debt debacle. just eight days left to raise the nation's dealt ceiling and markets are uneasy as president obama and republican leaders fail to break the impasse. confess norway killer is going to be in court as we learn new fascinating details about his life before the bloody massacre, including his afint for the writings of the unabomb are. and dominique strauss-kahn's accuser goes public, breaking her silence about her claim of sexual assault. we'll get the details from "newsweek" magazine straight ahead. from niagara falls to city hall, nearly 700 new york same-sex couples say i do, including mayor bloomberg's chief policy advisor, whose marriage was owe fishated by the mayor himself. the happy couple is going to join us live this hour. welcome to msnbc. i'm thomas roberts. millions of benefits checks could be on the line as we wait for washington to reach that deal on a debt ceiling. now, we are getting dangerously close to the default. look at the calendar. eight days to go, and still

nothing close to a plan that both parties can agree to. the focus of the debate has shifted to congress now, and majoritied leader harry reid and speaker boehner both have plans in the works, but it's unclear if their finished products will get the votes to raise the debt limit. the speaker pressed for his approach on the sunday shows, while putting political pressure on the president. >> it's not physically possible to do all of this in one step. i know the president is worried about his next election, but my god, shouldn't we be worried about the country? >> kristen welker is live for us this morning tracking the latest developments. kristen, we're hearing about these multiple plans, but clearly no real path, again, to a possible deal. where do we stand right now as we start our new workweek? >> well, that's absolutely right. the fact that there are these two separate plans that are emother-in-lawinging is emblem attic of how deadlocked and difficult this entire process has been all along. just to give you a little bit more information about those two separate plans under harry

reid's plan, you would see abou8 process. the first part, according to the speaker, would bring about $800 billion in savings, and would increase the debt ceiling through the next year. then after that you would call for a bipartisan commission to come back to the table and try to identify another $1.6 trillion in cuts through things like changes to the tax code as well as reforming entitlements, but the problem with that, according to president obama,

the reason why he won't accept it is because it goes through the election year. president obama saying he won't support a short-term solution. well, speaker boehner has accused the president of playing politics for that reason, saying he shouldn't be focused on the election year. you should be focused on solving this issue right now. earlier today on "morning joe" senator chuck schumer fired back at the çspeaker. take a listen. know leaks speaker boehner. he is a decent guy who wants to do the right thing, but what's happening is instead of speaker boehner leading the tea party, he seems to be following them. >> reporter: thomas, either way we have eight days left, so something has got to be done soon. both of the leaders expect to talk to their conferences later on today. thomas. >> kristen welker, great to see you. thank you. >> thank you. republican senator ron johnson is a member of the budget committee this morning. sir, it's good to have you on with us.

>> thanks for having me on. >> senator johnson, do you think we're really going to get this deal done in a timely manner before august the 2nd, and in your estimation what do you think that deal is going to be, either led by republicans, democrats, or really the bipartisan type of deal that everybody has been saying could happen? >> i mean, i really don't know. that's just part of the probable here. you hear about all these plans, but i don't see anything in writing or anything on a piece of paper, and the problem really sshgs you know, the republicans act -- like it or hate tshg the house passed a budget, and now we've also passed the cut, cap, and balance bill, which i believe really is the solution. i just don't see washington ever having the political will to cut spending, to prioritize spending, until we actually establish hard spending caps and enshrine that in the constitution, and, you know, i guess what i'm willing to say is there has to be some very short-term deal to allow us to continue debate the cut, cap, and balance bill, which the senate wouldn't allow us to talk about and wouldn't allow us to

debate, and this is the same democrat senate that has not passed a budget in over two years. that's the problem. the democrats simply aren't willing tkç put anything on a piece of paper for the american people to see. there's really no -- what do you negotiate on? >> senator, when we talk about cut, cap, and balance, and you hear senator schumer talking about house speaker john boehner, instead of league the tea party, is being led by the tea party, is that how cut, cap, and balance passed the house to get to the senate? >> i think there's a really big misunderstanding about folks like myself that got elected in 2010. sure, i sprang from the tea party, but what the tea party is all about is we love this country. we realize we're bankrupting, and the only guarantee i made during the election is i would not vote -- i would never vote with my re-election might not. that's what i i came here for. i came here to actually fix the problem. that's a little different. the long-term politicians here aren't used to that type of commitment to saving our

country. that's really the difference here, and until the political class here understands that, they're going to continue to misunderstand what the tea party is all about. not crazy. we're patriots. we love this country. we don't want to see it go bankrupt. >> senator ron johnson. good to have you on with us. >> thanks for having me on. >> the man who confessed to slaughtering at least 93 people in norway has been arraigned in court this morning. take a look. this is the photo just released, showing anders breivik leaving court. the judge ordered the court doors to be closed so he wouldn't have a pulpit to speak from. new details emerging about the massacre at the summer camp. a 16-year-old survivor who was shot in the leg spoke this morning about her experience hiding on the island. >> some people were stuffed in the room in the corner, and when he come in from the door, he start shootingç the people on e floor. three people that was alive in the room was just lying and we

didn't know how many people that was shooting, so we didn't know if there was coming back or just leaving us. >> we want to get more this morning with the very latest from msnbc's jay gray who joins us in oslo. jay, fill us in on what took place in the courtroom this morning. >> good morning. always good to talk to you, thomas. this morning he did confess the suspect here. he said that he did it. he admitted to the killings, but said that he should not be punished. he said he was doing it to eliminate cultural marksism and muslim domination across western europe. this all coming from the judge who spoke after the closed hearing today. he will be held for at least eight more weeks. four of those in isolation. then there will be another hearing. thomas, there's another side to this story. really still developing here in oslo as well. you take a look around here, you can see exactly what it is. the people here continue to mourn, coming in from other areas outside the city, and those from the city here all coming to drop a flower or a candle. i can tell you walking through the center of the city and into

this area, there's several flower shots, and there are lines out the door of people waiting to come here. some come in and & stand for ours. others for a few minutes. we continue to see tears and prayers here. it's going to be a tough go, and this is very much evidence of that. >> jay, we're just getting across the wires, according to the a.p., but the death toll in the youth camp massacre has been lowered to 68. it's still a terrible tragedy, though. jay, what do western about the fact of the planning that went into all of this, and whether or not he worked alone or had anybody that tha helped him? >> at this point -- and i have the chance to talk with this lawyer sclugsively last night that said he believes this was all planned on his own, that he did all of this himself, but that the planning process did take several years, and did take a lot of work. he beganç to lease a small far outside of the city so he could order the chemicals he needed make the bomb that blasted the building here in downtown oslo, so that was part of his plan.

he worked on this for quite some time. now, he was his attorney tells us that he is in amongst a group of people in several countries, cells what the attorney called him, that are trying to stop what, again, their words is muslim domination across western europe. thomas. >> nbc's jay gray in oslo, norway for us this morning. jay, thank you. today we are learning some more about the motivation behind what spurred this alleged terrorist to attack as he did evan coleman, an msnbc analyst and a senior partner of flash point global partners. it's good to have you here, and as we're hearing from jay, the man confessing in court this morning. these heinous attacks, going to this elite school that he attended in norway. he was friendly to his neighbors. he played vamdz. he listened to pop music. from all outsiders looking in, he seems to be a relatively stable and normal young man. >> well, sort of. there are other indications out there that he may also be quite disturbed. i mean, we're looking -- we're

learning more about the relationship he had with his father, who is a former norwegian diplomat living in france. the two of them haven't spoke news 10 years, and apparently the father was deeply disturbed to learn about this. this is someone who was estranged from his family, and we're going to have to figure out how that happened and why that happened. clearly the demonization of muslims played a big role in pushing this guy forward, but i think we may find that he was somewhat disturbed to begin with. >> evan, when we hear about the 1,500 page manifesto that this suspect directly used pages from the unabomber directly just picking up the words of the unabomber and putting them to his manifesto himself, what does it say about the distinction between other people, terrorists, and the type of terrorist this person wanted to be. >> yeah, well, look, this is the problem. this is the problem with number one, havingç people bring assat rifles to political rallies, and it's the problem with demonization of muslims. it's the problem of glorifying homegrown terrorists. the problem is there are people

that want to follow in their footsteps and who will act as copycats. i came up with all of this. it's a fairly sophisticated terrorist blot. all on his ownby studying what he had seen before. i think that's why we have to be very careful to make sure that what's coming out of the media and the messages coming out in the media are reasonable ones. if there is a message coming out that muslims are evil and that they should be murdered, and that's a mainstream view, then it's clear what's going to happen. you're going to have crazy people that are going to adopt that and follow that to the hilt. >> again, we have been confessing this morning, as far as we know, authorities believing that he act the alone, but a lot more to come as we continue to fiend out exactly what took place there, but so sad. great to see you this morning. >> thank you. so breaking her silence, the accuser telling her side of the story, describing a brutal attack by the former imf chief. we get the details from "newsweek" magazine. zarchgts and the father of amy

winehouse speaks out as fans around the world pay tribute to the troubled singer whose body was found this weekend. what we've learned about her tragic death ahead. ...was it something big? ...or something small? ...something old? ...or something new? ...or maybe, just maybe... it's something you haven't seen yet. the 2nd generation of intel core processors. stunning visuals, intelligent performance. this is visibly smart.

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breaking her silence so protect both her life and her reputation. that's what the hotel maid who accused dominique strauss-kahn of sexually assaulting her says she is doing. in an emotionally and detailed cover story with "newsbeak" nafissatou diallo says she is not only telling the truth, but she wants the ex-imf head to go to prison for what he has done. christopher dickey from the daily beast joins me now to talk about this amazing story. it is an extraordinary story. what's even more extraordinary

is this interview because we rarely see someone, a victim, come forward like this to give such an emotional and raw interview, but also saying that she wants to see this man go to jail. from the reporting that "newsbeak" and the daily beast is doing, do you find her totally to be believable? do you think she is credible? >> i think she's very credible when she's talking about the incident at the hotel. the criminal sexual assault, the daemtd rape. that story is ?újju)áuq't. it's been consistent all along since the day the incident happened. when she talks about the rest of her life, you know, she's a woman living on the margins of american society. she's an immigrant from one of the roughest countries in africa. there's a lot of gray areas there, but when she's talking about her job at the hotel and about the encounter with dominique strauss-kahn and about her fears that she would lose her job because of his craziness, then it's a plausible story. >> we have a statement from dominique strauss-kahn's attorneys that i wanted to read

that are taking great exception to the claims that she's making calling her "the first accuser in history to conduct a media campaign to persuade a prosecutor to pursue charges against a person from whom she wants money." what does this comment tell you about the case itself, the legal battle, what's going on behind the scenes, and then also, do you talk to her about the money? >> sure, of course, we did. we had more than three hours with her. first of all, yes, there is concern by her lawyers that the prosecutor is going to drop the case because while there was certainly every reason to have probable cause to arrest dominique strauss can, once you take those gray areas of her background, frens, her lying on her asylum petition to come into the united states, suddenly you see it's going to be very hard to get over that threshold of reasonable doubt beyond a reasonable doubt if it's put in front of a jury, so it's -- it looks like a loser from the prosecution's point of view. >> okay. so that's part of the situation here. you know, it's great that

strauss-kahn's lars are saying that about her. what are they saying about him? neither his lawyers nor strauss-kahn have said a single word about when he actually did in that roomç. what did he do? what's his story? that's what we're not hearing. >> also, the waters are a bit muddied with the prosecution investigation not handing over some information to the defense lawyers so, there could be -- >> well, they actually haended over even more than they needed to. the biggest -- the murkiest area, this right now has to do with a conversation that diallo had a guy in a detention center in irarizona who she had known for two or three years, at least, several years, and supposedly they talked about money the day after the event, but that quote is a paraphrase

put in the "new york times" in quotes, oddly enough, and it's a parafradz from a one-page summary of an hour-long conversation. we don't even know it. >> i do. i do. >> from her point of view, yes. >> this week's edition of "news week." thanks again. no thank you. >> let's take a look at the markets and how they are doing today. we've got red arrows across the board. the dow just down by 60. the s&p down by almost seven, and the nasdaq down by 12 1/2. how are investors, though, reacting to this divided congress? again, the tough of war that's taking place in d.c. with a possible default on our debt looming. we're going to get a check from our friends at cnbc. and after more than 100 years, the storied walter reed army hospital is closing, serving thousands of war heroes and presidents.

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the walter reed army medical center, the military's most famous hospital of all is shutting down after more than a century of service. now, in order to cut costs, this aging facility is going to be shut permanently on wednesday. since 1909 the walter reed center has treated hunsz of thousands of wounded soldiers as well as presidents and foreign leaders. joining me now is retired army colonel jack jacobs, and msnbc analyst and medal of honor restipulatent and also someone who passed through walter reed. >> everybody who was banged up pretty well went through walter reed. >> president eisenhower passed away at walter reed. his granddaughter said it's like losing your favorite uncle. what do you think the legacy of the hospital is going to be to so many families and different people that have had an experience there? >> it's going to last a long

time because we're closing it now after a lot of people who have been badly wounded have beenç fixed there in this currt conflict. you're going have a legacy. its name is going to mean a great deal for a long time to come, and those of us who were treated there and it's quite a few, like i said, hundreds of thousands. >> you served during vietnam. what was the reputation of walter reed? i was telling you my dad serveed in vietnam too. he passed through there at points, and so for me it's certainly in my family's lexicon. what was it like, the reputation of it? >> well, walter reed going to walter reed meant going to the hospital. lots of hospitals all around the country, but usually you got sent to walter reed if they couldn't fix you locally. one of the reasons was it was a teaching hospital, and lots of new techniques. bone wounds. you went to walter reed -- if you went to walter reed, it meant you were really, really going to the hospital.

>> for active military families now that are watch this and hearing about the legacy of walter reed, and also think about the future of what it means to be cared for, under military protection, what does it mean now? what's going to happen to the great medical hospital services that our military provides? >> well, those facilities are going to close, but walter reed, the services it provides are going to be coordinated in a smaller group of hospitals, including that at bethesda in the washington area, so those techniques and services will not be lost. you know, it's -- it's very, very expensive to run hospitals. it costs a great deal of money and we have constrained resources. facilities are going to have to close. we also have to remember that despite the fact that we're fighting more than one war, people are still getting badly wounded, that we have very few people actually on active duty now. >> and major walter reed is near the facility -- >> the guy who was the youngest guy in the history i think ofç the university of virginia to get a medical degree who is 18,

he got another m.d. a year later at nyu, and then focused on bacteriaology. he figured out you couldn't get yellow fever from touching somebody with yellow fever. you got it from a mosquito, and that's one of the reasons solving that problem was one of the reasons we got through and built the panama canal. >> it really is a great legacy to think back on. especially for so many different military. >> it took care of me. >> colonel jack jacobs, great to see you. >> you too. family, friends, and fans of singer ain amy winehouse are still mourning from the loss of her over this weekend. investigators are now trying to find out what caused the 27-year-old's tragic and untimely death. specifically causing it. we're going to see if there was anything that could have been done more so to help her.

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top stories. the death toll at the youth camp has been reduced to 68. this from the total of earlier 86. this was sight siting some difficulties in gathering information at the remote location there in norway. and the bombing in oslo, the first attack of that massacre on friday. the death toll from that rises to eight from seven. now, the total is now up to 76 that lost their lives on that day. sfwlimplgts the east coast is cooling down after days of record breaking heat and humidity, but there's no relief for the south, which continues to bake in triple digit temps. we just learned that the total number of heat deaths in the chicago area jumped 11 as of sunday evening. those deaths all occurring between friday and sunday. here with more on where the heat wave is heading is the weather channel's carl park we are more. carl, good morning. >> good morning to you. you know, that big ridge in the middle of the country is really not going to go anywhere any time soon, so it stays very hot there in texas and through a lot of the central plains. you notice here it's still hot in the southeast too. some cool relief for parts of

the northeast and begins to creep back on tuesday. 92 in philly. still very, very hot there from kansas right down through texas. now, we are getting some rain to cool things off as well in the east, and in the southeast. one of those clusters of storms now making its way towards new york. see, there's a severe thunderstorm warning there in western new york, and it looks like if this cluster of storms holds together, we're probably going to be in for a pretty wet and stormy afternoon thereç in new york city. that's certainly going to cool things off and it could make for a difficult drive home this afternoon. severe weather possible today in new york city, as well as into pin pen and across parts of northern plains. it's going to be a lot more active and much of the southeast as well. that's good news. they really need that rain there. thomas. >> carl parker, thanks. appreciate it. >> so for a look at other headlines, we're going to go to whats topping the news for you right now starting with several teens recovering this morning after being mauled by a bear in the alaska wilderness over the weekend. the teens who were on an outdoor survival program were rescued on sunday. 17-year-old samuel gossegen was

one of the three teens on that trip who was attacked. he suffered life-threatening bites and puncture wounds, but his parents are saying he is happy and he is going to recover. >> we're just so grateful for cell phones and all these other things that right from the e.r. they could hand me a phone and say you can talk to him. >> well, two men suspected of beating a san francisco giants fan nearly to death are being arraigned today in an l.a. courthouse. brian stowe, a 4 it-year-old paramedic has been hospitalized ever since that beating which took place outside dodgers stadium on opening day in march. he underwent emergency surgery last week after suffering a seizure. the two suspects were charged last week with mayhem, assault, and battery. all which are felonies. right now the nfl players association is going through a new labor contract that could end the 136 day long lockout. several reports have confirmed that owners and players have agreed to the terms of a new deal, but it's not 100%. according to a source, what

remains is a few small points in the language. they're meeting now, and the vote is expected to come within the hour. we'll keep you post odd that. house minority leader nancy pelosi calling for an investigation today into allegation that is congressman david wu had an unwanted sexual encounter with a teen girl. he has resisted calls for his resignation, and won'tç run fo re-election in 2012. he has revealed he is being treated for mental health issues, and he apologized to staffers after sending out a photo of himself dressed as a tiger earlier this year. a new presidential poll released in the past hour finds more than half of america favors a stoppingly religious candidate. according to the public religion research institute, 56% of voters said it's somewhat or very important for their candidate to have strong religious beliefs, but when it comes to the actual beliefs much the current candidates in the race, the poll has some interesting findings. take a look. just four in ten voters correctly knew that mitt romney is a mormon.

10% said he is a protestant or catholic, and nearly half had no idea what his religious beliefs are. meanwhile, president obama who is christian was also misidentified by voters. nearly one in five said the president is a muslim. 40% said they didn't know what his religious beliefs are. eight days away from the debt ceiling deadline. with uncertainty over whether the limit will be raiseed in time and the markets are responding. they're jittery today, both in the u.s. as well as overseas. take a look for yourself. we're seeing red arrows across the board. the dow jones down by almost 50. the s&p down by almost 5, and the nasdaq down by roughly 7. joining me now is cnbc ace mandy drury. stocks, we see, are down. these red arrows. what are the fears that the asian and the european markets will really fall off a cliff when they reopened after the weekend. that didn't happen, so explain what are we seeing as we kick off the new workweek? >> you're right. markets are kaushts and jittery, but they're certainly not falling off a cliff. we're really down to the wire here with only eight days more

to go, and congressional leaders have yet again failed to agree on a deal or even a compromise to raise the nation's debt limit to avoid default. well, president obama wants to raise revenues by letting tax cuts for the wealthy americans expire. republicans have rejected that idea of higher taxes, and they're pushing for more spending cuts, but whileç equities are nervous, those believe that will will be an 11th hour deal. if you look at the treasury, this is the market most sensitive to the credit worthiness of the united states. there isn't panic at all about the potential for the u.s. to be downgraded. so when you can really feel the jitters though is in the price of gold. this is a traditional safe haven and earlier hit a new record high -- >> thanks. >> food to see you too. >> music fans in london and around the world continue to mourn the untimely death of amy winehouse. this morning the singer's grieving parents visited with

people who have been flocking outside of her home. all there to pay tribute to this musical legend. >> i can't tell what you this means to us. it really is making this a lot easier for us. >> an autopsy is due later this afternoon to determine exactly how the 27-year-old singer died. right now many are wondering why her family and her friends couldn't save her. bonnie fuller is the editor in chief of "hollywood.com" and joins me in the studio to talk more about that. i wish it was on more to note than what we have to talk about today, but you're someone who has covered amy winehouse professionally. when you heard about this, what was your reaction and then as you think about all the reporting that you have done leading up to this, are you surprised? >> well, my reaction. she's just 27 years old. beautiful. incredibly talented, but was it a surprise? not really for those that followed her career.

she has long been more known, unfortunately, for her difficulties with drugs, with rehab, with eating disorders, andç with turbulent romantic relationships than she has been for her extreme talent. >> the legacy that she leaves behind will be more focused on her music, do you believe, or do you think that the troubled past that brought her to this point is really going to be something that overshadows her musical talent? >> ultimately, it will be her music. back to black, in her famous album that she won five grammy awards for has zoomed to the top of the itunes charts. people are buying her music. there will be albums. she recorded a lot and was about to go on tour. all of this music will be released. i think that just like people kurt cobain, jimi hendrix, janis joplin who also died at the age of 27, their legacy really is their music, and it will be with her as well. dmroo it really just is an odd coincidence that you named so many talented artists that

passed away at the age of 27. her parents, though, the winehouses, issued a statement in the wake of her death. it said our family has been left bereft by the loss of amy, a wonderful daughter, sister, niece. she leaves a gaping hole in our lives, and we should appreciate privacy and space at this terrible time." >> i think that for a lot of us when we see someone who is a celebrity, we forget that they are a child, they are a sister, they are an aunt, a niece to someone. in respect to her family collectively, as people look at the troubled life that she led, some might fault her family for maybe not gathering around her, but they did attempt to put her into rehab over and over and over again. >> they did. her parents were very deeply involved with her. her dad, mitch, her mother, janice, and, yes, she had been to rehab five times. i mean, they really tried hard, as did a boyfriend. she was involved for the last year with a man called reg travis, who is a british ç director, and he also tried to save her, but with addicts, you

need them to save themselves. >> but the decision is really ultimately up to the person if they want to be saved and that has to come from within. >> that's right. and her mother saw her the day before she died, and she said she was out of it, but she's holding on to the fact that her -- that amy said to her, i love you, mom, and her mom said for so long i have been preparing myself that this would happen, but they really did try everything. >> really is sad, but she was a tremendous talent, that's for sure. bonnie, great to see you. thank you. >> thank you. so everyone from republicans, democrats, the president all want to avoid the first ever default in american history, but with time running out, just eight days to go, it doesn't look like washington has a true plan in place. we're going to get a reality check from one lawmaker who has been part of these talks from the very beginning.

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leaders on the hill are working nonstop to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling, but

members on both sides of the aisle remain very far apart on the specifics of any compromise, but they also have time to tweet. house speaker john boehner just issued this tweet minutes ago. the gop will forge a solution consistent with the principles of the balanced and bipartisan cut cap balance plan that passed the house. maryland congressman chris van holland joins me to talk more about this. i want to get to where your confidence level is right now. le dchlsz will also go along with a plan that's being formulated right now about senator reid. >> well, we have to take a look at the reid proposal, but it does have a major advantage, which is it extends the debt ceiling through january 2013. there's no reason we should choose to put the country in the same kind of predicament this coming december or january when we have it within our power to lift the debt ceiling through january 2013. why would we put the economy at risk, why would we want to

encourage the kind of uncertainty that we're in right now? >> over the past few weeks and into the past weekend we've seen your leader, nancy pelosi, clay mrai a more distinguished and growing role in the negotiations. we hear repeatedly about what speaker boehner is saying about his caucus. we had tweets like a moment ago talking about what he thinks should be done, but what are democrats hearing from their leadership sfwl. >> we've embraced the president's approach, which is to try to get a grand bargain, to try to assure that we reduce our deficit, but we do it in a balanced way. he has said $3 in spending cuts and $1 in revenue for closing some of these corporate loopholes. you have heard them. the corporate jets and that kind of çthing. and asking the folks at the top to go back to paying the same rates during the clinton administration. that has been the architecture the president set forward. we were willing to give the president a whole lot of running room. unfortunately, the tea party wing on the republican house side was not willing to give their speaker any kind of

ability to man you're. they pulled the rug out from under him, and now it's somewhat discouraging to hear the tweet the speaker just sent out because their so-called cup, cap, and balance actually would insert into the constitution of the united states, into ow founding document, a provision that makes it easier to cut medicare or education or social security than it does to cut corporate tax breaks. nordz to cut a corporate tax break, you need a two-thirds vote. in order to cut the other thing, you need a majority vote. i don't think the american people want that in the constitution, and, yet, they've been saying that unless you do that, they'll prevent america from paying its bills. >> sir, real quickly, though, there's this new poll from the hill giving a gauge of the american people and 71% are saying that they are either not very confident or not at all confident that politicians will get a real grip on the debt problems. do you see a way forward after the debt ceiling negotiations or is it just that the focus needs to shift now and reprioritize to

what the american public feels really should be the biggest priority for everyone in washington d.c., which is jobs? >> well, thomas, there's no doubt that we have drifted away from that main debate. in fact, many of the proposals the republicans are making as part of the deficit reduction talks could actually hurt economic growth in the short-term. what we have to do is strike the right balance between making sure we get the economy moving right now but put in place a plan to reduce the deficit over the long-term and make sure that we have çlong-term economic growth. it would dramatically cut certain investments and infrastructure. we have 20% unemployment in the transportation and construction industry. that's the wrong way to go, and i hope we can get back to focussing on the economy, but every time we try and address that issue our republican colleagues are threatening not to extend the debt ceiling, and

that, of course, captures everybody's attention because that would be unprecedented, as you know, where we've never intentionally defaulted on our debt in our history. let's not do it now. >> congressman chris van holland, we'll let you going get back to work. nice to see you this morning. >> good to see you. thank. >> by the powers vested in me by the state of new york, i pronounce you both married. >> that tl we have it. new york mayor michael bloomberg, officiating at one of the city's first seam-sex weddings over the weekend. and the newlywed couple joins us after the break. stick around. part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers.

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. so in weekend not just because of a record heat, hundreds of couples tied the knot sunday.

last week they were simple fiances, now as a married couple. just to make sure we have everything established. >> there were so many people and it took decades, decades.ç

>> you guys have worked together for a long time. it was a moment of marriage equality. >> it was full circle. >> the defense of marriage act was passed. now we have many people in being

the opinion was changed. >> what do you feel is going to happen? >> i think progress -- our wedding and so many hundreds of others weddings. which is just about family.ç

>> they were over the moon. think had all of their relatives and their cousins. they knew their parents were married. kids have a primitive and sophisticated sense of social justice. for them, i think what this really means is their family is like any other family. >> it's a clean slate to learn about love. and a clean slate to lover are learn about marriage. harry potter universal park and

disney world. >> we're going to take a few days off at it be end of the week and hopefully plan a few days off at tend of the summer. >> a few days off at tend of the week with my mother-in-law. >> i just found out john you're from baltimore. if you're from baltimore you don't ask where you went to college, it's where do you go to college? >> once again, thanks for sharing your story with us as well. tell your daughters congratulations, too. that's going to do it for me. i'm going to see you back here at 11:00 eastern time. until then you can follow me on twitter at thomas a. roberts. contessa brewer is going to pick things up for the next hour. >> it is a story of tragic dimensions. a mom who loses her little boy to aç hit and run driver. now the twist, she could spend more time behind bars than he

did because she was crossing the street outside of a crosswalk. she joins me next to talk about it. did a minnesota school's neutrality policy allow gay bullying? that's the question and a mother who lost her young son to what she says bullying to led to a suicide. she joins me to talk about it. and nancy pelosi calling now for an ethics investigation into the oregon congressman who's smack-dab in the middle of a sex scandal. it's all ahead on msnbc. ♪ [ upbeat ] [ announcer ] who could resist the call... of america's number-one puppy food brand? with dha and essential nutrients also found in mother's milk. purina puppy chow.

the big story we're watching right now, duelling debt plans. today john boehner is going rogue. and democrats say good luck with that. >> more changes, but no deal. on one side of the debt