that does it for us this week. i'm matt miller. it was a joy to be with you for a couple days. dylan ratigan is back in the chair on monday. i'm see you down the road. and "hardball" starts right now. debt and taxes, let's play some "hardball." good evening. i'm michael smir con nish in for chris matthews. cliff-hanger moment, the plans to avoid a debt crisis are going down. the republican cut, cap and balance bill rejected by the senate. the mcconnell-reid fallback plan dead for now. the obama-boehner bargain that would cut spending and somehow sometime under some mechanism reform tax ps. republicans don't like the tax increases. democrats are even angrier over

the spending cuts. everyone is going home for the weekend as the clock ticks down. when you find it can't get worse for the murdochs, we learn that james murdoch may have been less than truthful when he told parliament he wasn't aware of how extensive the phone hacking was. now the justice department is investigating whether u.s. laws were broken. you don't need a weather man to know it's hot out there. we're going to ask is overpopulation partly responsible for global warning. caddie sacked. few people closer than a golfer and his caddy. tiger woods's firing of his caddy is beginning to look like an ugly divorce. he's already said five words that must terrify critics, those words "when i write my book." finally, we start with the debt crisis. senator ben card en is a democrat from maryland. you were with the president in

your statement today. tell us the latest on the deal. >> michael, good to be with you. we got to pass the debt ceiling by august 2nd. it's the republicans in the householding this up. the president is working hard with speaker boehner trying to come together with an agreement. the bottom line is, look, we've got to increase the debt ceiling. we can't jeopardize the credit of america. quite frankly we need a balanced plan, a comprehensive plan to get the deficit under control. it needs to include revenue. >> is it clear to you, senator, the difficulty is on the gop side of the aisle? i ask because here is the president with you this morning at a town hall in maryland explaining the situation and still needs convincing. he says what you just told us. let's listen. >> i'm willing to sign a plan that includes tough choices i would not normally make. there are a lot of democrats and republicans in congress who i believe are willing to do the same thing. the only people we have left to convince are folks in the house of representatives. in 2010 americans chose a

divided government. but they didn't choose a dysfunctional government. >> so he's making reference to the house which i assume he means the gop leadership in the house. meanwhile, speaker boehner was still playing politics with the president. he made some comments where he talked about the difficulty being with the president. here he was on the house floor. >> we've done our job. the democrats who run washington have done nothing. they can't stop spending the american people's money. they won't and they have refused. president obama talked about being the adult in the room. where is his plan to cut spending and to raise the debt limit? listen, we're in the fourth quarter here. we're fighting for jobs. we're fighting for the country's future and we're fighting for the american people. >> so senator, where does the problem lie? who poses the greater impediment to getting this deal done? let's go back and realize how we

got here. it was the republicans, the republican administration. they used a credit card for two tax cuts, then went to war in two countries, used the credit card again rather than paying the bill. now the credit card is coming due. the republicans in the house don't want to live up to our obligations. this isn't about more spending. this is about paying for what we already have incurred. we get it in the senate. that's why the democrats and republicans have worked together. we could come up with a plan. we do have a plan. we want a comprehensive balanced approach to deal with the deficit. we're not going to be dictated by the republicans in the house who really are looking more towards a default than they are solving the problem. >> does the plan include tax increases? >> it includes enhanced revenues. >> what does that mean? >> no one is talking about rate increases. what we are talking about is eliminating a lot of the loopholes, a lot of the shelters, a lot of the tax expenditures that we believe are not efficient. so we are talking about getting more revenue through the tax code by eliminating the

loopholes and these deductions. >> would the bush tax cuts expire? >> i would certainly hope so as relates to the higher income people. we do believe at this time when you're asking students to make sacrifices, asking our seniors to make sacrifices, the least we can tell them is the most well off in our community, that they shouldn't be getting a continued tax break that was intended to expire. >> senator cardin, your colleague from maryland, senator mick cull ski said when we heard these reports of these mega trillion dollar cuts with no vef news, it was like mount ves soouf yas. >> i talked to thement today and the president was very, very clear. revenues need to be part of the final package. look, we know there's going to be spending cuts. we understand that. we're prepared to support a comprehensive balanced approach to get our debt under control. but we need to make sure that it is fair. and to be fair, we need to have

the revenues to pay our bills. >> would you agree if there are no revenue increases, no tax hikes, it would be perceived as a capitulation by the administration to the gop-controlled house. >> i wouldn't use the word tax hikes. i would tell you you have to have more revenue if you're going to have a credible plan to bring our deficit under control. >> your understanding, having been with the chief executive earlier today in your state is -- >> he agrees. >> this is a plan that is going to include both? >> absolutely. the president couldn't have been more clear that, if you're going to have a comprehensive plan, it must include enhanced revenues. we must make sure it's balanced and fair so we can create jobs. we have to invest in education, innovation, infrastructure. the president was clear, the democrats are clear about that. we want to make sure our recovery stays on track and we create the jobs necessary for our economy. by the way, that will also help our budget. >> senator ben cardin, thank you for being here. have a nice weekend. joining me now former rnc

chairman michael steele. can we get into grover-gate, michael? >> have at it. >> i'm trying to read these tea leaves. i know you're the guy to take me to the answer. tuesday grove r said it wouldn' violet his anti-tax pledge. here is the audio from that video? >> not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase. >> so it does not violet the pledge? >> we wouldn't hold it that way. it would be a very bad thing to do. it would raise taxes from where they are today. would it technically violate the pledge? no. >> seems straightforward, but then he backed away in the comments here on msnbc. today in "the new york times" he tried to clarify things further. he said he remains opposed to any tax increases but went on to write, my positions and the implications of the pledge regarding temporary tax cuts is clear. if there were no vote in congress and daxes rose

automatically, no politicians would have voted for politics and no elected official would have broken his or her pledge. that's different than the lower tax rates. candidly, i still don't get it. explain it to me. >> i think the washington nuance there is the difference between letting the bush tax cuts expire on their own versus having a formal vote that would probably include not just the bush tax cuts plus additional taxes. that's the closest i can get to understanding exactly where grover was trying to get back to. i think when you look at the whole thing in toto, i think he started in the right position that, if there is no vote, you have not actively participated in the repeal of the bush tax cuts or, more importantly, raised taxes from the current rates to a new rate. and so, yeah, you kind of step in it when you get down that

road a little bit if you're not precisely clear what you mean. >> it's important stuff. 236 members of the house have signed this. you've got this freshman class largely there with tea party support. the question is can they go home again if they vote for something that allows the bush tax cuts to expire? are they going to be able to go back and say, well, i violated the pledge or didn't violate the pledge. >> i think that is something that grover is going to have to with atr really get clarified with the members. if a bill is presented that has in it the automatic expiration of the bush tax cut, is that considered, when you vote for that bill, a vote to increase taxes? by what he said on monday, the answer was no. by what he said today, the answer is, well, maybe. >> what happens to the caricature, the republican caricature of the president as a

big spender if, in the end, he puts together a deal with speaker boehner that has with it a lot of spending cuts? >> i think that changes certainly for the democrats the argument about the president's spending habits. certainly republicans then would counter with, well, let's look at the $2 trillion spent before speaker boehner and mitch mcconnell and the senate tried to bring some sanity back to the process. you're going to have the political argument continuing into 2012. if you think, michael, this thing is going to end once they sign a bill by august 2nd, no. the hot rhetoric just continues. >> you know this turf well. it puts republicans in a difficult spot to be pointing a finger as to he's such a big government guy if, in the end he 'em bragsed and negotiated a plan with john boehner that calls for the spending cuss being discussed, whether it's $3 trillion or $4 trillion. let me show you something.

the president penned something in "usa today." i don't know if you made it to the last line. here is what he said in the last line. this debate offers the chance to put our economy on stronger footing, restore a sense of fairness in our country and secure a better future for our children. i want to seize that opportunity and ask americans of both parties and no party to join me in that effort. i'm not accustomed to seeing political leaders, particularly the president, put on the same pedestal independents with rs and ds. that told me something. it told me that he thinks and probably accurately so that's what's going on with this negotiation is going to play very well with independents. what do you think? >> absolutely. that was a very political piece. it was his homage to what's happened over the last couple of weeks that has given him really the kind of lepg up in this debate. in the last 24 hours or so, you've seen sort of a chipping away at that among democrat leadership who are concerned

about exactly what is the president negotiating. i think republicans still have some high ground to stand on as well but for the republican's insistence that we focus on spending and focus on those programs that need to be cut. we would be spending much more as opposed to talking about how much we're cutting. so both sides will have a little bit to crow about. the question is, what the president is doing is trying to give himself a better position to crow a little louder than republicans. >> michael steele, thank you for your time. coming up, rupert murdoch's son james has been less than truthful when he testified tuesday before a parliamentary commission in britain. the justice department in this country is investigating whether the murdoch empire broke the law. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc.

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texas governor rick perry still deciding whether to run for president. a couple of new polls also show him closing out mitt romney. take a look at this poll. perry is polling strong among republican men. we'll be right back to "hardball." as a home, there are things i'm supposed to do. like, keep one of these over your head. well, i wasn't "supposed" to need flood insurance,

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there have been members of congress in the united states who have asked us to investigate those same allegations, and we are progressing in that regard using the appropriate federal law enforcement agencies in the united states. welcome back to "hardball," that was attorney general eric holder a week ago admitting the justice department had begun preliminary investigations into the hacking scandal. now it appears the investigation is moving more swiftly. today the "wall street journal,"

owned by news corporation, reports the doj is preparing subpoenas in attempt to gain access to more information related to messages both here and in britain. james murdoch is accused of misleading parliament in his testimony earlier this week. joining us nbc news investigational correspondent michael isikoff and itn correspondent michael moore. why does the department of justice care about a new jersey civil case settled in 2009? >> well, you're talking there about the floor graphics incident in which the company alleged that news america, which is the advertising division of news corp. had hacked into its computer system on repeated occasions to steal information for reasons. that's computer hacking, not phone hacking. but the question is, is it part of a broader pattern of conduct here. >> on our shores? >> on our shores.

if, in fact, proven, there would be a u.s. jurisdictional hook which is something prosecutors in the united states would need. now, look, this is still at an early stage. there's a lot of moving pieces to this, and there's a lot we don't know. the central allegation tra triggered attorney general holder's directive last week was the claim that 9/11 victims in sdwruntd states had their phoned hacked. as of now, we have no hard evidence that anything like that took place. we have one report from a rival newspaper in britain based on anonymous sources that this was done, nothing concrete. >> as i read your report on the new jersey casetion, and just a hunch, but to me it said this is doj trying to establish a beach head with an investigation here in the states to find out if there were some pervasive practice where this was taking place here.

>> exactly. that's what they're looking at and trying to see if they can find that broader pattern. there's a third piece to this and that's the foreign corrupt practices act, which is something that has been very vigorously prosecuted by the justice department. and the issue there is were these bribes paid to scotland yard officers by the "news of the world," could that be construed as an illegal foreign payment under the foreign corrupt practices act. >> frankly, the way this is unfolding thus far, nothing seems like it's beyond the realm of possibility. robert, let me follow up with you. it's unproven, a single allegation. everyone wants to know whether 9/11 victims were hacked. here is what the spokeswoman for news corporation told the "wall street journal" about the justice department investigation. we have not seen any evidence to suggest there was any hacking of 9/11 victim phones nor has anybody kron rated what are clearly very serious allegations. the story arose when an

unidentified person speculated to the daily mirror about whether that happened. that paper printed the speculation which mushroomed into broader media with no substantiati substantiation. you think about that millie dowler case where the 13-year-old teenager has been murdered and her voice mail has been hacked, one wonders if that will be proven. >> that's absolutely true. michael is right to say it comes from a rival newspaper. there's no substantiation at this case. clearly the core strategy, legal, political strategy by the murdochs is to contain this scandal to the united kingdom, to britain. if it migrates across the atlantic, that raises new problems for news corp. and its leadership. that's why it's so critical for rupert and james murdoch to contain it to britain. clearly there are multiple investigations. what we have learned is no one

knows where these investigations will lead. >> i have footage about james murdoch being questioned about the neville e-mail. today this is front page stuff because questions are being raised as to whether he was being forthcoming. let's watch. >> when you signed off the taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of full neville e-mail, the transcript of the voice mail message? >> no, i was not aware of that at the time. >> why on earth was it -- you paid an astronomical sum and there was no reason to. >> there was every reason to settle the case given the likelihood of losing the case. >> robert moore, give me the cliffs note version, what's that all about, the payoff of the footballer. >> this is critical. this is a 2008 e-mail. it clearly was evidence that

there was systematic phone hagging, nothing to do with a rogue reporter, systematic phone hacking orchestrated by the news desk of the "news of the world." did james murdoch see it? he says he didn't. those close to him, a former lawyer and editor said this neville e-mail we actually showed to james murdoch. i think that is why this weekends in britain it's widely regarded that james murdoch is clinging on to his position by his fingernails. if it's shown he had seen this e-mail, clearly he did not tell the truth to that parliamentary committee, the ramifications of that politically are very obvious. >> michael isikoff, to what extent do you think the credibility is already being damaged here on our shores of those related murdoch entities? >> i think there's been an enormous credibility hit to the murdochs and news corp. look, this was one of the most powerful and feared companies in the world. and certainly in political

circles in the united states, it's hard to underestimate the clout of news corp. fox news channel, murdoch himself, $1,250,000 which news corp. contributed last year. mostly to leading republicans, but not exclusively. and in new york state politics, hillary clinton chuck schumer, all of them have cultivated the murdochs and i think that there's a taint now over the company and over murdoch himself that's going to be very hard to erase early on. >> you wonder if all of a sudden there will be more of a willingness by politicians on both sides of the pond to stand up to him. robert moore, martin bashir said how murdoch entertains on an annual basis and anyone who is

anyone in the parliament are there. anyone speaking out against murdoch, but the tide has completely changed in the last two weeks. >> the political culture in britain has been turned on its head. there were politicians who were enthralled to rupert murdoch. they would not only socialize with him, but beg him for favors. he was a frequent visitor to downing street. now the political currents are exactly the opposite. everyone is attacking him. there's a major change there. the political culture has changed, not just for the politicians, but also for the police and journalists. >> michael isikoff -- >> michael, can i add one thing. the challenge to james murdoch's testimony. tom krone, the lawyer for "news of the world" and who signed that statement, when asked about this e-mail, it seems he's a

critical player who is not going to allow himself to be thrown under the bus for this. he's the guy. he knows all. you've seen the first sign of it. >> michael, i happen to have that quote. let me show it to everyone. talking about a former "news of the world" editor and tom krone who served at news international. a joint statement to british papers that refutes murdoch's testimony. we'd like to point out that james murdoch's recollection of what he was told when agreeing to settle the gordon taylor litigation was mistaken. in fact, we did inform him of the "for neville" e-mail which had been produced to us by gordon taylor's lawyers. that's what you're talking about. >> exactly. while that might seem very internal to the uk, to a u.s. listener, remember james murdoch is also the heir apparent to news corp., the deputy chief operating officer, effectively

the guy designated to take over for rupert murdoch. if he goes down, that undermines rupert murdoch's hold over the whole company. >> you say there's a john dean character. hopefully there's a rosemary woods involved thus far. that's my attempt at humor on a friday, guys. that's the best i can do. thank you michael isikoff and robert moore. no question it's hot outside. but to rush limbaugh, it's just another plot of the government. stick around. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] at e-trade, low cost investing doesn't just mean a low price.

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well cam back to "hardball," and now for the "side show." let's be clear, the fact that most of the country is in the grips of a record heat wave is not by itself proof of global warming. it does tend to get hot in the

summer. just to be sure we don't get the wrong idea, here comes rush limbaugh to tell us that what we think is record heat is no more than a government plot. >> they're playing games with us on this heat wave again. going to be 116 in washington. no, it's not. it's going to be like 100, maybe 99. the heat index, manufactured by the government, they tell you what it feels like when you add the humidity in there, 116. when's the last time the heat index was report as an actual temperature? it hasn't been. but it looks like they're trying to get away with doing that now. >> rush, i have a question. by that logic is the windchill factor a government plot to deny global warming? thank you for that one. all it takes for me is a walk outside here in new york to question the logic. next up, no secret the country is getting fed up with the fact that there's yet to be a deal reached on the debt ceiling. two union leaders in west

virginia took it upon themselves to come up with their own solution to paying back the nation's debt and making a point at the same time. they sent the following e-mail to speaker john mainer. in support of your effort to continue millatioio outrageous cuts, we're advising you of the west virginia afl-cio plan to reduce the debt of our nation while protecting the rich and tax-dodging corporations. what's the plan? to celebrate the 76th anniversary of the social security act, the afl-cio will host a hot dog fund-raiser in 14 west virginia cities. they plan to donate the proceeds to the bureau of public debt. i don't think they should hold tharl breath waiting for speaker boehner to accept the invitation. we want you to know how far back our government's debt really goes. believe it or not, back to 1790 when the first government bonds were issued to pay off the

revolutionary war. how much is still owed back to the folks in the george washington administration? would you believe $55,757. i wonder what the founding fathers would have to say about that one. that's tonight's big number. up next, record heat across the country. is overpopulation partly to blame for global warming? you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. you name it. i've tried it. but nothing's helped me beat my back pain. then i tried this. it's salonpas. this is the relief i've been looking for. salonpas has 2 powerful pain fighting ingredients that work for up to 12 hours. and my pharmacist told me it's the only otc pain patch approved for sale using the same rigorous clinical testing that's required for prescription pain medications. proven. powerful. safe. salonpas.

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i'm hampton pearson with your cnbc market wrap. the dow jones industrial slumping 43 points. the s&p up a point. the nasdaq adding 24.

a couple of solid session rallies this week, leaving the markets in the green with the nasdaq looking especially strong on the back of robust earnings in the tech sector. in techs today, chip maker amd surged on an upbeat forecast. that gave intel a boost as well. microsoft higher after beating earnings expectations last night, and apple said to be considering putting in a bit for hulu.com. ge finished lower despite a 21% jump in profit. mcdonald's hit an all-time high after earnings showed stronger-than-expected sales growth in all regions. it was caterpillar dragging on the dow after missing profit expectations despite beating on revenue and raising its full-year outlook. that's it from cnbc news in business worldwide. now back to "hardball."

extreme. it's literally like hell on earth. >> a lot better than a blizzard, but still not good. >> really, really hot. >> very, very, very hot. >> welcome back to "hardball." i just read a provocative piece in "the l.a. times" that got me thinking, what if this heat wave is happening because our planet is overpopulated. the article by mary ellen hart reads, the effects in overpopulation play a part in every daily report of human calamity. the world population is rarely mentioned. wildfires threaten evermore people because expanding populations are moving near and into forests. such extreme events are stoked by climate change. fueled by increasing carbon emissions from an expanding global population. lester brown is president of the earth policy institute. bob engelman is the executive

director of the world watch institution. both are environmental think tanks in washington. lester, i took a walk in central park last night. i was so moist when i came back and dropped the clothes in the corner of my hotel room, they were still soaking. does that have something to do with how many people are on the face of the planet? >> the driving force in climate change is carbon emissions. the more people there are, the more fossil fuels for generating electricity, mostly coal for running cars mostly oil. so as population grows, carbon emissions rise and climate changes faster. so the more of us there are, the more climate is going to change. >> bob, it's a frightening thought when one considers that the world population increased from 3 billion in 1969 to 6 billion by 1999, a doubling that

occurred over 40 years. world population expected to grow from 6 billion in 1999 to 9 billion by 2044. that's a 50% increase. >> well, we don't really know what will happen between now and 2044. we can say with very high confidence, at least we're told by demographers, the people that count people, this year on october 31st there will be 7 billion people on the planet. whether it's coincidence or not, that happens to be halloween. i don't know if someone is trying to tell us to be afraid of this number. a phenomenal increase in a short period of time. look, i don't doubt that when you were walking in central park you were experiencing temperatures that haven't been experienced on the planet before we were numerous on the planet. the fact is we're continually breaking climatic records and we've altered the atmosphere in a way that one species has never altered the atmosphere before. >> not just heat, but with

record snowfalls as well. i look at syracuse by way of example. they had a big winter. they also broke a hundred degrees yesterday. the erratic nature of the weather pattern is the big story. am i wrong? >> one of the things that meteorologists have been warning us of for decades is that with climate change will come many more extreme climate events. and we're experiencing them in this country. when i've been watching the news channels on the major networks,

i wonder sometimes if i'm watching the weather channel. so for those who doubt that climate is changing, you need not go beyond the news reports. and we've soon some extraordinarily extreme things. like last summer, the drought and the heat wave in moscow. if someone had told me early last year that the average temperature during the month of july in moscow would have been 14 degrees above the norm, i would have -- i would have said, you know, i'm not a climate denier, but that's beyond anything we can expect. but that's exactly what happened. we're lucky that heat wave was centered in moscow and not in chicago. because if we had lost 40% of our grain harvest, as the russians did last year, there would have been chaos in world grain markets. >> let me pursue the population argument again, bob. i don't often here the climate change matter debated with the word population as part of the mix, which is why i found "the l.a. times" piece so provocative. am i missing it or is there a reason why that's something that not normally is discussed in this context? >> there's an overwhelming silence on the topic, somewhat

understandable. >> why? >> one of the things is that consumption is a big part of it, how much each of us consumes. typically when people like myself, a well-to-do male person living in the united states of america brings this issue out, someone is likely to say quite accurate accurately, the people having the greatest number of children are emitting very few greenhouse gases so what is the connection. what they fail to realize is, yes, there are tremendous differences in per capita emissions and we should be addressing them. but everyone engages in activities that releases greenhouse gases. >> does it also raise family planning matters? is lurking in the background some kind of choice debate that people don't want to tie to this issue? >> people haven't realized yet that women want to use family planning. one of the reasons we have the number of people we do in the world is women historically and still today have not been able to choose for themselves when, who with and how often to have children. look, people have sex a lot more often than they want to become new parents.

we still aren't able to deal with that fact and make it easy for people to make decisions about child bearing. paradoxically, if we did, population would probably stop growing before that 9 billion number in 2044 and gradually start declining, but we face a lot of obstacles to make that available. >> lester, what's my takeaway relative to population and the heat wave we're experiencing all across the country. >> if you're concerned about climate change, you have to address the population issue. bob was talking about the women in the world who want access to family planning. tlr 215 million women who want to plan their families but lack access to family planning services. one of the things we can do is press for more assistance. that family planning gap, filling it would take very little in the way of resources. the benefits would be huge to

the women, to their families and the world as a whole. it would help very much, as bob implied, to move us toward population stability much sooner. >> i appreciate the time of lester brown and robert engelman. thank you. >> thank you. why did tiger woods abruptly fire his long-time caddy and what does it say about tiger? that's ahead. you can kol low me on twitter as long as you can spell smerconish. this is "hardball," only on msnbc.

could we be in for another wild house election in 2012? it flipped to the gop last year four years after democrats won it. new polling suggests there's widespread dissatisfaction with those in power on capitol hill. according to a brand new abc news-"washington post" poll, 63% of registered voters say they'll look into voting for someone other than their current representative. that's a record high for that poll.

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it's a better policy that gets you a better car. call... or visit one of our local offices today, and we'll provide the coverage you need at the right price. liberty mutual auto insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? welcome back to "hardball." this week tiger woods fired his long-time caddie, steve williams with this short statement on his website. i want to express my deepest gratitude to stevie for all his help, but i think it's time for a change. stevie is an outstanding caddie and friend and has been instrumental in my many accomplishments. i wish him great success. michael bam berger is the co-author of a hit new book called "the swinger." michael, tell the rest of us. you know the answer to this.

what's that caddie-golfer relationship like? is it a lawyer-client kind of thing? in other words, does the caddie know where the bodies are buried? >> he does. the more the cad dee understands the player, the better a caddie he can be. in this case you're talking about the best caddie-player relationship in the history of golf. tiger has won 14 major championships and won 13 of them with steve williams who he fired the other day. >> is steve doing more than just handing to him and recommending a club? >> way more than that. interpreting wind and rain conditions. more importantly, he's interpreting the psyche of his boss and whether he's feeling aggressive or nervous. there's a lot that goes into it. it takes years to build it up. the fact he fired steve williams is a big deal. >> would you also think it was natural -- i know what it's like if i'm hacking with my buddies. everything gets discussed. do you figure discussed between

these two were infidelities. >> you can only take steve williams at his word. he said he knew nothing about it. i have no reason to doubt it. having said that, each was in each other's wedding. the weddings. the wives were best friends but tiger has an incredible ability to put things in little boxes that other people don't go in. so i take him at his word when he says he didn't know. >> are tying are's problems today in your estimation physical, mental, a combination of both? if so, i will make you give me a percent achbl how much mental and how muching if? >> 92% mental and 8% physical. >> wow. the media, in your book, the swinger, which is tre mennous, and obviously based on a tiger woods character, you have a lot to say on that issue. i couldn't help but wonder, what are you trying to tell us about the media handling of tyinger? >> well i appreciate those nice words, michael, very much. let's separate the tabloid media

from the regular sporting press that's covered tigers whole career. in my own personal view and my co-writer and i expressed in the book, is that it was an outrageous act to start spying on tiger's private life as the national enquirer did. that's the first step in the fall from the high shelf that he was on. in terms of the golf press, he's been treated with a great deal of respect for a long time. there's been a lot of revisionist history about how bad the relationship is between the golf press and tiger. almost like ted williams and the boston newspaperets, back in the 50s. it was really nothing like that. tiger is revery reserved but he showed up for press conferences. he answered questions. there was no warmth, little humor, very little insight. it was boring but professional. >> you believe in taking a big check from nike, that does not give carte blanche to the media

to trail a woman all the way it australia or wherever the heck they followed her? >> that's right. sports illustrated got the same tip. we didn't follow fol it because we don't believe in paying for news. or just paying sources. but the national enquirer paid a source to find out who tiger was seeing on the side, stepping outside of his marriage. they basically followed this one, rachel, from her apartment in lower manhattan to melbourne. that's where this whole thing unfolded. and my own personal view is, that's an outrage. yes, when you talk about the money. people say, oh, you took the hundred million from nike and all these other big contracts and starting holding himself under virtue that he had to be held to a higher standard. and my point is who are we to judge what stand ready -- >> understand. the tiger woods character in your book is nicknamed tree. he rehabilitates himself. do you believe that tiger woods is in the pros receives

rehabilitating himself with the public? i'm rooting for the guy. but you're out there following him around hull to hull. what's the vie? we share that same view. this is a very forgiving country and we love segd chances and i would personally love to see tiger redeem himself and the way to do it is by coming back and playing great golf. when he is contended twice cents scandal last year in the masters and u.s. open, there is almost pandemonium on the golf course. there is such a rooting interest in seeing this guy come back and you might say rooting for tiger is like rooting for general motors in the 50s. but people love to see a difficult thing done at a very high level and tiger did that better than anybody. >> i just have 30 seconds left. i know you want him to do it, will he be able to do it? >> i don't fer see him competing at the level he did in 2000, but i think we will see him compete again. >> i agree with the american

people. a little gleeful in taking him down, but would love to see him come back. >> thanks for having me. >> appreciate you being here. president obama is going to make statement on the debt talks at the top of the hour. we will get the latest from the white house when you return. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc. (telephone ring. pick up) usa prime credit. my name ...peggy. you got problem? ggy? third time i've called, 's time i speak with a supervisor. supervisor is genius...i transfer. transfer! transfer! transfer!

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break news. president obama will be making a statement on the debt talks in

just a moment. nbc's kelly o'donnell joins us with the latest from capitol hill. kelly some. >> we expect a major change to be announced in how the debt talks will go forward. we all know the deadline is pressing and we know from the house gop leadership aides that the speaker sent out a letter to lenders, contacted majority leader harry reid and the republican leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell to talk about changing how this is being done tp. that is prompting the president to come forward and make his own statement about where things stand. as you know, the big, big divide has been over key issues. taxes and entitlements. republicans don't want to see any tax increases. democrats do and on the other side there has been a lot of discussion about how could there be shared pain for both parties to get a deal where there would be some changes to entitlements. that's tough for democrats and some change in the tax code that would increase how much the government takes in but do it in a way where they would change the systems so rates could actually go down. that can be tough for

republicans to sell. this is a major development. we expect it could have significant ramifications on the country's ability to meet this deadline. because there is so much time involved, it actually turning whatever agreement were to be reached at some point into legislative language and then getting it passed. what i can tell you is this is not a positive development. we know that there will be some very stern words coming from both the white house and we certainly heard that from here on capitol hill from aides close to speaker boehner. this is what i would describe as something of a serious break in talks and we'll have more information shortly. but members of the house are learning about this now as they head home. as you know, the house side went home to be in their districts. they will be hearing a lot from constituents as well. and the senate adjourned as well. it appears we have a major stall in talks at a time when people thought there was going to be some sort after break through. we don't have that michael. >> i guess when they said there's no deal, there's no