on his dash for cash. republicans still pining for a new heartthrob. is chris christie the answer to what jon stewart calls a season of "american idol" in reverse. >> all that's missing is the humiliating audition when the contestant mangles one of your favorite songs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> and dramatic surveillance video. a view from inside the washington monument during last month's east coast earthquake. today crews are rappelling down the landmark. >> good day. i'm andrea mitchell live at the education experience in new york. president obama leaves california for denver, that's expected to net close to $4 million. the president is campaigning of course, for his jobs bill. chuck todd is chief white house

correspondent, host of "the daily rundown" and political director. the president is on a campaign trip, a jobs trip, and it also has a lot to do with the political climate for 2012. >> it does, and you know, what's been interesting about watching the president on this trip a little bit is he's having to confront sort of the simultaneous issues that he has to deal with in the next 14 months. so he's trying to sell the jobs bill and trying to explain his call for the tax hikes and it will be a big debate point going in to the campaign season and had an interesting back and forth during an interview with b.e.t. about questioning whether he will do -- talk more directly to the problems in the african-american community, and he seemed to take the interview to task about the question. it's a similar answer these given before when asked directly about the higher unemployment

rates in the black community and some of the criticism he's taken from the older generation of african-american political leaders. so all of it there and plus also just some concern from the typical liberal base of the party a la hollywood. >> and at the same time on the republican side there seems to be a pining for somebody else, chris christie, tom cain and a good friend of his and former new jersey governor said this is real, that he's actually thinking about it and he's acting like a candidate today. missouri today and later today, the reagan library for a speech that seems like a classic foray into campaign season. >> he is pushing back on tom cain's comments and said look, his brother is not running and if somehow he announces today or this week that he is, then he said it rather would have been lying to him and he'd be more

shocked than he ever was about anything in his life. there will be a q & a portion after the speech that he gives. so we will hear from christie definitively and whether they like it or not they believe they've said no every which way that you can, but because, you brought up tom cain's comments and because of his comments he'll have to say one more time, definitively, this is it, i'm not running, unless tom cain's reports and according to these reports and his brother, they haven't spoken in a couple of days. >> he did say he could commit suicide rather than rung. i want to ask you about joe biden. he went on "the view" and he told our friends on "the view" about what he felt about the bullying of the gay soldier at the last republican debate. the phenomenon that we've seen in this republican series of debates has been the audience reaction and one of the most

upsetting to a lot of people was the booing of the gay marine. this was joe biden's response today on "the view." >> i do have a visceral response and i'm not sure if it's because my son spent a year in iraq and i know my son and all of the kids with him -- kids, they're grown men. i don't think they give a damn whether a guy firing a rifle to protect them is gay or straight. this kid risked his life. this kid is there for a year, and i, quite frankly, i thought it was reprehensible. >> it really has been a very different debate season. it certainly is skewing the republican primary season in one direction. >> well, and you've seen president obama has brought this up at fund raisers in the last three days. the ones where the camera hasn't been on, but he has brought up the audience reaction to these debates and david axelrod today

in a scrum with reporters in new hampshire. he did the politics segment, he brought this issue up. it's clear that the obama campaign, team obama believes that this picture of the republican party is one that while swing voters may be skeptical of president obama, maybe upset about the economy and upset about his leadership, that the alternative that they won't -- that they'll be turned off by the alternative on the right. >> chuck, before i let you go, one foreign policy question because israel announced that the timing is awfully interesting. here with the security council deliberating this week and considering the scheduling of the palestinian request for statehood, israel announced 1100 new housing units in east jerusalem. that will set off passions anew. >> it sure is, and it seems like nothing is dying out and this is the frustration when you talk to the folks inside the obama administration. they believe that -- that while

they're not happy how the palestinians have handled this situation, particularly at the united nations and what abbas did, that he stuck a -- poked a stick in the eye of the peace talks, all this does is do the same thing from the israeli side. so the administration is very frustrated, but we've seen this movie before. you've seen it a lot more times than i've seen it. >> well, and the movie doesn't have a happy ending. at least not yet. thank you very much, chuck todd. >> so what does all of the focus on chris christie mean? eric, senior adviser and joins us. why this wishful thinking about chris christie? it must frauft rate you on team romney. >> he knows him and respects him as a governor and fine fellow, but i can't speak for what chris christie plans to do. i can tell you that mitt romney's presence in the race is not dependent on who's in or not

in. he's running because he believes he has a unique set of skills that will allow him to lead during some very challenging times with jobs and the economy. >> at the same time, are you frustrated by the latest cnn poll? nobody -- nobody gave rick perry a good review out of that debate. yet he is still polling 20%, newt gingrich at 11%. herman cain at 9%, and ron paul 7% and michele bachmann only 6% in today's cnn poll. >> well, i agree that rick perry's performance at last week's debate was a disaster and i think it was a disaster because of his position in support of tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. and there are more than 16,000 illegal immigrants receiving a public college education and receiving that tuition benefit in the state of texas and that's a pretty good sized university,

and i think what frustrates people is that these types of public benefits encourage illegal immigration into this country and act as a magnet and governor romney believes that we ought to turn off these magnets. >> eric fuhrnstrom from the romney campaign. tough economic times have put private colleges off limits for many prospective students and that has led more and more of them to turn to community colleges where the accessibility is greater and the cost is much lower. they're offering more help for these students setting aside resources to keep tuition costs low. arnie duncan is secretary of education and joins me now. mr. secretary, first of all, community colleges. what are you trying to do and where will you get the money? >> we have the money. this is a hugely important investment, they're unrecognized gems. $500 million going out the to

community colleges in every state with the public/private partnerships and where they're leading to real jobs. whether you're 18 years old, 30 years old, 58 years old going back to retrain, retool, green energy jobs, technology jobs, healthcare jobs. the country will get back on their feet, community colleges play a huge role. we're thrilled to make these investments in real public/private partnerships. >> we revealed today as part of the education nation experience, a new report which shows that at community colleges and four-year schools, students are increasingly not finishing. there are a lot of factors here. some of them are working and some of them have other economic problems or trying to commute to school or juggling to much. some of them, frankly, didn't have the qualifications and needed remedial help and began to fall behind and they're taking twice as long to complete the community colleges. >> this is a huge issue and i appreciate the spotlight you're helping to line on it it. let me walk you through a couple of things. we're working with half of the nation's governors who have set

college completion targets for their state and they're holing themselves accountable to move the state in the right direction. we have to lead the world in college jen raising. one generation ago we were. today we're 15th. governors are stepping up to the plate in a very important way. we have to create more for colleges and universities not just on the successsed and to build cultures around completion and we have to make sure high school graduates don't have to take remedial classes once they go to college. the fact that 44 states are raising standards for every single child means that over time, many more high school graduates will be qualified and will not have to take those remedial classes and ultimately will have a much higher completion rate. >> at the same time i was talking just a bit ago on education nation to the chancellor of the university of texas system. they've got more than 200,000 system in the university of texas system, this is dr. figueroa and they are finding and more and more students are really challenged to complete

the two years or the four years. two years in brownsville and the community college aspect and four years in austin and other places in the system because they have these problems of the economy. >> it is very tough times. what we see across the country is we see certain states, certain universities doing an amazing job of first-generation college goers and english language learners, building a culture of support, helping them with transportation or baby-sitting. whatever it might be. we have to continue to incentivize that. we've done a great amount of work to increase access to college and it's a starting point. it's got to be about completion and attainment. >> let me ask you before we go to break about this whole debate erupted on thursday over the republican debate over what is a texas -- about providing state funds to the children of undocumented immigrants.

what do you think about this controversy between mitt romney and -- >> i don't watch the debates. >> undocumented immigrants getting tuition in this country. >> they will be the innovators and the entrepreneurs who will help strengthen our economy or they're going to be a lag on the economy. the dreecam of going to college has to be real for every child in this country. we have to help these young people. they committed no crimes and they've been here since they were babies. they've worked hard and gotten great grades in high school and to shut the opportunity to them doesn't make sense to me whatsoever. >> stay with us, mr. secretary, and more from education secretary arnie duncan next. >> plus, he made dreams come true for millions of steelers fans and frank o'haris is helping lower income students achieve the dream of higher education in pittsburgh. this is "andrea mitchell reports" live from the education nation experience only on msnbc.

[ cherie ] i always had a job, ever since i was fourteen. i could not make working and going to school work. it was not until the university of phoenix that i was able to work full-time, be a mom, and go to school. the opportunities that i had at the university of phoenix got me to where i am today. i'm mayor cherie wood, i'm responsible for the largest urban renewal project in utah, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] university of phoenix is proud to sponsor education nation. because we believe an educated world is a better world. we're back at the education nation experience with arnie duncan. it was to basically grant these

waivers. you found that the states were teaching -- were lowering their standards to avoid the penalties. were you throwing out the baby with the bathwater? >> absolutely not. the no child left behind act is far too broken, very prescriptive and very topped down from washington and led to the dummying down of standards and none of this is good for children, for education and ultimately for our country. we're going partner directly with states doing the right thing, showing real courage. college standards for every child. thoughtful work around teacher and principal evaluate sxgz support, taking on achievement gaps and taking on underperforming schools and we need to give states much more flexicity and for me the tradeoff is very clear. high bar and hold folks accountable and get washington out of the way. >> we were talking about higher ed on the panel that i was conducting downstairs at education nation and there seems to be a dichotomy about the need

to create and educate young people for jobs that are out there, to retool all of that, but also to not lose sight of the broader goal of educating to learn, to innovate and teaching people how to think creatively because you don't know what research is going to produce what result. where do you come down on that? >> what i see everywhere i go is our children need a well-rounded, world class education and if you focus just on reading or math, those are fundamentals and they're foundational, but science, social study, financial literacy, dance, drama, art, p-e and not just in high school and in first and second grade need to have those amazing learning chancees. >> in the district of columbia, our hometown, my hometown had a story that middle schools are so despair at in their quality that one school has a part-time spanish teacher two days a week and another middle school has

all kinds of languages including mandarin chinese. these children are being educated in a completely different fashion in the same city. >> the ideas of equity and access are hugely important. we're finding that around the country, in high-poverty schools and high minority schools, teachers are paid less. you have to close the achievement gaps and not perpetuate them and you have to take the issues on openly and honestly and figure out how systemically you get the hardest working and the most committed teachers and principals where they need the most help. whether that's rural or remote. >> at the same time there is a lot of money being thrown at problem in some districts. could the amount of money spent in the district is not -- it's higher than elsewhere, yet the results don't seem to be there. despite all of the focus on reform. >> this has been a low performing district and they've made real progress and not world class yet and it's going in the right direction.

so i look at growth, and i look at progress. it's absolutely moving in the right direction. we have to continue to invest in education and not in the status quo and in the vision reform. like many urban district, d.c. has challenges, but is it going the right way? absolutely. >> one of the subjects that came out last night, we were listening to you and others speaking and tom brokaw at a panel at the museum of natural history was that it took the crisis of katrina to get the new orleans schools going and you may have been the person mentioning the progress in new orleans has been extraordinary. why does it take a crisis like that to get community, politicians and parents to really focus on the need for improvement in education in. >> it's a great question, and it shouldn't take that. that's why i appreciate your spotlight, nbc's tremendous leadership on this. what these summits do is bring the national spotlight to the most pressing issue facing our country and it creates a sense of urgency. as a nation, we've been far too complacent.

parents, educators, the business community. our children deserve so much better than what we're doing today. our nation needs it. we have to educate our way to a better economy. we have to get better faster than ever before and events like this have to shine a spotlight and drive the fundamental, systemic change that we need. >> are we going face such horrendous discretionary domestic budget cuts that your cuts and education will be among the first to suver? >> i hope not, and the president's shown tremendous courage from day one and these are tough economic times that the federal, state and local level, but all of us have to continue to invest. >> if you think education is expensive, try ignorance and we have to continue to invest on early childhood and cater to reform. this has to be a cradle to career agenda and they have to continue to drive change in education in order to strengthen our nation. >> we thank you for your

leadership on this and your participation here, of course. logon to educationnation.com to join this conversation and there are lots of interactives and live chats that you can take part in online, and of course, the president will be giving his big back to school speech tomorrow in this hour and we'll be carrying it live. and up next, the politico briefing and still ahead, high court showdown over healthcare at the height of the 2012 campaign. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" live from the education nation experience on msnbc. woman: we love ordering sushi, but it was getting expensive.

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>> in today's politico briefing, when the president goes to denver he'll arrive at a state that he won by nine points in 2008. now he cannot count on that any longer. white house reporter for politico and joins us now from

the white house. hi, carrie. i guess the republican governor is offering a sober assessment for the president. >> he certainly is. this is the democratic governor of the state saying the president won by nine points in 2008, to replicate anything close to that is uncertain and even winning the state is a dogfight. he did think the president will be able to pull it out, but really putting up a bunch of red flags that you can actually see in other swing states around the country. colorado, we're looking that the because he's there, but he has issues he needs to overcome. enthusiasm and he needs to get that back up with the volunteers there and that's a big commodity that works in his favor when enthusiasm is there. him going there today is part of that process of rebuilding that organization, enthusiasm in the state which is a must-win, it's a sentimental state for the president. he had his nominating convention there in 2008 and they certainly

want to win it again. and in fact, that and north carolina and several of the other states that are swing states that he won last time are on the cusp this time and he also has a problem, we've seen the congressional black caucus jobs tour, the comments from maxine waters and a few others and then this interview that just took place with tb.e.t. he asked him a question. >> if i'm a scone-year-old kid, on the south side of chicago and my dad's gone and my mom's working ten hours a day for peanuts and you will say -- >> emmitt, that's not what people are saying. what people are saying all across the country is we're hurting and we've been hurting for a long time. and the other thing, that you don't slip in there that african-american leaders have been critical. there have been a handful of african-american leaders who

were critical. they were critical when i was running for president. >> he sounded a little bit defensive, but as chuck todd was pointing out yesterday when we talked about this subject, carrie, there does seem to be a generational divide. some of the younger african-american leaders in congress are much more supportive, openly supportive than some of the older members of the congressional black caucus. >> the president is right. this does seem like a replay in some ways of 2008 and the dividing line within the black community and black leaders here in washington, civil rights leaders have always been more critical of him and have sought more out of him, whereas, younger african-americans, youth, there is a different sort of alliance there and as long as they're mobilizing, that helps the president. the issue, and the red flag that leaders here in washington are raising is if the african-american community doesn't feel as if it is getting enough out of this economy, out

of the administration, that is going to dampen enthusiasm. it's not that they'll necessarily vote for somebody else. it's a question of the turnout, the enthusiasm and the president needs that as much as he needs, you know, other demographics to turn out for him in big numbers. >> turnout, turnout, turnout. carrie, thank you very much. >> thank you, andrea. in congress, harry reid's big gam ole disaster relief pays off, but don't call it it a done deal. paying it forward. how nfl hall of famer frank oco harris is helping to follow their dream. plea this is "andrea mitchell reports" live from the education nation experience only on msnbc. i'm so ready. [ female announcer ] prepare to ace your check-up. fight plaque and gingivitis and invigorate your way to better dental check-ups. crest pro-health invigorating clean rinse.

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topping the headlines right now. i'm andrea mitchell. president obama's healthcare law

could be diedecided by the supr court right in the middle of the 2012 election season. it will not push for an appeals court to take up the case which accuses congress of overstepping its balance by mandating health insurance for all. the appeal for the lower courts may have taken months until 2013 after the presidential election. now, though, the administration likely will be appealing directly to the supreme court. that decision could come by next summer. the latest marine to receive a medal of honor turned down the offer to become a new york firefighter. he missed the application deadline. he was traveling with events to receive his award. they extended only to accommodate him. meyer is opposed to being the one-person exception. closer inspections are under way. and just yesterday the national park service released this

surveillance video showing the dramatic moments during that 5.8 magnitude yaquake. more than 270 people are injured in shanghai. the accident is being blamed with problems with signaling equipment. nobody was injured there. approving a deal at the last moment to keep the lights on and the government running for another six weeks. kelly o'donnell and capitol hill correspondent. >> it is sort of the way the game is being played up there, but are they any closer to long-term solutions or is this the way -- the new norm as far as congress is concerned? >> this will seem like a minor little blip when we get to the long-term budget battle that will come in the weeks ahead. they were able to resolve this and it was done in the end in a very friendly way after days of grinding opposition over whether there should be some cuts in

other programs in order to give fema more money to help out those victims of disasters across the country. there have been ten disasters that have been given that national recognition of a federal emergency and they've each cost more than $1 billion. there's an enormous need. both parties agreed that how to get there was where the real difference was. late last night they were able on the senate side to come up, in a way to keep this going forward and it was fema itself that sort of bailed out congress because fema looked at its books and was able to slow down spending on projects that were not considered as urgent and pooled enough money to keep going until friday and that was important because the new fiscal year for the government begins october 1st and they'll get a new infusion of cash. when they all come back after the recess this week, they're away now, they will begin looking at that bigger issue of the long-term fight for trying the budget for a full year. we've been in a small pattern,

andrea, for three weeks, three-month extension to keep the lights on around here. everyone is pretty tired about that, but there will be battles to come when they look at the longer budget when the issues are so much bigger just in scale. >> and you've got the super committee that is also trying to avert drastic, automatic cuts if they don't come up with an agreement for future cuts. >> and they didn't go home. >> i should mention they are meeting long sessions where they're going after 12 members, evenly split between the party, the house and senate trying to come up with the long-term cuts and there's skepticism about what they can actually achieve. >> if they failed to come up with their plan by thanksgiving, then there would be automatic cuts triggered. if they come up with a plan and congress doesn't pass it by christmas, these automatic cuts would go into effect. so they have an enormous job to do and a lot of serious-minded folks there, but a lot of suspicion about how much they can accomplish.

not because of them, but because of the wider political environment. >> kelly o'donnell, thanks so 34u67 for the update on capitol hill. more now on education nation. studies show that children from poor homes or children who don't have parentsal support or both start falling behind the moment they get into kinder garten and they can never catch up. vicky nelson, and spons offer the education nation summit and franco harris is chairman of pittsburgh promise. welcome both. i think that your foundation actually contributes some money to pittsburgh and some of that money gets into pittsburgh schools. you believe so passionately, and you've come together for not just students in need, but for all pittsburgh high school kids. you offer scholarship aid if they keep a grade point average and if they have a good attendance record. >> right. that's the criteria for the pittsburgh promise and also we

look at that criteria and also we are the last dollar, so they have to apply for federal aid and then whatever is left over after that -- >> you make up the gap after they apply for other scholarships. >> we pay for room and board, duition a tuition and books. if students stay on campus in residence they have a better chance to do better in their college years and to graduate. so we decided to cover all areas of their college education. >> one of the things that we were discussing downstairs at the education experience, franco, was that there was such a high proportion of kids who don't finish on time. a new report today which reveals that kids are taking twice as long to complete four-year schools and two-year schools and

this is a real crisis especially in hard economic times. >> vicky, the bill and melinda gates foundation has done so much, and your focus has been on the poverty data and the impact on k through 8. what are the real challenges now? >> part of what's happening to kids, is they leave high school without the skills they need to be successful and they end up taking remediation courses and dropping out. they have a great education through high school so kids meet college-ready standards and what's great about what's happening in pittsburgh is they're looking at all of these issues. so you have the pittsburgh promise making sure that kids get into college and can successfully stay there. you have the school district tackling the most effective factor in schools. the most important one which is making sure the kids have great teachers and that those teachers have the support they need to help the students meet the high academic standards. >> the data that we're seeing out of the census report show

that for a hispanic and minority children, vicky, the odds are just so stacked against them. they enter school and they fall behind year by year and by the time they're in fourth grade they're behind. >> what we know is that the gap between great teachers and those that are less effective is huge for students and that for those kids, if we gave them a great teacher every single year we could close that achievement gap in three years or so. so the power of what happens inside a school as well as the things that need to surround kids outside of school, particularly when they come to school when struggling with issues of poverty can't be underestimated. >> that's objective standards and that's one of the controversies in education today is figuring out what is a great teacher? >> we have 3,000 teachers across this country helping us answer that very particular question. so we're doing a piece of research because what we know is

teachers don't mind being judged on their performance as long as it's multiple lenses and we'll be able to say back to teachers and school districts and communities, this is what -- when added together makes for a good picture whether a teacher is performing well and when we can get the teachers to get the development and skills they need when they're looking it out of the park. >> i want to ask you about the philosophy about pittsburgh's poor kids. you focus on the inner city kids and young black males in particular, but you focus kids and provide money to kids of all means. >> what is behind that philosophy? >> also, we wanted to be an economic engine for the city. so we want everyone to move in into pittsburgh who meets all standards and and so one thing that we do is that we reach out to third grade ers, sixth grade

and ninth graders and we start to tell them about the promise and that gets them motivated and our goal is to keep them motivated. >> and you mentor them along the way. >> we do meantsor them. when they fall behind like, say, they have a 2.3 and they need a 2.5, we might have a teacher or guidance counselor tell them hey, you're close, you need to do this and so many students get moat have aeded by that. or we tell them your attendance record is this. you need to come to class and you have parents now because it takes parents, teachers and the kids all together to make all of this happen and we have parents tell kids, you know what? come on, you better get to school because you want to be promise ready. you want to take advantage of the promise and so we look at this as being something that -- will add vitality to the culture

of the sfae. >> and education because we build our intellect and let me do the future jobs and businesses in so many different pies, 1% in increase in graduates brings in $700 per capita in the community. so when we see the high school graduation rate increase overall by 4% i say, wow! if it's 2% to go, it could be a big economic boost for the pittsburgh area. >> we've seen pittsburgh has made a remarkable transformation from a steel town that was really roughed up and high bound 20 years into medical technologies and other high tech and other industries that need a new scopist. >> the district in the community

committed on on and taking what we know works and what is the most important factor in school ask surrounding that with the support that kids need with people like franco. >> in 1983 we had an 18% unemployment rate because they shut down the manufacturing. then we got to red cal, education -- >> and it was below the national average. >> that is a huge success story. franco, by the way, we could have used you in dallas last night. just saying. >> yeah. >> great to see you. thanks to you and the foundation, bill and melinda gates for all they've done and franco harris, my new friend, thank you so much. brian williams will be talking education with former president bill clinton live from the education nation experience in new york. watch it live at education nation.com and you're watching andrea mitchell reports live from the education nation

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at myflexpen.com. flexpen, insulin delivery that goes with you. hi, everyone. i'm tamron hall, coming up for the first time we are hearing chilling recordings of michael jackson's voice in the months before he died. [ indiscernible ] >> prosecutors say michael jackson was under the influence of medication given to him by dr. conrad murray. several members of the jackson family are in court as the trial of dr. murray gets under way today. plus the presidential buzz around new jersey governor chris christie is getting louder. former governor thomas keane says christie is very seriously getting into the race and now chris christie's brother is talking on twitter and i'll talk to michael smerkonish.

greece's finance minister tried to assure the world that greece would avoid default and germany's angela merkel is promising to help restore investors' confidence. here in the u.s. home prices rose for the fourth straight months and the housing sector remains depressed and those prices are expected to fall seasonally this winter. matthew bishop is from "the economist" and he's here to help us sort it all out. first of all, greece. every time greece freehs freezes we feel it in our markets here. what is your assessment coming off the imf finance minister's weekend of as to whether they have a game plan. >> i think they do have a game plan. i think the game plan is that they'll come up with some kind of concerted, you're european euro zone, that greece can reduce its debt without causing a calamity in the global banking

system. the european union moves very, very slowly because there are 17 different countries in the euro zone that have to agree with everything and so the markets will have plenty of opportunity to speculate and talk themselveses into a panic, even though there is a determination by germany that it realizes it has to stop this problem in greece, becoming a more endemic problem. >> this is a problem of the disparities between north and south and you've got these economies which can't mesh because they are a totally different type of economy and germany and certainly the populations in germany and elsewhere are sick of bailing out the southern regime. >> i think you have to understand what's going on in europe in the context of a century of history where you have the two world wars in europe and then after that you have this determination to build a european state that would never fight and go to war with itself again, and the euro was

part of that political process of creating a state and they created the currency without putting in place some of the political mechanisms needed to manage a single currency. so ways of transferring money from germany, rich countries like germany and france, and it get transferred here in the states like new york to arkansas or something like that. i think the euro zone crisis is really about providing the political excuse to build the federal institutions in europe and the arguments are really about what are the terms in which the rich countries are willing to pay money to the poor countries and the poor countries are willing to reform themselves so they'll be less of a drain on the rich country resources in europe going forward. and just as a political process, it is very messy and one that has to be in the context of a very long history in its determination to create a state in europe that is much more akin

to the united states of america. >> but as they go through this struggle economically, are we exposed or our financial institutions exposed to the problems that are erupting in europe because they're our biggest market? >> well, i think there is a real question about how great is the financial weakness of the european banking sector, and also how exposed are american banks to those european banks? and at the end of last week and the run-up of the imf meetings, was there a worry that there would be a panic and it seems that the message out of the bernanke was willing to launch qe 3 to put liquidity back into the system. all those things calmed the panics and feels like things are going better now. while there is uncertainty about

what europe's long-term solution to the crisis is going to be, there will be moments of panic in the market. it will affect america. >> thanks so much for a mixed report on the economic outlook there and here as well. what political story will be making headlines in the next 24-hours? that's next here on "andrea mitchell reports." [ male announcer ] colorful, smooth and in excellent condition... those are your lips with covergirl lip perfection. get beautiful color now... let the silk moisturizing complex give you more beautiful lips in 7 days.

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. which political stories will make stories in the next 24 hours? chris, are you looking at chris christie? >> andrea, who isn't in the political world at the moment? yes. we talked about it on your show and i talked about it with every other political person and most everyone said still not running. we know big speech tonight whether he is running or not at the reagan library about american exceptionalism and a popular topic in the field among

activists at the moment. i'm interested to see if he expects it at all. major donors trying to get him to run. he is thinking about running. does he mention it or rule himself out yet again. i for one will be going from 10:00 p.m. tonight. >> a big republican fund-raiser tweeted out that his brother is not running despite what tom cain who is in the inner circle said. he is in missouri which is a key swing state to atherton, california and talking to meg whitman and more importantly as the new ceo. then the reagan library and the personal invitation of nancy reagan. that looks like a candidate to be. >> i take him at his word, but you put it right. looks like a candidate to be.

maybe he's not, but he looks like one at the moment. >> okay. see you in washington tomorrow. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." we continue with the 2011 teacher of the year and live coverage of the president's back to school speech. tamron hall is here with a look at what's next on "news nation." >> they snuck up on it and great hour in the next hour. big story. michael jackson's death trial is just getting under way in the opening statements. jurors have seen an image of michael jackson's body at the hospital after he died and his slurred voice in the weeks before he died. michael jackson in his own words. andrea was talking about chris christie in a few hours. governor kristi is delivering a speech at the reagan library.

the governor's brother as you heard speaking out. how close is his brother and why would your brother be telling you about your future? is he reliable? next on "news nation". bl state farm. this is jessica. hey, jessica, jerry neumann with a policy question. jerry, how are you doing? fine, i just got a little fender bender. oh, jerry, i'm so sorry. i would love to help but remember, you dropped us last month. yeah, you know it's funny. it only took 15 minutes to sign up for that new auto insurance company but it's taken a lot longer to hear back. is your car up a pole again? [ crying ]

i miss you, jessica! jerry, are you crying? no, i just, i bit my tongue. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. state farm.

"news nation," the last days of michael jackson. minutes into the trial of dr. conrad murray, the jury hears a shocking recording of pop superstar michael jackson a month before his death and pictures of michael jackson's lifeless body on a gurney. a sign of something more? new speculation that chris christie will enter the 2012 presidential race as he prepares to speak at the reagan library. what his brother is saying. [speaking foreign language] >> prosecutors