general motors is alive. yes minute laud is dead and general motors is alive. captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh

access.wgbh.org captioning sponsored by comedy central ( theme song playing ) you have my permission to vote. >> stephen: thank you so much. [crowd chanting]

[crowd cheering] >> stephen: thank you for joining us. sit down everybody. i tell you, i tell you folks. what barack obama would give for enthusiasm like that. tonight we launch our coverage of the 2012 people's party congress of charlotte. this year they are hoping for a replay of four years ago when hoards of hope-addled lemmings cried as their dear leader orated between soaring greek columns. four years ago those were fake greek columns. this time it's the actual parthenon. [laughter] gresgreece sold it for a buck 7d

a jug of tzatziki. folks, don't buy the hype the this convention is the biggest dog and pony show since last year when i tried to enter my palomino-doodle at westminster. [laughter] sorry banjo, they're bigots. anyway, tonight dnc dis-info-tainment line up features rahm emanuel, harry reid, jimmy carter, first lady michelle obama and congressional candidate joaquin castro and his twin brother san antonio mayor julian castro. i mean call me racist but i cannot tell these hispanics apart. [laughter] folks. the whole thing is just sad, it's just sad. every time the republicans have a convention it's like the democrats have to have one too. [laughter] but it's not going to work this time around. just ask rnc chairman

reince priebus. >> today the thrill and pixy dust of barack obama's presidency is gone. americans feel no hope, democrats are dispirited enthusiasm is clearly on the republican side. >> stephen: yes. [laughter] yes. we have all the enthusiasm. [laughter] mitt romney's our candidate, and there's no changing that now. [laughter] folks, this convention is about more than the presidency. it's about motivating democrats to hold on to the senate and try to take back the house. to do that, they're gonna need strong congressional candidates, which brings me to the 67th in stallment of my 434-part series better know a district. tonight, new york's ninth, the fighting ninth.

[crowd cheering] used to be the fiegh fighting 1. this is the scene for the babilitiesbattleof long island e cry why didn't we attack during rush hour. this district in brooklyn is owned by process peck park zoo where you and your kids with see receiveriver otters and contacte and even the rare sunny-d bottle full of cab-driver urine. professional basketball has now ku78 to the district with the rechristened brooklyn necessary who are partly owned by rap or jay-jeavment. they've got 99 problems. it's heavily democratic. in fact barack obama won 9 on% of its votes in 2008. he'd have gotten all the votes but 10 percen% of brooklynites d

for john mccain ironically. [crowd cheering] and guess who has the gershwin's to represent new york ninth. none other than three-term congress woman yvette clarke. i sat down with congress woman clerk in her office. thank you for talking to us today. >> it's my pleasure. >> thank you to us about the fighting 11th or 9th, whatever it is. >> the fighting 11th congress number district needs to be the 9th congressional district. one of the most diverse districts in the nation. >> stephen: brooklyn is home to some musical rappers. are you a fan of the rapping. >> i am. >> stephen: i heard some say brooklyn is in the house. >> always. >> stephen: always, okay. is this a reference to you being in the house o house of represe. >> that's part of it. >> stephen: okay. let's talk about the hip hop community and let them know you're representing them in

the -- >> i'm not a rapper. i'm really not a rapper. >> stephen: congressman represent. >> you out there, i'm representing you as representative. representative. [crowd cheering] >> you should come joy us in brooklyn. >> stephen: by the way, why isn't your district in brooklyn. can your district not afford to live in manhattan. >> we're brooklynites. we pride ourselves not being in manhattan. we're die hard. everyone knows brooklyn goes hard. >> stephen: some people have called baroque lynn's decision to become part of new york city the great mistake of 1898. >> yes. >> stephen: if you could get into a time machine and go back to 1898, what would you say to those brooklynites. >> now am i going back not knowing what i know now. >> stephen: knowing what you know now. >> what i know now. >> stephen: go back in time.

it's you going back in time. that's an interesting idea, going back in time and you arrive there and you don't know who you are. you've not amnesia. >> not amnesia but you basically go back in time. >> stephen: right. >> without knowledge of what has happened in the time that you were. >> stephen: i never seen that movie. but you know everything. you know everything, you're going back there. >> okay. i would say to them, set me free. [laughter] >> stephen: from. i hear there was slavery in brooklyn in 1898. that was a horrible part of the united states. slavery going until 1898. who would be enslaving you in 1898 in new york? >> the dutch. >> stephen: the dutch.

[laughter] you see the dutch on -- >>in exactly. [laughter] >> stephen: moving on. your parents were caribbean immigrants, correct. >> that's correct. >> where in the crib yen were -- caribbean were your parents. >> in jamaica. my mother grew up on a farm and my father grew up in the city. >> stephen: what did your mother's family grow on the farm. was the ganja. >> no. >> stephen: i don't know. i'm not familiar with any other crop. >> why did you get ganja from. >> stephen: i listen to a fair amount -- all my friends in the industry want to have a pool party, an uprising. great music. get up stand up get up for your rights. that's what my friends on wall street are trying to do. >> don't give up the fight. >> stephen: no. fight. i believe that's what marley was talking about. do you want to let the bush tax cuts expire. >> i think the bike bush tax cus

definitely need to expire. >> stephen: that would put an undue burden on guys like me, the top 1% job creators. we won't be able to create jobs anymore if we're taxed. >> i know. someone as intelligent as you are can come up with the rest. >> stephen: to hide my money so it won't be taxed. >> you can do that. you can do that but. [applause] >> you're in a position, no matter what, to have taxes by the greatest work force in the world. >> stephen: we've got great workers here but they do things like they unionize, they have minimum wage. all the things that help depress job growth here. what if we got rid of unions and got rid of the minimum wage. if we lowered the wages enough here, all the jobs would come back. >> that reminds me of like 18,

was it 1896. >> stephen: 1898 back when there was still slavery in brooklyn. [laughter] >> stephen: come back to the time machine for a second. you got in the time machine and you went back to brooklyn in 1898. >> i would say to them, this place is a great place. >> stephen: you wouldn't mention the spanish influenza that's about to kill like 17 million people or the wall street crash or the titanic or even attempts to kill hitler. >> well, i mean i think that -- [laughter] >> stephen: you could stop world war ii from happening, you wouldn't do it. >> wow, that's heavy. that's heavy. >> stephen: you should have thought about that before you got in the time machine. [laughter] >> i think i would have to, in that case. i may not be able to work with

that, but i mean world war ii is one of the most horrific periods. it'periods. >> stephen: it's up there. >> i would try. i would try. i would try. >> stephen: i think you've got a chance of re-election now. >> i do? i do. >> stephen: congress woman, thank you for taking time away. >> my pleasure. [applause] . >> stephen: up on the big board. oh. brooklyn just got gen gentrifie. we'll be right ba [uk÷k -xa:@gpqyú$@ >> stephen: welcome back,

everybody. thanks so much. [crowd cheering] >> stephen: thank you. please. if you watch this show, you know i'm no fan of fact. look it up. [laughter] especially when facts are used by democrats who attack good men like paul ryan. [laughter] now the liberal truth bader ginsberg is having a field die

with riens' gop convention speech they called misleading, bretbreath takingly mishonest. or as paul ryan might put it, they said he was breathtaking and would be greatest at pleading the world. in a word, he shown. [laughter] and now they've jumped on something he said this weekend. >> are you still running? >> yes, i hurt a disc in my back. >> stephen: you ran a marathon at some point. >> yes. >> stephen: i have to ask what is your personal best. >> 103 -- two hours 60 something. >> stephen: you go down to miami university. now under three hours. that's pretty good to put that in perspective, lance armstrong finished the new york city marathon in under three hours and his water bottle was phone

of methylate cheetah plasma. but according to notoriously liberal jogging rag runner's world, paul ryan has run one marathon and finished in four hours, one minute 25 seconds. is that a mistake. three fours, four hours. marathon runners don't keep track of these things. they just do it for the love of the nipple pleading. it wasn't under three hours. time has a well-known liberal bias. that's why the republicans have tried to stop the clock at the 1890's. [laughter] but paul, my man, be smart about this. you keep stretching the truth about things that anyone can look up on the internet. [laughter] you go got taught check with something that's uncheckable.

let's take about your hot girlfriend who live in canada. there is no way to verify that. or here's a good one. i only sleep with four hours a night. that's all i need. the point is i don't brag about these things. it goes against the oath of honor i swore to my sense upon achieving my 10th level. this is in portuguese speaking countries. i need these marshall arts skills when i'm creeping around at night creting famous works of art as banksy. [applause] >> stephen: if you don't believe i'm banksy just ask any of any shadow brothers in the illuminate. brothers, let's illuminate paul ryan into office, okay. it's that easy paul. just check yourself before you wreck yourself.

ors my sense sivment would say, cobra kaa

>> stephen: welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight is a conservative columnist who has advice about how the republicans can win the working class aside from tipping them more. please welcome righ right rye-h. [crowd cheering] you are contributing editor for the national review. you're also a cnn contributor. you are what ethnologists call a moderate how can, true. >> i'm a temperamentally modern republican. >> stephen: temperamentally moderate. >> i try to be helpful and

constructive. i vex tremely right wing views. >> stephen: you mean mainstream american views. >> exactly. with a capital m and a capital a. >> stephen: you saw paul ryan's speech down in tampa. >> i did. >> stephen: he got hammered by fact checkers out there who say the plant was closed in 2008, he voted against simple -- simpson bowls. what do you make of the fetish his enemies say whether or not it was accurate. >> i think it's a reasonable thing to ask the question but people are being awk t obtuse ae reason they're being awk tools because when you look at the two parties, we have two political parties that really need to be slippery because we have two political parties both of which, both say a couple of good sensible things and also say a bunch of bad stupid crazy things and they don't want people to pay close attention. that's why we make claims and counterclaims about lying rather

than talk about deep underlying serious issues and deep disagreements. >> stephen: didn't he tell the truth. to me if he told the truth it wouldn't matter what the facts you. >> i think if he told the truth, the allegation is he was being misleading. that's a fair point. maybe he was being misleading but i think in these political conversations we always over simplify partly because having a very polarized conversation in which people aren't going to disagree with them, the benefit of the doubt. so when they hear something that seems vague, seems like it's ill defined they don't think that's must be what he meant, rather they say what is it narrowly as possible why, rather than have a real conversation about what we're saying. >> stephen: so, so i'll be the one to disparage my guest. [crowd cheering] i have to. there are things that can be not actually factually true but they

could be figuratively true. they can feel true. >> they can feel true because they get at a greater truth. paul ryan said in that speech that the plant was about to close and the truth is the production stopped in that plan it was -- it wasn't formally closed and it would have reopened had demands for suvs increased dramatically. that's really complicated. it took me several seconds to say that, but it happens to be true that it wasn't actually closed in 2008. >> stephen: right. it took you several seconds to say it. second several paul ryan didn't have. now let's talk about something else before shattering about that are. the idea, i believe the republicans when they say they did their best to work with barack obama and they hoped he would achieve some success in his administration. do you believe that. >> i do believe that and i know a lot of the folks in your audience might not but you have george w. bush who was under a serious cloud about his

legitimatlegitimate see in 2001a fair number of crats to vote for that legislation despite the fact the democrats detected the guy. this is failure on the part of the president or just a failure on the part of the republicans. i think in that early period. >> stephen: a lot of the failure on behalf of the democrats that they are willing to compromise with people they don't like. whereas the republicans have the strength to not do anything for someone they want out of office after one term. [crowd cheering] give the republicans some credit. >> i actually don't think that's quite right. when you look at 2009 a lot of republicans in congress were actually really afraid. they thought negotiator barack obama is really compelling chairs maticharismatic he has ar agenda and it proves not to be popular with the broad independents and he wasn't who

we thought he was. >> stephen: do the republicans have the enthusiasm. [laughter] that he describes? i mean he's the cheerleader of all of that excited? [laughter] >> i think that there are a ton of folks in both parties who are very excited and engaged but not for the best reason. i think a lot of people are excited because they consider the alternative to be so dreadful that they will support pretty much whoever stands for their party's nomination. i think that's a shame because it reflects a lot of really unhealthy dynamics in our democracy. >> stephen: will you come back after we find out who won. >> i would be delighted to come back, stephen. >> stephen: perhaps then we could decide whether or not the truth won or the facts. thank you so much. [crowd cheering] >> stephen: we'll be right