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Democrats Wise Up to Republican Strategy

Nation DC Editor Chris Hayes joins The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss the strategy of both parties on Wall Street reform.

The Rachel Maddow Show

April 23, 2010

Today marks one month since Obama signed health care reform into law, and Monday the first vote on financial reform will take place in the Senate. Rachel Maddow highlights Obama’s Wall Street reform speech at Cooper Union in New York City yesterday, in which he urged the audience to "join us instead of fighting us." But Maddow says that he might as well have been talking to Congressional Republicans, who are trying to use the same tactics that drew out and almost killed health care reform again, but this time on Wall Street reform.

But Congressional Democrats recognize these tactics and have admitted they won’t let it happen again. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that "on the health care bill we allowed too many lies to get out there without rebuttal because we thought they were so obviously untrue, but we’ve learned our lesson." Maddow turns to The Nation‘s Washington Editor Chris Hayes to explain why Democrats are playing offense on the Republican’s strategy. Hayes says that this tactic is a way to rally all Democrats together to support the bill. "It’s not entirely clear to me that everyone in the Democratic caucus is on board," Hayes said. "Part of what you’re seeing is a little bit of using the Republicans as a kind of scapegoat for rallying the votes internal to the caucus."

–Morgan Ashenfelter

The Rachel Maddow Show


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