Meet The Press - March 25, 2012

Guests:
David Plouffe - Obama campaign
Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)
Ben Jealous - President NAACP
Michele Norris
Doris Goodwin
David Brooks
Rachel Maddow
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Gregory: Obama went to the South Korea
demilitarized zone and apologized for
the final episode of M*A*S*H

Gregory: good morning David -
how many more wars can we look
forward to in the coming years?

Plouffe: we’ve got crippling sanctions
on Korea and Iran!

Gregory: does the President think
race was a factor in the killing
of Trayvon Martin?

Plouffe: of course he does but he can’t
prejudge a criminal investigation

Gregory: Obama wouldn’t have expressed
sympathy for the victim if he didn’t
think it racial

Plouffe: that’s ridiculous Fluffy

Gregory: did he call the parents and
say sorry your son got killed?

Plouffe: no as chief executive he has to be neutral

Gregory: but he called Sandra Fluke

Plouffe: because she was being attacked
specifically for defending the President’s policy

Gregory: will Obama lead a national
summit on race?

Plouffe: yes because that will
change everything

Gregory: the President has disappointed
me by never talking about race

Plouffe: sure he does Fluffy

Gregory: now that we are creating jobs
it turns what people really care
about is gas prices

Plouffe: oh for god’s sake

Gregory: why won’t the President lower
gas prices!?

Plouffe: the GOP used to be in favor of
biofuels and now they mock solar panels

Gregory: but Pluffy the President politicized
high gas prices in 2008

Plouffe: he came out in favor a gas tax
when prices were high which was pretty brave

Gregory: the President has not gotten
a comprehensive energy law enacted and
he’s also going to swing states urging
a comprehensive energy policy

Plouffe: I heard you were a moron

Gregory: he’s politicizing energy!

Plouffe: the GOP just wants to drill
but the President likes wind too

Gregory: will Obamacare be repealed?

Plouffe: no - we’re insuring kids,
old people, and eliminating exclusions
for pre-existing conditions

Gregory: but people don’t love the law

Plouffe: Romney is the Godfather of
the health care law

Gregory: how so?

Plouffe: he made people an offer
they couldn’t refuse

Gregory: so Romney deserves all the
credit for the law not Obama!

Plouffe: ha you’re funny

Gregory: Romney is an etch-a-sketch
candidate who will pivot to the center
when he is the nominee

Plouffe: Romney wants to outlaw abortion
and that is etched in stone!

Gregory: ok

Plouffe: do we want to go back to
the massive responsible tax cuts that
caused the great recession?

Gregory: I wouldn’t mind

[ break ]

Gregory: Obama says the Trayvon Martin
killing should lead to soul-searching

Jealous: this incident contributes to a
sense that black men lives are
not worth as much

Gregory: the President seems reluctant
to lead a national debate on race just
because that’s not his job

Goodwin: I hope this event makes us
look at racial profiling and these
Stand Your Ground laws and say maybe
we shouldn’t be killing innocent
kids for carrying skittles

Gregory: but the Caution! The Reluctance!
Bad Obama!

Norris: hey Fluffy - the American people
are not all going to sit down on a
Tuesday afternoon and have a
national conversation led by your daddy

Brooks: racism is a natural sin we
are born into that we must combat
through civilization

Barbour: George Zimmerman could be
perfectly innocent ya know

Gregory: excellent point Governor

Barbour: let’s not jump to conclusions!

Gregory: Newt Gingrich spoke out very
powerfully when he called
the President a racist

Barbour: that’s right - race clearly doesn’t
matter in this case

Gregory: maybe they were fighting
but the fact remains Zimmerman
killed this kid

Jealous: the law doesn’t say if you stalk
someone and come at them with a gun and
they push you on the ground you get to
shoot and kill them

Gregory: Charles Blow wrote in the
New York Times That as a parent he
fears his children will be regarded
as suspicious by paranoid armed cop wannabes

Norris: white people see a good young kid
and black parents seen a successful kid who
got shot because he was considered a criminal
to be feared and killed

Norris: Martin may be this generation’s
Emmett Till - the men who killed him were
acquitted in one hour and it sparked outrage

Jealous: it’s been 10 years since the
last great national conversation
on racial profiling which did not stop
racial profiling

Barbour: this process is working -
the Mayor of Sanford is not sweeping this
under the rug after a few weeks of not
doing anything after the killing

Brooks: people get shot every day you know

Jealous: even black cops discriminate
against black men!

Gregory: should we be worried about the
Black Panthers committing violence?

Jealous: what an appropriate question in
a debate of suspicion and fear of black men

Gregory: nothing hits a President’s
popularity harder than high gas prices

Goodwin: people do love low prices
on things they like

Brooks: Obama can’t control gas prices so
Republicans attacking Obama on gas prices
proves all Democrats are hypocrites

Gregory: more drilling does not lower prices

Barbour: we need more drilling to lower gas prices!

Gregory: that’s a good point

Barbour: Obama wants higher gas prices!

Gregory: he does?

Barbour: Obama’s policies doubled
the price of gasoline in three years

Gregory: should Rick Santorum drop out?

Barbour: unless Romney steps on a
land mine he will be the nominee

Gregory: is that a threat?

Barbour: it’s merely an observation Fluffy

[ break ]

Gregory: Rachel why did you write a
book about perpetual war?

Maddow: I’ve been worried for a long time
about the drift to war in America

Gregory: you say that less than 1% of
the population are actually fighting
even with ten years of constant war

Maddow: if the public doesn’t feel the
effects of war we are more likely to go to war

Gregory: who doesn’t love a good war?

Maddow: we gave ourselves giant
tax cuts when we started two wars

Gregory: yeah that was awesome

Maddow: we say the military goes to
war instead of the nation going to war

Gregory: your book is not partisan

Maddow: this is not about parties of
specific Presidents - people like war but
don’t want to fight it or pay for it

Gregory: you are worried about the
growth of military superstructure

Maddow: we do need to fight wars sometimes
but we don’t need 1,800 nuclear weapons

Gregory: nukes are cool

Maddow: the only fights we have are
Congress making the Pentagon buy tanks
even the military doesn’t want

Gregory: we should hire veterans because
they are heroes

Maddow: they are also really impressive

Gregory: me wife is a Captain

Maddow: 2 million Americans deployed to
Iraq and Afghanistan

Gregory: I would like to observe
veterans are awesome

Maddow: yes they are

Gregory: well that was problem was solved -
and that’s another episode of Meet The Press
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