Lawrence O'Donnell took a trip back to 2008 on his Thursday show, clashing with the man famously known as Joe the Plumber.
The man also known by his real name, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, filed to run to represent Ohio's Ninth District. O'Donnell brought him on to discuss the run, but he seemed to have his mind on other things — namely, his new arch-nemesis, Herman Cain.
Before asking his guest a question about his candidacy, or really anything about himself, O'Donnell wanted to know Wurzelbacher's thoughts on Cain's 9-9-9 plan. "I like a lot of it, what do you think...right now the tax system's broke, don't you agree?" Wurzelbacher said to O'Donnell.
"It's a complicated tax system that we have now, Joe, obviously..." O'Donnell answered. He immediately followed up with his next question that seemed to be about Wurzelbacher's run for office, but that question turned out to be about Herman Cain.
O'Donnell then asked if Wurzelbacher had heard about Cain wanting to "abolish Social Security and Medicare. Is that something you could also support?"
"Are we going to talk about what I want to do with The Great Lakes or are we going to talk about Herman Cain? You can have him back on if you like, Mr. O'Donnell?" Wurzelbacher asked.
O'Donnell then directed the question to Wurzelbacher and asked if he supported abolishing Social Security and Medicare. Wurzelbacher answered "God no," which finally led O'Donnell to ask (about three minutes into the interview), "so why are you running, Joe? What made you decide to run?"
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