MSNBC may be “the place for politics,” but host Dylan Ratigan is clearly not a fan of the current climate of left-right political bickering. He identifies himself as an analyst, “which is hard in a world where people make their own facts,” he quipped. He is more interested in solving problems than hearing the rhetoric of the day. Since December, he’s been taking “The Dylan Ratigan Show” on the road with the Steel on Wheels tour, traveling around the country so experts can come together and discuss what he identifies as the nation’s “trillion-dollar problems.” Later this week, he’s heading to Oklahoma to talk energy and plans to follow up the forum with a trip to Washington.
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“Energy is the one that is the most solvable and that we have the most political and social appetite to deal with, which is why I’ve chosen it,” he explained. He’s recruited a political potpourri of guests to appear at the summit including T. Boone Pickens, Ashwin Madia of VoteVets.org, Bob Deans of the Natural Resources Defense Council, former CIA Director James Woolsey and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
“The reason they agreed to it is that I called everybody up and said, ‘Listen, this is a s—show, the greens are getting nowhere, the industrialists are getting nowhere, oil is going through the roof, I just have to turn on the news in Asia or the Middle East to understand what’s at stake,’ ” Ratigan said. “We all want to get off Mideast oil, we all want to get onto domestic energy production.”
Ratigan noted that the push could create more American jobs. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Why the f— wouldn’t we do that? Excuse my language.”
Ratigan’s Steel on Wheels Energy Summit starts Wednesday with a stop in Oklahoma City and is being broadcast on “The Dylan Ratigan Show” and online.
