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Mr. Schultz (“Ed is fine”) kicked things off by asking Wurzelbacher what, if anything, he’d do about the fact that wages among the top one percent of American have increased while those for the other ninety-nine have more or less flatlined. Wurzelbacher turned Schultz’s question back at him, asking what Democrats have done to “change the tax structure” in order to “level the playing field.”

“Keep It Simple, Stupid,” Wurzelbacher advised. “That’s the secret to life.” Plus, he added, it’s not productive to lay the brunt of blame on Republicans in Washington for their “coddling” (to borrow a term from Warren Buffett) of the wealthy where taxes are concerned:

When you sit there and say it’s the Republicans doing it and not the Democrats, that’s where you’re doing a disservice to the American people, because the Democrats are gettin’ their money from the very same people, you know. They have the same fund raisers. You know, essentially it seems they’re in cahoots.

His advice to people concerned with stagnant wages? “Get involved in your civic responsibility.”

Schultz seemed baffled that Wurzelbacher would be running as a Republican since they “protect” corporations and the wealthy. “So do Democrats,” he responded. Schultz seemed to want to get Wurzelbacher to somehow admit the right is solely to blame for stagnant wages, but Joe wasn’t about to budge, insisting instead that the problem lies in an overly complicated tax system and a lack of available American jobs.

Watch, via MSNBC:

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The two kicked things off by talking about Herman Cain‘s 9-9-9 plan. O’Donnell asked Wurzelbacher (“I don’t mean it as a ‘gotcha’ question.”) whether he knew the median income in the district he would like to represent — which he did. O’Donnell followed up by noting that, under Cain’s plan, people making around the median annual income in that particular district — around $43,000 — would be paying 2 to 4 thousand dollars more in taxes. When asked whether this impacts Wurzelbacher’s support for the plan at all, he simply said that “experts” on either side are each saying different things.

Fair enough! So. Does he want to abolish Medicare and Social Security?

Are we going to talk about what I want to do with the Great Lakes or are we going to talk about Herman Cain? [Ed. note: Go Joe!] You can have him back on if you’d like, Mr. O’Donnell. [...] Do I want to? Is that what you’re asking me? No, God no. I want to protect Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Those promises have been made and they need to be kept.

Later, he said that one reason he’s running is “jobs, man.” “We have to have jobs in this area. Union, non-union alike, we need jobs,” before adding that he wants to “promote American people over party politics.”

Watch it all unfold, via MSNBC:

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He’ll be running as a Republican and will likely be able to capitalize on the notoriety he gained back in 2008, when he criticized Barack Obama’s small-business during a campaign stop in Ohio. Wurzelbacker, who is not actually a licensed plumber, was swiftly dubbed “Joe the Plumber” and held up by the McCain-Palin campaign as a representative of blue collar America’s struggles and frustrations.

h/t The Hill

“You’re not a celebrity,” the always outspoken Joy Behar said midway through her HLN interview with Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. That may be so, but “grass-roots activist” Wurzelbacher’s fifteen minutes haven’t run out yet.

He was back and at it again on Behar’s program on HLN last night, dishing out on the Republican Party, homosexuality, and the Tea Party movement.

Wurzelbacher was ostensibly on the show to stump for the Tea Party movement, but he had some choice words for the Republican Party. “I’m pretty much an enemy against the GOP,” he declared, saying “the Republican Party has lost its way.” Behar agreed.

She did not agree with his stance on homosexuality, however, pulling up this interview he gave with Christianity Today:

I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for.

He also said that he would not let homosexuals anywhere near his children and that homosexuality was “a choice.” Definitely not the positions to take when you’re up against a host like Behar, who doesn’t hold back her disapproval. She lectured an uncomfortable-looking Wurzelbacher on the psychological roots of pedophilia and the difference between gays and pedophiles, and picked his position apart.

Overall, Behar was friendly, but she didn’t hold back on her opinion that Wurzelbacher was a media sideshow rather than a legitimate pundit — which made one wonder what exactly he was doing on her show. In her tweet about his appearance the previous night, she took a little dig at her guest, writing “Joe the Plumber–remember him? He’s back and I’ll be talking to him tonight at 9.” On-air, she dismissed his claims that he didn’t search for celebrity, and even went so far as to ask him, “Do you identify with the balloon boy’s father at this point?” Joe the Plumber said no, he did not.