And sounds that shape his politics and what he expects to hear and see in 2015. Plus, we heard nina turner lay out her side and today the man she would like to knock out of office, republican john husted. Good morning. This is thursday, may 8, 2014. Ill get to my first sitdown, harry reid. Hes a study in contrast, mild mannered and sharp tongued. He knows the rule book better than anyone. A man who never lets opponents forget. He was also an amateur boxer and is apparently not afraid of a fight. Hes become the 2014 boogie man that republicans are looking for. What nancy pelosi was to campaigns in 2010, Senate Republicans are hoping to do to harry reid in 2014. I sat down with reid, as youll see, when it comes to his hardnosed legislative style, hes unapologetic. We hit a lot of issues under the sun, beginning with whether democrats will get anything done this year in the senate. I had to overcome over 500 fill i busters. 500. During the six years that Lyndon Johnson was leader, he had to overcome one. Mine, over 500. And its because of the deal they made right after obama was elected. So i hope that they will suddenly change. I think weve had some ideas during this last little bit thats been important. Weve had the house directed by boehner say lets do a budget and he instructed ryan to work with the budget chair over here, senator murray, and we came up with a budget. He also decided, the speaker, that we should stop playing around with the debt ceiling. During the reagan years, we increased the debt 18 times. Weve struggled since obama was elected. Boehner said lets stop struggling. So we did that easily. We needed a spending bill. The speaker decided lets do a spending bill and we did that, led by over here shelby and mccullski. On things that even Rick Santorum wants done, we should do something on minimum wage. That sounds like a long answer to say you dont expect much to get the president s desk. Its a long answer to say unless they change, we cant get things done, things that the American People want. Minimum wage. Pay equity. Those kind of things. Let me stop you at minimum wage. This is it seems it doesnt seem like theres any deal making going on. And i say this and youve probably heard a few of this talk about this on the air, i talked about it with senator santorum, you brought him up. If you could get republicans to agree to 9 an hour, would you take that deal . Chuck, i am known for a lot of things, but one thing ive been known for is a deal maker. Thats what i did. I ran the floor for senator daschle for all those years and you can ask republicans then, who were here then, i was the guy they came to to get things done. I know that well. Right now on minimum wage. It seems that we should have a wage that would get people out of poverty. Thats what 10. 10, that wasnt just a funny number i understand that. The president just a year ago had 9 is what he proposed. The answer is we can do a lot of things on minimum wage. But youre not budging from the number . No. But there are things we can still do and im waiting to hear from someone. But the number, someone after all these years should be able to work 40 hours really hard and be out of poverty. So you would not negotiate on the number. Youll negotiate on other parts of it but not on the 10. 10. There are lots of other things we can negotiate on. My saying this should open the door to my republican colleagues. There are things we can do. Im willing to work with you. Let me ask you on this, i just ran into a republican senator. I said what are you doing here . I said im sitting down with senator reid. He said ask him why there have only been eight republican amendments voted on over the years . They feel as if they dont get a chance to vote on their own amendments. Its an easy question to answer. Why have i had to overcome 500 filibusters on motions that mean nothing except to eat up time. We were given the assurance that will could be no motions to proceed necessary. Of course that lasted about a week and a half. So i say to my republican friends, let us get on these bills. We use of hundreds and hundreds of hours on waste. On the floor today i said everybody be aware out there in tv land, why are we doing nothing today . Because we are now in another filibuster. Keep in mind that im sure the bill that they were talking about today is Energy Efficiency. Its about the energy bill. Weve been working on that for a year. I have used different illustrations you had the greased pig. Working with my Senate Republican colleagues reminds me of chasing one of these little pigs in a greased pig contest. I used greased pig, i used the shell game because thats what it is. Listen. Listen to this. It was held up a year ago for a lot of reasons, one of which was david witter said he believes that people who work here for us shouldnt have health care. Okay . It wasnt health care. It was getting the it was getting the subsidy. Its getting health care. Dont be playing his game. He wanted to stop staff from getting health care. Its what he wanted. Every other business in america who their employer helps them with health care, Major Business and we should be a Major Business. There are 6,500 employees here in the senate. So he held that up and there were other people who held it up. So i was told, come on, lets see what we can do because we cant do things out here on the floor. Lets see if ron widen can do something with murkowski and the committee to come up with something and they did. They came up with some good bipartisan efforts. It increased the bills betterment so much. So thats done. They come to me, seven republicans, and say, okay, we need to pass this bill, its so important to the country. I say, good, ill do that. So then they come to me and say, okay, that agreement, i want to change it a little bit. That was right before the easter recess. What we want to do is have a n nonbinding vote on keystone. I say, okay, lets do it. Then they come back after recess and say we want to change it now. We want a real vote. I say, okay, well change the agreement again. Youll do an up or down vote on keystone if it has no amendments, youll do that tomorrow . Yes, yes. Theyve said we agree on that but lets change it again. On things that are so on their face its an evident to kill the bill. You feel like theyre poison pills. This whole process for the senate, at least for me its interesting. I know for some folks that is this idea theres a bipartisan criticism of you and mcconnell and also somewhat a boehner and pelosi that the leadership over the last three or four congresses has it and too much control of the political process and Committee Ranking members dont have the same influence to do things on their own. You hear the grumblings, you never hear the names with it, you hear theyre being told by leadership they cant cut deals on their own. What do you say to that criticism . I love deal cutters. I have a number of them in my caucus, i tease them about them being my meddlers in chief. Top carper, chuck shuman, dick sherman, mary landrieu. I want them to work. And remember what i did what i became the leader. I strengthened the committee system. We have not had a single task force since ive been the leader because i have strengthened the committee system. The problem is you have a Committee Like the Judiciary Committee that puts out lots of stuff. It cant move on the floor. The energy committee. Dr. Coburn himself has held up hundreds of things. Hundreds of things. And the republicans over here wont buck him. You dont believe democrats play any role in this . It feels like a tit for tat game. I dont mean to use this process words but theres no belief theres any tit for tat here . In modern journalism, everything you do is a tit for tat. You wont call things the way they exist. Whats happening here is the republicans stop everything from happening. Theres no question that the meeting took place. You can give me the tit for tat all you want, but the fact is we want to legislate. We want to take votes. Do you believe how much of the republican conference do you think wants to legislate and how much do you think they dont want . Theres some argument that says legislation equals more government so i think there are a number of republicans. The Republican Party in the congress, not in the country, but the Republican Party in the congress has lost the middle. Theres no middle anymore. The first term, which was a congress where we got more done than any in history. Susan collins is still here. Bless her heart. Lamar alexander tries. Rob portman is a kindhearted man, he tries. Take this Energy Efficiency bill for example. We have seven republicans who said they would support this bill. Comes right down to it because of this thing they always come back, we dont have enough amendments, even though we added ten to the bill. They talked johnny eisens out of it. We cant get anything done. You stood up for general shinseki. There is a sense of frustration obviously with how the v. A. Works. You know the back log. Frankly, i could argue the v. A. Has been under criticism for decades, plural. How do you restore confidence in the v. A. Without firing shinseki or asking he to resign . Theres clear lay confidence problem. Listen, theres a lot of criticism of the veterans administration. We have back logs of cases that shouldnt be as big as it is. Understand what this good man, shinseki, is dealing with. Hes no question of his patriotism. Hes a disabled veteran from the vietnam conflict. Hes the same guy that they fired during the Bush Administration because he said iraqs not going so well, we need more soldiers over here, they fired him. Because of the iraq war and afghanistan war, millions of people have been put in the system that didnt exist there before. Its not just people who have been driving trucks. These are people who have been injured. Tens of thousands of them. And post Traumatic Stress syndrome. A lot of problems here. So hes working and its a hard job he has. Its easy in washington, this kind of washington talk. Try to find somebody better than this man you dont think theres somebody out there better than him to run this job . No. I mean, its easy to fire him, things will be a lot better. Firing this good man is not going to make it any better. Speaking of secretary shinseki, will the fourstar general in charge of the v. A. Be able to hold on to his job . My colleague over at the pentagon, he got an exclusive with shinseki yesterday. Here is what shinseki told mik. Are you willing to accept full responsibility . I am. And thats the reason the i. G. Is down there doing the investigation. They want you to resign or be fired. Will you resign . I would say i serve at the pleasure of the president. I also have much more of my interview with majority leader harry reid ahead, including what hes saying about his own political future, his take on who should run for president in 2016 and a surprising accusation against the owner of the Washington Redskins. Theres a lot more well have tomorrow as well, by the way. As tdr 50 rolls through the buckeye state, weve got ohio secretary of state john husted here for his side of this debate and fight over voting rights. But first, a look at todays planner. As president obama continues a west coast swing, that is all fundraising today in california. Youre watching the daily rundown only on msnbc. Our clients need a lot of attention. Theres unlimited talk and text. 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In our tdr 50 tour this week, were in ohio. Its been a week since the aclu filed a lawsuit challenging a raft of new measures that will challenge voting issues. Heres what the suit claims. That by cutting back early voting opportunities, the Ohio Legislature and specifically secretary of state john husted are impacting tens of thousands of lowincome, elderly and africanamerican voters. On wednesday you heard candidate for secretary of state nina turner say husted is deliberately cutting voters out of the process. The lawsuits have been filed time and time against him because he has been using his policies to suppress the vote. None of this is by happenstance that the aclu is suing him, that the league of women voters is suing him, the naacp and other black churches are suing him. Its not about me. It is about the voters in the state of ohio. Joining me now, essentially to respond to yesterdays accusation, ohios republican secretary of state, john husted joins me. Nice to see you, sir. Chuck, nice to be with you. Well, let me just give you a chance to respond to your opponents accusation there. Well, theres a lot there. Its very interesting. We dont have election day in ohio, we have election month. You literally can vote without ever leaving home. We send everybody an absentee ballot request. They have a month to vote from home plus a month to vote in person at the local board of elections in 13 hours on election day at over 9,000 locations across the straight. We have actually done exactly what the aclu sent a letter to me in 2012 asking me to do. They literally said please, secretary of state, john husted, implement fair and uniform standards across the state of hai ohio, not different standards in 88 different counties as was the previous practice. We did that and two years later they filed a lawsuit asking to go back to the old system. Let me ask you the bottom line is there a lot of people who doesnt want peace about this. The schedule that were using right now literally was a bipartisan recommendation from democrats and republicans who run elections at the local level. I guess my question is is why did you make the decision to round down . You could have rounded up and said i want fair and uniform elections and the standard has been sunday, were going to do these two sundays, expand the hours and make sure every voting jurisdiction has the hours. You could have rounded up and you decided to round down. Thats not exactly why did you do that . Thats not true, chuck. Actually, the legislature shortened the early voting period. Why are they rounding down . Because of problems in a swing state like ohio. Thats not me, chuck. Thats the legislature. Do you think they made a mistake . Do you wish they didnt do that . What i want is a bipartisan solution. A partisan solution to these issues never is going to satisfy anybody. The only bipartisan solution on the table was a schedule that was given to us by the democrats and republicans who run the local elections. And what they wanted was a 28day schedule that allowed saturdays and during president ial elections, chuck, we will have sundays. But there are 2 million fewer voters during these offterm elections and boards of elections wanted to have says and not sundays. I dont understand that decision and i understand, look, i know there are other states that do worse things but why should a voter have more access to the polls in a president ial year and not arguably in a year, in a midterm year, and i understand the turnout differences but as far as a an ohio citizens are concerned, the midterm elections are more important to their every day lives. Go ahead. Look at the facts. Im fine with that. Im fine with any of these proposals. There are hundreds of schedules you can use and have a fair system of elections. We have to look at where ohio sits compared to other states. New york you vote for one day. Joe bidens delaware, one day. Barack obamas illinois, 15 days. In ohio, we vote for a month. We have sunday voting. None of those states have sunday vote. We have saturday voting, they dont. I literally send every single voter in the state an absentee ballot request where they can vote for a month without leaving home. You cant argue that ohio somehow is trying to fit into this National Narrative that the democrats want to say about us. Were doing a great job of making it easy to vote and hard to cheat here. People like senator turn aer do things like she voted to cancel friday voting and i had to defend the law that she voted for and then she complains i defended it. Its a bunch of hypocrisy. You talked about the bipartisan thing. Ive been at ththinking about t for a while. I dont mean to undermine your job title. Do you think the person who oversees elections of states in general that they shouldnt be a member of the Political Parties . It doesnt matter what a democratic secretary of state does, a republican is going to question that persons motives. In swing states, its a very difficult job, theres no question about it because no matter what you do people are going to complain. But i would say theres two ways you can look at it. When its an elected official, at least can you hold them accountable, at least you can publicly complain about me if i do something wrong and then i should be able to look at chuck todd and the rest of the people in america and ohio and explain what were doing and why were accountable. When you appoint somebody, then they send a hide behind the shield of, well, i was appointed or im not partisan and then they can act in partisan ways and theres no ways to hold them accountable. Im perfectly fine with being held accountable, to go out and explain why we made it easy to vote and how to cheat in ohio and why thats working in americas most hotly contested swing state. You bring an important point, which is ohio has a lot more openness in voting than many states. Thanks for coming on, secretary husted. Well be watching. Time for todays number in the data bank. 47. The number of days in marylands gubernatorial primaries. Democrats running for the states top seat and one of the primaries will win the governors ch