flight 93, knowing that plane could take only so much chaos and held before it too crashed, but not on the u.s. capitol. a symbol of dignity and honor as a people, how can we fear a dangerous world when we have countrymen like that? i say it now as i said it then, how much better i feel about being an american when it is that fact, being an american, not anything else, that we most proudly wish to feel. that's "hardball" for now, thanks for being with us, "the last word with lawrence o'donnell" starts right now. the president takes his jobs plan deep into republican territory. >> i want you to call, i want you to e-mail, i want you to tweet, i want you to fax, i want you to visit, i want you to facebook, send a carrier pigeon. >> the president takes his jobs

speech on the road, the road to republican congressional districts. >> i was glad to hear some republicans, including your congressman, say they've got -- they see room for us to work together. >> the president, first, is going to richmond, and then he's going to ohio. should they close their eyes and throw darts at the dartboard. >> in 13 seconds, the president managed to hit the home states of speaker boehner, mitch mcconnell, and rick perry. coincidence? >> he's essentially telling congress if you don't go along with this, i'm prepared to go over your heads to make this a defining issue. >> first dart went to eric cantor's issue. >> next week i'll send it to congress. they should pass it right away. >> i think very little of this plan is actually going to make it through congress. >> the republican response? mr. president, you're not going to get everything you want. >> i object to the all or nothing message that the

president is delivering. that's not how anybody operates. >> the president said over and over last night, you need to pass this right away. we need to see the bill. >> my wife and i, married almost 22 years, don't agree on everything 100%. >> that's not class warfare, i'm not attacking anybody, it's simple math. >> i got 98% of what i wanted. i'm pretty happy. >> and as the nation prepares to mark ten years since the attacks of september 11, a new threat looms in new york and washington. >> secretary of state hillary clinton and vice president joe biden both confirmed today that there is a credible but unconfirmed threat. >> the source didn't have any names. >> see something, say something, is real. in a speech watched by 31 million people last night, president obama called on congress to pass his jobs bill

17 times. today he delivered a variation of that speech to the university of richmond in virginia, conveniently located in the congressional district represented by house majority leader eric cantor. the president told cantor's constituents he remains hopeful that cantor and house republicans there, in fact, pass his jobs bill. >> to his credit, i was glad to hear some republicans, including your congressman say they see room for us to work together. they said that they are open to some of the proposals to create american jobs. look, i know that folks sometimes think, you know, they've used up benefit of the doubt, but i'm an eternal optimist. i'm an optimistic person. [ cheers and applause ] i'm an optimistic person.

i believe in america, i believe in our democracy, i believe that if you just stay at it long enough, eventually after they've exhausted all the options, folks do the right thing. >> next wednesday the president will take his jobs speech to ohio, home state of house speaker john boehner. this afternoon, the house republican leadership officially responded to the president's legislative proposal in a letter saying in part, "as we are certain your advisors have told you, not all of your ideas should be packaged in a single legislative vehicle, and we assume that your ideas were not presented as an all or nothing proposition, but rather in anticipation the congress may also have equally as effective proposals to offer for consideration." the republican leaders also informed the president what is on their agenda, the house will continue with the jobs agenda outlined last month, which among

other things, would provide relief to our nation's job creators, especially small businesses from the high costs of some of your administration's pending regulatory actions. the republican presidential candidates had harsher responses. rick perry said the president's proposal composed mostly of tax cuts is, "guided by his mistaken belief that we can spend our way to prosperity. america needs jobs, smaller government, less spending, and a president with the courage to offer more than yet another speech." willard romney tweeted that the president's plan came 960 days too late and bragged about the 25,000-plus downloads of my job plan. americans are looking for a leader with real-world experience in the real economy. the president's speech was focus

grouped in richmond, virginia, last night by hillary clinton's 2008 pollster jeff garren who's working for usa. many respondents came into the room feeling discouraged, dispirited, and disappointed, but in last night's speech, they saw the barack obama they hoped they were electing in 2008. their simple message to obama is keep it up. they saw the speech as a beginning, and they want the president to continue pressing the case for the agenda he laid out before congress. joining me now are howard fineman, "the huffington post" editorial director and msnbc analyst and chris hayes, editor in large of "the nation." chris' new show launches next weekend, next saturday morning. thank you both for joining me tonight. howard, in the excerpt of the president speaking today, the

line that got applause was, "i'm an eternal optimist, i'm an optimistic person." it wasn't any of the policy points, and he certainly has proven himself politically to be the great eternal optimist, possibly of any recent memory of washington, but that is, it seems, what the focus group is referring to. that does seem to be what appeals to people, and that's -- isn't that why that applause was spontaneous in that moment? >> yeah, i think so, also given the surround last night, given the dismal economic numbers, given the problems in the united states and europe, given the unemployment rate, given the president's own low job approval numbers, coming into the lion's den so to speak, into congress in a joint session and deliver what i thought and wrote on "the huffington post" was arguably the best speech he's given as president shows he is an optimist. if he weren't optimistic, he

wouldn't be able to gather the strength and focus to give that kind of speech, and as the focus group people said to jeff ga garren, that's the president we saw last night that people who voted for obama thought they were getting. maybe it was 900 days too late, but at least he finally gave it last night. >> chris, the eternal optimist, i think, is very optimistic when he says pass this bill as if it actually is one bill. there are several committees of jurisdiction involved here in the house and the senate and all of the different moves parts he has. obviously, this thing cannot be legislated as one bill. it's going to be passed or rejected in pieces or amended and changed dramatically in the different committees. how can the president navigate all that as one piece comes out of the ways and means committee and some other piece comes out or gets killed in the transportation committee? >> well, what i thought was so fascinating about it was it

marked the first time in the history of the obama presidency in which he gave that directive, in which he said i will send you a bill that you should pass. the three major legislative accomplishments of this president, they are not insignificant accomplishments. all of them bubbled up through the congressional process to the point of madness, actually, right? to the point where people were so sick of watching the process develop and were so ready. this was the first time the president actually did that, and i don't know how the process is going to play out because it is such a break from how he's done it in the past, but, i think, politically it's exactly the kind of thing many people have been urging for a long time. they've learned the lessons of clintoncare too well, the idea the white house and hillary clinton cooked up this 1,000-page thing and sent it

over to capitol hill and it was thrown out because it didn't go through all the processes this happen on capitol hill, and the fact they deferred so heavily to congress as their legislative strategy gave them a new critique, they are not assertive enough. this is the first time the president said look, you should pass it. he said 17 times, i guess, in the speech. that sort of diverts us off the path we had been on in the first two years of the presidency. >> howard, i don't think chris' point can be overemphasized, this first writing of a bill, and it, in fact, gives them a two-step process because they left out a lot of specifics they were going to find when they actually turn over this bill, when they hand this bill to congress that's going to have the specific tax provisions in there and a lot of other specifics, which there's two sides to that, it gives you a new round of stories about what the president is actually trying to do, but it also opens it up to a new round of attack.

is that the best way to go about this is to basically announce the bill and then a week later at a later time actually produce it and deliver it? >> well, as long as it doesn't take too long for that second step. what the president is doing here is laying down a marker both politically and substantively. he gets to utter a simple phrase, pass this bill, and it's a whole different way of operating where he's going out to the country with something specific, and i think they'll have to fill in at least enough of the specifics quickly so that the lobbying effort at the grassroots makes sense, and try to build pressure from the outside in. this is the way ronald reagan used to do it back in the day, go over the heads of congress and use his appeal to the country to do it. the president is doing it at a time he's not that popular, but you have to build your popularity, and in my view, he's launched the 2012 presidential

campaign in the manner perspectively of harry truman in 1998. paint the congress' do-nothing, at least that's the effort he's going to make, because while the president has a job approval rating in the 40s, congress has a rating in the teens. that's the president's strategy going forward. >> chris, the democrats have things in here that the democrats really don't want to talk about. they have been standing in the way of the three trade bills with the three different countries that the president mentioned last night. doing any one of those trade bills is a big and difficult deal for congress, democrats so far silent about it. and they are also not making very much noise yet about what the president referred to in his speech about medicaid and medicare cuts, he called them adjustments, but they are cuts.

what's the democrats' game here, are they going to stay quiet and give the president quiet support, even including things they don't really like with the possible expectation of well, the republicans are going to be the bad guys and kill this thing anyway? that seemed to be what barney frank was saying to me last night. >> i think a majority of the caucus will probably do that. i think the -- there are sort of two issues here. the free trade -- the free trade is such a loaded term and sort of a propaganda term. the trade deals are trying to push through. the fact is, forget about ideology, ground you're in the empirical work on the trade deals, they are not massively job-producing agreements in any way, shape, or form. i understand the white house thinks they've tinkered around such they are going to be more

beneficial than prior ones, but it's plausible to say these are job creating. in terms of the medicare issue, i think everyone's kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, which is the speech that's going to be next week, a apparently about the deficit side of this, the fiscal outlook, and it really matters a lot, i can't stress this enough, and lawrence, i think you would agree with this, the devil is in the details. there are a whole bunch of different ways to bend the curve, to bring down long-term medicare costs and how you do them, you can stack them up in order of how just they are, so i think people are reserving judgment somewhat rightly because it matters what the policies are. >> well, the way democrats cut medicare is they go after the beneficiaries, that bill clinton did massive cuts to medicare.

howard, just quickly before we go, what is the democratic congressional strategy going forward on this? >> to hold on for dear life. to congratulate and encourage the president on being a pro-active person here, being a leader, and hope that he gets passed what they like and somehow the republicans defeat what they can't stand. >> howard fineman of msnbc and "the huffington post," and chris hayes, whose new show debuts next weekend, saturday morning, september 17, thank you both. >> thank you, lawrence. >> thank you, lawrence. new york city is under its highest state of alert as officials work to track down intelligence against a specific threat against new york and washington, d.c. up next, we go through what they are doing to deal with that threat. and later, ten years after

the september 11 attacks, matt lauer takes us inside the new freedom tower at ground zero.

coming up in this hour, the latest on what is known about the terror threat against washington, d.c. and new york city. roger cressey analyzes the details for us. and later, why governor rick perry's attacks on social security make him the republican candidate the obama campaign is now hoping to face in the general election. that's in the rewrite. naturals from purina cat chow. delicious, real ingredients

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new york city and washington, d.c. were already increasing security ahead of sunday's tenth anniversary of the september 11 attacks. now that security is being put to the test by what top obama administration officials are calling a credible, but unconfirmed, threat. the report comes from an intelligence source in pakistan who heard that three unnamed men flew to the u.s. on orders from al qaeda to set off car or truck bombs in new york or washington this weekend. officials believe that source has been reliable in the past. the fbi and border officials have been searching through weeks of travel records looking for clues. some of the men may have u.s. passports. in new york city, police presence was beefed up not long after the news broke last night. they are patrolling landmarks like time square, which nearly

fell victim to a car bomb last spring. in washington, d.c. and new york, bags are being checked at subway stations, cars and trucks are being stopped at tunnels and bridges leading into manhattan for inspection. officials are giving the familiar warning, if you see something, say something, and the public is listening to that warning. today, the number of tips to new york police reporting a suspicious package tripled. on capitol hill, the house sergeant at arms sent a letter to house staffers saying additional police patrols have been in place since tuesday. this morning, vice president joe biden discussed the threat on nbc's "today" program. >> the president ordered four months ago when we found information in bin laden's compound after we got him that he wanted an attack on 9/11. we've been running every single threat to ground. this is the first, the first

credible piece of credible information we've gotten. we cannot confirm it. we are doing everything within our power, all hands are on deck. >> today on wall street, secretary of state hillary clinton helped ring the opening bell to mark the anniversary and spoke about the threat to cnbc. >> this one was specific, it was credible, although, unconfirmed, and we took it seriously. there's also an advantage by making it public you enlist literally millions of people to be your eyes and your ears. remember, we were very fortunate to foil the time square bomber because a food vender saw something suspicious. >> joining me now, msnbc news analyst roger cressey who served in counterterrorism positions under the last two presidents. thanks for joining me, roger. roger, what makes a threat like this credible, what gives it that status? >> it comes from a source judged

reliable and accurate, but here's a challenge, you can be accurate, you can be reliable, but this current information does not necessarily have to be true, and that is what's bedevilling the government right now. when i used to do this for a living, we had four questions, is it credible, is it corroborated, specific, and imminent? in this case, three of the four questions is yes. one question we don't have an answer to is corroboration, and that's what the efforts are about now. >> why do we know as much as about this as we do, why are officials letting us know that it's three men, that the information was picked up in pakistan? why do they allow that specificity to seep into these news accounts? >> because it's imminent. if this was a threat aimed at a holiday season or an undetermined point in the future, you wouldn't see the public affairs component of this.

the more people who are aware of a potential threat, the more opportunity for someone to say something if they see something out of line, but if the timeline is longer, they are going to handle it in a different way. when you have a specific time frame like we do with this, the 9/11 anniversary weekend, then you have a different requirement and obligation to release this information to the public in the way that they are doing right now. >> roger, assembling everything you now know about this with all of your experience in this area and evaluating this kind of thing, what is the cressey threat level, where would you put it? >> well, my greatest worry is whether or not the red sox will win the division in the american league east. set that aside, look, this is important, it's significant, but i do not think we should overreact to it. the two safest places in america this weekend, lawrence, lower manhattan and the national capitol region. i believe what we're doing now is expanding and hardening the

perimeter around, and as a result of that, i think we're in pretty good shape. if you're going to memorialize the events of 9/11, continue to do that. don't change your behavior. >> nbc terrorism analyst, roger cressey, thank you for joining us tonight, roger. >> you bet. coming up, we take you inside the extraordinary new tower at what will become the new world trade center. ♪ [ male announcer ] what is the future of fuel? the debate is over. ♪ lexus hybrid drive technology is designed to optimize any fuel source on the planet. even those we don't use yet. because when you pursue perfection, you don't just engineer a future-proof hybrid system. you engineer amazing. ♪

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still to come tonight,

rookie presidential candidate rick perry is trying to rewrite something he wrote and then said and then said again. he's been calling social security a ponzi scheme until today. that's in the rewrite. and on the eve of a weekend marking ten years since the september 11 attacks, a look inside the new tower that will be one world trade center. do you have an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, or afib, that's not caused by a heart valve problem? are you taking warfarin to reduce your risk of stroke caused by a clot? you should know about pradaxa.

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♪ whose non-stop day starts with back pain... and a choice. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪ on monday, the september 11 memorial site will open to the public ten years and one day after the worst terrorist attacks in this country's history. the destruction of the twin towers left a city scarred and a neighborhood destroyed, business fled the lower west side of manhattan, and a long and dangerous clean-up effort began

before the sunset on september 11. the $750 million cleanup of the 16-acre site began while toxic fumes were still in the air, police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, and many clean-up volunteers now face severe ailments that they trace to the toxicity of the air at the site. the biggest building to rise on the site is now almost complete, one world trade center. today's matt lauer got a fascinating tour of the new world trade center. >> a little bit of your life and soul embedded into that building. >> this is a labor of love. >> we are moving on, and we're making it bigger, better, and stronger. >> i feel like i accomplished something really big.

>> the men and women rebuilding ground zero understand their work is much more than a job. every bolt, every beam, every floor, supports the weight of history. i begin my tour in the footprint of those once historic buildings with memorial architect michael arad, this forest of trees will grow 70 feet tall, all of them oak except one, the survivor tree pulled from the rubble at ground zero. >> it looked like it was a dead tree, but, in fact, it was nursed back to health. struck by lightning a few years ago while being nursed back to health, but it's thriving and surviving. >> he beat out 5,000 entrants for a design competition for a memorial. his vision set where the tower once stood.

waterfalls dropping into pools of darkness. he called it "reflecting absence." >> what do you want them to think? >> create a place that was built equivalent of the moment of silence. both about emptiness, but an emptiness full of meaning. >> can you show me a glimpse of what it's going to look like? >> yet to be revealed are the victims names, engraved in panels surrounding the pools. >> here's some of the ladder companies. >> while the pools are meant to honor the dead, it's the building towering behind them, one world trade center, that will honor the living. >> you look at this thing, it's got 30 floors to go, but it's going at a pace of a floor a week. how high are we going? >> to the top. to 76. >> i head up with chris ward, executive director of the port authority of new york and new jersey that oversees construction. >> what's being done to make it as safe as possible?

>> well, what you're looking at is this incredible, soaring, beautiful lobby that has in its design safety and security. this is a blast wall that was poured at 18,000 pounds per square inch concrete to stop anybody bringing a truck bomb in. these steel girders weigh 70 tons. i'd like to say this is truly going to be the exclamation point on the new york city skyline. >> how tall is it going to be? >> well, all the way to the spire it's going to be 17,076, so the rooms going to be 13,056. two million square feet. it will be the tallest skyscraper in america. >> touted as the new gold standard in skyscrapers, the top half will be shaped like a perfect octagon with 20 floors of blast-resistance glass and will have some of the fastest elevators in the world, but all

this comes at a cost, estimated $3.2 billion and years of delays. >> doing an incredible job, yet some people are going to say it's been ten years, and they are surprised that it's not done by now. how do you answer that? >> we have built the most complex public works project in america's history. this tower was built on the top of a subway train. they are working every single hour of every single day. >> and to move forward, they needed to put aside years of fighting among politicians, designers, and the victims' families. >> turn right, and when you do, look what you see. >> wow. wow. like an unobstructed view also. >> completely. this could be your corner office. >> unlike the old world trade center with a framework of external steel, this rises through an armored concrete core. if something were to happen to

that structure right there, it doesn't jeopardize the integrity of the building. >> exactly. it was designed to stop the cascading failure that everybody saw on 9/11. okay so we're going to go out on the outer stairway. >> leaving the comfort of home. if you have a problem with heights, this where the tour ends. it's a workout to reach the top, a dizzying librynth. i'm buying lunch, guys, come on, belly up. there are over 3,500 workers at ground zero, many of whom feel deeply connected to this site. brian lyons found his brother, michael, a firefighter who never made it home. >> you've been down here every day since. why? >> at that moment, i made a

commitment i wanted to find my brother, find everybody else and rebuild this place bigger and better than anywhere before. >> wow. 76. 30 to go. >> wow. wow. that's a lot to think about. a soaring testament to our nation's resilience wrapped up in concrete, glass, and steel. the day you turn the key and they open this place, what do you think it's going to mean to not only new york city but america? >> i think it's going to be an incredible statement of pride, because this is what we do. we build, we recover, we create a place to live, that's who we are. >> matt lauer reporting. stay with msnbc for coverage of all the memorial services this weekend, saturday at noon eastern you can see the memorial at shanksville, pennsylvania,

commemorating the passengers of flight 93 and our coverage of the memorial service at ground zero begins. there's much more ahead tonight in this program. in the rewrite, we'll return to politics and watch rick perry try to rewrite himself on social security and we'll get the late night comedians reactions to this week's republican presidential debate.

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fresher less processed foods introducing freshpet recipes so fresh the only preservative we use is the fridge freshpet fresh food for fido in rick perry's book "fed up," he called social security a ponzi scheme. in wednesday's debate, the texas governor made the rookie presidential candidate mistake of repeating the ponzi scheme bit proving he knows nothing about social security or ponzi schemes. and the msnbc republican presidential candidate was a gold mine for late night comedians.

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time for tonight's rewrite. it did not take long for rick perry to start rewriting his politically suicidal position on social security. in the most harmful book any presidential candidate has ever written to launch his presidential campaign, author perry called social security a ponzi scheme and said the most popular government program ever is a failure.

on wednesday night during his first presidential debate, rick perry was not ready for what everyone knew was going to come at him, his own words. >> i'd like you to explain your view that social security was wrong right from the beginning. >> well, i think any of us that want to go back and change 70 years of what's been going on in this country is probably going to have a difficult time, and rather than spending a lot of time talking about what those folks were doing back in the 30s and the 40s is a nice intellectual conversation, but the fact is we got to be focussed on how we're going to change this program, and people on social security today, men and women who are receiving those benefits today are individuals at my age that are in line pretty quick to get them. they don't need to worry about anything. i think the republican candidates are talking about

ways to transition this program. >> perfect. that was the perfect dodge. that's where an experienced presidential debater knows he's done. that's it. that's his answer, he's finished. but at this point in the debate, rick perry didn't really know where he was on a national stage where he had to be very, very careful. so the rookie debater foolishly kept going. >> i think the republican candidates are talking about ways to transition this program, and it is a monstrous lie. it is a ponzi scheme to tell our kids that are 25 or 30 years old today, you're paying into a program that's going to be there, anybody that's for the status quo with social security today is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids, and it's not right.

>> brian williams' co-moderator, john harris, pointed out perry calling social security a ponzi scheme in his book had already prompted carl rove to say this. >> what they've done thus far is, i think, inadequate, we didn't write the book with a presidential campaign in mind. okay, fine, but they are going to have to find a way to deal with these things because they are toxic in a general election and in a primary. >> harris also pointed out that the ponzi scheme comparison puts perry in direct conflict with conservative hero dick cheney. >> i certainly don't believe it's a ponzi scheme. it's a program that a great many people depend upon, so i think it's very important program. we do, in fact, want to preserve it for future generations. >> after perry deliberately and needlessly reached for the ponzi

scheme line, mitt romney shot back with this defense of social security. >> in the book fed-up, by any measure, social security is a failure, you can't say that to tens of millions who live on social security and have lived on it. states ought to be able to opt out of social security. our nominee has to be someone who isn't committed to abolishing social security but is committed to saving social security. we have always had, at the heart of our party, a recognition that we want to care for those in need, and our seniors have the need of social security. i will make sure we keep the program and we make it financially secure. we save social security and under no circumstances would i say by any measure it is a failure. it is working for millions of americans and i'll keep it working for millions of americans, and we have to do it as a party. >> some democratic observers of

the debate were wondering if perry knows something about republican voters that romney doesn't. what they didn't notice is that was romney who just got the applause on social security from a republican audience in the ronald reagan library. ronald reagan, a similar-sounding supporter to social security as mitt romney. and who do you think knows more about republican voters nationally? a candidate like perry who's been campaigning in texas all of his life or carl rove, who says perry's language is toxic to republicans and republican primary voters? here's what steve schmidt, campaign manager for john mccain in 2008 said on wednesday night after the debate. >> when you're explaining controversial statements, you're losing, and that's what the problem with the ponzi scheme statement is. there's no constituency in the

republican party to abolish social security, lawrence o'donnell pointed this out correctly before, president bush tried to privatize social security in '05, there was no congressional support because they know the constituents don't support it, and i think it's going to be very problematic for governor perry as you look at the south carolina coast where there's a lot of retirees, when the campaign moves into florida, and i think that stewart stevens is exactly right, you can't win a national campaign when you are on the record calling for the dismantling of social security and then exacerbating it with statements like he did tonight. it's very problematic for him, and i think it's something that democrats have a lot of glee over, obviously. >> stewart stevens is a senior advisor in the romney campaign. steve schmidt went on to say that he thought the obama campaign must now be hoping to face perry in the election

rather than romney adding they are probably "hanging up rick perry signs over the west wing." carl rove, steve schmidt, and stewart stevens are not guessing about republican attitudes over social security, they read polls. in a pew poll in june, 87% of republicans said social security has been good for the country, 87%. and in a june nbc news/"the wall street journal" poll gave us a peek at what perry would encounter against president obama. 23% say they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who wants to privatize social security, 55% say they'd be less likely to vote for a candidate who wants to privatize social security. it is impossible to win a presidential election in america

while demonizing social security, while calling it, in effect, a fraudulent criminal enterprise, which is what a ponzi scheme is. even rick perry now knows this, and his retreat from what rove correctly calls the toxic rhetoric has begun. here's rick perry today in orange county, california. >> i'd say that's misinformation. we just want to fix it. >> amen. god bless you, rick. >> have they distorted your record? >> that is what a candidate looks like when he's learning to stop saying crazy things. first, he calls his own words misinformation, then he realizes he's in over his head and shuts up and just keeps walking. that was the safest thing for

perry to do today, and it will be the safest thing for him to do tomorrow as he tries to rewrite his ponzi scheme rhetoric out of his campaign. charles ponzi was the bernie madoff of the 1920s, he basically stole people's money from fraudulent investment schemes. simply taking in new investment money from new victims. what ponzi also did was divert massive amounts of the money to his own personal use, of course, and, of course, his schemes would come tumbling down and everyone involved would lose all of their money. that is, of course, completely different from social security. social security will be able to pay benefits forever. no, no, no, not for another 20 years, forever. the question before us in the future is simply how much should those benefits be, how much can

we, as a country, afford to pay in social security benefits? we will always be able to afford to pay something. if we do absolutely nothing to current law, make no trends, no cuts, no adjustments of any kind, don't touch the retirement age, no changes, 30 years from now social security beneficiaries will be receiving a minimum of 80% of the equivalent of what social security benefits are today. unlike ponzi, social security will not run out of money, it will never run out of money, it cannot run out of money, it will always pay a benefit because it will always be collecting social security taxes, every week out of your paycheck and your children's paychecks and grandchildren's paychecks forever. perry has chosen colorful

language with no descriptive accuracy to what he thinks he's talking about. charles ponzi, who was as much of an ego maniac of any of our politicians would probably get a big kick out of rick perry. when ponzi got out of prison for the last time in boston, actually charlestown where he got out of prison, he told reporters, i went looking for trouble, and i got it. if the perry campaign does not yet have a motto, i know of nothing more fitting than the words of charles ponzi. i went looking for trouble, and i got it.

here's the late night

comedian's take on the msnbc republican presidential candidates debate. >> the republican debate was on earlier tonight, side effects may include dizziness, sexual dysfunction. >> rick perry, people were focussed on him. rick perry said he understands health care because his wife is a nurse. yeah, he also said he understands terrorism because he watched all eight seasons of "24." >> governor perry, question about texas, your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times -- [ cheers and applause ] have you -- >> the biggest applause line of the night was the mere mention that rick perry had executed 234 people. holy [ bleep ].