reform. that s irresponsible and reckless. every governor in the country is reforming pensions, and the numbers just don t work. that debate between governors bob mcdonnell and martin o malley, a followup to the war of words on the campaign trail. president obama in new hampshire yesterday. here is the bottom line. my plan saves money in medicare by cracking down on fraud, waste, insurance company subsidies. and their plan makes seniors pay more so they can give another tax cut to millionaires and billionaires. the president back in the white house, but will travel to ohio, nevada and ohio. congressman paul ryan, accusing the president to raid medicare for $716 billion. he took his mom along, a medicare recipient. to an event at the world s largest retirement community. like a lot of americans, when i think about medicare, it s not just a program, not just the numbers. it s what my mom relies on. it s what my grandma had. tomorrow,ry ryan teams back up with mitt romney for a town hall meeting in new hampshire before they go their separate ways before the convention in tampa susan paige from usa today and political reporter for the washington post. good morning to both of you. good afternoon. susan, let s get to the debate we ve been hearing between the two campaigns over medicare. with regard to medicare, did paul ryan move the needle at all yesterday for republicans as he campaigned with his mom in florida? that was kind of a sweet event i thought, and talking about his grandmother and how she moved in with them when she had alzheimer s and relied on medicare, a very human moment. does it defuse the issue of medicare? no way. this is an issue that democrats will talk about from now until election day. the big risk that was involved in picking paul ryan to be the running mate. the policy outlined in the ryan budget plan is one that is really vulnerable to scaring seniors by democrats into being against the romney/ryan ticket. democrats generally tend to poll far better than republic i had koounter parse. why start this discussion right now? what s your take? they are going on the offense. the given op. romney ryan because they saw campaigns and special elections where democrats were really able to get out front and in that way, win some of the elections. in 2010, they sort of decided if they go on the offense and able to pair the cuts that obama makes to medicare, savings or cuts, depends on phrasing you want to use, to actually fund obama care, it has been an effective strategy. and now democrats defensive, a very unusual place for democrats to be. matter in a state like florida. 22%, 23% of voters will be seniors. in 2003, mccain won seniors by three points. 51-48%, and mitt romney has to fight this thing to a draw if he wants to win the white house. he s got to win seniors and got to win florida in many ways if he has any chance of winning this election in november. susan, a piece you wrote a few days ago that caught my attention, the piece that you wrote on the initial reaction to paul ryan, to mitt romney s running mate. the bounce candidates usually get from their vp choice, we didn t see that this time. tell me about that. this is so interesting. we have been polling with gallup about the first reaction to vice presidential picks back to dan quai quayle. he had a disastrous reception. ryan had the worst reception of any vice presidential candidate since then, sin quayle. and a more tepid reception than even sarah palin, herself a controversial choice four years ago and the bounce of a couple of points that the ticket usually gets after a vp is chosen, we didn t see it. maybe a 1% bounce, compared to the 4% bounce we are used to seeing. maybe because this election, people are so polarized, set in their ways, it s very hard to budge people from where they are at all. that s one of the things we ve seen, despite all of the ads that have been run in swing states and everything that campaigns have done, we haven t seen much movement in the polls. nia-malika, i want to put numbers up on the screen. a the new york times poll, which shows over the past few cycles the points that generally these are the bounce here that candidates ushlg see. nine points for lieberman, seven points for edwards. one point for biden. four points for palin. and susan mentioned polarization. is that all this is about. or something else going on? i think it does speak to the polarization and that most people have made up their minds. a sense of maybe 3% to 5% of voters who haven t made up their mind yet. people are very partisan, their minds made up about these tickets. it s hard in this sort of environment for the vice presidential pick to make much of a difference. it has made a difference in terms of the energy you see on the ground, on the republican side. crowds have swelled to thousands and thousands of folks going out to see the ticket. and i think what ryan brings, it humanizes romney. on the stop, much more relaxed and sort of awe, shucks charisma, that has been missing from the ticket. he is going to go out there in many ways, be a better spokesman about who romney is as a person, leader, governor, than romney has been so far. susan, we ve talked a lot about medicare, not a lot about jobs in the economy. has the romney ryan campaign, has their decision to roll the dice in medicare caused them to lose focus on larger issues than the economy is and jobs. medicare is a better issue for than the current state of the economy. one of the things at the republican convention will be an effort to get back to talking about core issues. one thing to keep in mind. vice presidents don t make much difference. who had the biggest bounce in the chart we just showed you. joe liberman did not become vice president. i ll start with you. after the first week of paul ryan campaign, the republican convention a week away. what is your initial assessment of the gop ticket at this point point? they were able to combine both wings of the party. mitt romney, the old guard conservative and the tea paerlt anyone that paul ryan is going to be. you saw some elation from the part of liberals. there is concern about this ed care issue getting away from them. but initially, i think this was a surprise, and although he had a couple of stumbles out of the gate. paul ryan allayed some of the fears. susan, it will be interesting to see whether this medicare debate. prolonged medicare debate, whether it has an effect on house races and the kind of effect it has on senate races as well. i see that already in some close house races and senate races where here mostly the republicans are on the defensive against democrat attacks. seniors are the most reliable voters in america. democrats have a huge advantage of voters under 30, they don t turn out to vote this could help democrats with seniors. one of the concerns. romney campaign thinks this is an issue this can use to their advantage, educate some voters, not sure there are house republican candidates that feel the same way. thank you, both. appreciate your time. new today, wikileaks founder julian assange appeared publicly for the first time in two months. he stepped out of can you wafor s embassy in london. ecuador offered him extradition, but britain won t let him leave because he is wantedor assault claims. this is what he had to say. to the people of the united states, united kingdom, sweden, and australia, who have supported me in strength, even when their governments have not, and to those wiser heads in government who are still fighting for justice, your day will come. nbc s duncan is live with more. what else did more. what else did assange have to say? good afternoon. he called on the united states to release bradley manning. accused of leaking massive private information. if manning really did as he s accused, then he is a hero this this is the first time we ve seen assange in two months after he asked for refuge in the ek dorian embassy. he came out on the balcony, cheered by supporters. he went on to make an appeal to president obama. have a look. i asked president obama to do the right thing. the united states must renounce its one of hunt against wick ileaks. the united states must resolve its fbi investigation. the united states must not prosecute our supporters. the united states must pledge before the world it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful. one thing the australian did not talk about are the allegations of rape and assault that have been made by two women in sweden. previously, he has denied them. back to you. duncan in our london bureau, thank you. growing concern for the biggest outbreak of west nile in eight years. officials in dallas hope to resume yearial spraying for mosquitos carrying the west nile virus, another round of spraying will take place monday and tuesday. dallas has been hit the hardest, with more than 700 people in 43 people died from the virus. so many cases in early and so widespread doesn t bode well for the future summer. the mild winter and wet spring created an ideal environment for mosquitos to breed and spread the virus. west coast headlines are next. the question, which came first, the seagull or the egg? also, the last week before two political conventions. if the candidates aren t fighting for delegates, what is the point of the grand spectacles? we ll talk about that. whoa. right? get. out. exactly! really?! 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[ powers down ] uh-oh, flobot is broken. the name your price tool, only from progressive. call or click today. headlines making news on the west coast. in phoenix, the arizona republic has a front page story titled in an era of dwindling budgets, college sports subsidies remain an integral part of the game. schools usually lose money in almost all of their sports, except football and men s basketball. and in port angeles, washington. which comes first, gull or the egg? about a federal seagull management program, being hailed as a success. wild life workers put corn oil on recently laid eggs, preventing them from hatching. and then monterey, california, the herald, not quite lemony fresh. a classic car show for lemons. among them, a pink volkswa gncv. a pinto, all models from the 70s. campaigns accelerate toward elections days, lawsuits decide who can vote. pennsylvania s voter i.d. law will head to the state supreme court now. this week, a judge blocked the voter i.d. law, and a chair of the pennsylvania democratic party. good afternoon. good afternoon, craig. what s your involvement in the case. how is your party trying to help the situation. we ve supported the plaintiffs, those who are ad advocating the position at the port level. in our opinion, this was decided the wrong way. we ll monitor this as it goes to the state supreme court and offer any resources we can along the way. we think there are very valid arguments and encouraged as the case moves forward. we re working to make sure anyone in pennsylvania who wants to vote has the proper identification to do so. i want to play something for you. why the law is valid. take a listen. the reason we want to have photo id, you need to have a photo today to open a bank account, to get married. you need it for every day life and society. i think that everybody has a photo i.d., and you know what? penndot has only had 3,600 requests since this started state wide. i think this is much ato about nothing. the state is going overboard to make sure everybody will have the ability to have photo i.d. what s your response to that? i think chairman gleason when he says that, that only 3,600 have filed, he proves our point. not only are 758 new pennsylvanians affected by this new law, most folks who, a most folks aren t aware of it, and, b, most don t aware it s improper idea. they assume what they have, when, in fact, they don t. evidence is only 3,600, so the chair supports what we do here to make sure the right people have what they need. those who may be affected for them to vote. i have heard and read all kinds of numbers with the number of voters that could be potentially affected in your state. how many are we talking about? the legislature was told while vetting this bill, perhaps 1% maybe. less than 100,000. however, she has since come forward and has admitted it s more like 758,000. that s a number not disputed. actually 750,000 pennsylvanias. i i m sure are you familiar with this poll. more than 74% of poll respondies think that you should show a government issued photo i.d. this is a poll we ve seen before most people think it s something you need. having said that, we have questioned the timing of this. we can go back and forth why we think this is unconstitutional legislation. this is the law of the land, it is what we it. we don t agree, but we have continues for the last two months, to reach out, make sure pennsylvanians have the proper photo identification in order to do that. at this point, the law is on the books, we don t like how it got there. but we want to make sure pennsylvanians get out in the next 80 days, have what they need, get them to the polls to exercise their constitutional right to do so. chair of the democratic party, thank you. thank you. are there skeletons in congressman paul ryan s capitol hill closet? some video of the congressman from 2002 that may make supporters cringe. sweetie, you have to scrub it first. no you don t, honey. yes, you do! don t! i ve washed a few cupcake tins in my day. oh, so you re a tin expert now. whoa nelly! hi, kitchen counselor here. he s actually right. with cascade complete. see cascade complete pacs work like thousands of micro-scrubbing brushes to help power away tough foods even in corners and edges. so, i was right, right? i ve gotta run. more dishwasher brands in north america recommend cascade. 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[ hikers laughing, commenting ] at&t introduces the htc one x. now $99.99. rethink possible. teshg tech watch. 29% of americans say they check their wireless device first thing in the morning and last thing at night. 38% of americans check it a few times a day. that s actually nothing compared t to the 14% that check every ten minutes or the 4% who check every five minutes. now, number five on our list of top stories trending this hour. nikki minaj, bailing out of concerts in britain because of vocal chord damage. she became sick after performing in new york friday. she s been told to rest her voice for several days. meanwhile, minaj still at the top of the list on the open spot on american idol. time for a rundown of today s list of number ones with a worldly spin. bloomberg ranking the healthiest countries in the world. don t bother looking for the knust the top ten, top 20 or even top 30. u.s. number 33. singapore, number one. italy, australia, switzerland, japan. something in the water in singapore, a new citibank report says singapore will be the richest country on the planet about i 2050. they have a free market economy largely dependent on exports. hong kong second in health wealth, followed by taiwan, south korea, and there we are number five. united states. a couple of fantastic feats. the first one a feat of eats. folks near tampa, florida, assembling the world s largest cuban sandwich. measuring 36 feet. and you can see there, after they were done making, cut it up so folks could chow down. five, four, three, two, one. another world record there. the largest group somersault, 835 folks in st. louis taking part in an event for fun and fund-raising. donations went toward the nurses for newborns foundation. get in! my shoe is bigger than this car. arnold schwarzenegger s return to the big screen biggest buck at the box office. expendables 2 should win the weekend with a $30 million haul. notes are your number ones on weekends with alex witt. juicy brats grilled up on a thursday. the perfect use of the 7th inning stretch. get that great taste anytime with kingsford match light charcoal. it s time to live wider awake. only the beautyrest recharge sleep system combines the comfort of aircool memory foam layered on top of beautyrest pocketed coils to promote proper sleeping posture all night long. the revolutionary recharge sleep system. from beautyrest. it s you, fully charged. as part of a heart healthy diet. that s true. .but you still have to go to the gym. the one and only, cheerios you have a plan? first we re gonna check our bags for free, thanks to our explorer card. then, the united club. my mother was so wrong about you. next, we get priority boarding on our flight i booked with miles. all because of the card. and me. okay, what s the plan? plan? mm-hmm. we re on vacation. this is no plan. really? [ male announcer ] the united mileageplus explorer card. the mileage card with special perks on united. get it and you re in. welcome back to weekends with alex witt. i m contributory negligence melvime craig melvin. one week to go before the rnc and dnc conventions. joining me with a preview, nbc deputy political editor. yesterday, i asked the rnc convention press secretary why we still need these conventions. a lot of balloons. i want to play his response and talk to you on the other side. take a listen. conventions serve a couple of purposes. the one, which is consistent, going back to when conventions started, it serves as a rallying point for the party. everyone comes together across the country, enthusiasm grows and we launch give nor romney and paul ryan into the general. okay, that s his answer there. the money spent on these grand spectac spectacles, can they not use that to build enthusiasm more effectively and cheaper? i think this is a tradition that s gone back a long time. they have to go about the official business of nominating two candidates with president obama being renominated and remember, governor romney still the presumptive nominee. he ll officially be nominated at the convention, and it is a way for them to drum up a lot of enthusiasm. there certainly is a lot of money spent. rnc and then dnc. a list of the more prominent speakers. who is up? chris christie will be one that keynotes the address, governor bobby jindal, connie mac from florida, jeb bush, you have some others who are prominent within the party. people who are going to drum up some enthusiasm while they are there. do we expect any surprises? anything out of ordinary? one side line issue to watch is ron paul, how much the folks of his very ardent following, they have gone to a lot of these nominee convention fights. they get rowdy. they can. and i m sure it s something a lot of people will be watching. the rnc have been working closely with the ron paul people and know what could be coming with them because of the enthusiasm they have for him. it might wind up being a sideline issue, certainly they will fight, thread through that platform that they have and see if there is any influence. to the dnc convention, that one held in charlotte. i was in north carolina recently. the obama campaign s field operation, fairly extensive. 40 field offices, they have 20, and they have been pushing hard for the hispanic vote. do boots on the ground still outweigh new social media outreaches? i don t think the obama people or oromney people are ignoring social media they think it s necessary to get people out to the polls, but nothing quite like knocking on doors to get people out to vote. the issue for the obama campaign, for democrats, they need to do more of this than the republicans do. if you look at our polling, key constituent groups like hispanics. their intensity is down this year, opposed to conservative constituen constituencies, right through the roof. speaking of north carolina, the july state unemployment rates came out, and battlegrounds, florida, nevada, iowa, new hampshire, all saw significant jumps from the prior month. why have we not heard mitt romney and paul ryan talking more about the jobs numbers over the past few days? i think it s certainly a red flag for the obama campaign. this is something locally will matter how it affects your pockets. and there has been the story line, a lot of swing states have fared better than the national average and some of the unemployment rates tick up in some of the key states, the obama campaign will have to be very concerned and certainly will hear the romney campaign make that case as we move past the conventions. deputy political editor domenico montenegro. we want to join you to watch our 20 hours of daily cover rage, kicking off with way too early. andrea mitchel and chuck todd live with continuing coverage and rachel maddow and chris matthews leads prime time coverage a little more than a week from now. time for today s strategy talk and that week to go until the rnc convention. romney/ryan ticket crisscrossing the country. appear together at a town hall meeting in new hampshire tomorrow before separating for campaign stops in eight states next week. joining me is leslie dono had you, consultant for mitt romney s 2008 campaign and senior adviser to michele bachmann s 2012 campaign. and also a vice president of skc knicker bocker. good afternoon. i want to play this video that the good folks at chris hayes dug up. from paul ryan early 2002. take a listen. what we re trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed. now, i ve just recently read in our local capitol hill newspaper that members from the majority party in the other body wants stimulus. they are breaking with their party leadership and asking for stimulus legislation to pass, because in their home states, they have a lot of people losing their jobs. now, paul ryan, a major opponent of president obama s stimulus plan, despite as we ve learned over the past couple of days, requesting funds from it. why is it different when it s under president bush, west? just because they are both called a stimulus doesn t mean they are the same thing. when i got the $300, i bought a boat shoes and took my wife out to dinner. incredibly different when the government is giving money back to the taxpayers a taxpayers, a plan which was just a giant government spending spree. paul ryan is a complete hypocrite. the stimulus passed was $250 billion, $300 billion in tax cuts that went to the middle class. the idea that it was huge government spending is not backed up by the law. the other thing, paul ryan wrote multiple letters supporting projects in his district as part of the obama stimulus, so this is just, look, the reality is that paul ryan has a long history as a hypocrite. he voted for t.a.r.p., multiple stimuluses under bush. he has no credibility. did doug get a $300 check from the federal government under obama? come on, man. there s no comparison. he raises an interesting point. and a point that others have raised the past few days. one of the claims that a lot of folks who support the romney/ryan ticket whether they point to paul ryan, here is a guy that wants to shrink government and believes the lowest amount of taxes possible. you start to hear things like this, and it kin of makes you wonder if he s walking the walk. he isn t. the fact is that he voted for two wars that were unpaid for. voted for massive tax cuss for the rich. the fact is, this guy, this idea that he is this fiscal hawk, he s a fiscal chicken hawk, and the reality is that those policies under george bush really let us into the economic crisis, trying to get out of right now. i m not sure we should return to those policies. i won t deny there were definitely bush fiscal issues that got us into trouble. but paul ryan is the hawk we need. look at the way the debate has changed in america since he was become the vice presidential nominee. no longer talking about tax cuts or biden s stupid gaffes. we re talking about real issues like medicare and stimulus. i m glad you said that, because up until the medicare conversation that started just a few days ago, the election has really not been about a lot of substance according to a lot of folks. the war in afghanistan, we haven t heard candidates suggest that. we haven t heard a great deal of talk about foreign policy. with regards to the tenor of the am campaign so far, how would you characterize it. i would characterize it as ridiculous. not just this country, but globally, and talking about stupid things like tax returns. i m so excited we re talking about real issues right now that affect real americans, that happened the moment paul ryan was named the vice presidential nominee, no denying that. it s applausing to listen to the medicare argument from the other side. they are saying we need to preserve and strengthen government-run health care and that is the effort by the other side to distract from what they really are going to do with medicare. which is a long history of cutting medicare. newt gingrich said they wanted it to wither on the vine, and ryan plan as we know it, interesting they are running this full force defense of it it s crazy. guys, we have to leave it there. i m sure we ll pick it back up. thank you. an joy your bow tie, i like that. okay. good to see you, craig. office politics. alex talks to andy cohen about his frustration on president obama about the issue of gay marriage. they have names like idle time books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement. and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again. that s the power of all of us. that s the power of all of us. that s the membership effect of american express. 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[ male announcer ] febreze. eliminates odors and leaves carpets fresh. today s office politics, alex interviews andy cohen, host of watch what happens live and creator of the real housewives series. he has gone from a cubicle at cbs to the top of 30 rock. we asked about president obama coming out in support of gay marriage. were you surprised when the president came out in support of gay marriage. and has he lived up to the hopes, the examinations of so many within the gay community, based on what he ran on? i think ultimately if you look at the four years, he finally did. it took a really long time to repeal don t ask, don t tell, and i was personally really frustrated. thinking why don t you just it seemed like something he could just do and he finally did, and so at this point, i think he did live up to the proms. and came out in support of marriage equality, which is a big deal, even though legislatively there is nothing ki really do right now, the fact that you i know my president supports equal rights for me, call me crazy, but it is important to me. i m issue oriented. i am a voter that looks at maybe three issues and goes. somebody like bloomberg, a moderate socially, is someone who i always have supported. then there are other people other people i have supported all over the map. there was a documentary we made when i was at trio called gay republicans. and gay republicans are a brand of people i have been fascinated by. tinkly typically republicans are anti gay and run on it as their platform. i have been fascinated by gay people who identify themselves as republicans. they vote on economics and not on social issues. for me, that s interesting, how do you reconcile going with the candidate who doesn t necessarily support what you do and how you live? what do you think about this career you have? i think it s fun. and that s what i ve thought about every job i ve ever had. it s what has guided me and led me to this place right now. if you are happy in your career, you are going to do well, and it will lead to you greater success. if you are so you know, i always thought the office i had was the best office. i had a cubicle at the morning show at cbs and it was in the corner, wow, i have a cubicle in the corner. this is amazing. it was so fun and i had a bulletin board like that one. and i love my little bulletin board and my extension and i love it that i m in the corner and i have all this school stufstuf cool stuff. i am trying to embrace the happiness. and when i sit in this office, i think this is pretty cool. i like this. which speaks a lot about your countenance and how you look at life. as a mom, i would suggest i look at your parents, and i think they have been pretty phenomenal. reading your book, a lot of stories about parents who are not supportive of their kids when they come out, reyes. and your mom was a rock. amazing. she s somewhere, yeah, she s there. and your dad too. my dad is amazing. they are both great. they have supported me, and they are my they are my sometimes toughest critics, but always biggest supporters. most people will assume you have this glamorous life, because you hobnob, out there. do you go home after work sometimes just wiped out and just crash and i go home from work wiped out every night, but i just don t get home until like 1:00 in the morning. that s the issue. and, you know, glamor is in the eye of the beholder. next weekend s office politics, alex interviews arianna huffington. number four, reaction to michael phelps leaked photos. phelps will not lose photos over the incident. provocative photos were put on the internet during the london games. the international olympic committee has a rule prohibiting nonofficial sponsors around the type of competition. questions? anyone have occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? yeah. one phillips colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. approved! 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[ dr. rahmany ] you see, even after a dental cleaning. plaque quickly starts to grow back. but new crest pro-health clinical plaque control toothpaste can help. it not only reduces plaque. it s also clinically proven. to help keep plaque from coming back. plus, it works in these other areas dentists check most. new crest pro-health clinical plaque control toothpaste. life opens up when you do. for extra plaque protection try new crest pro-health clinical rinse. you cannot discount the impact of digital media during the presidential campaign, but when it comes to being web savvy, the incumbent has a clear advantage. a new study how each side uses social media shows president obama with a big lead over mitt romney, but there are questions about how that online clout translates to the real world we have chief creative director of brpr group. how are you? doing well, thank you. facebook the exception, president obama s team is posting nearly four times as much content as the romney camp? how much of a game changer could social media be in this race compared to previous presidential races? you would be hard pressed to find anyone that would disagree, the game changer happened in 2008 when president elect obama ushered in the era of social media. to the surprise, unbeknownst to the republican party, he had a lot of clout in the space. it s redundant to say if the game change is happening, it s just being underutilized. you think neither candidate is fully utilizing social media they are attempting to use it as a traditional broadcast tool. yeah, if you look back to fdr, when he used to have fireside chats, radio fireside chats, the same utilization and misuse of the platform. they are broadcasting their message without any substantive reaction with the voter. he give me an example. if someone posed a poe quest to you, two integral components to a conversation, to listen and respond. both campaigns respond less than 3% of time on facebook and twitter and posing statements about the economy, when any post that is about health care or women s rights, they overindex by four times the amount that the economy does. a00 opportunity in terms of the listing strategy and responding. that s why they are missing out. is this purely the political risk. if someone tweets me, i have 140 characters to respond and things can be taken out of context. is that it? the political risk? i think they are gaffe prone, but there is an opportunity if you look at vice president biden, he s gaffe prone and mitt romney has been gaffe prone. a wonderful opportunity to answer these questions. let s take, for instance, if you were to answer some questions that a voter had possessed to romney, and romney doesn t respond, that s a great opportunity for obama to then come in with a youtube response, specifically to that voter, to say this is how i would handle health care, this is how i would handle the economy, address it. that s a viral opportunity. u. it s simply not happening. is this the nextitieration in terms of social media. four years from now, is that where this goes? i think the voters will demand it, yes. a fascinating conversation. i appreciate it. i ll tell you something else that continues to mist phi me to a certain extend. you think four years later, the gop would have gotten on board more with some of the social media stuff. they are in the process of mastering it, but mitt romney with the app and announcing the vice president, a much broader opportunity for him to announce the candidate via twitter. number three on our first five web web stories, swimming to cuba. 62-year-old american endurance swimmer left cuba saturday, trying to swim to the florida keys. diana nyad s fourth community. jellyfish stings and asthma attacks ended her prior attempts. she thinks it will take 60 hours to finish that swim. at purina one, we believe small things can make a big difference. like how a little oil from here can be such a big thing in an old friend s life. we discovered that by blending enhanced botanical oils into our food, we can help brighten an old dog s mind so he s up to his old tricks. it s just one way purina one is making the world a better place. one pet at a time. discover vibrant maturity and more at purinaone.com. [ dog barking ] [ female announcer ] life is full of little tests, but your basic paper towel can handle them. especially if that towel is bounty basic. the towel that s durable and scrubbable. in this lab demo, bounty basic is stronger than the leading bargain brand. everyday life. bring it with bounty basic. affordably priced. tested by everyday life. and try bounty napkins. and a good sunday to you. welcome to weekends with alex witt. i m craig melvin. front passeng front page politics. last week before two big political conventions with the sunday talk shows buzzing over medicare. advisers clashed over the hot topic. that s ays central question the fable for this election. how will be strengthen medicare. if we strengthen it or push costs to seniors. if i could just respond to that, look, let s look at the contrast of the two campaigns. congressman ryan was down in florida yesterday, talking about medicare which say very important issue. an important cost of living issue for millions of seniors. the same time this week, vice president biden in virginia talking about people being put back in chains. tomorrow, mitt romney and paul ryan reunite on the campaign trail with a town hall meeting in new hampshire, and that controversial chains comment is spotlighting new concerns about negative messaging on the campaign trail. this morning, mitt romney s top adviser suggests that biden s remark, a deliberate attempt to steer both sides of the national conversation down an ugly road. when you lock at his rhetoric, the stream of attacks from joe biden, versus the serious proposal put forward by mitt romney and paul ryan, there is a very informative contrast there between the two tickets and two approaches. nbc s kristen welker live at the white house with the latest. good afternoon to you. good afternoon to you, craig. and ed gillespie called this talk smear and fear on behalf of president obama s campaign. how are the comments being addressed today. or are they? they absolutely are. there has been a lot of mud slinging on both sides all week long when it comes to the chains comments, the obama campaign pushing back hard against the notion that vice president was trying to invoke race into the discussion. he simply used the wrong words, he was trying to quote from language that republicans had misused, he misspoke. this has been a big distraction from the larger issue. pushing back hard against the notion nah the vice president had any other intentioned except to talk about wall street reform. here is what obama campaign adviser robert gibbs had to say. take a listen. no other comment when speaker boehner talks about unshackling wall street. mitt romney thinks it s okay to repeal wall street reform, and let big banks on wall street go back to writing their own rules. we know what happens. that s what got us into this mess. reporters covering the campaign have been trying to figure out if president obama spoke with vice president biden about those comments. the white house not giving us an answer about that the obama campaign hopes that this issue won t continue. they hope this won t be a repeat occurrence on the campaign trail. any indication we ll be seeing or hearing less from the vice president over the next few months on the campaign trail? obama officials and the white house defended the vice president saying the president has complete confidence in him as his running mate. there were some rumblings that perhaps the obama campaign should swap out, vice president secretary of state hillary clinton saying that won t happen. at the end of the day, vice president biden a good retail politician, good the pressing the flesh. good at rallying the middle class. important in some of the key battleground states. they think he is more of an asset than he is a liability. if you look at the vice president s schedule, his upcoming week, he ll be quite busy with a number of camp paper events in michigan, minnesota, and it doesn t look like the vice president will slow down on the campaign trail any time soon. thank you. thanks. for more, let s bring in jackie kucinich from usa today and analyst jonathan alter. welcome to both of you. thanks. let s pick up where kristen left off. let s use the chains comments and other comments that the vice president has made, is he bo more of an asset or what of a liability at this point as well? i think he s neither. i mean, he s been making gaffes since 1972. this is knotted a new thing. the difference between chained and shackled, such a dopey debate when we have such big issues. medicare on the table to be discussed, and horribly distorted by one side. i believe by one side. we don t always want to have phony balance where we say even steven. we have a situation where paul ryan was in florida, saying that the big, bad obama administration took 716 billion from your medicare. first of all, the exact same $7 is 16 billion, same amount of money, is in the ryan budget. accusing them of raiding the piggy bank, then he did the same thing. this is just one small example of the level of misinformation that s going on back and forth on this issue. where it is truly legitimate, obama making seem as if romney wants to voucherize medicare today. in fact, it s only for people my age, 55 and below, who would face a privatized medicare system, should mitt romney be elected president. jackie, let me bring you in here. a fairly complex debate we ve seen unfold over the past week or so with regard to medicare. is it more heat than light at this point? i m not sure what you mean, but a lot for photo voters to consider. we have super pacs running ads, outside entities running ads. it s extremely negative right now. but at this point, you have to buckle up. no incentive to get any nicer at this point from either side. or more civil. jonathan, jackie raises an interesting point. it sounds like she s talking about the sheer amount of information, especially if you live in one of the eight or nine states inside the election, you look at ads, listen to the radio, get on the internet. so much, you think voters will be able to discern fact from fiction with regard to medicare? seniors traditionally have been very sophisticated in the way they sort through what s in their interest. more time than the rest of us to figure out what s right. at the end of the day, when they get into the debates, it will be a basic question which candidate do you trust more to protect your retirement? that includes social security and meg cade. i would give the president the advantage, the republican party as recently as 2005, on record championing the privatizing the social security, having social security go into the stock market, if president bush and his leader on capitol hill, a guy name paul ryan, had gotten their way in 2005, and we had had a privatizeded social security system, imagine how much of their retirement savings, seniors would have lost in the stock market when it crashed in 2008, so these basic questions, about who do you trust? that s where it will come, despite distortions on both sides. we have to leave it right the there. a pleasure, thaw, both. stay up to date on all of the latest political developments go to first read @nbc does news.com. a rising death toll in afghanistan. ied attack. growing concern in washington on how to stop the rise of insider attacks. afghan forces attacking american troops trying to train them. hamid karzcakarzai is being cal to better vet police recruits. and new video from syrian state tv. assad attended prayer in a damascus mosque, marking the start of a muslim holiday. his first appearance in over a month. eamon mohyeldin, what is the latest? president assad appeared at morning prayers. he was flanked by members of his regime. one person absent and triggered a lot of speculation as to where he could be is the voice president. this individual is to some extent respected by many. he has not been heard from or seen of in the last several weeks. the fsa has claimed he has defected. we have not heard any claims from him personally or from others that suggest he has left the country. the syrian government insists he is still present in syria, still in his role, but the fact that he was absent from such an important ceremony has a lot of people wondering whether or not the government s line is true. just gone off the grid. by some extent, absolutely. we have not seen him, heard from him. as vice president, he is an individual, if he, in fact, defected, would be a serious blow to the regime s ability to function. another development. the new u.n. envoy to syria, what s going to be his role? well, that s a great question. the united nations and arab league have appointed the former algerian diplomat as the new envoy, he s coming in as the previously one has completely failed, that of secretary-general kofi an an, the 90-day please plan failed to end the violence. already he has angered the opposition by comments that he suggested that president assad does not necessarily need to step down just yet. already the opposition is saying he needs to apologize for those comments. the very latest what is happening in syria. thank you, appreciate you. up next, hiding sadam. ten years after the iraqi strong man s capture from that spider hole hideout, a man who helped hide hussein tells his story. why now? why did he do it in the first place? we ll speak with the reporter who got the explow si. you re watching weekend he end alex witt. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. it s the honey, it makes it taste so. well, would you look at the time. what s the rush? 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[ powers down ] uh-oh, flobot is broken. the name your price tool, only from progressive. call or click today. but don t just listen to me. listen to these happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. with snapshot, i knew what i could save before i switched to progressive. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. you re not filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. test-drive snapshot before you switch. visit progressive.com today. the man who hid up with of the world s most want the dictators speaking out. he built the spider hole that saddam hussein hid in. in an exclusive washington post article, that man reveals the intriguing details nearly ten years after hussein s capture. the reporter, ken sullivan, joins us on this sunday afternoon. good afternoon to you. how did he keep saddam hidden and keep it a secret? well, he was very, very careful. fascinating how he did it. kept him on a small farm where he lives, which is down a small dirt road behind a locked gate, surrounded by trees. you could stand on this farm and not see another human being for weeks i suppose. very careful about telephones. sadd saddam never used a phone. he never had visitors, but his sons did manage to get there once or twice to visit him. and during the time saddam was away released several video recordings trying to exhort troops to fight against the americans and mfrpalik took the little tape recorder and recorded urban sounds to confuse the americans. how did the americans close in? the americans were very clever, and they knew saddam would most likely go back to the place he was from. they knew people were fiercely loyal to him, so they figured they would probably go there. they just closed the noose, kept very close tabs. and there were stories at the time, that said the day before the raid where they got him, they captured someone who sort of gave them a very good idea of where he probably was. an interesting quote from the colonel in the iraqi national police. i want to put up excerpt. we consider it a heroic act. this act doesn t concern this family only, but it represents all the citizens of dawr. this city embraced saddam. did nawiq face legal trouble? is he praised by local? he is something of a local hero saddam is from here, this guy was very good to this area during the time he was president. these people got a lot of benefits and people are very loyal. he s a member of the family, when i talk to people, yes, we re very proud of what he did. that quote represents how people felt about sadam, and namiq was never pushed in any way by the iraqi legal system. he was by the americans. what is life like for him now? i think it s pretty good. this summer he opened a little restaurant, kind of a glorified term for what he has. a little concrete shack where they grill chicken and that s where i met him. and everybody there knows him and everybody is delighted to see him, and i think he s he s sort of a local hero now. kevin sullivan, a fascinating article. thank you for sharing it with us. my pleasure. in ra moment, an atheist group tries to silence a school s choice of music. first, a commanding and demanding presence. wikileaks founder julian assange out of hiding with words for the united states government. you re watching weekends with alex witt. only the beautyrest recharge sleep system combines the comfort of aircool memory foam layered on top of beautyrest pocketed coils to promote proper sleeping posture all night long. the revolutionary recharge sleep system from beautyrest. it s you, fully charged. receive up to a $300 beautyrest visa prepaid card when you buy select beautyrest mattress sets. but with advair, i m breathing better. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won t replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair may have a higher chance of pneumonia. advair may increase your risk of osteoporosis and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. if you re still having difficulty breathing, ask your doctor if including advair could help improve your lung function. get your first full prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd.com. by what s getting done. measure commitment the twenty billion dollars bp committed has helped fund economic and environmental recovery. long-term, bp s made a five hundred million dollar commitment to support scientists studying the environment. and the gulf is open for business - the beaches are beautiful, the seafood is delicious. last year, many areas even reported record tourism seasons. the progress continues. but that doesn t mean our job is done. we re still committed to seeing this through. america s star owe limbi olympians in iowa. gabby douglas and lolo jones among those honored on the campus of drake university in des moines. an especially emotional home coming for jones, who, of course, fails to medal in the 100 meter hurdles, and gold medalist missy franklin, one of six olympians honored in denver. franklin, 17-year-old who won four golds and a bronze in london. a new controversy over what qualifies as music or prayer is fueling an unusual battle in upstate new york. it started at the shenandoah central school district when a parent complained a music teacher was teaching students songs that contained references to god. an atheist organization threaten aid lawsuit. the district is reportedly refusing to acknowledge. joining me, lisa green. thank you for coming in on a sunday. first of all, disputes over music with religious content. seem to arise very often. why is that? a lot of first amendment fights over religion, seem to be set to music, and i think part of the reason why, music is such a powerful disseminator of religious messages, any messages. this usually comes up around holiday time. here we are in the summer talking about the latest version of the dispute. let s give viewers an idea of the content of one of the songs that was taught. the words up on the screen here. thank you for the world so sweet, thank you for the food we eat, thank you for the birds that sing, thank you, god, for everything. the freedom from religion says the teacher taught the kids to sing this song at thanksgiving. is this unconstitutional? the answer? it depends. like so many legal discussions. the word god has the@yet group complaining and generally here is the test. schools have to walk a delicate balance, freedom of religion, freedom from relinlon. what a school can do is teach e religious music, but they can t teach religious beliefs. how do you discern? how? it s really hard to imagine being well educated without knowing something about bach or spirituals. schools are allowed to teach those, but when a school chooses music to encourage religious beliefs among it s students, that s where you get into trouble under the constitution. if this were to go to court, how would a court rule on it? the wocourt would have to lo at factors and decide. the local paper has editorialized, we have bigger problems in the school district, why not just find a different song. lisa green, thank you helping us break some of that down. very complex and it seems to be something that comes up once or twice a year. sure does. romney reveals, how deep will budget cuts be if if the republican s choice becomes president? he spells it out. we ll talk to one of those reporters on the other side of this break. weekends with alex witt. 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[ male announcer ] .forbusiness.com. ha ha! juicy brats grilled up on a thursday. the perfect use of the 7th inning stretch. get that great taste anytime with kingsford match light charcoal. you do a lot of kayakingno. whoooa i m in a river. what are some good kayaking words? like.rapids? look, i m going through the rapids. ok. i ll take it. new offers in new places so you can try new things. sync your american express card with facebook, foursquare, and twitter to find savings. that s the membership effect of american express. times square on a sunny sunday afternoon here in new york city. august 19. it is about 1:30. i m craig melvin in for alex witt. new today, wikileaks founder julian assange emerged from the equadoran embassy in london. we are live in london with more on this story. good afternoon, craig. julian assange called on the united states to release private bradley manning, accused of leaking massive amounts of private information which wikileaks published. assange says if man diagnose what he says he did, he s a hero. he came out onto the balcony, cheered by supporters. here is a little bit more of what he had to say. as wikileaks stands under threat, so it is the freedom of expression and the help of all our societies, we must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the united states of america. will it return to and reaffirmed the values, the revolutionary values it was founded on? or will it lurch off the off the precipice, dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark. but you know the one thing the australian did not talk about are the allegations of rape and assault that have been made by two women in sweden. that s the reason is he stuck in the embassy. the swedish authorities want to question him, but he and his supporters say it s part of a washington plot to extradite him to the united states. the white house says this is the matter for the governments of britain, sweden, and can you wafor to resolve. the standoff continues in london. in addition, an angry diplomatic row after the british government seems to suggest it could take british support away. a quick question. why now in terms of the timing? we haven t heard or seen from julian assange in two months. why the statement today? i guess it comes today because on thursday, he was formally offered asylum by ecuador, that offer can t be taken up, i guess that s why he s talking out, a couple of days after that offer. thank you, duncan. appreciate it. here are the fast five headlines on this sunday. two high school students were arrested on suspicions they were planning an attack on their school. they were making opline threats and had a specific date in mind. the school will hold a safety meeting with students after classes start next week. meanwhile, philadelphia police think robbery may be the motive in the murder of one of their own. the offduty officer walking home from work yesterday when he was shot to death just blocked from his station, the 19-year-old veteran planned to retire next year. and in idaho, authorities are evacuating 350 houses because of thick smoke coming from a wildfire that burned 130 square miles. and word from the dallas area that aerial spraying against the deadly west nile virus will resume today. the mosquito-killing mission scrubbed last night because of bad weather. and a restaurant in los angeles is offering guests a 5% discount if they check in cell phones at the door. the chef wants customers to dine without distraction, and so far, half the dibers have accepted the offer. those are your fast five headlines. fortune magazine out with a new interview with mitt romney. the republican candidate breaks down which federal programs he will cut if he wins in november, as well as his prediction for what the country would look like under four years of his presidency. joini david witford joins me now. he laid out his five-point economic plan in the interview. what did it look like? one quick correction to begin. he talked about some of the places where he wants to cut in order to balance the budget. the cuts don t add up to a balanced budget yet. talks about cutting amtrak, about federal subsidies for amtrak, for pbs, you know, he runs through tucks about looking for savings in the military, not enough to cut the overall military budget. one of the big questions that remains about mitt romney s economic plan, the cuts don t add up. one of the knocks on mitt romney s plan and his plans in general, one of the knocks, they aren t very specific. more specific in your interview than with other members of the media? he stressed a couple of things that maybe he hasn t stressed before. basically, the romney campaign plan and i don t think this has changed since he announced paul ryan would be his running mate. the less said the better. often when mitt romney opens his mouth, when you get specific about cuts, you alienate people. and his best strategy for campaigning as it was throughout this spring and continues is the election, i m not president obama, i m somebody else. i represent change. you mentioned tax policy in your report as well. do the thinktanks and cbo agree with conclusions that governor romney comes to? no, in sum, they don t. romney talking about cutting marnl natur tax rates, but do so revenue neutral. the numbers just don t add up. if you are going to cut marginal tax rates in such a way that you remove deductions and, you know, popular deductions like, i don t know, the morning interest or charitable deduction as a way of getting to revenue neutral, the bottom line is higher taxes for poor people, middle class people, low taxes for wealthy people. i don t dispute that, numbers just don t add up. another article in an accompa accompanying piece, talking about the economic policy steering group. who is in that group? tell me about the secret meeting last month. very interesting group. this had never been reported before. some of the names on the 19-member economic policy steering group, known to be romney advisers, people like greg manque, some surprises too. outliers like john thain, former ceo of meryl lynch. deep republican establishment. no less than five previous chairs of the council of economic advisers, all the way back to reagan. former president of the world bank. the secret meeting, before i let you go? i m sorry? there was a secret meeting of sorts? they gathered two days after the 4th of july. romney up in lake winnepesaukee. most of the national press up taking pictures of him in his swim trunks and this secret meeting taking place. look at the composition of the group, largely republican establishment, and the only way to think about these groups, holding pens for senior officials in waiting. if you look at this group, it s a better way to think about what a romney administration might look like other than a strictly political choice than like the choice of paul ryan. david whitford, thank you for the insight. eight people recovering afteran extreme lightning strike. a family having a gathering on a lake superior beach when lightning struck the area. a 9-year-old boy in very serious condition from injuries. three adults also suffered some serious injuries as well. we ll continue to keep an eye on that. politico calls paul rye s mother the new face of medicare. what does that really mean? is it true? the big three weighs in next. first, let s get right to today s ups and downs. more americans walking for exercise. a new report says 62% of americans walk at least ten minutes straight at least once a week back in 2010. compares to a55% in 2005. even the downside, daily deal site group ob, stock reaches new lows. stock down to $4.75 per share, way off the offering price of $20. you ve been busy for a dead man, after you jumped ship in bangkok, i thought i lost you. surfing is my life now. william shatner s return to price line commercials. 94% of priceline measurcustomer wanted him back. fewer tv shows shot in l.a. 23 new dramas scheduled by major broadcast networks, only 2 shot by t means loss of job this is crazy here s my number, call me maybe you re welcome. that will be in your head until you go back to work tomorrow. surpassing more than 200 million views on youtube. more teenagers go to youtube for music than the radio. video has killed the radio star. those are your ups and downs. there are projects. and there are game-changers. those ideas that start with us rolling up our sleeves. .and end with a new favorite room in the house. and when we can save even more on those kinds of projects. .with advice to make them even better. .that s a game-changer in itself. more saving. more doing. that s the power of the home depot. get this exclusive vanity with porcelain top for the new low price of just $99. president obama s latest gallup poll numbers in. with less than three months to go to the election, mixed grades. best number on handling of terrorism. nearly 60% approval rating. education and foreign affairs receive good marks. job creation and the economy rated as weak points. only 30% of those askeded approved of his handling of the deficit. time for the big three. playing the mom card, where s the bounce and this week s must-reads. let s bring in robert trainem, nia-malek harrison, and we have the former chief of staff of senator joe meachum. robert, let s start with you. a new campaign video out featuring paul ryan and his mom at yesterday s event in florida. take a look, take a listen. my mom has been on medicare over ten years. she planned her retirement around this promise that the government made her. that s a promise we have to keep. medicare should not be used as a piggy bank for obama care, medicare should be the promise that it made to current seniors, period, end of story. robert, has mrs. ryan become the running mate s running mate? his mom, living in the villages, by default, she is the human face behind the plan, he is saying seniors, if you are 55 years or older, union you re fine. you have i had promise made for you by the government. we ll keep the promise. this is not about you, this is about your grandchildren and their children. what they are trying to do, craig, trying to create this narrative that paul ryan would not even touch his mother s medicare, so he wouldn t even, of course, touch your neighbors and so forth. we ll see if it works or not. nia-malika, is that a strong enough argument, that romney and ryan will end medicare as we know it? a pretty strong visual and argument. as robert said, she s 78 years old, they are rolling out the ads. we haven t seen much of a pushback from democrats. they released an ad last thursday, going on the defensive, but have you seen mitt romney release three ads. a podcast they released on saturday. and a web ad they released today. they have been really aggressive on this. what you do notice, republicans aren t necessarily talking about their plan. they are not talking about their plan to vouch eervoucherize, th just going on the attack. at this point, i think democrats have been a little caught offguard in terms of the aggressiveness of this argument, and they have work to do in terms of catching up. you have to wonder, we talked about the new gallup poll numbers, you ask folks, about jobs and the economy. we haven t talked about it a great deal over the past week or some of all about medicare. who does that discussion benefit more, chris? well, i mean, it s an interesting political strategy to say the least for the romney campaign, the economy is a bit of a struggle. the president has a strong argument to make in terms of where the economy was, and in terms of where it was today, we look at this in terms of brutal political angles, you would keep the focus on the economy. here is the fundamental problem with the ryan pick, and even the focus on medicare. i will agree, they have been aggressive. the problem, they ve been so aggressive, and their argument is so bad. they shifted with ryan from making this election what they would argue is a referendum to a choice. a choice between two visions and the problem is when you ask voters, who is the president, who is the candidate that will stand up for the middle class that will fight for you? they play right into the hands of democrats. in almost every poll, you see democrats and president obama have that advantage, not a good place for obama and ryan to be going into the fall. i want to put a graphic up, we ve been talking about the bounce, and traditionally, the vp pick provides a bit of the bounce atop of the particular. sarah palin, four years ago, four-point bounce. joe lieberman, nine-point bounce. a one-point bounce for paul ryan there. the median since 1984, four points. any regret in boston this week, robert traynem? absolutely not. sarah palin, four-point loss, they lost. joe liberman, two or three points, they also lost as well. nine points for liberman. right. but take a look at the folks that won, biden last time around, a one-point bounce. at the end of the day it doesn t really matter. most people don t choose their next president based on the running mate. they choose based on different visions, republican and democratic vision. at the end of the day, ryan or vice president biden, whomever it may berk they should do no harm, they shouldn t be a drag on the ticket. i don t think paul ryan will be a drag. at the end of the day, medicare will be an issue for republicans. democrats do have a trust factor here that s much bigger than republicans. have a policy debate, and that s what ryan pick does. it forces vice president biden to talk about medicare in a substantive way and a good thing for republicans. bounce vp or more redirect the conversation vp? for now, he s a redirect the conversation sort of vp. you hear with democrats, and tr hampshire, they feel it s mitt romney now who doesn t want to talk about the economy, his economic approach to the middle class because it would damage the middle class. they re saying they re the ones that want to change the topic. again, they have been aggressive on this medicare issue. they ve benefitted greatly, i think, from ryan s energy, his youth, he s humanized mitt romney on the campaign trail. he s much looser, much more energetic on the stump. so they certainly have gotten some benefit from there as well as millions and millions of dollars in donations to this ticket. so i think in that way it has definitely been a bounce and an asset to this ticket. but listen, we ve got 2 1/2 more months to go, debates to go, this national glare that paul ryan s going to be in. we re going to take a quick break, when we bring you guys back, the long awaited must reads our favorite segment here on sundays. 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[ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i m a fighter and now i don t have that fear. i m a fighter juicy brats grilled up on a thursday. the perfect use of the 7th inning stretch. get that great taste anytime with kingsford match light charcoal. are. back now with the big three and your must reads. we have robert and nia-malika and chris, form every chief of staff. let s start with your must read. what is it, and why? helene cooper, the new york times, she talks about both campaigns basically being the defender of medicare, and i think what s fascinating, we talked in the earlier segment, how all of a sudden we shift ahead way from the economy, and about an issue that plays into the democrats spring. i understand we will have a debatementme programs and medicare. medicare will end in terms of how we see it as today, even if it is for people 55 and young every, a fundamental change, when you talk about romney and ryan and their vision for the country. we talk abouternie and bert from sesame street, we re not sure what they are doing and why. this is the prom americblem ame people have with these guys. when you scratch past the surface, why are they doing it? we will stop you there before you take it where we don t want to go. what is your must read and why? stay away from the sesame street analogy. a very interesting piece in politico, about paul ryan and the late night friday night data dump of tax returns. the romney campaign, very much on the defense about the governor s taxes. something tells me this is not the last time we ll talk about governor romney s taxes, unfortunately. someone made an argument on the sunday morning shows, and tax return stuff, more of an obsession, an obsession of folks like us, not so much john q. six pack. i saved you for the last. your must read is my favorite. what is it, why? a fantastic piece on the front page of the washington, the frankous nature of these parties. they are widely divergent internally, it looks at the ways political parties in some ways are herding cats. all of these divergent groups among individual parties, based on a survey of 3,000 voters, democrats, republicans, a fascinating read. it doesn t paint a pretty picture. thank you so much. and always a pleasure. enjoy what s left of your sunday. thank you. you too. happy sunday. folks, that wraps up this sunday edition of weekends with alex witt. i m craig melvin. up next, meet the press. alex will be back next week. have a fantastic week, folks. you know, those farmers, those foragers, those fishermen.. for me, it s really about building this extraordinary community. american express is passionate about the same thing. they re one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it s finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that s the membership effect. would you mind if to be i go ahead of you?omer. instead we had someone go ahead of him and win fifty thousand dollars. congratulations you are our one millionth customer. people don t like to miss out on money that should have been theirs. that s why at ally we have the raise your rate 2-year cd. you can get a one-time rate increase if our two-year rate goes up. if your bank makes you miss out, you need an ally.
try to escape. we ll have a report from the scene. plus, an exclusive look at romney s economic team. just who are the pele that he expects to help him turn the economy around if he s elected? and later, an unlikely police chief, a swimmer who won t give up, and the woman on the arm of the v.p. hopeful. we ll bring you this week s most intriguing people. good morning, everyone. i m randi kaye. it is 7:00 on the east coast. 4:00 a.m. on the west. thanks for starting your morning with us. in about 30 minutes we expect to hear from julian assange, wikileaks founder, who sparked international outrage with the release of classified u.s. cables. but who has been out of the spotlight in recent months. you re looking now at the ecuador embassy in london where assange has sought refuge while he fights britain s atmpt to extradite him to sweden for charge of sexual assault. for his part, assange has denied those allegations saying they are in retribution for disclosure of american secrets. and if assange thinks that he will be leaving that ecuadorian embassy any time soon, he is in for a tough challenge. between a line of british police outside and few options for esca insi i mig ry long wt. our briatoddas that of the story. reporter: julian assange might to find some good books to read, maybe subscribe to a great cable tv package. his chances for using sleight of hand to escape the british police are slim and dwindling. he s reported to be tense and going stir crazy. wikileaks founder, julian assange, holed up inside the ecuadorian embassy in london. he s been there for about two months. now that ecuador s granted him asylum and britain s refused to honor it, a classic standoff is underway. if assange takes one step outside the embassy my understanding is that the british would arrest him and extradite him to sweden. reporter: that s where assange is wanted for questioning over sexual assault claims. with the fugitive inside in what s at the moment considered ecuadorian territory and with british police outside ready to pounce, scenarios are being debated over a possible assange escape. is this an option? getting smuggled out in the trunk of a diplomatic car? a former british diplomat says the car would be considered ecuadorian domain. british police, he says, could stop it but not search it. can t necessarily pull assange out. there s a hitch in the plan the hitch, apparently there s no garage available to the embassy. we re told there s only one entrance, right here, and obviously that s not an option. the building is kplaetdly surrounded by completely surrounded by police police. they re in the streets, alleys, side streets. if anyone tried to take assange to a waiting car, the police would get him. the police are reported to be monitoring the so-called communal areas of the building, the hallways and elevators, preventing assange from taking an elevator up to the roof where a helicopter could pick him up. police can monitor the hallways and envators because the embassy elevators because the embassy is only on the first floor, and not only that, here where the window is. assange can barely step into a hallway without risking apprehension. if he did get to a car, there are airports, large and small, in every direction. but experts say once he got to one of those, he could easily be captured. he could actually be smuggled out in a crate or a large bag. if it s labeled a diplomatic parcel, the british police can t open it. but i think they could delay. they could hold it. i think they could keep it in a in a very cold or very hot place or something like that. reporter: former british ambassador oliver miles doesn t see that happening. one thing that could happen, assange could take refuge inside the embassy asy had has been, but he could do it endefinitely. it s happened before. in 1956 when the soviet union invaded hungary, the cardinal, a top catholic official there, took refuge inside the american embassy in budapest. he was granted asylum and lived in the american embassy for 15 years. i d love to see the look on assan assange s face when someone tells him he may have to live in the embassy for 15 years. no kidding. thank you very much. now to the campaign trail. we have 79 days left until the election and less than two weeks before the republican and democratic national conventions. gop vice presidential candidate paul ryan pumped up a crowd in california yesterday. there he is with his mom, betty, who lives there part time. ryan turned his attention to medicare, fighting democrats claims that his proposal would have turned medicare into a complete voucher system. listen to what he told fox news about his medicare plan. as we got into looking at this issue, talking with democrats, it evolved to be a plan that is now bipartisan. this medicare reform plan originated in the clinton bipartisan commission to save medicare. it s a bill with bipartisan support, a proposal with bipartisan support in congress today. by repealing bicyc ining obama restore medicare. we re offering a bipartisan solution to make sure it s there for retiree when was they retire. nonpartisan fact checker politifact.org found that claims were mostly false. president obama campaigned in new hampshire yesterday and defended his record. since i ve been in office, i have strengthened medicare. [ applause ] i ve made reforms that have extended the life of the program, that have saved millions of seniors with medicare, hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs. plays [ applause ] the only changes to your benefits that i ve made on medicare is that medicare now covers new preventive services like cancer screenings and wellness visits for free. now let s see what s on tap for the week ahead in politics. here s cnn s political editor paul steinhauser. reporter: hey, good morning. i guess you could say they re getting the band back together. you know, mitt romney and paul ryan have been caaigning separately since last weekend. but tomorrow in new hampshire they will reunite for the first time in a week at a town hall that the campaign says will be mitt romney s 100th since he started running for the white house a year ago. later in the week, both did a lot of fund-raising in that important week leading up to the republican national convention in tampa, florida. also this week, president obama back on the campaign trail until two very important states ohio and then nevada. and vice president biden also campaigning, as well, in minnesota and in michigan. a busy campaign week. the last week before the two political conventions. paul steinhauser, thank you. now to the world of late night tv but no punchlines this morning. a source tells cnn that nbc has purnl e purged its payroll by laying off 20 to 25 employees of the tonight show. the comedian is also said to be taking a major pay cut to keep more workers from losing their jobs. apparently the network is trying to reduce production costs. off the coast of cuba this morning, american diana nyad is trying to swim her way to key west, florida, and right to the recordbacks. to do so record books. to do so, she will have to make the 103-mile journey without a protective shark cage. earlier she spoke about getting in the water one more time after failing the last three times. on the one hand, i m feeling some pressure. as you mentioned, it s not the first time. we can dig way back to 1978 when i was very young, in my 20s, coming up to the last couple of years and a number of failures at this. i m feeling tremendous inner pressure that this has got to be it. this has got to be the last time. on the other hand, i have to tell you, i am sky high skpieted. my adrenaline is just pumping out of my skin. i ll ready for this. nyad started the swim last night. so far, so good. her team is posting her progress and said she s doing really well except for a few jellyfish stings. people in michigan may get another chance to see a fascinating yet frightening force of nature. take a look at a water spout. nine formed on the lake yesterday. conditions could trigger more today. the weather service says boaters should be on alert. winds around water spouts can reach up to 60 miles per hour. it is likely the deciding issue of the november election. the economy. mitt romney is calling in a team of all stars to help him devise a plan to get things, he says, back on track. at shell, we believe the world needs a broader mix of energies. that s why we re supplying natural gas to generate cleaner electricity. that has around 50% fewer co2 emissions than coal. and it s also why, with our partner in brazil, shell is producing ethanol - a biofuel made from renewable sugarcane. a minute, mom! let s broaden the world s energy mix. let s go. you tell us what you want to pay, and we give you a range of coverages to choose from. who is she? that s flobot. she s this new robot we re trying out, mostly for, like, small stuff. wow! look at her go! she s pretty good. she s pretty good. hey, flobot, great job. oops. 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[ hikers laughing, commenting ] at&t introduces the htc one x. now $99.99. rethink possible. now $99.99. mom: ready t go to work? every mom needs a little helper. that s why i got a subaru. announcer: love. it s what makes a subaru, a subaru. welcome back. 12 minutes past the hour. glad you re with us. the date, july 6. the place, boston. the occasion, a meeting so top secret none of the participant will even confirm it took place. 19 poem with one single mission. 19 people with one single mission to help mitt romney if she should be elected president get the country going again. the steering group is the focus of the latest fortune magazine. and editor at large david whitford joins us from watertown, massachusetts, this morning. david, good morning to you. good morning. so you found that romney s economic team includes some pretty heavy hitters from business and academia, including ivy league professors, hedge fund managers. there s a former president of the world bank and former merrill lynch ceo. tell us more about how they made it into romney s economic inner circle. one of the big questions that we ve all had about romney s campaign almost from the beginning is what specifically are his plans to fix the economy. he s been accused by his critics of being big on grand gestures and short on details. and so what weather we found out about this economic policy steering group, we felt that it might give us some clues into what his what his policies actually will be. this is a if you look at the group as a whole, there s 19 members, five former chairs of the presidential council of economic advisers. as you mentioned, a former president of the world bank. a couple hedge fund managers, a lot of professors. i mean, all in all, i think the way think about the group as a whole is that this is a a group of establishment republican establishment figures. and my sense was that if if these are the people who are advising romney, then maybe what we can look forward to in a potential romney administration is something that is more mainstream than paul ryan might suggest. paul ryan, of course, being his vice presidential nominee. let s talk about romney. he s outlined this five-point plan on the economy in this interview. here are some of the points that he makes. he says he wants to aggressively promote domestic energy development. he is also looking abroad to expand the market for u.s. goods. back at home, romney is working on improving work force skills in two areas. on the issue of the deficit, romney wants to focus on budget cuts, not tax increases. and finally, he want to help small business by revamping regulations. now let s look at paul ryan. he s known as the ideas guy certainly. and the leader of the republicans when it comes to fiscal and budgetary matters. what would you say what does his selection say about romney s ideas on the economy? well, i think that paul ryan s presence on the ticket maybe suggests that we re going to get away a little bit from simple simply criticism of president obama and more toward, you know, ryan s i think it s fair to call it draconian plan to balance the budget. i think that it sharpens the question the terms of the question that voters will be facing in the fall. we re looking at i think a clear choice between a republican administration, potential republican administration that would push us toward a smaller role for government and drastic cu in well-established government programs in an attempt to balance the budget. doesn t seem to be a tax increase. doesn t seem to be any part of of romney s plan. we re not talking with romney, you know, in terms of balancing tax increases with budget cuts. and i think that ryan s selection sharpens the debate. what are you hearing from his advisers, romney s advisers, if anything about ryan? what do they think of the pick? well, i was able to speak to one member of the economic policy steering group. and my question for him was doesn t paul ryan paul ryan s selection push things a little bit more to the right. and i mean, if you look at the composition of this group, the economic policy steering group, i don t see any obvious hard-corral lice of the tea party in that hard-co hard-core allies of the tea party in that. he cautioned against connecting the advisers and paul ryan. he said, look, we re all for smaller government, for lower taxes. but again, i i would take issue with that. i think what this group tells us, it group of economic advisers, is that there may be a willingness as i think we would expect if this ability to deal with budget and fiscal issues in the way they have to be dealt with in washington. that involves a compromise and go-slow approach rather than an overnight change. david whitford, editor at large of fortune magazine. thank you. thank you. we hear so much about the devastating effect the drought is having on farmers. wineries are one exception. we ll tell you why grape growers prefer dry weather for the wines that they ll produce. 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[ male announcer ] fiber one. resulting in unexpected power and agility. introducing the all-new, all-powerful gator rsx 850i. sixty-two horsepower, a fully independent multilink suspension and a top speed of 53 miles per hour. it s a whole new species of gator. see just how much the gator has evolved at johndeere.com/gator. 22 minutes past the hour on this sunday morning. if any of are you drinking a cup of joe to wake up this morning, guess what you re in luck, according to new evidence. coffee is, well, good for you. it may prevent type two diabetes and parkinson s. plus, it might have anti-cancer and anti-depressive effects. the drought is having a devastating effect on crops across america. with one possible exception grapes. the dry weather could be a boon for wine producers. here s cnn s athena jones. reporter: months with little or no rain, and july the hottest month on record, means struggling corn and soy crops across much of the united states. one sector that could benefit from the dry weather the wine industry. while california still grows most u.s. wine, there are vineyards in all 50 states, according to trade group wine america. particularly in the midwest, the hardest hit areas in terms of the drought, this are folks that are thinking that the grapes are going to be a better quality this year because the berries are smaller, and the sugar is more concentrated. reporter: the folks at grove vineyards in virginia are optimistic it the wine these 105 acres will produce. it s been dry for the most part, haven t had the typical long periods of rain that we would expect to see here and there. july was very dry. overall, the grapes are really happy. we re looking forward to what will hopefully be a really good harvest this year. reporter: blue crosser shows what will happen as blosser shows what will happen as the sugar content rises. they ll blow up like a balloon. but we don t want it to blow up too much because of rain. we want a nice balance with the fruit and juice, the skins on the juice inside that grape. reporter: too much rain can dilute the flavor and lead to problems with mildew and disease. you said some can get to be the size of a newborn baby? yeah. small newborn baby. but a baby nonetheless. reporter: there is a down side, however, to hot, dry conditions. like potential long-term damage to young vines and smaller harvest. we continue with this dry weather, you re going to end up with less water inside that berry. so, you know, in terms of the wine output, you re going to have, you know, less quantity. higher quality. reporter: so while farmers brace for more bad news, vintners like this are hoping to reap mostly benefit from this dryer than normal growing season. cnn, virginia. a scary moment for 173 passengers and crew aboard this united airlines flight. i ll tell you why they saw fireballs and spewing flames coming from a wing in the middle of their flight. you tell us what you want to pay, and we give you a range of coverages to choose from. who is she? that s flobot. she s this new robot we re trying out, mostly for, like, small stuff. wow! look at her go! she s pretty good. she s pretty good. hey, flobot, great job. oops. 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[ male announcer ] introducing new fiber one nutty clusters and almonds. try capzasin-hp. it penetrates deep to block pain signals for hours of relief. capzasin-hp. take the pain out of arthritis. the west nile virus has claimed another victim. william mueller, the longest serving village president in lombard, illinois. she was already weakened by blood cancer. texas, the hardest hit state, reports 17 killed by west nile. dallas county, the epicenter of the outbreak, aerial spraying is still halted because of some bad weather. a scary moment for 173 passengers and crew aboard this united airlines flight. it was heading from newark to germany when a tire blew on takeoff and debris flew right into an engine causing what eyewitnesses describe as fireballs and spewing flames near the left wing. the pilot was able to return safely,
Great nation. and we want to disclose that nbc universal and bain capital are each part owner of our weather channel. david whitford has written about bain capital. how realistic are romney s promises about what he should accomplish were he elected? well, i think the question of how realistic they are is exactly the question to ask. romney has a prescription for restoring economic prosperity that is pretty much classic re-republican prescription. he talks about lowering corporate taxes and he talks about reducing regulations. these are are the kinds of things that you will hear people complain about in board rooms and that would be welcomed by many business owners and many corporations. but the more interesting question to me is whether this
michele bachmann, bachmann s iowa chair defects to ron paul. we re going to take ron paul all way to the white house 2012. in the direct conversation that i had with him, he told me that he was offered money. he was offered a lot of money by the ron paul campaign to go and associate with the ron paul campaign. no one else knows about that conversation other than kent sorenson and myself and i know what he said to me about that. have you spoken to michele bachmann, she said you personally told her you were offered money. that s not true. not true at all? no. were you offered any sum of money? absolutely not. iran on the strait of hormuz as the u.s. announces a sale to long fighter jets so saudi arabia. no more mystery about mitt s hopes in iowa, he is all in. announcing he ll stay in des moines on caucus night and do the morning day after interviews in the hawkeye state not new hampshire. romney is launching a new ad today. generations of immigrants looked up and saw the statue of liberty for first time. one thing they knew beyond any doubt, they were coming to a place where anything was possible and in the campaign to come, the american ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear andç unapologetic defense and i intend to make it because i have lived it. but while the campaign s television ads are all soft and fuzzy, the pro-romney super pack continues its deadly assault on newt gingrich. ever notice how some people make a lot of mistakes. mistake. i made a mistake. made mistakes at times. haven t we had enough mistakes. chris cillizza managing editor of post politics.com and chris, first to you, thank you. thank you, marathon man. thank you. for giving us a couple of days off. what are you seeing in the poll? the thing that s most striking is rick santorum up 11 points how real is that? because newt gingrich is down 19 points and rick santorum is picking up the lion s share of that support. you know, the social conservative vote in iowa has gone from michele bachmann to herman cain to newt gingrich and at least right now it appears that a portion of it is now moving to rick santorum. question is can enough move to him so he could be a modern day mike huckabee? he beat mitt romney. i think it s unlikely because perry bachmann and gingrich, they are still all in that field and taking some of that vote, splintering enough that frankly mitt romney may wind up winning with 26% which is remarkable. that is the point susan page, you re in des moines, we ll join you there tomorrow. the whole point is that mitt romney is benefitting from this division of theç conservative libertarian evangelical wings of the party. he sure is. i interviewed mitt romney yesterday on his campaign bus. i have to say he is about as optimistic as i have seen him. i remember four years watching his campaign collapse at this point with the surge of huckabee, there s none of that sense now. i think the romney people are in this to win. we ve never had someone who won the iowa caucuses and then the new hampshire primary and then failed to get the nomination. susan, also usa today and gallop have a poll an political ideology, this is your poll on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being very liberal and 5 being conservative, respondents rated themself as 3.3 slightly to the right. they rate mitt romney as closest to their idealogical views and president obama 2.3 and michelle bachmann at 4.0. mitt romney is sort of in a sweet spot. he is if you can get to the general election. mitt romney s problem is to get through iowa and then in south carolina, which is a conservative state, a history of picking the winner. i interviewed newt gingrich for a package we reni of course ups his fall in the polls. he says all he needs to do is survive until south carolina because that s where the electorate will be friendly to him and not mitt romney. the question is did he have the money? they have pushed back the fact that they are running out of money, that the fourth quarter willç show they are in the red. they say they are in the black. but they need the money for new hampshire. and beyond. to get to south carolina. then florida, an expensive state. what we know andrea that is always true, money follows momentum. if you win, you will get money. if you look like a winner, you will get money. the converse of that, if newt gingrich finishes a distant third in iowa, maybe he comes in fourth in iowa, raising money starts to become a lot more difficult. one thing to add, newt gingrich s campaign said they raised $9 million in the last three months of 2011. they have they have $500,000 on tv vastly outspent. what does that tell you? if she had more it will be on television right now. any don t have it. susan page, let s talk about ken sorenson, this somewhat amusing change of pace. it s a he said, she said as to whether money for a campaign organization or ground troops was on the table. but the bottom line is he s following the momentum. yeah, this could have been a little bit of a boost for ron paul but now it s kind of one of those political muddles and so i think it makes it a little bit of a side show. michele bachmann although campaigning hard here and won the aims straw poll does not seem to be in the mix for the top tier. to susan s point, michele bachmann, $162,000 spent on television advertising this year in iowa. and has not run a single television ad since august. i understand she s back up now but that just speaks to can t raise money,ç can t run tv and get your message out. the story of the campaign may wind up being mitt romney is is the candidate best able to raise money and put together both television and organizations in iowa and new hampshire and south carolina and florida. given the competition, no one else is going to be able to match him unless they come up fast. no one has emerged yet. chris, see you later. susan, thanks so much. with new polls showing him leading in iowa and new hampshire, mitt romney s campaign is buying television time in south carolina, the third state in the primary election calendar. eric finnstrom sitting somewhat pretty today, eric. your polls are holding and i think i would say you guys aren t unhappy to see ron paul coming to the floor. well, andrea, we re pleased with the state of the race but we re not naive enough to believe the republican primary comes down to a single contest. it s a series and we will win some of those and do less well in others. but at the end of the day, we hope to have the requisite number of delegates that would allow us to win the nomination. what about these attacks, the romney and gingrich campaigns going at each other. this was newt gingrich following up on mitt romney s attack over the lucy and desi chocolate fakry analogy. i just want to say, here i am in the chocolate factory. [ applause ] and now that i have the courage to come to the chocolate factory, i hopeç governor romn will have the courage to debate me. why from governor romney s perspective, why is newt gingrich not the most qualified former speaker of the house, the best qualified to lead the republican party this year? well, because mitt romney believes he s the best qualified to be the republican nominee. this election is going to be a referendum on barack obama s handling of the economy. i think republicans do best when they put up a nominee who has strong experience in the private sector and has the skills and capabilities to lead this nation out of its doll drums, that person is mitt romney. newt gingrich is a fine person. but there are some questions about his reliability as a conservative. as you know when republicans in 2008 were fighting cap and trade, newt gingrich was on the coach with nancy pelosi talking about global warming. when paul ryan put forward a strong entitlement reform plan for medicare, virtually every republican in the congress took a tough vote in favor of that plan and then they had the rug pulled out from underneath by newt gingrich who called it right wing social engineering. it s that record that reevaluation of newt gingrich s record that i think more than anything else explains his drop in the polls across the board. across mitt romney has his own explanations for his changes of opinion, abortion being the most prominent one that s been playing very widely in iowa. well, as you know andrea, several years ago the governor announced that he was firmlyç pro-life. he s not going to apologize for that. there have been many politicians before him who have traveled that same path, ronald reagan and henry hyde and george herbert walking bush. when folks go the other way and switch from being pro-life to becoming in favor of abortion rights, that s celebrated. and but as i said, mitt romney has nothing to apologize for as president. he will govern as a pro-life president. eric, the candidate has also been very tough on ron paul on foreign policy, wanted to play a little bit of that. one of people running for president thinks it s okay for iran for a nuclear weapon. i don t trust the eye ayatollas or ahmadinejad or those who back hamas or hezbollah. do you and mitt romney think he s outside the mainstream of both democratic and republican foreign policy positions? well, you re right he has a very committed and passionate group of supporters but his views on foreign policy are completed hypothetical cal to the republican party. willing to tolerate a nuclear armed iran and unfriendly to israel and wants to cut off foreigv%mi?ik aid to that coun. and recently, he was raising questions about the presence of u.s. troops on the korean peninsula. imagine if we would suddenly withdraw and what that would mean to our ally in south korea with a very blij rant neighbor to the north that is bent on forcedç reunification. i think those issues as they relate to ron paul and foreign policy are at the end of the day going to prevent a lot of republicans from joining his or getting behind his candidacy. one quick question, the decision to stay in iowa and do the morning after interviews rather than going back to new hampshire, does that display a great deal of confidence that you think you re going to win? we ll be campaigning in new hampshire the day after the iowa caucus but we want a well rested candidate. four years ago we made a midnight flight from iowa to new hampshire and it was draining for not only the candidate but the press. and everybody else that was traveling with the governor. so we ll leave at a more sensible hour in the morning and we ll be campaigning that afternoon in new hampshire. okay, eric, thank you very much, we re looking forward to catching up with the governor tomorrow in des moines. we ll have that tomorrow at 1:00. thank you for being with us. we ll be in iowa on the campaign trail interviewing mitt romney tomorrow morning. up next, escalating tensions with iran. is the threat serious or just bluster? this is andrea mitchell reports only on msnbc. north korea had 13 days of morning for kim jong-il. tens of thousands of people governed in pyongyang s main square for a memorial service. at the event the president of north korea s parliament officially declared kim s third son, kim jong-un the supreme head of the nation. iran is rejecting a warning from the navy. the warning that it will respond if iran blocks the strait of hormuz, that critical choke point. a top official said the u.s. was not inç a position to tell tehn what to do. they have been staging ten days of exercises near the strait. the passage way for one-sixth of the world s oil supply. michael is now managing director of the washington institute. thanks for joining us. we ve seen this sort of dance before a lot of bluster from iran. this time some u.s. officials particularly at the pentagon are taking it more seriously because iran is responding to the toughest economic sanctions ever. europe is poised to go after the central bank. greece and italy and spain have new governments less friendly to iran and the u.s. is now in this situation where the president is about to sign a bill with an amendment he did not want, which is a real crackdown on iran s oil trade and central bank financial industry. zpl that s right. as we get closer to really targeting iran s oil exports and oil makes up 70% of iran s budget and 50% is gdp. they are trying to communicate this is a red line for us and we re not going to simply sit back while we re targeted in this way. it begs a question could they actually do this, close the straits of hormuz, the answer is no, not really. it s questionable as to whether they would try to do that. it could spark a bigger confrontation which would end in their own demise. could she do other things to lay mines and those things, absolutely yes. they ve done it before. and they ve done it before and in the lay 80s there was a conflict in the gulf between the u.s. and iran and the iranians have taken lessons and applied them today. the u.s. navy has done the same thing. i remember we were at a that uncertainty gets priced in the markets now and in the future. there was a vote of 100-0 in the united states senate, that never happens. this after the deputy secretary of state, wendy sherman and people from secretary warned that this is the wrong way to go. these are not the right kind of sapgss, we should have rach eted sanctions. the president has to sign this bill because it s the defense authorization bill. it s an amendment he cannot get rid of. he can waive the sanctions but the republicans would be all over him, you re soft on iran. he s in a no-win situation here. iran may have a weapon of 6 to 12 months and theç thought the administration s policy is not getting the job done. let s force their hand. a lot of pressure on all sides. thanks so much. republican candidates going after ron paul s foreign policy. the politico briefing is up next. but first, the countdown is onto the new year in times square. today organizers conducted the official confetti air worthiness test in preparation for the release of one ton of confetti on new year s eve and new yorkers are saying good-bye to bad memories of 2011 from break-ups to bad vacations. people turned out wednesday for good riddance day in times square and wrote down the worst memories of the year and tossed them into the shredder. a woman used a sledge hammer to get rid of her ex s motorcycle helmet. what is it about taking a first step that we find so compelling? 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[ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips . msnbc is the place for politics. right now the candidates are fanning out across iowa. mitt romney s bus has taken him to mason city. he s about to speak about the economy there. you can see people are gathered. rick santorum is holding a town hall near davenport and newt gingrich is about to speak in storm lake at the local restaurant. and ron paul s republican rivals are going after him on his foreign policy positions, describing them as dangerous and naive. charles is a national politics editor with politico and joins us from des moines. hey, charles. first of all, iran, that s front and center, israel, i mean basically is ron paul too isolationist in his fundamental positions to end up as the republican uñnominee? well, shaping up as a real problem. in many ways the party has grown closer to ron paul and ron paul has run more mainstream marked by campaign atd ads and robust ground ç5uá the one sticking point when you talk to voters in iowa is the discomfort or unease over the foreign policy positions, whether talking about iran or iraq or 9/11 or various sorts of national security positions and that right now is a big stumbling block for him in iowa. and certainly it s going to be a bigger stumbling block going forward out of iowa. and in fact, if he gets through iowa and then has traction perhaps his libertarian policies or his budget policies in new hampshire, he hits south carolina, a strong military state. a lot of veterans and military installations, that s going to be a problem for him. that s a great point, iowa and sk sg are different in many ways. one important difference is that iowa is a historically dubbish state and south carolina is a hawkish state. he s another big difference he will run into in south carolina, the field will be much more narrower than he s facing in iowa where the ee vvangelical a social conservative support out there which is very wired into the israel issue, that is going to be much more component of the vote in south carolina and there are going to be less candidates for that vote to splinter across. that s another hurdle he s going to face going forward. we shouldn t underestimate at least in iowa that ron paul organization and the enthusiasm of his supporters. he s been at this a long time. thanks, charlie, thanks for being with us. thanks. up next, president obama or mitt romney? we ll look at the polling. and have aç question you wt me to answer, join me for a live web chat from iowa between 2:15 and 2:45 right after our show. 2:15 and 2:45 eastern online at andrea.msnbc.com. nick, what are you doing? oh, there s still a few more days of chevy s giving more. got to stay loose. how do you do it? i have my little helpers. boop. oh. [ chuckles ] [ male announcer ] hurry in to chevy s giving more. these savings are almost over. now very well qualified lessees can sign and drive the chevy cruze ls for around $199 a month. or get 2.9% apr financing plus no monthly payments until spring. topping the headlines, the number of americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week. the labor department saysç weey unemployment applications increased by 15,000 but the overall trend for the last month was positive. obama administration announced a $30 million sale today of f-15 fighter jets to saudi arabia. the agreement which will give saudi arabia 84 new jets with advanced raid after equipment is part of a larger strategy to build up the military strength of the allies to better counter threats from iran. turkish officials say many of the 35 people killed in an air strike across the border in iraq were civilians. the strike led by turkish war planes was supposed to be aimed at kurdish rebels, they are investigating the possible intelligence failures that led to the attack. prosecutors are preparing the first felony charges against bp employees after the explosion which left 11 people dead and created the worst oil spill in u.s. history. the wall street journal reports prosecutors are focusing on engineers who may have provided false information about the risks of drilling. democrats are trying to derail mitt romney s progress by tripping him up in the iowa caucuses. archie is vice chair of the democratic national committee and surrogate for the democrats in iowa. see you in java joe s, wonder what s happening in minneapolis that you were able to get away for the iowa caucuses. lots going on. i m down here to talk for democrats and i think right now we see it as a primary that is very much mitt romney s to lose. he s ahead in the polls and said today that anything but aç fir place finish would be a loss. after spending five years and many millions of dollars here and still not being able to win the hearts and minds of iowa ns if he can squeak through it could be a victory. he has spent so many months lowering expectations and now he s clearly all in in iowa. the fact is the white house has obama campaign thought from the beginning that mitt romney would be the toughest competitor. the fact of the matter is mitt romney may have been trying to lower expectations. he spent millions himself. his surrogates spent many millions more to attack others. he spent many millions four years ago. the fact of the matter is he has not been able to connect with voters. what s significant with not just mitt romney but all candidates, all of conversations that you ve had you haven t heard a single word about these are the people that supported keep americans from getting a payroll tax cut at the holidays. these are the political quote/unquote leaders who wanted people to not get atax cut at the holidays and more important who supported tax cuts for the very, very wealthy. that was the only strategy. i think what s important is that none of them are addressing middle class issues and i think that s going to catch up with them here in iowa. while we re talking mr., mayor, we re seeing live pictures from mitt romney in mason city, with ann romney on the campaign trail. he does seem to be getting a lot of traction. he s finding his rhythm as a retail campaigner, don t you think? i think if mitt romney would have found his rhythm he would haveç iowa four years ago and with all the time he spent here, let s hope he s got some support. that s fine. the fact of the matter is he has had trouble connecting with voters and thoz not just about his style. that s about the fact his entire political life there s only been one thing mitt romney has been consistent on, that he thinks those at the top end should pay less so everyone else pays more. that s the only single thing he s been consistent on. rightfully people are confused. maybe this week as he says very conservative extreme things to iowans, maybe that will be enough and that will be enough to maybe come through caucus or primary. but the fact of the matter is, america can t figure out what mitt romney is and the president has to make decisions and stick with them. he hasn t been able to stick with an idealogy from one state to the other, let alone one country. mayor rybak, thanks develverh for joining us. republicans have staked out conflicting opinions on one issue. mark murray is the deputy political director and joins me here. you ve been working on all of these issues but immigration is really a troubling one for the republicans because they were on all sides of it. in the general election, we ve seen all of the republican candidates really brandish their officials, some talked about building a wall on mexico and they are against comprehensive immigration reform. newt gingrich had a more moderate position wanted to have immigration reform for people who have been here for 25 years or more. weç saw rick perry about in ste tuition for children of illegal immigrants but for the most part they had a system where they want to layout their anti-illegal immigration credentials which could hurt them in a general election. where the hispanic vote is increasingly significant fact of life. and since the george w. bush days, it has really gone down in its support for republican candidates. the exit polls in 2004, george w. bush got more than 40% of the latino vote. john mccain got 31, 32% four years ago. remember john mccain was a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and someone who supported latinos, you had a significant erosion. a lot of experts who follow the politics of immigration have told me the republican brand has been hurt. it was back in 2010 when meg whit man moved to the right and by the time of the general election, she had a very hard time against jerry brown when it kamz to politics and immigration reform and democrats are cramming for the same type of effect that could help out president obama in states like colorado and nevada. we saw what happened in arizona since the last election cycle. so the tougher positions by governors, by republican governors on immigration is going to really hurt whoever the republican nominee is in trying to get more votes. it goes back to the brand. you look at latino voters and they are able to differentiate between democrats and republicans and in our wall street journal poll, 63% of latinos said mitt romney would be unacceptable to them. 67% said newt gingrich would be unacceptable. unace tough numbers for those two if they become the republican nominee. thanks so much, mark murray, great to have you here. for more on how hispanic voters could turn this ee lks, i m joined by janet merg ya with the largest national hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. a poll shows big changes in terms of what hispanic voters are thinking about in 2012. janet? yes, andrea, that s true. that comes to no surprise to us at the national council or to many latino voters. i think we know that president obama made significant promises when it came to immigration reform and we ve obviously not seen that. we understand that that requires bipartisan support but what is really peaked i think the anger and disillusionment with latino voters has been the high level of deportations. it has caused real tragic circumstances and so many families and communities across the country that really this reaffirms what we ve known all along. i will say president obama and department of homeland security have made it very clear in recent announcements that they are taking steps to try to make adjustments to those deportation numbers only in the sense that they are trying to make them more practical and?óoçkçwi pri those individuals who are really tied to kind of criminal criminal felony charges. for us, that will be interesting to see, if he can make that work. next summer if those deportations have gone down, there will be a strong corps larry toç how he s doing with e latino vote, only because i think we want him to prioritize his enforcement efforts. we understand that s part of the law. he needs to prioritize it so we re not seeing cooks and bottle washers and nannies affected in a way they shouldn t be. these numbers are really pretty striking in this pugh vote, only 49% of the voters support the president. as you point out that is largely because of this deportation policy. yet in a hypothetical matchup with mitt romney, the president gets 68% of the vote and 23% would go to mitt romney. the point is that they obviously when given that choice they would choose president obama if they vote no question. will people stay home? that s absolutely right. i think when people are looking at obama versus his record, we see that he s not been able to attain some of the achievements that we would have had liked and he s been disappointing on the deportation level. but when you compare him to the alternative and we have seen candidate after candidate among the republican alternatives that have been offered so far, they have only done made statements that have been extreme and hard line that have served to alienate latino voters at a time when our power to swing elections has only grown. so i think candidates like mitt romney are in trouble because they are going to have a harder time pivoting to the center and trying to make that broad appeal to latino voters in the general election. do you think the president and his team have takenç latin voters for granted given these numbers and showing the basic support and who the republican opposition is going to be? do you think they are not working hard enough to meet your needs? well, look, i wouldn t say he s not working hard enough. i think he s working very hard. the problem is he s dealing with a lot of big issues out there. and the economy and jobs are important to latino voters as they are to the rest of the americans. but there s no question that we d like to make sure that he is a dressing this deportation issue. it is something that matters tremendously to the latino vote in this country. and so for us, we understand that that s going to be important to see those types of changes in his policy but i will tell you that the republicans have an opportunity here to step in and they have simply not done it. if anything, they have really again served themselves to alienate latino voters at a time when our power to swing elections has evenly grown. for us, i think we have to look at the choice we ll be offered ultimately. it s president obama and his record but also the republicans and their rhetoric which has been extreme and hard line. and i think by next summer and in the months to come, we re going to have a better sense of how we ll come down on that choice. right now, president obama has work to do and the republicans have a lot of work to do to make sure that they are appealing to latino votes. we ll have to leave it there. janet, thanks, great to see you. and what is mitt romney s plan for turning around the economy? 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[ male announcer ] it s our biggest clearance event of the year where our prices are even lower. save money. live better. walmart. home was an airport lounge and an ipad made sure his credit score did not go bad with a free-credit-score-dot-com app that he had downloaded it in the himalayas while meditating like a true playa now when he s surfing down in chile a he can see when his score is in danger if you re a mobile type on the go i suggest you take a tip from my bro and download the app that lets you know at free-credit-score-dot-com now let s go. vo: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com™. coming up on news nation, a surprising study reveal half of the injured vets returning from iraq and afrg are not taking advantage of the va benefits they are entitled to. we ll find out why they are reluctant and what s being done to change that. u.s. prosecutors are reportedly preparing to file the first criminal charges against the bp employees for the oil disaster in the gulf. there s no controversyç over t death of cheetah the chimp. mitt romney touts his record as a businessman, and says the biggest threat to prosperity is the government. it s a theme he s talked about this morning in cedar falls. i ve been in the private sector. i know how jobs come and go. i will use the skills i ve learned to get government out of our lives and get the budget balanced and to restore the principles of freedom and opportunity that make us such a great nation. and we want to disclose that nbc universal and bain capital are each part owner of our weather channel. david whitford has written about bain capital. how realistic are romney s promises about what he should accomplish were he elected? well, i think the question of how realistic they are is exactly the question to ask. romney has a prescription for restoring economic prosperity that is pretty much classic re-republican prescription. he talks about lowering corporate taxes and he talks about reducing regulations. these are are the kinds of things that you will hear people complain about in board rooms and that would be welcomed by many business owners and many corporations. but the more interesting question to me is whether this would actually be sufficient to restore prosperity and turn the economy around. i think that s a more complicated question. it is a more complicated question because they soundç le great bullet points or bumper sticker ideas that would be very appealing to business and a lot of people across america. but in practice, when you see how hard it is to turn this thing around and how difficult it is given the gridlock on capitol hill and all of the commissions that have been ignored, it s and the legitimate confusion among economists as to what the best approach is. is stimulus good or not good, where do you go? right, andrea. when you talk about the economy, you re talking about something at least as my indicated as the weather. there s all kinds of influences. if we look at taxes, for example. we look at the period of greatest economic prosperity in recent american history, the post-war period, 1950 through 1963, the marginal tax rates for the wealthiest americans never fell below 91% during that period. yet, that was a period in which the economy economy boomed. if you looked at something more recent, we see the tax rates were higher under president clinton than they were under george w. bush and yet we have more economic growth under clinton than bush. i m not saying lower tax may not play a role whether they are corporate taxes or income taxes for the wealthy. creating a climate that may be more conducive to economic growth. it s not the whole picture. for us to imagine that simply lowering taxes or wiping away regulatio regulations, to grow isç naive. it s much more complicated. it is more complicated, but they are catering to the audience and what they think are simple sound bytes that have resonance and when they get into office, it is a lot tougher. that s true and what we have seen this time around with romney is that he is focusing more on his business background and less on social issues. this vote of confusion that exists with where romney stands on issues like gay rights and issues like climate change. he has been clear in terms of pro business agenda. that s next right here. if you ve recently signed up for medicare or will soon, you re starting a whole new journey. and, like many people, you re probably wondering, where do i go from here? consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. call now for a free information kit and guide to medicare to get started. basically, medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. a medicare supplement insurance plan helps cover some of those expenses. and that can save you up to thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket costs. plus, you can keep any doctor who accepts medicare patients. together with medicare, an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan could be the kind of coverage you re looking for. in fact, it could make a world of difference. call now for your free medicare guide and information kit about aarp medicare supplement insurance plans, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours. i m betting it s iowa. it is. not only because the andrea mitchell reports team will be traveling out there, but it is four days away. they were asked if there was a situation in which they dropout of the race, he said i don t want to quote directly, but that was up to god. it might be an out come that he decides i wouldn t go on. that would be fourth, but i m not the lord and savior. it s going to be tough for him if he finishes fourth and it s all about money. if you don t have the money, you won t be able to run ads. when asked is god caucusing, perry has not lost a sense of humor. he said i m pretty sure he will be. from iowa it will be with mitt romney. that does it for this edition. we will be reporting live with romney. my colleague richard louie is here with a look at what s next. thank you. in our next hour, santorum surge with five days to go until the caucuses. jumping 11 points in the new poll. can he maintain the surge past january 3rd? we will check in with our campaign across iowa and cutting ranks, the pentagon downsizes, reducing the number of generals and admirals for the first time since the gold war. live next on news nation. that s good morning, veggie style. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could ve had a v8. try bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles so it enters the bloodstream fast and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. it s proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. and more. if you replace 3 tablespoons of sugar a day with splenda®, you ll save 100 calories a day. that could help you lose up to 10 pounds in a year. and now get even more with splenda® essentials, the only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet. just another reason why you get more. when you sweeten with splenda®. santorum s turn with five days to go. rick santorum sees a surge in at least one poll. does ron
hours after showing up with michele bachmann, bachmann s iowa chair defects to ron paul. we re going to take ron paul all way to the white house 2012. in the direct conversation that i had with him, he told me that he was offered money. he was offered a lot of money by the ron paul campaign to go and associate with the ron paul campaign. no one else knows about that conversation other than kent sorenson and myself and i know what he said to me about that. have you spoken to michele bachmann, she said you personally told her you were offered money. that s not true. not true at all? no. were you offered any sum of money? absolutely not. iran on the strait of hormuz as the u.s. announces a sale to long fighter jets so saudi arabia. no more mystery about mitt s hopes in iowa, he is all in. announcing he ll stay in des moines on caucus night and do the morning day after interviews in the hawkeye state not new hampshire. romney is launching a new ad today. generations of immigrants looked up and saw the statue of liberty for first time. one thing they knew beyond any doubt, they were coming to a place where anything was possible and in the campaign to come, the american ideals of economic freedom and opportunity need a clear andç unapologetic defense and i intend to make it because i have lived it. but while the campaign s television ads are all soft and fuzzy, the pro-romney super pack continues its deadly assault on newt gingrich. ever notice how some people make a lot of mistakes. mistake. i made a mistake. made mistakes at times. haven t we had enough mistakes. chris cillizza managing editor of post politics.com and chris, first to you, thank you. thank you, marathon man. thank you. for giving us a couple of days off. what are you seeing in the poll? the thing that s most striking is rick santorum up 11 points how real is that? because newt gingrich is down 19 points and rick santorum is picking up the lion s share of that support. you know, the social conservative vote in iowa has gone from michele bachmann to herman cain to newt gingrich and at least right now it appears that a portion of it is now moving to rick santorum. question is can enough move to him so he could be a modern day mike huckabee? he beat mitt romney. i think it s unlikely because perry bachmann and gingrich, they are still all in that field and taking some of that vote, splintering enough that frankly mitt romney may wind up winning with 26% which is remarkable. that is the point susan page, you re in des moines, we ll join you there tomorrow. the whole point is that mitt romney is benefitting from this division of theç conservative libertarian evangelical wings of the party. he sure is. i interviewed mitt romney yesterday on his campaign bus. i have to say he is about as optimistic as i have seen him. i remember four years watching his campaign collapse at this point with the surge of huckabee, there s none of that sense now. i think the romney people are in this to win. we ve never had someone who won the iowa caucuses and then the new hampshire primary and then failed to get the nomination. susan, also usa today and gallop have a poll an political ideology, this is your poll on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being very liberal and 5 being conservative, respondents rated themself as 3.3 slightly to the right. they rate mitt romney as closest to their idealogical views and president obama 2.3 and michelle bachmann at 4.0. mitt romney is sort of in a sweet spot. he is if you can get to the general election. mitt romney s problem is to get through iowa and then in south carolina, which is a conservative state, a history of picking the winner. i interviewed newt gingrich for a package we re running tomorrow and he was of course upset at his fall in the polls. he says all he needs to do is survive until south carolina because that s where the electorate will be friendly to him and not mitt romney. the question is did he have the money? they have pushed back the fact that they are running out of money, that the fourth quarter willç show they are in the red. they say they are in the black. but they need the money for new hampshire. and beyond. to get to south carolina. then florida, an expensive state. what we know andrea that is always true, money follows momentum. if you win, you will get money. if you look like a winner, you will get money. the converse of that, if newt gingrich finishes a distant third in iowa, maybe he comes in fourth in iowa, raising money starts to become a lot more difficult. one thing to add, newt gingrich s campaign said they raised $9 million in the last three months of 2011. they have they have $500,000 on tv vastly outspent. what does that tell you? if she had more it will be on television right now. any don t have it. susan page, let s talk about ken sorenson, this somewhat amusing change of pace. it s a he said, she said as to whether money for a campaign organization or ground troops was on the table. but the bottom line is he s following the momentum. yeah, this could have been a little bit of a boost for ron paul but now it s kind of one of those political muddles and so i think it makes it a little bit of a side show. michele bachmann although campaigning hard here and won the aims straw poll does not seem to be in the mix for the top tier. to susan s point, michele bachmann, $162,000 spent on television advertising this year in iowa. and has not run a single television ad since august. i understand she s back up now but that just speaks to can t raise money,ç can t run tv and get your message out. the story of the campaign may wind up being mitt romney is is the candidate best able to raise money and put together both television and organizations in iowa and new hampshire and south carolina and florida. given the competition, no one else is going to be able to match him unless they come up fast. no one has emerged yet. chris, see you later. susan, thanks so much. with new polls showing him leading in iowa and new hampshire, mitt romney s campaign is buying television time in south carolina, the third state in the primary election calendar. eric finnstrom sitting somewhat pretty today, eric. your polls are holding and i think i would say you guys aren t unhappy to see ron paul coming to the floor. well, andrea, we re pleased with the state of the race but we re not naive enough to believe the republican primary comes down to a single contest. it s a series and we will win some of those and do less well in others. but at the end of the day, we hope to have the requisite number of delegates that would allow us to win the nomination. what about these attacks, the romney and gingrich campaigns going at each other. this was newt gingrich following up on mitt romney s attack over the lucy and desi chocolate fakry analogy. i just want to say, here i am in the chocolate factory. [ applause ] and now that i have the courage to come to the chocolate factory, i hopeç governor romn will have the courage to debate me. why from governor romney s perspective, why is newt gingrich not the most qualified former speaker of the house, the best qualified to lead the republican party this year? well, because mitt romney believes he s the best qualified to be the republican nominee. this election is going to be a referendum on barack obama s handling of the economy. i think republicans do best when they put up a nominee who has strong experience in the private sector and has the skills and capabilities to lead this nation out of its doll drums, that person is mitt romney. newt gingrich is a fine person. but there are some questions about his reliability as a conservative. as you know when republicans in 2008 were fighting cap and trade, newt gingrich was on the coach with nancy pelosi talking about global warming. when paul ryan put forward a strong entitlement reform plan for medicare, virtually every republican in the congress took a tough vote in favor of that plan and then they had the rug pulled out from underneath by newt gingrich who called it right wing social engineering. it s that record that reevaluation of newt gingrich s record that i think more than anything else explains his drop in the polls across the board. across mitt romney has his own explanations for his changes of opinion, abortion being the most prominent one that s been playing very widely in iowa. well, as you know andrea, several years ago the governor announced that he was firmlyç pro-life. he s not going to apologize for that. there have been many politicians before him who have traveled that same path, ronald reagan and henry hyde and george herbert walking bush. when folks go the other way and switch from being pro-life to becoming in favor of abortion rights, that s celebrated. and but as i said, mitt romney has nothing to apologize for as president. he will govern as a pro-life president. eric, the candidate has also been very tough on ron paul on foreign policy, wanted to play a little bit of that. one of people running for president thinks it s okay for iran for a nuclear weapon. i don t trust the eye ayatollas or ahmadinejad or those who back hamas or hezbollah. do you and mitt romney think he s outside the mainstream of both democratic and republican foreign policy positions? well, you re right he has a very committed and passionate group of supporters but his views on foreign policy are completed hypothetical cal to the republican party. willing to tolerate a nuclear armed iran and unfriendly to israel and wants to cut off foreigv%mi?ik aid to that coun. and recently, he was raising questions about the presence of u.s. troops on the korean peninsula. imagine if we would suddenly withdraw and what that would mean to our ally in south korea with a very blij rant neighbor to the north that is bent on forcedç reunification. i think those issues as they relate to ron paul and foreign policy are at the end of the day going to prevent a lot of republicans from joining his or getting behind his candidacy. one quick question, the decision to stay in iowa and do the morning after interviews rather than going back to new hampshire, does that display a great deal of confidence that you think you re going to win? we ll be campaigning in new hampshire the day after the iowa caucus but we want a well rested candidate. four years ago we made a midnight flight from iowa to new hampshire and it was draining for not only the candidate but the press. and everybody else that was traveling with the governor. so we ll leave at a more sensible hour in the morning and we ll be campaigning that afternoon in new hampshire. okay, eric, thank you very much, we re looking forward to catching up with the governor tomorrow in des moines. we ll have that tomorrow at 1:00. thank you for being with us. we ll be in iowa on the campaign trail interviewing mitt romney tomorrow morning. up next, escalating tensions with iran. is the threat serious or just bluster? this is andrea mitchell reports only on msnbc. north korea had 13 days of morning for kim jong-il. tens of thousands of people governed in pyongyang s main square for a memorial service. at the event the president of north korea s parliament officially declared kim s third son, kim jong-un the supreme head of the nation. iran is rejecting a warning from the navy. the warning that it will respond if iran blocks the strait of hormuz, that critical choke point. a top official said the u.s. was not inç a position to tell tehn what to do. they have been staging ten days of exercises near the strait. the passage way for one-sixth of the world s oil supply. michael is now managing director of the washington institute. thanks for joining us. we ve seen this sort of dance before a lot of bluster from iran. this time some u.s. officials particularly at the pentagon are taking it more seriously because iran is responding to the toughest economic sanctions ever. europe is poised to go after the central bank. greece and italy and spain have new governments less friendly to iran and the u.s. is now in this situation where the president is about to sign a bill with an amendment he did not want, which is a real crackdown on iran s oil trade and central bank financial industry. zpl that s right. as we get closer to really targeting iran s oil exports and oil makes up 70% of iran s budget and 50% is gdp. they are trying to communicate this is a red line for us and we re not going to simply sit back while we re targeted in this way. it begs a question could they actually do this, close the straits of hormuz, the answer is no, not really. it s questionable as to whether they would try to do that. it could spark a bigger confrontation which would end in their own demise. could she do other things to lay mines and those things, absolutely yes. they ve done it before. and they ve done it before and in the lay 80s there was a conflict in the gulf between the u.s. and iran and the iranians have taken lessons and applied them today. the u.s. navy has done the same thing. i remember we were at a that uncertainty gets priced in the markets now and in the future. there was a vote of 100-0 in the united states senate, that never happens. this after the deputy secretary of state, wendy sherman and people from secretary warned that this is the wrong way to go. these are not the right kind of sapgss, we should have rach eted sanctions. the president has to sign this bill because it s the defense authorization bill. it s an amendment he cannot get rid of. he can waive the sanctions but the republicans would be all over him, you re soft on iran. he s in a no-win situation here. iran may have a weapon of 6 to 12 months and theç thought the administration s policy is not getting the job done. let s force their hand. a lot of pressure on all sides. thanks so much. republican candidates going after ron paul s foreign policy. the politico briefing is up next. but first, the countdown is onto the new year in times square. today organizers conducted the official confetti air worthiness test in preparation for the release of one ton of confetti on new year s eve and new yorkers are saying good-bye to bad memories of 2011 from break-ups to bad vacations. people turned out wednesday for good riddance day in times square and wrote down the worst memories of the year and tossed them into the shredder. a woman used a sledge hammer to get rid of her ex s motorcycle helmet. what is it about taking a first step that we find so compelling? 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[ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips . msnbc is the place for politics. right now the candidates are fanning out across iowa. mitt romney s bus has taken him to mason city. he s about to speak about the economy there. you can see people are gathered. rick santorum is holding a town hall near davenport and newt gingrich is about to speak in storm lake at the local restaurant. and ron paul s republican rivals are going after him on his foreign policy positions, describing them as dangerous and naive. charles is a national politics editor with politico and joins us from des moines. hey, charles. first of all, iran, that s front and center, israel, i mean basically is ron paul too isolationist in his fundamental positions to end up as the republican uñnominee? well, shaping up as a real problem. in many ways the party has grown closer to ron paul and ron paul has run more mainstream marked by campaign atd ads and robust ground ç5uá the one sticking point when you talk to voters in iowa is the discomfort or unease over the foreign policy positions, whether talking about iran or iraq or 9/11 or various sorts of national security positions and that right now is a big stumbling block for him in iowa. and certainly it s going to be a bigger stumbling block going forward out of iowa. and in fact, if he gets through iowa and then has traction perhaps his libertarian policies or his budget policies in new hampshire, he hits south carolina, a strong military state. a lot of veterans and military installations, that s going to be a problem for him. that s a great point, iowa and sk sg are different in many ways. one important difference is that iowa is a historically dubbish state and south carolina is a hawkish state. he s another big difference he will run into in south carolina, the field will be much more narrower than he s facing in iowa where the ee vvangelical a social conservative support out there which is very wired into the israel issue, that is going to be much more component of the vote in south carolina and there are going to be less candidates for that vote to splinter across. that s another hurdle he s going to face going forward. we shouldn t underestimate at least in iowa that ron paul organization and the enthusiasm of his supporters. he s been at this a long time. thanks, charlie, thanks for being with us. thanks. up next, president obama or mitt romney? we ll look at the polling. and have aç question you wt me to answer, join me for a live web chat from iowa between 2:15 and 2:45 right after our show. 2:15 and 2:45 eastern online at andrea.msnbc.com. nick, what are you doing? oh, there s still a few more days of chevy s giving more. got to stay loose. how do you do it? i have my little helpers. boop. oh. [ chuckles ] [ male announcer ] hurry in to chevy s giving more. these savings are almost over. now very well qualified lessees can sign and drive the chevy cruze ls for around $199 a month. or get 2.9% apr financing plus no monthly payments until spring. topping the headlines, the number of americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week. the labor department saysç weey unemployment applications increased by 15,000 but the overall trend for the last month was positive. obama administration announced a $30 million sale today of f-15 fighter jets to saudi arabia. the agreement which will give saudi arabia 84 new jets with advanced raid after equipment is part of a larger strategy to build up the military strength of the allies to better counter threats from iran. turkish officials say many of the 35 people killed in an air strike across the border in iraq were civilians. the strike led by turkish war planes was supposed to be aimed at kurdish rebels, they are investigating the possible intelligence failures that led to the attack. prosecutors are preparing the first felony charges against bp employees after the explosion which left 11 people dead and created the worst oil spill in u.s. history. the wall street journal reports prosecutors are focusing on engineers who may have provided false information about the risks of drilling. democrats are trying to derail mitt romney s progress by tripping him up in the iowa caucuses. archie is vice chair of the democratic national committee and surrogate for the democrats in iowa. see you in java joe s, wonder what s happening in minneapolis that you were able to get away for the iowa caucuses. lots going on. i m down here to talk for democrats and i think right now we see it as a primary that is very much mitt romney s to lose. he s ahead in the polls and said today that anything but aç fir place finish would be a loss. after spending five years and many millions of dollars here and still not being able to win the hearts and minds of iowa ns if he can squeak through it could be a victory. he has spent so many months lowering expectations and now he s clearly all in in iowa. the fact is the white house has obama campaign thought from the beginning that mitt romney would be the toughest competitor. the fact of the matter is mitt romney may have been trying to lower expectations. he spent millions himself. his surrogates spent many millions more to attack others. he spent many millions four years ago. the fact of the matter is he has not been able to connect with voters. what s significant with not just mitt romney but all candidates, all of conversations that you ve had you haven t heard a single word about these are the people that supported keep americans from getting a payroll tax cut at the holidays. these are the political quote/unquote leaders who wanted people to not get atax cut at the holidays and more important who supported tax cuts for the very, very wealthy. that was the only strategy. i think what s important is that none of them are addressing middle class issues and i think that s going to catch up with them here in iowa. while we re talking mr., mayor, we re seeing live pictures from mitt romney in mason city, with ann romney on the campaign trail. he does seem to be getting a lot of traction. he s finding his rhythm as a retail campaigner, don t you think? i think if mitt romney would have found his rhythm he would haveç iowa four years ago and with all the time he spent here, let s hope he s got some support. that s fine. the fact of the matter is he has had trouble connecting with voters and thoz not just about his style. that s about the fact his entire political life there s only been one thing mitt romney has been consistent on, that he thinks those at the top end should pay less so everyone else pays more. that s the only single thing he s been consistent on. rightfully people are confused. maybe this week as he says very conservative extreme things to iowans, maybe that will be enough and that will be enough to maybe come through caucus or primary. but the fact of the matter is, america can t figure out what mitt romney is and the president has to make decisions and stick with them. he hasn t been able to stick with an idealogy from one state to the other, let alone one country. mayor rybak, thanks develverh for joining us. republicans have staked out conflicting opinions on one issue. mark murray is the deputy political director and joins me here. you ve been working on all of these issues but immigration is really a troubling one for the republicans because they were on all sides of it. in the general election, we ve seen all of the republican candidates really brandish their officials, some talked about building a wall on mexico and they are against comprehensive immigration reform. newt gingrich had a more moderate position wanted to have immigration reform for people who have been here for 25 years or more. weç saw rick perry about in ste tuition for children of illegal immigrants but for the most part they had a system where they want to layout their anti-illegal immigration credentials which could hurt them in a general election. where the hispanic vote is increasingly significant fact of life. and since the george w. bush days, it has really gone down in its support for republican candidates. the exit polls in 2004, george w. bush got more than 40% of the latino vote. john mccain got 31, 32% four years ago. remember john mccain was a supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and someone who supported latinos, you had a significant erosion. a lot of experts who follow the politics of immigration have told me the republican brand has been hurt. it was back in 2010 when meg whit man moved to the right and by the time of the general election, she had a very hard time against jerry brown when it kamz to politics and immigration reform and democrats are cramming for the same type of effect that could help out president obama in states like colorado and nevada. we saw what happened in arizona since the last election cycle. so the tougher positions by governors, by republican governors on immigration is going to really hurt whoever the republican nominee is in trying to get more votes. it goes back to the brand. you look at latino voters and they are able to differentiate between democrats and republicans and in our wall street journal poll, 63% of latinos said mitt romney would be unacceptable to them. 67% said newt gingrich would be unacceptable. unace tough numbers for those two if they become the republican nominee. thanks so much, mark murray, great to have you here. for more on how hispanic voters could turn this ee lks, i m joined by janet merg ya with the largest national hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization. a poll shows big changes in terms of what hispanic voters are thinking about in 2012. janet? yes, andrea, that s true. that comes to no surprise to us at the national council or to many latino voters. i think we know that president obama made significant promises when it came to immigration reform and we ve obviously not seen that. we understand that that requires bipartisan support but what is really peaked i think the anger and disillusionment with latino voters has been the high level of deportations. it has caused real tragic circumstances and so many families and communities across the country that really this reaffirms what we ve known all along. i will say president obama and department of homeland security have made it very clear in recent announcements that they are taking steps to try to make adjustments to those deportation numbers only in the sense that they are trying to make them more practical and?óoçkçwi pri those individuals who are really tied to kind of criminal criminal felony charges. for us, that will be interesting to see, if he can make that work. next summer if those deportations have gone down, there will be a strong corps larry toç how he s doing with e latino vote, only because i think we want him to prioritize his enforcement efforts. we understand that s part of the law. he needs to prioritize it so we re not seeing cooks and bottle washers and nannies affected in a way they shouldn t be. these numbers are really pretty striking in this pugh vote, only 49% of the voters support the president. as you point out that is largely because of this deportation policy. yet in a hypothetical matchup with mitt romney, the president gets 68% of the vote and 23% would go to mitt romney. the point is that they obviously when given that choice they would choose president obama if they vote no question. will people stay home? that s absolutely right. i think when people are looking at obama versus his record, we see that he s not been able to attain some of the achievements that we would have had liked and he s been disappointing on the deportation level. but when you compare him to the alternative and we have seen candidate after candidate among the republican alternatives that have been offered so far, they have only done made statements that have been extreme and hard line that have served to alienate latino voters at a time when our power to swing elections has only grown. so i think candidates like mitt romney are in trouble because they are going to have a harder time pivoting to the center and trying to make that broad appeal to latino voters in the general election. do you think the president and his team have takenç latin voters for granted given these numbers and showing the basic support and who the republican opposition is going to be? do you think they are not working hard enough to meet your needs? well, look, i wouldn t say he s not working hard enough. i think he s working very hard. the problem is he s dealing with a lot of big issues out there. and the economy and jobs are important to latino voters as they are to the rest of the americans. but there s no question that we d like to make sure that he is a dressing this deportation issue. it is something that matters tremendously to the latino vote in this country. and so for us, we understand that that s going to be important to see those types of changes in his policy but i will tell you that the republicans have an opportunity here to step in and they have simply not done it. if anything, they have really again served themselves to alienate latino voters at a time when our power to swing elections has evenly grown. for us, i think we have to look at the choice we ll be offered ultimately. it s president obama and his record but also the republicans and their rhetoric which has been extreme and hard line. and i think by next summer and in the months to come, we re going to have a better sense of how we ll come down on that choice. right now, president obama has work to do and the republicans have a lot of work to do to make sure that they are appealing to latino votes. we ll have to leave it there. janet, thanks, great to see you. and what is mitt romney s plan for turning around the economy? 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[ male announcer ] it s our biggest clearance event of the year where our prices are even lower. save money. live better. walmart. home was an airport lounge and an ipad made sure his credit score did not go bad with a free-credit-score-dot-com app that he had downloaded it in the himalayas while meditating like a true playa now when he s surfing down in chile a he can see when his score is in danger if you re a mobile type on the go i suggest you take a tip from my bro and download the app that lets you know at free-credit-score-dot-com now let s go. vo: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com™. coming up on news nation, a surprising study reveal half of the injured vets returning from iraq and afrg are not taking advantage of the va benefits they are entitled to. we ll find out why they are reluctant and what s being done to change that. u.s. prosecutors are reportedly preparing to file the first criminal charges against the bp employees for the oil disaster in the gulf. there s no controversyç over t death of cheetah the chimp. mitt romney touts his record as a businessman, and says the biggest threat to prosperity is the government. it s a theme he s talked about this morning in cedar falls. i ve been in the private sector. i know how jobs come and go. i will use the skills i ve learned to get government out of our lives and get the budget balanced and to restore the principles of freedom and opportunity that make us such a great nation. and we want to disclose that nbc universal and bain capital are each part owner of our weather channel. david whitford has written about bain capital. how realistic are romney s promises about what he should accomplish were he elected? well, i think the question of how realistic they are is exactly the question to ask. romney has a prescription for restoring economic prosperity that is pretty much classic re-republican prescription. he talks about lowering corporate taxes and he talks about reducing regulations. these are are the kinds of things that you will hear people complain about in board rooms and that would be welcomed by many business owners and many corporations. but the more interesting question to me is whether this would actually be sufficient to restore prosperity and turn the economy around. i think that s a more complicated question. it is a more complicated question because they soundç le great bullet points or bumper sticker ideas that would be very appealing to business and a lot of people across america. but in practice, when you see how hard it is to turn this thing around and how difficult it is given the gridlock on capitol hill and all of the commissions that have been ignored, it s and the legitimate confusion among economists as to what the best approach is. is stimulus good or not good, where do you go? right, andrea. when you talk about the economy, you re talking about something at least as my indicated as the weather. there s all kinds of influences. if we look at taxes, for example. we look at the period of greatest economic prosperity in recent american history, the post-war period, 1950 through 1963, the marginal tax rates for the wealthiest americans never fell below 91% during that period. yet, that was a period in which the economy economy boomed. if you looked at something more recent, we see the tax rates were higher under president clinton than they were under george w. bush and yet we have more economic growth under clinton than bush. i m not saying lower tax may not play a role whether they are corporate taxes or income taxes for the wealthy. creating a climate that may be more conducive to economic growth. it s not the whole picture. for us to imagine that simply lowering taxes or wiping away regulatio regulations, to grow isç naive. it s much more complicated. it is more complicated, but they are catering to the audience and what they think are simple sound bytes that have resonance and when they get into office, it is a lot tougher. that s true and what we have seen this time around with romney is that he is focusing more on his business background and less on social issues. this vote of confusion that exists with where romney stands on issues like gay rights and issues like climate change. he has been clear in terms of pro business agenda. that s next right here. if you ve recently signed up for medicare or will soon, you re starting a whole new journey. and, like many people, you re probably wondering, where do i go from here? consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. call now for a free information kit and guide to medicare to get started. basically, medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. a medicare supplement insurance plan helps cover some of those expenses. and that can save you up to thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket costs. plus, you can keep any doctor who accepts medicare patients. together with medicare, an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan could be the kind of coverage you re looking for. in fact, it could make a world of difference. call now for your free medicare guide and information kit about aarp medicare supplement insurance plans, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours. i m betting it s iowa. it is. not only because the andrea mitchell reports team will be traveling out there, but it is four days away. they were asked if there was a situation in which they dropout of the race, he said i don t want to quote directly, but that was up to god. it might be an out come that he decides i wouldn t go on. that would be fourth, but i m not the lord and savior. it s going to be tough for him if he finishes fourth and it s all about money. if you don t have the money, you won t be able to run ads. when asked is god caucusing, perry has not lost a sense of humor. he said i m pretty sure he will be. from iowa it will be with mitt romney. that does it for this edition. we will be reporting live with romney. my colleague richard louie is here with a look at what s next. thank you. in our next hour, santorum surge with five days to go until the caucuses. jumping 11 points in the new poll. can he maintain the surge past january 3rd? we will check in with our campaign across iowa and cutting ranks, the pentagon downsizes, reducing the number of generals and admirals for the first time since the gold war. live next on news nation. that s good morning, veggie style. hmmm [ male announcer ] for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could ve had a v8. try bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles so it enters the bloodstream fast and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. it s proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. and more. if you replace 3 tablespoons of sugar a day with splenda®, you ll save 100 calories a day. that could help you lose up to 10 pounds in a year. and now get even more with splenda® essentials, the only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet. just another reason why you get more. when you sweeten with splenda®. santorum s turn with five days to go. rick santorum