that. i'm much busier -- when you see me on the sofa, that is actually show prep. i cannot be distracted from that to then right resume building recommendations, so, you know, thanks, great. love to have you. now, all together -- >> "the rachel maddow show" is up next. >> good evening, rachel. >> good evening, lawrence. that was spectacular. >> cutest interns in the building, don't you think? >> yes, of course, except for mind. thanks you guys and thanks to you at home for staying with us in the next hour and what has turned out to be a busy, news-y, shocking friday night. standard and poor's has downgraded the rating from aaa to aa-plus, which sounds better when you say it out loud but is actually worse. standard and poor's rating the

united states now as aa-plus with a negative outlook. the decision by standard and poor's has launched criticism with not only did they make the wrong call, but that standard and poor's basic math may have been wrong in calculating what they needed to calculate in order to decide on this downgrade. later in the show we'll be joined by jerad bernstein, former chief economic advisor to vice president biden, we'll get jerad's help. we'll also be joined by some of the top economic reporters in the country that have been covering this action today and the controversy that surrounds it. after the markets closed, an abc news report about the possibility of a downgrade frankly sent seven million stomachs lurching into 7 million throats. the u.s. government was bracing for a possible downgrade of the

credit rating. but then what started off as an alarming story frankly became a weird story when a third government official told abc s&p had "made a serious mistake in its analysis base ed on flawed math and assumptions and the united states was fighting back against a potential downgrade." john harwood telling us after the s&p notified the administration they were going to downgrade, the treasury department argued to s&p that their math was wrong, that there were errors in the computation of their data, calculations that one source told john harwood were off by trillions of dollars. john harwood will be joining us for more on that. he reports since the downgrade, the white house is denouncing standard and poor's is going

through amateur hour for having gone ahead with the downgrade even though the administration says the downgrade is based quite literally on a math error. word on the controversial s&p downgrade coming in the wake of yesterday's drop in the dow jones, markets around the world doing the same today. today the u.s. stock market finished largely flat. moody's and fitch have maintained the aaa rating but have warned downgrades were possible in the future. a downgrade, of course, is what the obama administration and congress were hoping to avoid when the president signed a deal to raise the debt ceiling at the last minute to keep the u.s. from defaulting on its debt. here's what s&p says tonight about what they went ahead and down graded a week after the debt ceiling deal was reached. downgrading reaching from s&p's press release, the downgrade reflects our opinion the fiscal

consolidation plan recently agreed to falls short of what would be necessary to stabilize. the downgrade reflects our view the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of american policy making and institutions have weakened at a time of economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook on april 18. since then we have changed our view of the difficulties in bridging the gulf between the political parties over fiscal policy, which makes us pessimistic about the capacity of congress and the administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the debt dynamics any time soon. as you hear in there, even if you don't give a hoot, this

downgrade is essentially an indictment of the nation's political process. at roughly 8:20 p.m. eastern time tonight, s&p went ahead with their downgrade decision. congressman barney frank joins us on the phone, he, of course, is the ranking member of the house services committee. thanks for joining us. >> thanks so much, i'm glad you're able to give it the airing it should get. >> do you think this action was -- was warranted? >> absolutely not. in the first place, let's recall, this standard and poor's is the rating agency that took money from the people selling junk bonds and told other people to buy it. these are the people who have one of the worst records of incompetent and irresponsibility

arno around and people are well aware standard and poor's did a terrible job by overvaluing securities by private companies that were not worth much. it's not surprising they've done this to the u.s. government because i don't know if it's some kind of conservatism of a perverse sort, they have been overvaluing private debt, they consistently undervalue public debt. these people have for years been giving cities and states and counties varying ratings, despite the fact the city almost never defaults. that's where we have to be clear. people -- the amount of interest people pay the u.s. government shouldn't be depending whether the u.s. government pays them to borrow money. doesn't depend whether they like this or that political sanction, the question is, only question that's relevant, is that the company is going to default or

not. there was zero chance of defaulting. they don't like the politics of it of the i think to some extent, standard and poor's is trying to cover a reputation that's justifiably in threads. they are as responsible for the crisis as anyone else with their terrible record. they have two fundamentals in opposite directions, they have consistently overvalued private debt and undervalued public debt. cities and states all over this country are paying more to build schools and fire houses because they have refused to treat these communities fairly and we got statistics that show, by the way, that palpable ratings for corporations and public governments unfairly downgrade the public governments. >> as you point out it's about

whether people should expect to pay back, whether or not there is a real risk of default. do you think this is, in essence, an indictment of the u.s. political process for gotten so close to potential default because of brinksmanship of the debt ceiling? >> you may not like the politics of it, but we have a powerful incentive not to default. taking standard and poor's seriously is not something rational people should do. i'm speaking bipartisan, one of the things we agreed, there used to be laws on the books that said if you were a certain kind of an investment house, you couldn't buy a security unless it had a certain rating and we abolished that. we told the regulators, you may not require anybody to pay attention to the ratings,

because the ratings are junk. no, standard and poor's are trying to show how tough they can be and the question of default -- well, they talk about the american political process, that's not a relevant criteria. by the way, even if there was a very short-term failure to pay for a day or two, the question would everyone gotten their money? no, this is a political judgment of incompetence. >> barney frank, joining us on short notice tonight, sir, thank you so much for your time. >> please, pay no attention to these people whether they are rating mortgage bond or government or a city. nobody that i am aware of has been wrong more often than them. >> hearing that from you, i believe it, sir. thank you, i appreciate it. joined now by luis story,

business reporter for the new york times. thank you for joining us tonight, i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you heard congressman frank angrily denouncing this decision by s&p saying not only is it not warranted, people shouldn't take them seriously. attacking s&p as a ratings agency. can you react to that for us? >> well, you know, this is something you'll probably see all weekend long, politicians have been furious with the ratings agency ever since the financial crisis because the ratings agencies missed the boat there. they were wrong on the mortgage-backed security, they rated them aaa and as we all know now, they were full of crap. they were wrong. you'll probably see a lot of statements from politicians like that. that said, be careful to let this turn into another round of

thee y theateratrics. they are things the bond market have already reacted to. the sell off you saw this week, gigantic sell off, that was investors reacting to the very poor gdp figures we got a week ago that showed the economy is growing far slower than we thought it was, the manufacturing figures at the beginning of the week, today you had unemployment records that are still weak, they are not going to turn the lights around for a lot of americans. it was those kinds of things as well as the governance that led them, according to their release, to make this decision and investors in the stock market have made a judgment this week as well, and so it's important to look at the fundamental issues underlying our economy, underlying global stability and assess where we

are and not just get into kind of a pointing fingers match. >> in terms of the way this news broke tonight, it is extraordinary to have had such a very strong push back. i guess you can't call it push back, push ahead of the fact, even before this decision was announced, attacking s&p's methodology for coming up with this. s&p reportedly admitting to the treasury department their calculations were initially off by trillions. they presumably redid the math but still tonight issued the downgrade. does that tell us that this is about something other than the raw numbers that this is about processes as much as about figures? >> the stakes here are really high and that's why the obama administration pushed back so much. politicians can say that these ratings don't matter and people should ignore them, but clearly the reason they were pushing back is the stakes are high here and the reason they are high is that the ratings of the country

have the potential to affect all kinds of other ratings here. some ratings agencies have said if there was a downgrade they may also lower the ratings of several states, they may also lower ratings of fannie and freddie, for instance, so the housing giants could find it more expensive to borrow in the market, so the ratings traditionally mean something and do affect pricing. this is unprecedent and we'll have to see on monday what happens in the market. it's possible investors will shrug and not demand a bigger premium from the united states, we already knew those things about the united states, so maybe investors will shrug it off but there could be collateral effects here. >> louise story, thank you for putting this in context, appreciate it. >> also an msnbc policy analyst, ezra, thanks for your time

tonight, appreciate you being here. in terms of what louise was talking about here, obviously the importance of the downgrade and the legitimacy of the downgrade is a subject for debate and some very angry comments already from government officials both in congress and in the executive branch, but now that the downgrade has happened, what do you think happens next? what do you think is the practical effect? >> i think it's hard to say but you need to remember this is coming two days after the market dive by 500 points and almost every investor ran into treasuries. so treasuries have been reaffirmed as the single safest investment in the world. given there's no other options on the table i'm not expecting a huge movement there although we could always be surprised, but rachel, could i make one point on the legitimacy on the downgrade here, if you actually read it, it's not about the numbers, not about our ability

to pay. what they say and i'm going to quite, more broadly the downgrade affects our view the effectiveness, stability, and ability have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges. i understand people's anger at s&p. they have made enormous mistakes. i have no particular love for them, but it's hard for me having watched congress the past couple of years and say that statement is untrue. >> in terms of s&p making that assessment there, i totally agree with you, but my broader question here, especially somebody's who's generally outside on a day-to-day basis, what business is it of standard and poor's to link congress to the question, the raw question of whether or not america's good for paying back its debt? shouldn't the bond rating be

about whether or not bondholders should get paid back? >> their job is to say whether or not we're a safe bet, aaa, aa-plus, aa, so i think it's legitimate for them when it is so important whether or not congress decides to pay people back. we're one of the only countries in the world with this insane debt ceiling situation and congress can gridlock and as long as we are going to play it like that, s&p has to make those judgments. the question is whether we should have these ratings agencies with immense power. it showed we were too dependent on them and the fact the government itself legitimizes them by they are credentialed. i've long thought that should be abolished. they should be competing in a normal market and we can see who is accurate over a a longer period of time and with more different players in the game.

but as long as we do have them, just reading this, it is hard for me having said all i've said about the political system and its incredible weaknesses driven by republicans who are willing to almost default on the debt to not have a tax increase. it's hard to argue with what they are saying here. >> ezra klein columnist for "the washington post" and bloomberg, you are thinking big thoughts and i appreciate you being here to do it. thanks a lot. again, breaking news this hour amid howls of protests from washington, flawed assumptions and flubed math, the standard and poor's rating agency has downgraded the united states aaa credit rating for the first time ever. we were aaa, now standard and poor's says we are aa-plus. while aa-plus sounds great, it's worse than aaa. more ahead with jerad bernstein, former chief economic advisor with vice president biden. naturals from purina cat chow.

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america, for my whole life and your whole life, no matter how old you are has had a aaa credit rating, being so trustworthy helps the government borrow money cheaply and in turn ordinary americans can borrow cheaply for homes, cars, student loans, anything else and american businesses can borrow cheaply too in ways that are not obvious always and usually we do

not need to think about. in a way our whole life depends on america having a good credit rating. tonight it's been downgraded for the first time, changing our rating from aaa to aa-plus. i'm joined now by jerad bernstein. mr. bernstein is now a senior fellow at the center for budget and policy priorities. jerad, thanks for your time. >> my pleasure, great to be here. >> standard and poor's has downgraded the united states. moody's and the other agencies have not. what's the importance there? >> the importance there is many fold. first of all, they are one of three and it's easy to think oh, my goodness, u.s. has been downgraded, end of story. no, as long as the other two have us at aaa, which they do, and have asserted they'll keep us there for awhile. lots of things probably won't happen. if all three downgraded at the

same time a lot of pension funds would have to divest and get rid of their treasury holdings. >> they have rules you can only invest in aaa. >> those rules don't necessarily apply when it's just one of the three takes a stem at one notch. >> in terms of why s&p did this, as i mentioned, howls of protests in washington today that they got everything including the math wrong, they were off by trillions of dollars in calculations, white house announcing it as amateur hour at standard and poor's, how important is that criticism? >> i think it's actually quite important, especially in tandem with what some of the other guests have said tonight about how badly the ratings agency missed the boat in the mortgage crisis, but look, $2 trillion, what i think happened there is they were using the wrong baseline and this the debt to

gdp ratio going faster than it was. if you do it the right way, and eventually they did, it's pretty stable. it does wiggle up at the end of the period, so it's a judgment call on that basis, then when you consider as other guests have tonight, in the history of our nation we have never defaulted on our debt and once we get the crazy debt ceiling nonsense behind us, no reason why we are not the best place to borrow from. ask yourself -- and you have this discussion with ezra that i found interesting. i think you were saying they have this paragraph in there where they talk about the predictability of our politics, and it's a good paragraph, but it's not what we look for the ratings agencies to do. they need to tell us am i as a lender making a safe bet when i lend to this institution, and the answer to that is yes. >> okay, what you just described

in terms of the debt ceiling is you described it as crazy debt ceiling nonsense, and the nonsense was crazy and nonsense, but we did it on the very last day, so isn't it legitimate for them to say that close to default makes us worry about default? >> if we were to have this discussion two weeks ago, by the way, when s&p and others threatened to downgrade. if we had had this discussion then, i would have said a couple of weeks ago, this is a silly discussion. there's a pin prick of reason in this you kind of circled around. we have prominent republicans, mitch mcconnell, rob porkman, representative paul ryan, some of the most prominent republicans are saying for now on, what happened with the debt ceiling should be a template for every other debt ceiling increase we have and we should have a dollar for dollar rule, every dollar of debt ceiling increase means a dollar of spending cuts. basically, they want to enshrine

dysfunctionalty in our system and i can see where s&p would raise an eyebrow. we are still a completely reliable borrower, the united states government, so the downgrade was wrong, math was ridiculous, all that, but that one point maintains. >> that is politically devastating assessment. devastating coming from the ratings agency, devastating if the political world wakes up to that being the message here. a lot of whether or not the -- a lot of whether or not this is a wake-up call depends on the practical impact of this. is this going to raise interest rates? is this going to cause a contraction in credit, is this going to hurt the economy? >> historically when we've seen downgrades in other advanced economies that were somewhat analogous to this, nothing really happened. maybe some interest rates could go up a little bit, investors insist on something called a

risk premium, they want a higher interest rate if they are going to lend you their money. look at it this way, some interest rates go up by ten base points, 1/10 of 1%. okay, that's $10 million more on u.s. government debt. that's a $10 billion increase on our deficit. this is playing with fire. let's be clear about this. >> bottom line this, to be clear, you think a reasonable chance is because of the brinksmanship over the debt ceiling. >> that's what the agency is saying, i take them at their word, no question in my mind that is very much, i believe, why this. >> when we were approaching august 2 and i was ranting on television saying the damage could already be done, the damage was already done. >> basically, they looked at the deal, they didn't like it, but the dysfunctionalty and the potential of ongoing dysfunctionalty is the one thing

in here where the rating is making sense. >> jerad bernstein thank you for being here. it gives me great comfort to know i would get to talk to you tonight when i realized this was breaking. there's a recurring thing throughout the s&p's press release on why they decided to downgrade the credit rating of the united states for the first time in their history. theme is "political brinksmanship," policy making uncertainty. the politics of the downgrade and what happens because of that downgrade next. my grandfather was born in this village. [ automated voice speaks foreign language ] [ male announcer ] in here, everyone speaks the same language. ♪ in here, forklifts drive themselves. no, he doesn't have it. yeah, we'll look on that. [ male announcer ] in here, friends leave you messages written in the air. that's it right there. [ male announcer ] it's the at&t network. and what's possible in here is almost impossible to say.

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again, the breaking news this evening that the standard & poor's rating agency has for the first time in u.s. history downgraded the american credit rating from aaa to aa-plus. this has never happened before in the united states states. joining us now, chief correspondent john harwood, also

a political writer for "the new york times." thanks for being here. >> sure. >> what are you hearing from the white house to treasury? >> treasury isn't saying anything. a statement that a judgment on a $2 trillion computation error speaks for itself. just got off a conference call with sources, detailed what the error was, it had to do with calculations of levels of discretionary spending over the next several years, a lot of numbers back and north, but essentially this is being portrayed from washington's end as a political decision by s&p. they noted in their downgrade there were political risks associated with the debacle in washington over the debt ceiling, so they founded it largely based on that political exposure. >> just to recap in terms of s&p's statement on this, i mean,

the downgrade reflects our views that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of the policy making and political institutions have weakened at a time of economic challenges, we are pessimistic about the administration being able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consideration plan. it's a very, very political document. what is treasury saying? is the political aim of the ratings agency doing this? >> well, not politically motivated but based on political criteria. >> plainly. >> what's that? >> plainly. >> absolutely. and look, to be honest, the president's own rhetoric has opened the door to a judgment of that kind. he said during the stalemate, we have aaa credit, we don't have a aaa political system. s&p is pointing to that and immediately you see the political fight start. i've gotten tweets in the last few minutes, first credit

downgrade in u.s. history over barack obama, harry reid put out a statement saying this shows the need for balanced deficit reduction, which republicans resisted in the debt talks. this certainly isn't going to solve any of our political issues, it might, provide, though, some impetus if we need anymore and it can be effective as we get to the special committee. >> it is striking to see, as you say, such political -- such political language from the rating agency, almost giving us a political credit rating rather than a default credit rating. very little in here about whether or not people who lend the united states money are likely to be paid back. >> that is precisely the counter argument you hear from administration officials. first of all, u.s. treasury securities are the most transparent, best financial instruments in the world. investors every day make judgments on their view of those instruments and they don't need

to hear it from the credit ratings agencies. secondly, there's three agencies. fitch and moody's stuck with the aaa, so the administration is pointing to that, two of the three are with them, and obviously we've seen in the financial crisis in 2007, 2008, 2009, the ratings agencies didn't cover themselves in glory. i think the administration is hoping the memories of that poor performance helps them fend off whatever fragile market reaction will be. >> the market reaction is going to be incredible to see on monday. obviously, all eyes are going to be on that and the political reaction and we've had two huge shocks this week. a 500-point drop and this. if any sort of economic news can change political realities, these are the sorts of things that can do it. >> rachel, the administration believes on narrow economic terms, there aren't too many investors who will be required by the terms of their investment guidelines to divest because of

this rating. however, when the psyche of the market is as volatile as it is right now, you never know what's going to tip things and cause a huge reaction. >> john harwood, political writer for "the new york times" and my old buddy who i don't see very much, thanks a lot. a bit of good news out of washington, iraq and afghanistan veterans. yes! ha ha! [ clicking ] ♪ what happened? power went out, want a hot dog? [ female announcer ] oscar mayer selects are made with 100% beef and have no artificial preservatives.

again the breaking news this evening is that the standard & poor's rating agency has downgraded the american credit rating for the first time in u.s. history. our aaa rating is now a aa-plus rating according to standard & poor's. barney frank on this show earlier this hour saying the rating agencies, standard & poor's particularly should not be -- having made multi-trillion computational errors in coming up with their downgrade decision. in the midst of that, this week the white house started to float a number of proposals, they said, to get the economy going. whether or not your main concern is jobs or your main concern is the deficit, the only way out is jobs and economic growth.

the white house floating this week like an infrastructure bank to fund major construction projects, doing more repairs and upgrades to u.s. schools, fast tracking trade agreements, the building of new highways and repair of existing ones. all ideas of hiring workers and putting money back into the economy in the short-term to get things moving. also extending unemployment benefits for people who can't find new jobs, given the news the average job search is getting longer, now over 40 weeks. even if we can't get a political consensus for say building schools or roads, surely in the short-term we can agree to extend unemployment benefits. workers paid into the unemployment system for themselves when they were working, now they need those benefits. every dollar we spend on unemployment insurance is worth $1.61 to the rest of the economy. surely we're not going to undo this one thing that everyone

agrees works by cutting off unemployment benefits in a few months. two actually, we are going to shoot ourselves in that foot. this was the message from eric cantor. >> jim, the most important thing we can do for somebody who's unemployed is see if we can get them a job. that's what needs to be the focus. for too long in washington we've been worried about pumping up stimulus moneys and unemployment benefits. to a certain extent you have states in which you can get unemployment for almost two years and i think those people on unemployment benefits would rather have a job. that's where our focus needs to be. >> focus needs to be on shooting ourselves in the foot. also those lazy unemployed people. maybe we should shoot them on the foot too and get them hopping. white house cannot make a magic wand to make the economy go and the things the government can do are not things the president can wave a magic wand.

eric cantor is signaling republicans will try to block even the baseline minimum stuff to not make things worse than they already are. so in that context, getting really granular today, the president announced a jobs return. >> a new returning heros tax credit for companies who hire returni ining veterans. we're challenging the private sector to hire or train 100,000 unemployed post 9/11 veterans or their spouses by 2013. >> the unemployment rate is an atrocious 9.1%. the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans is worse, 12.1% this month.

one veteran was specialist nick colgin, an army medic. >> when nick was in afghanistan he served as a combat medic with the 82nd airborne. over the course of his deployment, nick saved the life of a french soldier who was shot in the head and helped 42 people escape from a flooding river. he earned a bronze star for his actions, but when nick got back home to wyoming, he couldn't get a job as a first responder, so he ended up taking classes through the post-9/11 g.i. bill just so he could qualify for the same duties at home that he was doing every single day in afghanistan. if you can save a life in afghanistan, you can save a life in an ambulance in wyoming. the challenges don't end in kandahar or baghdad, they continue right here at home. today we're saying to our

veterans, you fought for us, and now we're fighting for you. >> joining us now here in studio, specialist nick colgin, also by todd bowers, todd's a u.s. marine who served four tours in iraq and afghanistan, awarded the purple heart. thanks for being here, appreciate it. you're here to talk about downgrading the u.s. credit rating, they told you, right? nick, let me start with you, when you got home a couple of years ago, what were you expecting in terms of job opportunities and how did the reality of the situation compare? >> basically when you're in the military, you have these high hopes, i'm going to be a medic, save lives, earning bronze star, i receive a bronze star, get home and receive an unemployment check and quite a dose of reality, that's not the case. it's -- your hopes get all high

and you get heart broken and your soul gets crushed, it seems like. >> this initiative that president obama announced today and told your story and gay this announcement in the navy yard, how do you think this would have affected you and helped you in your particular situation? >> i got out totally unprepared, had no idea -- i got out in 2008, 2011 i just got my resume made up and that's thanks to some non-profits like ieva. without their help i wouldn't have been prepared. it would have been nice to kind of get a way of getting out, because i feel more at home in afghanistan than i did coming home and getting out of the military. >> todd, in terms of both this tax credit for employers, hiring veterans and specifically an additional tax credit for hiring wounded veterans, also this reverse boot camp, training for

the job market for people coming home from war, how much difference do you think they'll make? >> massive. they've con complex and hard to understand. when app service member is leaving the military, they take part of the transition program. they are going to allow people to use the procedures before they leave. let's spend time to train them so they can get back in the civilian market. >> i know that you know the policy realities of this, i know you're also kind of a realistic guy. given what can and can't get through congress these days, how much does it make a difference there was a presidential announcement for or against its chances and how likely is this it will pass? >> highly likely it will pass, when it comes to veterans, folks stay focussed.

this isn't just spending money, this is an investment to save money in the long run. it's an investment, you know, and guys like nick are a perfect example of a good investment. the s&p gave him four as. good investment. >> nick, in terms of your employment situation and your hopes and what your plans are right now, what's ahead for you? >> i don't know. i got out, tried to be a first responder as stated before, ended up using my g.i. bill to take classes the government already invested to train me in. wanted to go out and get a job right away, but i don't know what's going to happen. see the speech today by the president instilled a lot of hope in me, but at the same time i don't know if i can tell my wife everything's going to be

okay, i'm going to have a future, i'm going to have a career. that's scary because you don't know. i'd like to see some action on this. the president gave the order today and we want to see the mission executed in the coming months. >> i will say just watching this happen as a washington process, we've had complete faith in washington and the fights they've made up justified about and still stuff has been moving on veterans issues and military in particular. do you both feel like veterans are being treated with respect by even our dysfunctional political system? it seems like that to me. does it feel like that to you guys? >> i'll be honest and say sometimes we get used as window dressing, propped up and put behind big statements that come out there. the proof is in the pudding or the mre apple sauce. we want to see what's going to come out of these programs. seven commissions coming through how we helped this new

generation of veterans. we need to be the watchdogs and make sure these things actually happen and make sure they get implemented and if they don't, make a big statement. we're a bull dog and you don't want to get bit by us. >> i believe that. nick colgin, todd bowers, both veterans, thank you for your service. >> thank you for having us. >> all right, we'll be right balk. ♪ let me do a few tricks ♪ i'm very versatile ♪ so let me entertain you ♪ and we'll have a real good time ♪ [ male announcer ] the new hp touchpad. get it now for $100 off, starting at $399.99. ♪

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programming note, if you are a fan of nbc's sunday morning show "meet the press," i will be a guest this weekend. we'll be mud wrestling over whether or not washington is up to the task of dealing with the backward slide of the economy. what does it mean that standard and poor's downgraded our and poor's downgraded our economy? within self contained well systems and using state of the art monitoring technologies,

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i'm in a face-off, a huge fight, a massive brawl with rush limbaugh right now. you know what? rush limbaugh wins. i thought when president obama

released the second form of the birth certificate giving more facts would help? it did put it to rest. there is nobody who has any pull in conservative politics or republican politics at all who is -- seriously? are you sure? are you sure this is -- this is from this week, this is from yesterday? play it. >> tomorrow is obama's birthday. we haven't seen proof of that. he tells us august 4th. sorry. >> sorry. apparently it's not over. that was from last night's show. i was wrong. i lose. that was rush limbaugh on his

radio show about not being sure if the president was born. that was not from rush limbaugh's show this past wednesday, it was from a year ago. the reason i thought this sound bite was from this week because of a report from the pro birth publication. it was wednesday august 3rd.lim believed were from 2011, but that clip was mislabeled.

the article was wrong. it was wrong of us to not check early net reportings daily. this day and age, don't worry. our error misdating that tape does not undermine our thesis. >> grant the magic gleeg row. negro. he is earning every gray hair. i believe it living with her. not because of the job of being president. next thing to look out for is for obama to take the farms.