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JOHN KING, USA

Arizona's Governor Signs Tough Immigration Law; Latest on Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

Aired April 23, 2010 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JOHN KING, HOST: Thanks, Suzanne. Some Republicans are saying I told you so as the Obama administration releases a new report that shows health care costs will go up, not down as the president promised, but our "Lead" tonight a developing story out in Arizona and across the country.

Arizona's governor tonight signs a tough new immigration law, it gives police new powers they say they need, but the president of the United States is among those who says this law is misguided. We will break down the specifics of the Arizona law, the policy debate and the political debate that stretches from Phoenix all the way to right here in Washington.

In "Wall-to-Wall" tonight, you've seen some of the pictures, we'll give you the latest on this dramatic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the environmental damage making its way toward shore, tonight the Coast Guard has called off the search for the workers who are missing, what coast might get hit? What will the environmental impact be? We will show you.

And it's Friday so you get to "Make Your Case". We have asked you all week what makes you mad about your government, what makes you frustrated? We'll also listen to your solutions.

And in our "Play-by-Play", you won't want to miss this. We'll break down the tape that Sarah Palin gives us a flash back, what during the campaign made her turn to John McCain's senior advisors and say, chill?

Arizona's governor signed a tough new law tonight designed to crack down on illegal immigration. And as she was making her announcement, there was word of a shoot-out just south of the border in which seven people, six of them police officers were killed, a reminder if we needed one that illegal immigration and the separate but related challenge of cross border drug violence raise tough policy choices and stoked the rawest of raw politics.

We have a great panel with us tonight to debate the pros and cons of both the Arizona law and the coming national immigration reform conversation, but first let's set the table. To hear Arizona Governor Jan Brewer tonight, she had no choice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JAN BREWER (R), ARIZONA: We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act. But decades of federal inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The new law has some tough provisions that require police to determine if a person's status, if there's reasonable suspicion they could be here illegally. It allows police to be arrested people who are unable to produce proof they are in the United States illegally -- legally -- excuse me -- and allows citizens to sue if the law isn't enforced. Immigration rights and Latino groups, some of them, demonstrating even as the governor signed the law call it discriminatory, unconstitutional. They promised to challenge it in the courts and earlier Friday the president of the United States appeared to take their side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. And that includes for example the recent efforts in Arizona which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe. In fact I've instructed members of our administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation, but if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A better solution Mr. Obama says is a sweeping new federal law that toughens border protections, but also grants a path to legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States. That's a tough sell any time. Just ask George W. Bush or John McCain for that matter, an especially tough sell in an already heated election year.

So let's break down the new policy terrain and the crackling political environment with four people who know it well. Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform and a leaning conservative activist who has warned Republicans not to alienate the growing Latino population. Adolfo Franco is a Republican strategist who advised Senator McCain's presidential campaign on Hispanic outreach and Latin American policy.

Frank Sharry is founder and executive director of America's Voice, an immigration advocacy group that shares the president's views. And Maria Cardona is a Democratic strategist who has advised Hillary Clinton and served as communications director for the Democratic National Committee, a varied group of voices here.

Let me start with a show of hands, does anyone here think this Arizona law is a good idea? That's four no's (INAUDIBLE) half, if I could. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Half.

KING: Why?

ADOLFO FRANCO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well if I could, first of all we haven't really seen the details John on this. There's been a quantum leap made here about racial profiling. There isn't any indication that will be the case. We need to see how the actual law will be enforced. What the law says is if there's an incident that warrants first of all police inquiry, followed by reasonable suspicion then additional steps can be taken to see if the person is legally in our country and that is enforcing our laws.

KING: Now Maria you're shaking your head -- shaking your head, but to the point, to the point -- I have the law right here. I have the law right here. And the governor -- actually let's listen to the governor first -- the governor made very clear -- the governor was quite forceful actually in her language saying that she studied this. She listened to all sides. Let's listen to Governor Brewer saying this is not, not racial profiling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BREWER: Let me be clear, though, my signature today represents my steadfast support for enforcing the law, both against illegal immigration and against racial profiling. This legislation mirrors federal laws regarding immigration enforcement. Despite erroneous and misleading statements suggesting otherwise, the new state misdemeanor crime of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document is adopted verbatim from the same offense found in federal statute.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now here's the law, it's only 17 pages; it's pretty easy to read. Where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, but only, only after a lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state, county, city, town or other political subdivisions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

KING: So if -- you're both -- you're both shaking your head?

FRANK SHARRY, EXECUTIVE DIR., AMERICA'S VOICE: OK, John, you know when people say it's not about the money and it is about money, the governor was saying it's not about racial profiling. There's no way to tell who's an illegal immigrant. How do you -- who's suspect? If John King and Juan Ray (ph) are both in a traffic stop, who do you think the police are going to reasonably suspect of being here illegally? This institutionalizes racial profiling. This is an invitation -- most cops (INAUDIBLE) they're caught between a rock and a hard place. But there's going to be 10 percent of those rogue cops who are going to use this aggressively and it's going to create an atmosphere unwelcome to Latinos. MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: John, racial profiling which is illegal right now and still exists, law enforcement officers engage in rainfall profiling, that is a fact. This law gives them basically permission to engage in racial profiling and they have that exact line that you just read as a defense. What does it mean to have a suspicion that somebody is in the country illegally? That they're speaking Spanish, that they're eating tacos, if they're listening to Spanish language television -- I could go down to Arizona and speak Spanish and not have my license and be arrested.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I know you don't like the law, but is it the specifics of the legal language or is it the tone that you don't like?

GROVER NORQUIST, PRES., AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM: Well there are several challenges. One is you worry about the tone and how people present these things in particularly some of the politicians have been out talking. But also, this bill doesn't just go after people who don't have papers, this goes after every employer in the state, this is a bill aimed at small businessmen. It requires all sorts of paperwork. It threatens them with all sorts of government actions if they hire someone and they haven't demanded papers.

I'm a little bit concerned about this idea that we're going to look like some World War II movie where people are always demanding to see your papers when you get on and off the train or in or out of a car. I don't quite understand how they're going to decide whether somebody deserves to be suspected or how you decide how you're going to demand to see papers -- are we going carry papers with us? How is this going to work?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, in many ways we need to carry papers with us, but the example of --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: We do need to carry a driver's license.

FRANCO: We do, the example of the stop, which is (INAUDIBLE) about a traffic stop.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

FRANCO: You need to have a registration; you need to have a driver's license. In other words, just because someone is stopped doesn't give anyone license to have racial profiling, it gives stop to the next level, which is, is there reasonable suspicion this person is disoriented, can't state where they're from, does not have a domicile, does not have an address or a driver's license, then you take it to the next step.

It is illegal to be in the United States under certain circumstances and this is what this is addressing. So I think the governor is right, Washington has failed to act. The president has failed to act. He has not made it his priority and that has led to Arizona taking it into its own hands.

KING: Let me call a quick time-out. We're going to continue the conversation. We have a long time to go and I want to get to that point next about how did we get here, whether you agree or disagree with the Arizona law, how do we get to a point where the legislature thought they had to do this.

But before we go to break, let's take a quick look (INAUDIBLE) the numbers on Wall Street today and it's worth looking at. And the Dow industrials on a five-day winning streak -- today's almost 70- point game puts the average at its highest level since September 19th, 2008. One reason investors are optimistic new home sales in March almost 27 percent higher in February. That's the fastest single month increase in 47 years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We'll get back to the conversation with our panel in just a second, but I want to show you using the magic wall some of the issues at stake here. Here's the Arizona border with Mexico. The green is the vehicle fence. That is the tougher fence along the line and I'll show you in a second just what we mean. The red is a more spartan (ph), you might say pedestrian fence.

Let's look -- I was down not that long ago on for an aerial tour. Let's play it out a little bit with the Border Patrol, up in a helicopter here and you fly just along the Arizona-Mexico border and as you start to look down, you will see it -- the border area is right up over here and there are towns on both sides and as you see from parts of this area, it's quite open, but when you get down to the contested parts of the border, this is the heaviest, the corrugated steel fence and in some areas it's doubled. It's -- there's a space in between the two sets.

You see the corrugated steel. That's pretty tough. That's hard to get across. That's one example. But if you come over to (INAUDIBLE) much of the border where you see the red, let's play this through, it's a pretty simple pedestrian fence and you watch this. It's metal pipes mostly. There's a little bit of wood involved, but as you walk along the miles and miles of this, you'll find many places along the border where there are breaks and you see some up here as it starts to bend.

Many cases very easy for one, two, eight or 10 people to just walk on through and sometimes those gaps are big enough to drive a vehicle through and that's where the Border Patrol and the local police down there say they have their biggest problems. Here's just a few things to look at. More than 575,000 pounds of marijuana seized just in the last six months.

Fifteen percent of those incarcerated in Arizona for felonies are illegal immigrants and nearly half of the border apprehensions in the country were in Arizona. And so I asked one of the sheriffs right here, to the point we were talking about earlier, now that your police officers would have this new authority under the law, do you see a wave of racial profiling happening? Larry Dever is the sheriff of Cochise County right here along the border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF LARRY DEVER, COCHISE COUNTY, ARIZONA: There's just a total exaggeration of the intent and even the statutory language in the law doesn't allow for that. And no society would permit that and we certainly and I certainly wouldn't as a sheriff allow my deputies to fall under that kind of an operational, disgusting tactic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Here's what I'm trying to cut through. I understand your suspicion. Here's what I'm trying to cut through though. This debate gets so emotional and so heated, and I want to talk and we have time to about how we got here, but when you talk to a law enforcement guy who had a rancher killed in his county recently who says when you know people go out to the grocery store, they come back, their homes have been ransacked. When they go out on their farm or on their ranch, they are drug smugglers with guns coming across. They need help and they want help, but he insists these new powers, he insists if any of his guys do racial profiling, they're gone.

SHARRY: Right, but there's police chiefs in Arizona and around the country who say it's going to undermine the trust between immigrants and the police, make their job harder, subject them to lawsuits, cost taxpayers millions, the police chiefs in Arizona were against this law, some of the sheriffs were for it.

KING: So you lose more than you gain, even if most of the police --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: In your view, even if most of the police --

(CROSSTALK)

NORQUIST: They have laws against breaking into people's houses or doing bodily harm. I read this bill. It's a great deal making it illegal for people to work in the country and to put mandates on small businesses to make it difficult to hire people. So it's a great deal of things about keeping people from working. There's something there about making it difficult to stand on the side of the road and offer yourself to be hired or to pick up somebody to hire them. These are not laws against criminals hurting people. These are laws against people working in Arizona. It's a real test case for what it's going to do to the Arizona economy and what it will do to the small business community.

KING: So why do many of your friends and some of your not so friends in the conservative movement, Grover, you know J.D. Hayworth running against John McCain in the Senate primary. He says this is great. Senator McCain who -- we could go through a long history of Senator McCain and say this doesn't match up at least in tone with what he has said over the many years, but he now says now this is necessary because of all that increase in the drug violence. Why are they for it?

NORQUIST: Well J.D. Hayworth doesn't want to talk about when he was a congressman how he spent a lot of money and did earmarks because that's not a winning strategy right now. And the governor doesn't want to talk about the fact that she's demanding -- Brewer -- that she's demanding $1 billion a year sales tax increase, rather than reducing spending and getting the budget, she's been pushing for a tax increase and opposed the legislature which actually gave her a budget that didn't raise taxes. So she's pushing for $1 billion tax increase. She's delighted to be on TV talking about anything other than her tax increase; J.D. Hayworth is delighted to be out there talking about anything --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Help me, help me -- hold on one second.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I'll come down. Let me start with Maria here. Help me understand here what happens in this election year where right now the Democratic candidate in Arizona loses to any of the Republicans in polling. That is a state had it not been John McCain as the Republican nominee last time probably would have been another of the red states that turned blue because of Latinos coming over to the Democratic (INAUDIBLE) Nevada did. New Mexico did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

KING: We saw margins stretch out in other states, Colorado, you could say --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

KING: -- the margin was because of Latino voters. What happens in this state now?

CARDONA: I think that we have to make one thing perfectly clear, the governor is facing a challenge from the far right. That is a huge reason why she did this. John McCain who now supports the wrong headed bill is also facing a challenger from the far right. That is why he's doing this. I think this is a death knell for the Republican Party in Arizona in the short term as well as the long term because of the growth in the Latino community. It's going to be the death knell for the National Republican Party if national Republican leaders don't come out and do the right thing. It's a wakeup call for our leaders in Congress to actually pass comprehensive immigration --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- 59 Democrats in the Senate and 80 vote majority in the House and the Democratic president have done nothing for a year and a half and you're going to blame the Republicans? Nice try.

(CROSSTALK) KING: We're going to come to that.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: We're going to come to that.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: We're going to come to that point. You're close (ph) to Senator McCain --

FRANCO: Yes, but more importantly, this has nothing -- I think Senator McCain is absolutely correct in supporting this bill for this reason. The situation in Arizona is that Phoenix is now the kidnapping capital of the hemisphere, there's more kidnapping going on in Phoenix than there is in Bogota, so that's a fact. The violence -- the people of Arizona are the people that are behind this bill.

Among them Latinos, legal Latinos that are residing in Arizona -- that's the impotence (ph) for this and you talk about the short term, the long term, Maria. We'll see in November, all the polling data indicates that the Republican candidates that are in favor of this are doing quite well --

(CROSSTALK)

FRANCO: Because the majority of the people are fed up with this. Here's what no one's addressed, and you addressed it in your comments and your questions is what are we doing about the violence? What are we doing about the terrible, not only border problem, but state wide problems? I think Arizona's going to be the first state of a number of border states that are going to see similar legislation --

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: This bill does absolutely nothing to address --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Let's call a quick time-out on that point. When we come back the president of the United States and, Frank, you were there today said that you know what? Things like this happen in Arizona because we haven't done our job here in Washington. We'll talk about the national debate when we come right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Live pictures here of protests under way in Phoenix, Arizona of those who oppose the new Arizona immigration law outside the State Capitol, making their views clear. One of the big questions for us here in Washington tonight, how will this decision in Arizona, this tough new law impact the national immigration reform debate and one of the questions have been will we have one? The president promised to pass immigration reform in his first year in office, didn't make a push for it. He says he will now and Frank Sharry you were at the White House today when the president made another promise to give it a go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Over the years, many have attempted to confront this challenge but passions are great and disagreements run deep, yet surely we all can agree that when 11 million people in our country are living here illegally outside the system, that's unacceptable. The American people demand and deserve a solution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: How mad are Latinos at him? That made such a difference in the election campaign and I could read you from a radio show he -- candidate Obama did. He was asked on a radio show in the first year, first couple of months, first month, first year you're going to have to prove it. I'll follow up. He didn't follow up.

SHARRY: No there's a lot of anger and it's growing particularly in the Latino immigrant community who live in families where many are voters, but many don't have papers and they're talking about loved ones here. It is a family issue; it's why it's a threshold issue. And the fact that President Obama hasn't followed through on his promise is really putting in play a big swathe of new voters who swung dramatically away from George W. Bush and towards Democrats in 2008. He either steps up or I think he's going to get a lion's share of the blame for not moving forward.

CARDONA: I think you're seeing him stepping up even before what happened today.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Is he really stepping up? A lot of people see this as a failure.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: He's called a few Republicans -- here's the thing -- I talked to the Senate Republican leader and we can show 11 Republicans voted for cloture -- it's a technical term -- but it (INAUDIBLE) remove immigration reform. The president mentioned 11. That (INAUDIBLE) back in 2006.

CARDONA: Right.

KING: At that point though George W. Bush was calling him. His commerce secretary was on Capitol Hill, his homeland security secretary was on Capitol Hill, Bush was making it a priority twisting arm thing you have to do this for me. And a lot of those 11 some of them did like the bill, some of them didn't and they did it for their Republican president.

Grover, you were back involved in those days and you said it would be horrible for the Republican Party to turn off those Latinos voters. And they supported your right to the degree that they supported Obama in bigger numbers. Yes, they're saying they're going to do this now, if he really meant it, why not in the House of Representatives where the Democrats have a huge majority pass the bill, put pressure on the Senate?

CARDONA: You heard Nancy Pelosi say that she is absolutely fine with putting immigration first you know before climate change, that was the big debate. And she actually said that if the Senate gives it to her, they will --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: -- have to go first.

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: -- and Senator Reid has made --

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: -- has made a commitment to make this a priority and by the way, he needs to because of his --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: -- to bring it up -- to bring it up for a vote.

FRANCO: But that's so curious; everything else has been originating in the House. The president stood at the State of the Union and had a list of House passed bills (INAUDIBLE) the Senate, which we all know has the mechanism to give the minority especially now with 41 votes the ability to block legislation, so now when they have passed climate change, when they have passed health care, when they have passed every other bill --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: So let's say he has wandered, can you get him back?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't count the number of Republicans on one finger besides Lindsey Graham who has stood on up on this issue --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So -- yes --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- this year there has been a search for a second Republican for a year to join Lindsey Graham and you know --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- how many showed up -- none.

(CROSSTALK) KING: He had 60 last year though.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now if the Republicans don't step -- what Obama and the Democrats are doing quite frankly like financial regulation, they are moving forward and they're going to flush out the Republicans. The Republicans either played or get --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Grover, on that sense you have made this a priority for a very long time. Where is it? If there's an opening and you think the Republican tone in Arizona could be hurtful and now you have a Democratic president coming forward, whether you trust his intentions or not, coming forward and saying we're going to do this, what do the Republicans do.

NORQUIST: The onus is on President Obama. He said he was going to do this a year ago, he didn't. He fibbed. Organized labor has been the problem here, it's the open secret, organized labor, the labor union bosses do not want any sort of comprehensive reform. They don't want anything that makes it easy for small businessmen to function in this country. They won't let the Democrats do it. The Democrats have the vote to take a look at immigration reform. They haven't done it because the labor union bosses won't let them -- the idea that the Republicans should jump into the middle of that is nonsense, it's up to Obama to fix what he said he would fix and he hasn't done it because he's not an independent --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The labor unions did not tell John McCain to run away from this issue. The labor unions didn't tell Jon Kyl to threaten a filibuster. Let's just be real.

KING: I need to call a time-out here, but as you can see this is a fascinating conversation and we will have you all back, all back I promise -- Grover, Adolfo, Frank, Maria, thanks for coming in. I mean it. It's a fascinating conversation; we'll continue to have it.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Next though we turn our attention to another developing story tonight -- the Coast Guard is suspending the search for 11 missing people after that oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Next I go "Wall-to-Wall" with a look at where the oil spill from that accident may come ashore.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: In "Wall-to-Wall" tonight, an update on that oil rig explosion out in the Gulf of Mexico, many of you have seen these pictures in recent days. Tonight we are told the Coast Guard has suspended its search for the 11 people missing from the Deep Water Horizon oil rig explosion. You see the pictures out here, obviously the rig has sunk. These are the pictures from a couple of days ago. The rig has now sunk and one of the questions now is what is the environmental impact and we can show you a look at that as well. You see if you look in closely here, you see the discoloration; that is the oil floating on top of the sheen (ph), as it comes towards shore.

At the moment, about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana. Eight or nine days, probably, to make it to shore, it can move with the tide, so the question is when and where will it hit? We'll continue to track that and as we do, let's head over to the Magic Wall for a closer look on how this works and what the big concerns are now.

Excuse me for turning my back for just a second, here. You see the rig right here in the water, this is what these look like, let's take a little first at the Deepwater Horizon, let's just get a sense of what it is. It drills down to a maximum depth of 30,000 feet. The maximum water depth underneath the rig is 8,000 feet at any one time. We'll bring that down, get it out of the way.

Now, we want to look at the global reach of this company. Transocean's global reach (AUDIO GAP) 12 down in Latin America and you see them all around the world. So this is a company 146 rigs with deep experience in doing this and their case is that it's a highly safe operation and some sort of bad accident happened here.

Now, from an environmental standpoint, here's a bit of what I'll call not good news, but somewhat less discouraging news. If you look at the big circle here, that's the Exxon Valdez, you remember that, that was 11 million gallons. That's the big circle. The worst case scenario here from the Deepwater Horizon, it's just over one million gallons, so certainly not good news to have any environmental impact, but nowhere on the scale of the Exxon Valdez.

And if you're wondering just how one of these rigs works, we'll just show you a little bit here how it goes, and we'll play this out for you, bring this over here, you watch. This is you have a crane obviously so you can get materials down underneath, into the water, that's how some of it works. You have the basic functions on top here, you just imagine this just going down into the ground from there and up comes from there, throughout the telestrators have placed through, and you use the drill bits go down and just go down into the water, it's a fairly simple idea obviously, incredibly high- technology, as this all plays out.

So, as we wait for more on the environmental impact, and again, I want to just bring this up so you can see the potential here, the watch again, eight days to reach shore, about 40 miles now off the coast of Louisiana, still an environmental impact, but nothing on the scale of the Exxon Valdez. And the discouraging news tonight, the Coast Guard calling off the search of those 11 missing people on that rig. We will continue to track this developing story.

And when we come back, you get to make your case, it's Friday night here on JOHN KING USA. We asked you what makes you angry about your government, what are you frustrated about? We'll hear what you think and your solutions when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: This is the part of the show where we introduce you to the most important person you don't know, on Friday, that's always you. As part of our commitment to bring you into the conversation, we always read our FaceBook postings, our tweets, all the comments sent into our blog. And every Monday we ask a question. We give you all week to make your case by posting a video on our Web site, cnn.com/JohnKingUSA. This week's question: Are you angry with your government? And if so, why? Here's a cross-section of your comments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON ASSELIN, VIEWER: Why do I not like my government? There's so many reasons I don't really know even where to start. Taxes No. 1. The government needs our money for any sort of project, just tax -- just throw another tax on there.

CEDRIC LAWSON, VIEWER: The government has taken over things that they never had control over in the past, and it seems like us, as Americans, don't have the choice, the freedom of choice to deal with issues that are arising.

SOUDI, VIEWER: I feel that the Democratic Party isn't taking advantage of their majority in the House, and Senate. They're playing softball with the Republicans and they should be playing hardball.

GREGORY MOSS, VIEWER: They just want more of my tax dollars to be use for things I don't really want them spend for as well as having my constitution, what I believe to be, torn up.

ANNA CLARE ALLEN, VIEWER: My frustration is that the Republican Party seems determined to say nothing but no to everything.

RUDY LUCIDI, VIEWER: It's sort of frustrated when you think that these are some of our most intelligent people and they can't make a decision. For example they didn't even read the health plan and they're voting on it. What's the deal with that?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Wow, a good example of your frustration and how does it affect the politics in our country? With me now three people who track that quite well, they're never frustrated. Gloria Borger, our senior political analyst, HOTLINE editor in chief, Amy Walter, and senior Congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, that's an interesting cross-section there, where's my money, Republicans say now, Democrats wasting their majority, pretty fair representation of this mix of frustration and disaffection that we're not quite sure how it impact this is election year, are we?

AMY WALTER, HOTLINE: Well, we know that it's obviously having an impact in the sense that we have candidates now who are hearing this and so they say, well, people are angry at the government, then regardless of whether I'm an elected official or not, I have to run as an anti-establishment outsider and so that's why you're seeing all these people who have been in government for quite some time now running suddenly as -- everybody wants to be Scott Brown, everybody's getting pick-up trucks and barn coats and going out there and pretending that they're not part of the system.

DANA BASH, CNN SR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well what's so interesting is watching them trying to navigate the anger and trying to figure out whose anger do I try to deal with. For example, you've been talk about immigration reform. Well, do the Democrats, for example, deal with the fact that the Latino community is furious, not just angry, furious at Democrats for not dealing with immigration reform and do they do that and risk angering people who don't want them to do immigration reform. So, navigating that anger, picking and choosing who to listen to, not easy.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, what's intersecting is watching all the insiders be come, or try and become outsiders, including the president of the United States. Right? Because, once you arrive in Washington, you can't admit that you actually live here and that you actually work here. And so -- although we all do, but you have to you know, as a politician in particular, that's why we see so many of them are going home every weekend, they're tweeting, they're on FaceBook, because they have to be a part of this and they have to understand.

WALTER: You know, one important things that the Pew Poll that came out this week, I know that was based loosely on this, that Americans are more angry or more disaffected with their government than ever. One interesting point that I thought there, that was that in 2006, 20 percent of Americans said I'm angry with government. And in 2010, it's 21 percent. So, it's the same number of people, it's just different people. Back in 2006, of course it was a liberals.

BORGER: But you know what, they don't trust government. That's the big difference. That's where that number...

KING: That's the hardest part, is some of its anger, some of its frustration, some of its disaffection, some of its disillusionment. We'll continue to try to figure this all out. You guys stay right here, because next, some stories on our radar, including a new warship you might call the USS Earmark.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Joining me again to discuss some stories on my radar, CNN senior political analyst, Gloria Borger; HOTLINE editor in chief, Amy Walter and CNN senior congressional correspondents, Dana Bash. Here's the first thing on my radar, a little bit of breaking news tonight in Illinois, could have a big impact on the U.S. Senate race, there. Federal regulators have been just shut down a bank run by the family of democratic candidate, the state treasurer, Alexi Giannoulias. The White House had already been warned Democrats could lose President Obama's old Senate seat and I don't think this is going help.

WALTER: Yeah, this is a big problem. We knew going in that this bank had problems, this was always a threat, at least in the last couple of months that this bank was going to be taken over. But, Democrats have a big choice to make here, they either say this is our candidate and we're going to get behind him and we're going to put a lot of money here and try to defend him or they try to find a new candidate and say he needs to get off the ballot and we replace him. The White House is saying...

KING: (INAUDIBLE) still available?

(CROSSTALK)

WALTER: (INAUDIBLE) looks better now.

BORGER: If the White House had really wanted to get involved in this race, they couldn't and so right now they could lose the trifecta. They could lose Harry Reid, Biden's seat and Obama's seat.

KING: Oh, the trifecta, I like that. All right, somebody write that down.

Here's another potential problem for the White House, some Republican arguments about health care reform debate may have been right after all. The administration's own number crunchers now say the new law will raise health care spending more than expected and that its Medicare cuts could cause doctors and hospitals to drop Medicare patient altogether.

I was on the phone with Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, earlier today, and said, "Boy, it's hard not to say I told you so." And he makes the case that these numbers supports the Republican argument that this thing costs too much and that the administration should have known better and his argument is this helps even more.

BASH: Hard not to say, you could not put your Blackberry down for one second without six e-mails from Republicans saying "I told you so" after this report came out.

But look, the reality is it's mixed. It's mixed. And one of the interesting things that this study said also is that Medicare actually will be solvent longer because of what they put in place than it would have been without, which is actually the argument that Democrats were making. However the question is whether or not Democrats will have -- Congressmen in general will have the stomach to keep these Medicare cuts because the cuts are there and politically, Republicans have been making the argument, and it is very true, it is very difficult to keep those Medicare cuts in place.

BORGER: Yeah, somebody else voted, took a tough political vote to have cut backs in Medicare, comes down the line, four or five years from now, whenever it is, are you going to keep those or are you going to save your own political skin and say, you know what? Not so much. And that's what this report was saying.

KING: All right, Republican Senator Scott Brown, he's the Republican flavor of the month, he's their most popular guy. He's talking about the 2012 presidential race, not about himself, but about some of the other possible candidates, he did an interview with NBC's "Today" show, and he was asked what he thinks about Sarah Palin?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN SCOTT BROWN (R), MASSACHUSETTS: Yeah, I think she's qualified, sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you support her?

BROWN: Well, I'm going to support Governor Romney and I'm going to see who's out there in the field and, you know, then make my decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Governor Romney, of course a fellow Massachusetts guy, really helped the Brown -- the Brown Senate staff was the Romney presidential staff, to a large degree. And Romney state staffer is the Massachusetts state.

WALTER: You know, Scott Brown has a bigger decision in 2012, which is what his election going to look like?

(LAUGHTER)

WALTER: That is going to be a fascinating campaign to see how he navigates that.

BASH: And that's kind of a "duh" because of what you said. Mitt Romney handed over his fundraising list, which is pretty good, to Scott Brown. He was the first one to support Scott Brown. And there's loyal there.

KING: Right, so everybody in the room here, at one point or another, covered the late Congressman Jack Murtha. He was known as the "King of Pork," the "King of Earmarks," he was controversial, he was under investigation, but he was a guy who, when it came to Pentagon spending, knew how to work it out. The Navy has just announced it will name a ship after the late Congressman Murtha. It'll be used to transport land (ph) Marines, their equipment and their supplies. Murtha, of course, was a big supporter of the military and considering the billions and billions of dollars he got over the year, maybe we should just call this the USS Jack Murtha Earmark.

WALTER: And also, interesting fact, the special election to fill his seat is coming up in about two weeks. Democrats could lose that seat, I mean this thing is very much of a nail biter here and that could be first sign, everybody's looking to that district as a first sign for what this means going into the midterm elections and Democrats hold on to a seat that they have -- that the congressman had held for a very, very, very long time.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Pennsylvania is a, interesting state, this year.

Gloria Borger, Amy Walter, Dana Bash, thanks very much. And hold on everyone, we'll be back with the "Play-by-Play," Sarah Palin's flashback, it's a great one too, to the 2008 campaign.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: You get the idea of "Play-by-Play," just like in the sports shows, we gather some of the great political minds together and we also grab some great tape and we break it down, we analyze it, sometimes we compare it to past performance.

With me tonight, Democratic strategist, Maria Cardona and Republican strategist Adolfo Franco. Let's begin with a Sarah Palin flashback, today. She testifying in a trial of a guy who hacked into hear e-mail -- was accused of hacking into her personal e-mail way back during the campaign. And so, when she came out of testifying she stopped with reporters and she was going back through, well, what she talked about what she talked about and one of the things she said, she pointed back to the campaign stool (ph), when this happened back in the 2008 campaign, she said the senior McCain staff was in a panic that she had said some damaging things perhaps in her e-mail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FMR ALASKA GOVERNOR: And that's what was going around in the blogosphere. The promise was in there that people are going to have these e-mails finally disclosed to the public to show the real Sarah Palin. And so that the convincing had to take place of campaign managers that, no, just chill, there's nothing in there that is horrible or that would (INAUDIBLE) a campaign. So there was a lot of effort...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Just chill.

MARIA CARDONA, DEWEY SQUARE GROUP: Just chill. You know, I think it points to the huge tension that was clearly the issue between the McCain campaign and the Palin campaign. I'm not going to pile on to Sarah Palin because between not knowing what newspapers she reads and writing notes on her hand.

(LAUGHTER)

So, not going to pile on.

I'm glad she's not piling on.

CARDONA: ...And John McCain, it was the one who created her.

KING: You were part of that campaign. How bad was it?

ADOLFO FRANCO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Listen, listen, I mean, the fact of the matter is I guess it's a good thing she's not a prolific writer. So, there's not going to be any kind of problem with this. The fact of the matter is during a campaign or everything else, everything can be taken out of context. So, I think she was -- it's was a legitimate flashback to simply say to everybody, there really isn't anything and everybody's been worried, either my allies, my former campaign associates, or even the press, today.

KING: A couple years back, during the Bush administration, the vice president is of course the president of the Senate, and Dick Cheney would go up to the Senate every week to see the Republican lunch, and occasionally you have to preside over the close votes and there was a classic moment where he had an encounter with Pat Leahy, the Democratic from Vermont, they didn't get along very well, and the vice president didn't deny it, dropped the f-bomb in a conversation with Senator Leahy. Well, he was on the Dennis Miller radio show this week, and he was asked about this and Dennis Miller was fan of that comment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS MILLER, TALK RADIO SHOW HOST: On the list of things I feel I should thank you for almost kicking Patrick Leahy's (EXPLETIVE DELETED). Thank you very much. I loved that, one of my favorite stories.

DICK CHENEY, FMR U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: How many people liked that? Sort of the best thing I ever did.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: I don't know if I want to talk about this specific moment with Pat Leahy or why is it that vice presidents tend to use the f- bomb sometimes?

CARDONA: Exactly. At least Vice President Biden is sorry for it. And if that's the best thing that Vice President Cheney ever did, I think that speaks a lot to what he did in office.

(CROSSTALK)

FRANCO: I think the...

CARDONA: His mom should have been so proud of him.

FRANCO: It was clear, Maria, is that I see using the f-word is an occupational hazard of being vice president of the United States, as it use to be the case, but I think this shows that the vice president, that they try to portray him as Darth Vader, is a regular guy, and he can yuck it up and joke about himself, obviously, he's very accomplished and have a lot of fun with regular Americans...

CARDONA: But, I think it does show that the reason why our politics are -- a lot of it, you know, the perception is that it's in the gutter and the reason why a lot of Americans are just so upset with Washington, they just have had it.

KING: Well, you talk about that frustration and the tone people have toward Washington. We talked earlier in the program about the tone and the immigration debate and does that get problematic. There's a guy running for Republican nomination for governor in Alabama. His name is Tim James. Tim James. And he has an ad on television that certainly raises eyebrows and we'll discuss what you think about it. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM JAMES (R), RUNNING FOR GUBERNATORIAL NOMINATION: I'm Tim James. Why do our politicians make us give driver's license exams in 12 languages? This is Alabama, we speak English. If you want to live here, learn it. We're only giving that test in English if I'm governor. Maybe it's the businessman in me, but we'll save money and it makes sense. Does it to you?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Interesting approach in the ad. Is that a conversation it's -- Alabama is a conservative state, but...

FRANCO: It might be a conservative state, but I don't think it's really the message of Republicans. I really believe in the message of Ronald Reagan, big 10 (ph) and inclusiveness. There are a lot of notes that can save a lot of money to have everything published in English, by the same token, I think there's a lot of frustration in the United States that people want immigrants and I think a lot of immigrants want everyone to speak English among them, themselves. But I think this is a little bit over the top.

CARDONA: I think that's the problem with the Republican party. I know my friend, Adolfo's in the right place; but a lot of conservative right-wing leaders right now are the ones who are pushing this anti-immigrant notion and legislation and are running on it. And my hope is that Americans will understand that we are a nation of immigrants, and that is not the right way to go. It's wrong-headed.

KING: I appreciate you both coming in, Adolfo and Maria, thank you very much.

And next, we check with Pete on the street because he is reporting on reports of s-e-x at the SEC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Campbell Brown is just a few minutes away at the top of the hour. Let's head up to New York and check in for a preview.

Hi Campbell.

CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Hey there, John. Tonight we have a very provocative question. Is America a Christian nation? There are some people, notably Sarah Palin, who would say yes, but with the controversy this week over a judge's ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, are we really one nation under God? Also tonight, the UK is trying out politics American-style. And we have a fascinating report for you from across the pond on that, as well. All that at the top of the hour -- John.

KING: Looking forward to it. Thanks, Campbell. You know, we call Pete Dominick our offbeat reporter, but he's a tough investigative reporter too, so when we heard report there's might be something fishy going on at the SEC, Pete was the man.

PETE DOMINICK, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, John King, apparently some people at the SEC were looking at pornography while they were supposed to be working. I don't know what this pornography was, and this was a tough assignment for me to do the hard research on, but we went out and talked to people on the street about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

People that were supposed to be watching the financial system getting caught watching porn on their government-issued computers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I know that's a leading growth industry in the United States.

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Porn was the first product to make money on the Internet.

(END GRAPHIC)

DOMINICK: So, you don't think women would ever look at pornography at work?

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Porn rakes in more than $1 billion annually online.

(END GRAPHIC)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wouldn't because I would be scared to be caught.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sixteen thousand times by one man.

DOMINICK: One man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doesn't even seem possible. Just physically, it wouldn't be possible.

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Thirty-three SEC employees viewed port using a government computer at work.

(END GRAPHIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm glad nobody is looking over my shoulder at work.

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

The porn viewing came as the country was on the verge of financial collapse.

(END GRAPHIC)

DOMINICK: Have you ever gotten caught looking at pornography?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

DOMINICK: You would never do such a thing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I would not.

DOMINICK: You wouldn't?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have no desire.

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Nielsen Online: 25 percent use the Internet to visit porn sites during their workday.

(END GRAPHIC)

DOMINICK: But, men or women get caught looking at porn at work more?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably women.

DOMINICK: Really: You're going with probably on that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'd say certainly it's men.

(BEGIN GRAPHIC)

Online porn sites report highest usage in between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

(END GRAPHIC)

DOMINICK: We're wondering if you're surprised that people get caught looking at pornography on their work computers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would have expected there would have been some controls on that sort of thing.

DOMINICK: At a government agency guys got caught looking at pornography when they're supposed to be doing their job.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, they're men. They're men, right?

DOMINICK: They're guys.

Is this ever a problem where you work?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

DOMINICK: No? Nobody has ever been caught? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not that I've seen.

DOMINICK: Are you surprised people got caught looking at porn in their office?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not really.

DOMINICK: You would never look at porn, would you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. Hell no, my wife would kill me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DOMINICK: Yeah, this is a tough issue, John. This is a tough assignment that you guys gave me today.

KING: That's why we haven't issued you a computer.

DOMINICK: Yeah. I was wondering about that. When do I get my computer, and is it preloaded?

KING: I'll work with the I.T. guys on that, we'll get back to you on Monday.

DOMINICK: Thanks John King, have a great weekend.

KING: You do the same, Pete. Take care.

That's all the time we have tonight. Thanks for checking in with us. We hope to see you on Monday. Have a great weekend. Campbell Brown starts right now.