the bulwark of conservative language and the tea party. >> even how effective that message has been over the years, how to you come in and say what we actually are going to do from a left populist perspective is provide more services, which is going to require raising taxes on -- >> i think you begin by saying something that senator elizabeth warren has said so effectively, because she, don't forget, precedes bill de blasio in terms of being, you know, a leader of a populist democratic wing. which is that the system is rigged in favor of the powerful interests in this country and against the working families and people of this country, so i think a sense of fairness. i think there needs to be an aspirational sense, too, and in that is the signature program of bill de blasio, universal pre-k, which is commonsense investment in the future of our country. i think ralph nader and i have spoken about this, sadly there was the opportunity for some alliances between different kinds of populism, because at its heart that should be a kind of any corporate -- not any business. >> right. >> any business but any corporate, not anti-wealth creation but i do think the right-wing populism of the tea party not only became so on setsdsed with an anti-government name but let's be honest. there is a racism threaded through the right-wing populism, which is not unusual to american right-wing populism, that has not allowed for coalitions that could be built on behalf of working people in this country against the most powerful -- >> so, listen, this is one of the great challenges. lit's back off from the contemporary republican party and go back to our history of populism where i think this question of race and racism having flit split to pen tshl populist movement is kind of more obvious and i think accepted and in fact in the democratic party wherever it's happening. >> was very, very strong in labor union movements as well. >> that's what i'm saying. it was happening on the left in that there was this possibility of creating class-based movement where people who had similar interests ended up being split around issues like jim crow. that's why you don't end up with a labor movement in the south. right? >> that's part of the reason. so it's not just the right wing populism and racism, also left wing as well. >> not today. >> that's part of why i want to come to the bill de blasio point, because as much as universal pre-k is a signature policy, what allowed him to break through in this race was not universal pre-k but his stance on stop and frisk. >> he was a part of our march a couple years ago. >> yes. >> the solid march. he's to be commended for that. early on without any prompting. >> there is a little bit of an irony here in new york, though, that de blasio has pointed bill bratton, replacing ray kelly, to the police department and one of bratton's biggest successes was actually expanding stop and frisk. he may have done it differently from the tactical point but there is an -- >> i actually, marc, for me this is the big challenge, right so, progressives -- we saw this in a certain way in the 1970s when we fist got african-american voter who is emerged around language of left wing populism and racial justice. they emerged. people are excited. then it turns out they often end up in bed with precisely those same, like, policing interests as their predecessor. >> what's going to happen with bill de blasio and other progressive mayors have to watch out for is this, so layered. in new york city like most cities there are financial interests in developers have huge power. they have what they want. when he starts talking about saying you have to have affordable housing and they have to start paying for it, that's where this is going to come. can you fight that? that's all tied in to stop and frisk because poverty is tied into people with lack of housing, where homelessness is tied in into. it's all together. i think that stop and frisk -- i think the difference is also talking earlier about populism, a social jus cities populism, very different from -- >> yes. >> that's bill de blasio also -- and not just bill de blasio, lahtisha james, the first african-american city wide public advocate. but it's going to take -- we know this. elections are just the first step. he's been electricitied and has said this openly. he needs allies and others in the street pushing for racial justice, for police accountability, and for working with the very groups which helped elect him as well as the public education groups, as well as the community groups, as well as the labor groups. but there's no question police reform, police accountability groups that played a central role. >> i want to pause because i think that's exactly the point i want to go to is this idea if we rest just on electing the right or the left people, that may be insufficient. we'll take a quick break. when we come back, ralph nader will talk about how we make populism into actual politics. [ male announcer ] this is kevin. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all d