sharpton being named the host of the 6:00 show. he's a great friend. he's a great talent and he'll bring a lot of personality and insight to this network. ichk it's fantastic. al, congratulations. by the way, if you need me to do the 6:00, i'll fill in every now and then. that's "the ed show." i'm ed shultz. you can listen to my radio show on the east coast gets rattled. let's play "hardball." good evening i'm chris jansing in new york tonight for chris matthews. leading off tonight. east coast earthquake. if you've been watching tv, or listening to the radio or

following social media, you already know the headline, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit the east coast just before 2:00 this afternoon. tens of millions who think the quakes as something who happens that happens to people on the west coast, were jolted into a rare and nerve-racking reality. it was centered in mineral, virginia, felt in 22 states as far west as illinois. while there are no reports of major damage, there may well be hidden structural damage. we'll have the details and bring you live reports throughout the hour here on "hardball." what would have been our lead story took place on the other side of the world. in that libya, where rebel troops overwhelmed pro-gadhafi forces and poured into his compound. the rebels fired and grabbed what they could but colonel gadhafi's whereabouts remain unknown.

the central tower of washington's national cathedral sustained damage in today's earthquake. no one was injured to the cathedral or its grounds. it's been closed to visitors until further notice. and the floors of the u.s. capitol rotunda littered with paint chips and small pieces of plaster that fell from the ceiling of the capitol dome. it's clear the capitol was hit hard. these images show the damage at a construction site in vienna, virginia, where a load of brings fell on a nearby car. in new york city, thousands of office workers found themselves out in the street as buildings were evacuated. even the courthouse where dominique strauss-kahn was to be tried was evacuated. here's dr. david applegate from the u.s. geological survey. this isn't what we're used to on

the east coast. how rare is it? >> you're right. we have moderate risk in 39 of 50 states. in terms of the size of the quake, you've got to go back to the 19th century, the biggest quake to hit virginia was a magnitude 5.9. we've had magnitude 7, for example, in charleston, south carolina, in 1886. although not frequent we've seen it doesn't take a frequent event to cause a significant impact. >> we absolutely saw not only some of the impact on the buildings, but also, just the frayed nerves, certainly here in new york city whenever you feel something that's not quite right it obviously brings back thoughts of 9/11. i know it did at the pentagon as well. are we on a fault line here? >> well, the shaking that you're feeling in new york really

reflects that here in the eastern u.s., although there are lots of fault lines to be found, from -- they're ancient, like millions of years ago, the reason you're feeling the shaking is because it's been so long since then an irtd quake in virginia is being felt in massachusetts, in ohio, toronto and down to georgia. an equivalent earthquake in the west would be felt in a much smaller area because the earth's crust is broken up on an active plate boundary. >> there were some injuries but nothing serious. we saw the damage that was experienced. and obviously, near the epicenter and we'll go there, there was for significant damage. given the fact there are so many old buildings in this part of the country and the fact that most of them aren't retrofitted

and they were not built to sustain earthquakes. are you surprised it wasn't worse? >> the good news was that it was -- the epicenter area where the shaking is most intense was in a fairy rural region. however, we know that even an earthquake of this size and, certainly, the potential for larger events, are going to have a very significant impact if there's a lot of brick buildings involved. there have been limited examples in terms of walls falling down and chimneys. that sort of thing. a lot of urban areas have a lot of old brick buildings that have not been designed with earthquakes in mind. in 1811 and 1812, we had the bicentennial of the quakes that struck in the central part of the u.s. we have a lot of brick buildings that would be substantially compromised by a earthquake and a repeat of those events. >> but an earthquake of this size, it's been such a long

time, what's the reasonable likelihood we would get another serious quake or something as big as a 7 any time in the near future? >> for the specific area that was -- where this one began, the central virginia seismic zone we don't have any indication that this is likely followed another event. we'll have lots of smaller after-events. we could have a larger event but it's a reminder that on the east coast we have a history, especially looking back in the 19th century and 18th century of mortgaging earthquakes, larger, more damaging earthquakes. we had a significant tsunami generated from an earthquake. so from a human standpoint of what we think of or what our parents experience, it's a low hazard. but when we think about the

consequences, you know, i think about the haiti earthquake where it had been since the 17th century that we had significant earthquakes there before. that doesn't matter when you're >> i know there have been a couple of small aftershocks. would you expect there to be more and how long? >> so far a 2.8, magnitude 2.9 events. they will decrease with frequency and the fact that we haven't seen larger aftershocks is good. we'd expect the largest numbers to be in the first hours and days but we wouldn't be surprised to see a magnitude 4 event up to a magnitude 5 event in that area near where the epicenter took place and these events can go on over weeks, months or even years. it can be quite an extended period. >> it caused practical problems as well. the washington, d.c. airports were closed for a short time. a baltimore/philadelphia, a couple of the new york city

airports, jfk and newark were closed down and that caused a big ripple effect. and then evacuations started in places like washington, d.c. you had a little trouble getting to our camera, didn't you? you got caught in traffic there in the washington area? >> that's absolutely right. d.c. traffic, not good to begipp with. and when you add an awful lot of shaken people, a lot of people having to evacuate early from their buildings. it can cause -- what we would cause a "secondary hazard." >> you were at the u.s. geological survey at the time? where were you when you were hit? at our headquarters building in reston, virginia, that initial feeling you're wondering what it is but as the shaking continues for a little bit it becomes pretty obvious and so i dutyfully got under a good solid object, my desk. the concern, prebl not for seeing an actual building

collapse. but you can get a lot of damage just caused by what we call nonstruck occural damage. bookcases falling over, light fixturing falling and we're seeing lots of small damage. our initial estimate is, you know, very low probability of fatalities but in terms of economic losses it could add up. we're estimating the economic losses could be on the order of $100 million or more than that. >> unbelievable. it is, i guess, a little bit comforting to know even you folks at the u.s. geological survey were not is your in the initial nano seconds what this was. david applegate, good to of you to make your way to our cameras. thanks so much. >> my pleasure. lets get out to a small town in virginia. it looks beautiful behind you right now but they took some hitting, didn't they, tom? >> reporter: this is a beautiful

little town in the middle of virginia. one square mile and the fire department lieutenant said to me -- i can't believe mineral, virginia, knocked gadhafi out of the lead for the "nightly news" cast. they're astonished. a major train line comes through here about every 90 minutes and the earth really shakes from the train. they thought that's what this was. clearly it was much more than that. over my shoulder jim is going to push in to the back side of town hall. they've lost the backside of the town hall as it was sheared off by all the shaking going on. if jim will pan over here, i'll show you the fire trucks here for the main fire station. they've pulled them all out of the fire station because they're afraid that the fire station may have been compromised and they're using it as a staging point in the event people feel hike they just aren't safe right now in their own homes and they want to go some place to get something to eat.

here's some other video from central virginia. as we were driving here, this is about 100 miles south of washington, d.c. i saw an awful lot of chimneys down. keep in mind, a lot of these homes were built in civil war era and a big chimney up the side of the house made of brick. the chimneys had fallen over in many cases and we're told throughout county they have dozens of home that have sustained damage in some parts of the country some people are concerned their homes may not be safe but for the most part no real, real serious stuff. the local grocery store lost their inventory. everything fell off the shelves. but the grocery store is standing but they're talking about cleaning it up and opening right back up. they were concerned about the nearby nuclear plant, anna plant. both reactors shut down automatically as a preventative move immediately after the

earthquake. since then, they had four of -- three of four diesel generators are up and working providing the necessary power so that the coolant is moving and keeping, obviously, the rods cool. so that plant is okay, we're told. everything worked as it should have. and the key now is to see if they can get that other generator back up and running. but that's not really a safety issue so it's an astonishing day here, a 5.le earthquake. the epicenter in the middle of the rolling hills of virginia here, but a small town and nobody injured. and the damage seems to be, for the most part, minor or obviously, if it's your home it's a big deal. >> i was talking to the mayor, pam harlow a little while ago, towns, states, all over the country, having financial problems and i asked her how worried she was about that and she said -- we'll have to tally

it all up. i was surprised to hear from david applegate at $100 million. she was incredibly positive. is that what you're finding since you've gotten there? >> reporter: these are great people. this is the heart of virginia. i would say, the rolling hills of virginia and as we drove through, you drive past -- i told my cameraman, i think we drove past a dozen civil war battlefields as you drive here. it has that old-town, old dominion feel to it. families going back a long time live here and they'll pull together and make it work. thankfully, nobody is injured seriously and nobody has died and everybody can go to sleep tonight grateful for that. >> absolutely. tom costello who really rushed to get there. thank you very much. how prepared is the east coast for a major earthquake? we'll talk to robert bazell, as well as a representative from

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welcome back to this special edition of "hardball." it was the most powerful earthquake to hit the east coast in 67 years. for more on the science of the quake and whether we should expect more, we're joined by bob bazzell. chief science and health correspondent. always good to see you. we've been through earthquakes before. a lot of the big aftershocks in japan, we were there together. they're really prepared there. their buildings are built to sustain these shocks. how prepared are we on the east coast? >> not at all. this is not something we think about, though this is a reminder that it can occur. in 1812, which sounds like a long time ago, but in geological time it's a wink of an eye, there was a earthquake in missouri that changed the course of the river there. 7.7 earthquake. this is a reminder that earthquakes can occur.

this area is, in the appalachian region, when the appalachian mountains were formed, this set of faults was formed 400 million years ago. the central virginia time zone. >> how is that different? >> they're a lot closer, 30 million years ago. well, that's still a long time ago. but it was telling us that the earth out there is softer, so earthquakes don't propagate so far here. when there's an earthquake, you feel it a long way away. it's amazing there have been no reports of injuries. and relatively little damage. so this is something -- we have enough things to worry about and we worry about so many things happening to us but earthquakes are real. in geological time, that's nothing.

>> people look at the risk-benefit analysis. people say should i retrofit my hospital, and they come up with, well, the last one was 67 years ago. >> the haitian -- the port-au-prince earthquake of 2010, there had not been an earthquake there for 200 years, less time. look how much damage that one did. that one was only slight le more powerful than the one that struck today. this was in an unpopulated area and it didn't cause a lot of damage to structures that were not very well built, as happened in port-au-prince. we should thing about and fall -- we should think about nuclear reactors and old buildings that could fall down because they're dangerous even if you don't have an earthquake. and tunnels and bridges where an enormous amount of damage could happen if they break and it's old stuff and earthquakes are

one of the things that could happen. something else could set off a crack in a tunnel or a bridge if it's not maintained properly, so this is a wake-up call. >> when i lived out -- predict and watching when the fault lines were kind of moving a little bit. i'm wondering how out on the east coast. obviously, there's an office in reston, virginia. they didn't even realize it was an earthquake. it's long enough to yell "duck." >> so there's no earthquake forecasting anywhere, even in the relatively high-risk areas and we're learning today there's no safe area. there are earthquake hot spots like this one where the earthquake hit today, all over the world and certainly all over the united states and they've caused significant earthquakes

in the past and will again. >> do the earthquakes of the east coast, versus the west coast, versus japan, do they act differently? >> they tend to be stronger if they're closer to the plate, which are the big sections of the earth where it comes together. in ice land, there was a volcano. this amazing evidence of parts of the earth coming together. and where those happen you get a lot of very powerful earthquakes. this one was a 5.8. but the haitian earthquake was slightly stronger and look how much horrible damage it caused because of where it was. so it turns out it depends on exactly where it's located and what's on top of it. a lot of concern here in the new york area, about the indian point nuclear power plant which is north of here in westchester county. one-sixth of the population of the united states lives within the 50-mile evacuation zone. >> which is why the government officials came out so fast to

say it's okay. >> yeah. 6% of the u.s. population lives win that exclusion zone and there's another earthquake area called the -- there's a fault zone that's right near there. the governor of new york, governor cuomo wants to close down that nuclear power plant. is it cost effective? it's a discussion we have to have. >> you reminded me, ice land, japan, now new york, we've got to stop meeting like this. thank you for staying tonight. i want to bring in laura how. laura, good to see you. i guess you guys have been busy tonight? >> we have. when the quake hit we were preparing for hurricane irene so it's been a day of preparing for earthquakes and hurricanes here. i think as bob said, none of us were used to feeling earthquakes so i think we were all pretty surprised by it as well. >> you saw here in new york and

a lot of it in d.c., it was just people running for the streets. they were trying to get out of the buildings. is that the smart thing to do? >> that's an okay thing to do once the shaking stops. what we always recommend is for people to drop, cover and hold on. that means get on the floor, get under a nice, sturdy table, something of that nature and hold on until the shaking stops. there's lots of myths about getting in doorways or running out of a building with but you want to cover yourself while the shaking is happened because you don't want to be injured by flying debris or falling objects. so you do want to get out of the building but not until after the shaking stops. so i think we all tried to get out of the building after that happened and we evacuated our buildings here as well. we all hit the ground and went under tables immediately when we felt the shaking. >> we started this conversation with bob bazell saying -- are we ready on the east coast?

and we can talk about the big picture like structural issues and that stuff. and i know the folks on the west coast are laughing at us on the east coast because we think it's such a big deal but one thing i learned out there was to be prepared and you talked about putting kits together for a hurricane. is it much different for what we need for any kind of possible disaster like this? >> this does give us all a great warning to be prepared. it helps us remember that anything can happen at any time and getting prepared isn't disaster-specific. you can have the same k50i7bd of things in your kit for a hurricane that you would for an earthquake. three days supply of water and food. a flashlight. a better operated radio. you want to have your prescription meds. copies of your important papers. things of that nature. the same thing for every disaster. frankly, i think the most important thing and perhaps more than a kit, is to have a family emergency plan. the one thing i saw today as soon as we got out of the building everybody reached for

their cell phones and people, you know, couldn't get ahold of loved ones because phone lines were jammed so people were going to text and they were using twitter so i think making sure you have the family communication plan so you know where everybody is. you know how to get ahold of people is really important. and the one thing that can really work is to find and out of town contact so aunt betty in demoine or wherever, that you all can call. your entire family can call and check in with that person because a lot of times it's easier to get a phone call out of town than it is to call each other in a disaster area. so that's a good thing to think about. if you can take away one thing from today, have a family communication plan and find that person your entire family can check in with. >> i'm curious. we spoke earlier and you were saying the phones were really ringing there. what kind of calls are you getting when something like this happens? >> most of what we're getting is actually from our chapters who

are out across the east coast. they're checking in with us and telling us what's going on and we didn't have a huge incoming need for red cross help but we were communicating with our people in the field asking them what they were seeing and communicating with our chapter in central virginia, so that we knew what they were facing down there and they were out looking around to see the damage that was happening. but in a situation like that, i think we are getting requests for tips and how can people be ready? i think in a situation like this that's one of our main rolls to make sure people know how to be ready and remind people disasters can happen any day, any time, 1:45 in the afternoon when you're not expecting to have an earthquake. >> you guys have great tips on your website, too. >> we do. >> laura, thanks so much and good luck. you have the red cross -- you're going to have your hands full with the hurricane. up next, two of our own

correspondents in washington who felt the earthquake. you're watching ""hardball"" only on msnbc. [ fe male announcer ] everybody loves that cushiony feeling. uh oh. i gotta go. [ female announcer ] and with charmin ultra soft, you can get that same cushiony feeling while still using less. its design is soft and more absorbent. so you can use four times less versus the leading value brand. ah. [ female announcer ] charmin ultra soft.

the nation's capital felt a jolt of a rare east coast quake. an official at the white house said it shook pretty good and the president was out playing golf on martha's vineyard but they felt it there, too. joining me to talk about how d.c. was affected, pete williams and andrea michelle. pete i'll start with you. i imagine a lot of what happened in d.c. and maybe, particularly, around the pentagon, is what happened here and, particularly in lower manhattan, you start feeling a little something and it's hard no not to think 9/11 or what's going on? >> right. when it started here i actually did follow the rules and got under my desk kind of instinctively. all across washington, d.c., people were flooding out of buildings when the shaking

stopped. some buildings were formally evacuated. u.s. capitol, the pentagon, white house, union station, the smithsonian museum, the memorials and monuments on the national mall, but most will be re-opened tomorrow. federal officials are still going around -- i think the quick ray to describe this is you can tell what damage is visual. now the question is what is the structural damage that may not be visible to the eye. that is what will determine how quickly the buildings opened up. the capitol was re-opened this afternoon after some fairly vivid shaking according to people inside. reopened to staff members and members of congress here to dash in, get their materials and leave. tomorrow we'll see how many of these buildings open back up again. it did affect this afternoon's commute. it was a real mess here in washington because federal employees were let out early and they headed to the streets and the metro, the washington, d.c.

subway was running at 15 miles an hour, much lower speeds, just crawling along. and in some stations so many were trying to get on that they stopped them at the entrance. police were only letting them in a few at the time to avoid a problem at the platform. i talked to fema, and they said they've had no requests for federal help of any kind so the story seems to be no serious damage to the critical infrastructure. no widespread injuries. no serious injuries. so it was scary, chris, but not -- it doesn't appear to be any lasting damage. >> and andrea, you were actually on the air when this happened and it started shaking. i can't imagine -- >> my luck. i had just finished doing an interview with tamron hall and she wasbility to take over and all of the sudden they came in and said -- it was just crazy in here. it was shaking. we were going up and down like

this. papers were moving. you could see the picture behind me, the white house was moving because the camera that shoots the live picture of the white house for the rear screen, that was also shaking around. so i didn't think of it until later when i came back to talk to you a couple hours ago but we have, as does any studio, enormous numbers of things hanging from the ceiling, lights and all and what happened is our technical director, smartly, came many here right away and said, andrea get going, it's an earthquake. i didn't really think twice about it. so i took off and unfortunately our new york control room didn't know what was going on. and they sort of said, tamron you have to start early. tamron was just jumping in and taking over, thank goodness, and calmly carrying on because we really did feel we had to move out and i felt i had to do it as part of the team. everyone had to move out of the building and evacuate on orders. >> i guess the president stopped -- he just had started a

round of golf on martha's vineyard and they stopped and he got on the phone and they gave him updates and that kind of thing. >> our colleague, kristen welker said he didn't feel anything but the press pool said they felt something going on with the earth. he was playing with friends and vernon jordan and other pals up there in martha's vineyard. they didn't actually feel it themselves but the press pool standing by some distance away said they did feel it in the vin zbloord pete, this is tourist season there in washington, d.c. tough opening of the martin luther king jr. memorial. so i guess that added to it. i don't know what the streets are like there but new york city is crazy this time of year. >> a lot of people and a lot of tour buses. the national mall is kind of the centerpiece for all the tourists who come to town to see the monuments, memorials and museums and they were all closed this afternoon. we'll see how many open up

tomorrow. the office of personnel management will decide if everybody comes back to work tomorrow and as soon as this is all sorted out, then we have the prospect of a hurricane coming in this weekend or the remnants of it. >> by the way, chris, one other thing. the only real issue where the nuclear plants and 20 miles from the epicenter is north anna and that did everything it was supposed to do. triggered a halt and they had back-up diesel power. enough to keep cooling the fuel rods. the issue is -- are they built to withstand that? it's already raising questions. it's built to withstand 5.9 to 6.1 at north anna. >> andrea and pete, thank you. up next a different kind of earthquake in libya. rebels storm moammar gadhafi's compound. but where is he?

here's what's happening. the washington monument has been closed while officials inspect some cracks near the top following tuesday's earthquake centered in northern virginia. libyan leader moammar gadhafi made a radio address tuesday night and said intense nato bombing forced him to make a tactical withdrawal from his now overrun compound in tripoli. hurricane irene lost a little bit of her punch approaching the bahamas on tuesday but it's not back to category 2 strength with 100 mile-per-hour winds and experts say irene could increase to a category 4 monster before hitting the north carolina coast this weekend. a major rally on wall street tuesday. investors shrugged off weak readings on home sales and mid-atlantic manufacturing to send the dow soaring more than 320 points. a new york court officially

dismissed all criminal sexual assault charges against former imf head, dominique strauss-kahn. those are your headlines. back to "hardball." big developments in libya as rebels stormed moammar gadhafi's compound in tripoli. gadhafi's where abouts are still unknown but the rebels seem to have the momentum. let's bring in stephanie gosk who is on the phone. i was on the there earlier at around 10:00 eastern time when the rebels broke through the western gate and it went from there. describe the assault as you know it. >> it looks like it was a coordinated assault. and what we've been learning about the rebels over the last six months are there are not a lot of coordinated assaults but in the last week that's what we've seen and it was a

coordination at all of the gates at the compound in one account, thousands of rebel forces surrounding the compound. and they engaged in a brutal firefight for hours and then eventually prevailed and you only had to look at the faces of the rebels to realize how significant and important it was for them today. practically speaking because this was one of the last bashes of control in the city for gadhafi loyalists. but symbolically and psychologically, this was gadhafi's home, he gave speeches. the center of his power. it was also a military compound and a lot of ways, a fortress of his and by taking it over and going in and raiding and looting it, it was a symbol of the end of his four decades reign. but there are still things that remain. first and foremost, where is gadhafi? where is his son? how much support does he have around the country particularly in places like his hometown where his tribe is from.

there's -- last week they fired two scud missiles out of the area and a large military prengs there so there could still be quite a battle there. there are still battles and fights ongoing within the capital. a number of journalists, almost three dozen, are basically being held inside one of tripoli's hotels surrounded by a number of loyalists that are using that kind of as their last holdout and using these journalists as human shields. >> stephanie gosk, thank you so much. she talked about the symbolic importance of this and over the last six months as fighting's gone on we've seen this video of gadhafi going around in his golf cart and that's where he made pronouncements from. so where is he? >> i think he's just smart enough to know that's the first play they would look. i think his instinct is to head south.

the east and west are taken by the rebels. he can't go through the sea because any european country will immediately hand him over to the international court. south is where there's more places to hide. south is where the rest of africa is and there are places in africa where he's popular and well-liked so every instinct of his is to head south. the big question is can he get out of tripoli. even the south was blocked by the rebels last week when they were coming in. >> and the other question is, is it really over? until we know where gadhafi is it over? >> i think it's over in the way that when baghdad fell in 2003, it didn't matter that saddam remained at large for another seven months. what was important was that the regime had fallen. i think we're pretty close to that in tripoli. i think another day or two if the rebels keep their momentum going and get the majority of his army to surrender, gadhafi's exact where abouts may not

matter quite so much. but his regime has fallen. >> they're certainly making plans for what to do after this. a series of meetings and already we heard from the transitional council and they're talking about the money they're going to need because they're worried about food, water and medical supplies, basic stuff. what's next? even as we don't know we are he is and there's apparently some random pockets of fighting? >> the important thing is that these rebels unlike the uprising we saw in egypt, these rebels have something like a government. the transitional national council has had six months to prepare and they've had help. they've been in touch with the western government, the u.s. government, so they have a certain amount of expertise and organization. i may not be terrific but it's there. so it could be easier for them to get the ball rolling than we've seen elsewhere. >> is this going to be perceived, do you think here or certainly internationally, as vindication for obama's actions in libya?

and as you well know and our viewers know, there's so much criticism from people like john mccain that the u.s. wasn't doing enough? >> i don't think international is certainly not in libya. people are not thinking of the u.s. right now. months from now when people look back that might be the conclusion they reach that the u.s. made the right call. right now it's all about the rebels and finally freeing this country from gadhafi's rule after 42 years. who gets and how much of the credit, that's something for historians to work out. >> what does your gut tell you? we'll find gadhafi soon? is he going to be in a bunker seven months from now? >> i don't think he'll take seven months and i think he'll be found like a rat. republican presidential candidate, rick perry, get this, comparing african-american struggle for civil rights with the develop's fight for lower taxes. we'll break that down. ♪

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we're back and rick perry has been receiving scrutiny for expressing his 2010 political manifesto. but a comment about civil rights over the past weekend has managed to overshadow the book completely. perry was in rockhill, south carolina, this past saturday and he was asked a question about the significance of the civil rights movement and sit-ins and he gives this whiney answer and ends up comparing the civil right struggle to republican's fight for corporate tax rates, listen. >> america's gone a long way from the standpoint of civil rights and thank god we have. we've gone from a country that's

made great strides in issues of civil rights. i think we all can be proud of that and as we go forward, america needs to be about freedom. it needs to be about freedom -- regardless of what they're cultural or ethnic background is, they need to know they can come to america and you got a chance to have any dream come true. because the economic climate will be improving. >> so does perry really believe african-americans struggle for civil rights is comparable to the gop's fight for lower taxes? joining me is political analyst alex wagner and huffing on the post reporter. ignorance? he was asked about the friendship nine sitin so maybe he didn't know what it was, maybe it's ignorance of the civil rights? complete insensitivity. >> i think it demonstrates a

certain and profound insensitivity to the struggles. especially at this time. if we look at what's happened. the disparity between the rich and the poor and the numbers from the census show white americans make on average 20 times more than black families, 18 times more than hispanic. one of the things dr. king fought for was social and economic justice. for him to tie corporate tax rates to the civil rights movement i think demonstrates a profound insensitivity to the struggle, if not the teachings. >> when you look at the series of quotes from books, some of which he's backing off on, you have to sit back as a political analyst and say -- is he too far off, even for the gop? >> sure. you know, this is also not the first time rick perry has shot his mouth off. we have stories about him wanting to knee-cap bernanke. rick perry walks to the beat of his own drum. i think there's a real concern

on the part of the establishment gop that he's not ready for primetime and he's got to walk back some of the rhetoric. this doesn't do anything to improve that image, especially, we're about to see the unveiling of the mlk memorial in washington and the country is in particularly difficult economic climate. have we seen any sort of symbol from the perry camp that this is, maybe, not something he should have said? no, not as yet. >> we even have people like peter king saying -- you can't call bernanke a traitor and question whether barack obama loves america. let me play for you something that mitt romney had to say. this really, i think, speaks to the larger sort of gop theme here. let me play this for you. >> corporations are people, my friend. we can raise taxes, of course, they are. everything corporations are ultimately goes to the people. where do you think it goes?

whose pockets? human beings, my friends. >> is this a theme that we're going to hear? >> what i don't understand, a couple things there, chris. one is the gop has shown a sort of resilience, you know? every time someone says -- that's not appropriate, mitt romney got all sorts of blow-back for saying "corporations are people, too." and yet it doesn't create pause. seemingly, they're willing to go to very far ends of the earth demagogue these financial issues. the civil rights teachings led to the johnson's great society programs, which was government taking a role to decrease the gap between the haves and the have-no have-nots. those are the principles that mitt romney and rick perry have called into play. i had a level of hypocrisy that

we haven't seen so far in american politics. >> does it create an opening for someone else to get in? despite the fact that they say no, no, no, what about marco rubio? he was invited to the reagan library to speak. you have to wonder if there's an opening for someone that's not sarah palin? >> sure. every week, someone else could get in. that's why paul ryan has to keep coming back and saying -- i'm not running for president. there's a real hunger for someone that's not a far right conservative but can speak to the conservative fiscal principles and that person is not yet on the stage, i think, for a lot of americans. >> alex wagner, good to see you. thanks for coming in. when we come back, the latest on the east coast earthquake. you're watching "hardball" only on msnbc.

welcome back to "hardball," once again, big story of the day, the east coast earthquake, joining me, nbc's peter alexander, a 5.8, not that much compared to what you felt out in california. but what's going on there in new york? because people, i think it's the whole 9/11 thing, pete williams, and jim were addressing this in washington, when it first starts to happen, you don't know what's going on, and it's a little scarey. >> yeah, there's a added sensitivity to this part of the country, certainly in new york city.

we could use a duck-and-cover lesson. every child in california learns when an earthquake hits you duck and cover. here, instead, unsure of what happened, they rush to the streets, some running 50, 60 flights of stairs to get there. we've changed the way we communicate, some learning about the quake by twitter before they felt it seconds or a minute later. others trying to reach loved ones at home, they tried on their cell phones, and those, chris, suffered serious congestion for a period of time. there were urgent moments after this took place as people weren't able to reach other other because of clogged cell phone lines. >> what did you see minutes after it happened? did seem certain parts of the city didn't feel it at all, other parts felt it good. >> i felt it, i'm from california. it was familiar. it is certainly not familiar in this part of the country. as i ran to the window, not