at least one poll of his state has him at 5% among republican voters which would pu him ahead of jon huntsman who is definitely running for president and who has been runing for a long time. just when it appears that stephen colbert has not upped his game, he ups his game. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." thanks for being with us tonight. the republican presidential candidates just can't stop themselves from helping president obama. the president's deputy campaign manager is here tonight. >> and what may be the field's last best chance to stop mitt romney's momentum. >> i think this is the time and this is the place to take off the gloves and sock it to him. >> they were concerned about these bain attacks.

>> i'm shocked at how defensive they are. >> it's a barrage of criticism of romney's time at bain. >> in terms of jobs created. >> it's not true. he's not a job creator. >> bain was no there for job creation. he was there for wealth for his investors. >> mitt romney is a high-flying eagle when really he's a low-flying vulture. >> it's a form of capitalism. >> and this decision you're about to make better be about what kind of economic theory you want. >> long expected this from the democrats. >> it's, frankly, class warfare. >> did not expect this from republicans. >> it's sending the republican party into an identity crisis. >> this is a playbook for the obama campaign. >> i'm just asking questions. >> who's the alternative? where do we go from here? >> newt and others do not appear to be in the game. >> one flawed conservative candidate after another. >> there's a big difference in

philosophy between my opponent and me. >> newt beginning vich a woman on the verge of a breakdown. >> and now it's a cam cause zee mission. >> he is scorned, and out for revenge. >> i feel your pain. i feel your pain. today the republican party fought over what to make of mitt romney's record at bain capital. donald trump weighed in tweeting, newt's attacks on mitt romney record at bain an attack on free enterprise, mistake. i guess that does it. but newt gingrich doesn't want trump, rush limbaugh, or fox news advice on this one. newt gingrich still wants answers. >> so i have been asking some questions and i am amazed at the intensity of the counterattack.

it's almost as though if you ask questions you're somehow challenging the whole system. the american people have the right to know what has been happening to their economy and any candidate for president has an obligation to tell us and i think the idea that these extraordinary wealth of institutions are going to somehow bring enough pressure to bear to say, you better shut up tells you just how bad off the system has gotten. no one tells the american people that they aren't allowed to learn what has happened in their very own country. >> and rick perry agrees. >> it's a matter about vetting a candidate. i mean, i didn't hear anybody questioning when they were attacking me for things that hi done and li will tell you when people point to where you made a quick profit and quick people out of their jobs, that is an issue that's got to be addressed. >> today, rick perry's anti-bain

protest cost him top republican donor barry win. he says it's like finger names on the chalk board. it just kind of irritated you to hear those kind of attacks. winn now supports the romney campaign. here is wynn defending mitt romney today. >> any time a job is lost it's a tragedy. for the family that loses the job, it's devastating. i understand, by the way, that the obama administration is going to work very hard to put free enterprise on trial. but you know what? it works. but the downside is sometimes businesses in trouble need to shetd employment to ultimately survive and then hopefully grow again. that's what you've seen with general motors and chrysler and others. >> karl rove offers free advice to romney in today's wall street journal. most republicans will likely ignore much of the criticism over bain because they generally approve of successful busine

businessmen. that's not going to be the case in the general election. mr. romney can help himself enormously if he uses the weeks ahead to forcefully front this issue. and now for the disclaimer that is stuck in this teleprompter every time we say bain capital, nbc universal is each part of the weather channel. joining me now, host of msnbc's morning joe, joe scarborough. thanks for joining me tonight. >> i am bain capital along with you, lawrence. >> here we go. it's time for the class warfare starts right here right now. joe, you're down in florida. you are our southern senior political republican analyst here at this network and it's coming your way. south carolina's always been where if the campaign hasn't gotten crazy already, this is where it gets really crazy. did you imagine this happening, that this would be what they are fighting about in south caroline?

>> no. it's unbelievable and i can't believe the mistakes that newt gingrich is making over the course of the campaign but this has to be the worst yet. over the past 24 hours, the republican party has gone from rolling their eyes at the guy that they know is going to eventually get the nomination, mitt romney, to suddenly coming together in a way that the party hasn't been since ronald reagan went to the berlin wall and told gorbechov to tear it down. all are coming out and criticizing newt gingrich and criticizing, of course, rick perry. in fact, the only person defending the two seems to be sarah palin. and you want to talk about a an unholy triumph, it's just everything seems to be working in the favor of mitt romney. the guy is like mr. magoo.

you're going from doing this hire-wire walk with the republican party that doesn't seem to want him and yet he's stumbling towards the nomination and newt gingrich is helping him get closer by the day. >> i want to listen to what sarah palin said. i'm wondering, listen to the way she puts it, whether she found a way to connect this to a blue collar republican view of what this bain stuff might be. let's listen to how sarah palin put it. >> governor romney has claimed to have created 100,000 jobs at bain and people are wanting to know, is there proof of that claim and was it u.s. jobs created for the united states citizens? you know, the 100,000 jobs and i believe that that's what governor perry is getting at is, you know, own up to the claims that are being made and that's fair. >> joe, south carolina has watched their textile jobs move off shore for decades now.

is she saying something that could play in south carolina? >> no, i really don't think so. not in the republican party. as you know, i came in in '94. i was one of those pro types. i ran against the republican establishment locally, statewide, and nationally. of course, newt said i couldn't get elected in '94 because he thought i was too conservative for my district but i was a populist and yet this is not an area that i would go into if i were running an anti washington campaign. an anti big business campaign. i think you could talk about tax reform. i think you could say in northwest florida or alaska or in south carolina, it's not right that warren buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. i think everybody gets that. this, though, seems to go with the very nature of capitalism. just like you proudly proclaim yourself as socialists, we proclaim ourselves as capitalists and, yes, capitalism

can get messy. my father lost his job from lockheed. the favorite job he ever had. he was out of business for two years and he understood he lost his job because rolls royce went bankrupt and they had to fire middle managers. he couldn't find a job for two years and yet my father remained a republican because he said, you know what, to channel mitt romney, it ain't bean bag. that's what capitalism does. there are some benefits to it. there are some rewards to it. but also it can hurt sometimes. and that message that sarah palin is making just won't play with the republican base. >> joe, mitt romney today in giving his response to what he thinks is going on, he called it envy. he said that like that thing you just said about a populist republican could talk about in a campaign just what the top tax rate should be and maybe it should be a little different under certain circumstances. >> right. >> that is something that mitt

romney says is about envy. he reduced it all today to envy. does he have to find another way -- does the rich guy with hundreds and millions of dollars have to find another way of talking about the 60% of the people in this country who actually think -- it's actually higher than that in many polls, actually thinks that taxes should be higher on people like mitt romney? >> of course he does. that is a the wrong way to set it up the the fact of the matter is, mitt has handled this poorly from the beginning. he should have told the truth about bain capital. the job of bain capital is not to create jobs. it's to create profit. and if you invest in bain capital, whether you are in a public union and it's for a pension or whether you're a private investor or whether you're a university that wants

to make money, they understand bain capital is not about creating jobs. it's about increasing profits. making companies as profitable as possible but the bottom line at bain capital is the bottom line and it has nothing to do with jobs. it has everything to do with profits and if you are a capitalist, if you are a free market conservative, there's nothing wrong with that. but i think mitt has to take a better tact than that. people think it's wrong. people think it's wrong that billionaire hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate than, say, their secretaries and people that work in their yards. people think that it's wrong that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. but you don't tackle this problem, at least in the republican party, by attacking

the free market. you do it by attacking tax codes and other things. >> joe scarborough, msnbc's "morning joe," the man who would be tonight's front-runner in south carolina if he could just tear himself away from morning joe. joe, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> well, you can say that ever about 10,000 republicans across the country right now. it's not really a great compliment. >> it is one of the weaker fields but my money would be on you. joe, thank you very much. >> it is painful to watch. thank you, lawrence. and joining me now, that laughter that you heard in the background is from chris hayes, host of msnbc's up with chris hayes. you had a jaw-dropping moment during newt gingrich making those wonderful fully democratic sounding voices. >> democratic. he sounds like he uses it in a

general occupy wall street assembly. you know, here is what -- i am really stunned, actually, by this turn of events and the reason i'm stunned, democrats do this all the time. democrats will try to get to the right of their competitor. particularly on foreign policy. you're always seeing this very hawkish arguments. and someone who is proudly a dove always makes me grimmace and despair and here we are, mitt romney says the president is going to put the free enterprise on trial and the republican primary field has managed to put literally the free enterprise system on trial because joe is exactly right, this is what modern american capitalism looks like. bain capital is what modern american capitalism looks like. you know, it turns out a lot of voters have issues with modern american capitalism. not just democrats.

people that would be voting in the republican primary have issues with the kind of devastation it has wraught. i'm shocked to see this being spouted in the republican primary already. i really am surprised. >> wendy, what is the history of this kind of talk in the presidential debates? in my lifetime i don't believe it's ever come up in the fundamental way. >> questioning the validity of -- >> that free enterprise is being debated. that's a serious subject. a large subject. >> not like this. not at all. because republicans have always been the more credible on the idea of free enterprise, getting government out of business and so the democrats never really wanted the conversation to go in that direction and the republicans would clamp it down. ronald reagan would shut it down when he needed tochlt other candidates like bush shut it down when he needed to. this is sort of unpealing the

layers of romney and showing very serious weaknesses not just in his economic record but in his ability to control the campaign. i'm not sure that this doesn't show them that these are fundamental core weaknesses in romney the candidate, not just even the issue on romney on the issue of economy. >> the republican world -- you have sarah palin disagreeing. sarah palin is over here. rush limbaugh over here. sharp disagreements. this is even more, it seems to me, than the obama campaign could have hoped for. they may have hoped for a longer contest for the nomination but they couldn't have hoped for a better fight. >> yeah. i'm amazed. they must be popping champagne. >> i hope they are not popping champagne yet. >> here's what i'm trying to say. there is a way in which it's feasible to inoculate this in some ways. this story is burning up the

airwaves, it's on our air. it's getting a lot of air. there's an argument that can be made when these attacks come directly from the president oral lied super pacs in the fall have less of a bite because people know the story and they've made up their mind on it. the analogy is, if jeremiah wright tape had surfaced in october as opposed to april, that would have been much harder for the president. we may have a president john mccain. i don't know what would happen if it surfaced in the general. there's a chance of it happening this early allows the romney campaign to figure out how they are going to deal with it and where he talks about, you know, what capitalism is or something like that where he really takes it head on and that may end up benefiting the campaign in the long run. >> he may have to steal a lot of what joe scarborough just said. brown university that is a nobel

place that needs to benefit in -- >> pension funds. yep. >> he needs to make the good is greed speech. a company coming into an inefficient staple manufacturer, purely looking for profit, purely out of self-interest and getting rid of those jobs and outsourcing them in the name of the efficiency, that that creates the greatest good for the fundamental believe that we have in america. he has to defend that head on and i think when it is defended head on, it's scheduled to a lot more skept michl than we realize. >> but romney doesn't have the personal narrative to defend it. you like the story who came up from a working class family and made it good. he doesn't have that narrative. it's a much harder thing for him to give that speech and be believed by most americans. >> and he's not steve jobs.

you don't have a product in your hand that you can thank mitt romney that life is better for. that would help a lot, right? >> it would help a the lo. people don't understand this high financing. why should he be the guy that takes over the country rather than the president, president obama. i think it's going to be tough for him. >> last word? >> he led with his jaw in this saying that it was about job creation when that was obviously -- no one at bain -- someone at wall street said, private equity is about firing people. at its base, it's about firing people. >> msnbc chris hayes and wendy schiller, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. what bain did and did not do while mitt romney worked there. and later, fred armisen of "saturday night live" and lee finally reveal why we don't do a

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mitt romney won the new hampshire primary with 39% of the vote. he said the voters of new hampshire have spoken loud and clear and said, well, if this is all we've got. >> good morning, dave. >> good morning, dave. [taps on window] dave. >> both: hey, dave. >> hey. >> hey, dave. >> mr. dave... >> dave? >> 'sup, dave? >> dave? dave? >> dave? >> dave! dave?

>> hi, dave. >> oh, dave's looking for you. >> [singing] >> hey, dave. >> [loud] yo, dave! >> announcer: in a small business, it's all you. that's why you have us. at staples, we have low prices on everything your small business needs. staples. that was easy. private equity leaders getting rich at the expense of

workers. >> mitt romney became ceo of bain capital the day it was formed. >> they cut benefits and sell assets. >> mitt romney and those guys, they don't care who i am. >> let's look deeper into his life. what did he do when he was the ceo of this holding company? >> the pro-gingrich super pac winning is now running ads in south carolina, directing voters to mitt romney's time as head of bain capital. romney's campaign estimates his wealth between 190 and $250 million, the bulk of which came from his bain tenure. romney was the ceo of bain capital from 1984 to 1990 and from 1992 to 1999. we want to remind viewers that nbc universal and bain capital are each part owner of the weather channel, something that gets stuck in had teletromter every time i say bain capital.

it explains why we're hitting bain capital so hard here. today taking questions from the media in south carolina, mitt romney defended himself against the attacks on his record at bain. >> every time that we invested in the business, it was to try and encourage that business to have ongoing life. the idea of making a short-term profit actually doesn't really exist in business because no one wants to buy something or buy stock in a company that's just going to be a short-term success. you want it to be a long term. >> in 1992, bain bought the american pad and paper company for $5 million. four years later, ampad went public. bain h bain sold stock and received about $50 million for it is investors and for itself. that's in addition to the management fees and dividends reaped during four years of ownership. four years after that, ampad went bankrupt.

all told, bain capital made $100 million on that deal. joining me now is felix salmon, the finance blogger for reuters. fe felix, we here on the political desk don't know about this. we need you. is this a proper area of examination for someone who has run some of these operations? >> i don't see why not. most of us know what it's like to run a household or we can imagine what it's like to run a small business. we think to ourselves, running a big business is a bit like that. it's not. you're using highly sophisticated financial techniques and you're borrowing enormous amounts of money and you're making companies incredibly fragile. it's like flying a supersonic jet. you can go incredibly fast and make lots of money but they can blow up ofr crash really easily. the trick is, if you're someone like mitt romney, to get this thing accelerating as fast as you can, sell out, and you're

nowhere near when the crash happens. >> with absolutely nowhere near -- >> none. you want to -- >> that's short term in the business world? five years? >> no, that's long term. >> in the modern business world? >> short term is what happens after you take it public and they worry about every single quarterly earnings report and we need to worry about our stock price. the private equity thinks of itself as thinking for long term because it's for five years rather than just three months. it's not like a family business where you think i want to leave my grandchildren and something which they can look after and earn. no. that's as far as it gets in the world of high finance. >> and what you're seeing in these tv ads, is there anything that you think is unreasonable? >> well, to say ipts fundamentally anti--financial

capitalism and in the republican primary that's a bit odd. i think it's perfectly reasonable to call attention to this and say, this is the human cost of capitalism. what you're doing is borrowing huge amounts of money and creating incredibly fragile companies and you're trying to make as much money as you can for yourself without any regard whatsoever to the human cost. >> there are a lot of people that went to the school that mitt romney went to school for, who were positioned to do this kind of work, who chose not to. there are people who do think about that woman that they've never met. >> most of us couldn't do it. you need a certain breed of like ruthlessness to do it. you need to enjoy firing people if they don't do a good job. >> or if they do a perfectly good job but they cost more money that you want to allow in that section of your -- >> or saved by the same person in china. yeah. >> or if you're just trying to take all of the money that you can out of the company, you don't want to be paying these salaries. they don't need what we would

have in the past considered normal business rationals for hiring and firing in these takeovers. >> well, the standard business rational for doing any business is i will make money doing this. and firing people if it's profitable, lots of people will do that. but it's still a minority. most people wouldn't do that. i feel very uncomfortable if i have ever been asked to fire someone and most people are like us and some people actually relish it and it's a different skill set. >> when you hear romney saying, this is all about doing this kind of work. these people would love to be doing what i'm doing. >> he's convinced everybody wants to be like him. worth $200 million and you're not, we want to be worth 2$200 million as well. >> felix, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. coming up, has the gop

presidential candidates go against mitt romney, the president goes into campaign mode. we'll hear from one of the obama campaign managers and the man who studies president barack obama even more closely than you do. the talented fred armisen of "snl" will join me coming up. bag of ice anti-freeze wash and dry diesel self-serve fix a flat jumper cables 5% cashback right now, get 5% cashback at gas stations. it pays to discover. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] entune mobile technology. ♪ stronger! ♪ stand a little taller [ male announcer ] stay seamlessly connected to your smart phone. available on the reinvented 2012 camry. from toyota. ♪

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comedy in election year.

fred armisen will join me. and mitt romney's quest to convince americans that they are guilty of sin when they criticize wall street. he thinks that. that's in the "rewte."

when you support a guy named barack hussein obama for president of the united states, you have to assume that the odds may not be in your favor. >> that was president obama in chicago last night delivering one of his well-worn jokes at a campaign fund-raiser which left him with a campaign treasury now four times greater than all the money that the romney campaign has raised so far. fundraising audiences still fall for all of the jokes, including the old one and the odds being against him even though the odds ar lastest reuters poll,

obama is beating romney by 48% to 43%. mitt romney has taken to equating what president obama did with general motors to what bank was doing are you teenrout other companies. how would you explain that? >> well, the president took action on general motors and chrysler for one specific reason, to save 1.4 million jobs and to save an american iconic manufacturing sector that this country's relied on for centuries. you know, the president provided a loan to gm and then had them go through a structured bailout and now gm is making significant profits. just last year, 100,000 jobs were created in the auto industry.

now, let's compare that to bain. you know, mitt romney went into companies, put them through bankruptcy for a specific purpose. it wasn't to create jobs. it was to make himself and his partners a big profit. there's a big difference there. and let's also not forget that mitt romney was against the bailout of the auto industry which means they would have gone under. the jobs would have gone overseas. >> it's really left rush limbaugh confused. i want you to hear what he has said about mitt romney compared to what the president did with general motors. >> for romney to equate what he was doing at bain capital with obama is mystifying to me. now, i understand it in one regard, and it's an attempt to inoculate himself from criticism because if he can say to the media, well, hey, you're a favorite son, barack obama did nothing different than what i did. he's thinking maybe he can nullify some of the criticism.

that's not going to work. they are going to criticize him no matter what. he starts at a disadvantage. he's a republican. therefore, he's a mean-spirited racist, bigot extremist. obama is a liberal democrat, means that he's tolerant, passionate, kind, understanding, all of those cliches. >> stephanie, when you're in the democratic campaign re-election headquarters and you're watching a republican president shial primary, you're watching at things along the road. is there anyone who there a month ago bet on the republicans debating where free enterprise should be limited and in what ways in the american economy at this point in the campaign? >> well, lawrence, we have been watching and wondering why nobody was even bringing up this topic because it was brought up in the 2008 campaign. in fact, john mccain attacked mitt romney for precisely these reasons.

that mitt romney is taking credit for jobs, taking credit for being in the private sector. admit -- john mccain was holding him accountable for what that meant, that he went right in, companies stripped them down, sent them into bankruptcy and sent those jobs overseas. so this debate was had in 2008 by republicans. we've been waiting for it to happen. we're pleased that these issues are finally being raised. we disagree that it's free enterprise on fril. that's not what this is about. this is about mitt romney taking his entire candidacy on his jobs record. it's only natural for people to ask what that record is and what it means and are those the values that we want in the oval office. most people are saying no. >> stephanie, there was a time when you had three names up on the wall there. mitt romney and tim pawlenty and as your possible opponent, are you down to one name? do you just have a picture of

mitt romney up on the wall there? >> well, certainly mitt romney has the momentum. and -- but there are several others still in the race. you've been in this job for a long time. you've been in this business for a long time. you never count anybody until they are out. anything can happen. certainly mitt romney has the momentum. he's more likely now than anybody else to get the nomination. we'll see what happens. we're pleased that this debate is happening over free enterprise and his record on bain. we'll see what happens. >> stephanie cutter, thank you for very much for joining us tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, the man who plays president obama on saturday nights. fred armisen is going to talk to me about the new season and his new ifc show, portland dee yeah. and the majority of americans are guilty of committing one of the deadly sins.

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who would be the first pundit to dismiss ron paul's second place finish? >> nbc news can now protect that ron paul will finish second. >> if you take ron paul out of this, what would have happened to huntsman? huntsman is the real second here. >> no, you can't. you're not allowed to just take ron paul out of this. that's just physics. you're not. and you know if you add two zeros to the end of huntsman totals, he would have been in first by hundreds and thousands of votes and unprecedented victory. why is no one talking about this? because it didn't happen. ♪ ♪ baby, baby, come along ♪ baby, baby, come along with me ♪

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but does bringing a floor back to life really make us heroes? [ chuckles ] yes. yes, it does. ♪ call 1-800-steemer you think the mill naifr nar out to pay more taxes than the bus driver? more or less? >> a republican president could say millionaires should pay more in taxes than a bus driver. now that's called envy. this is what we heard today from the front-runner for the republican nomination. a man who supposedly worships

everything that ronald reagan said or did. >> i'm curious about the word "envy." do you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of wall street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country is envious? is it about jealousy or is it about fairness? >> you know, i think it's about envy. i think it's about class warfare. >> envy. so mitt romney is claiming that anyone who questions the wall street institutions and questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country of envy. >> seven deadly sins. glut tony. greed, sloth, wrath, lust, and envy. seven. >> now, when you say something like that in politics, you want to know how many people are you talking about? how many americans does mitt

romney think are committing the deadly sin of envy? in november, participants in an nbc news wall street journal poll were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement. the current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country. america needs to reduce the power of major bank and corporations and demand greater accountability and transparency. the government should not provide financial aid to the corporations and should not provide tax breaks to the rich. the results were 60% strongly agreed and another 16% mildly agreed. so mitt romney is saying that 76% of americans are guilty of the sin of envying mitt romney. a new poll out just yesterday found two-thirds of the country see a strong or very strong

conflict between rich and poor. we know this about mitt romney. he is very simple minded and he is a liar. he will say anything to get elected. that's why he said liberal things to try to get elected in massachusetts. the man will say anything. so it's hard to tell what he might actually think or if he actually thinks. if mitt romney does think that 76% of americans envy him, his wealth, that we are all sitting here envying him, all of that money, then he needs to listen to someone who actually knows something about our economy. al alan krueger is the chairman of the and knows about questioning income distribution in any country is called economics, not

envy. >> the trends that have taken place in the u.s. over the past three decades are particularly of concern to economists and others. we've seen a steady decline, erosion in the size of middle class. that's not good for the economy. that's not good for all citizens of the american society and i think some of our policies have, as ser bathed that, such as through the tax policy and i think that there is certainly a legitimate policy issues and as the president's economic adviser, it's something that we are focused on. i don't think this is an issue about envy at all. and when all americans do well, america does well. ♪

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hello? hi! (laughing) this is the sea calling. i'm talking to the sea? is this for real? (laughing) yeah! what's what what what is what... when's the last time you visited me? a long time ago. i want to visit you, i miss you. i miss you too. i want you to close your eyes and imagine you're out in the middle of me. the traffic noise-- not there. the gentle sound of me puts you at ease. you can get a massage... ahh. you can go to amazing restaurants. yes. surfing. zipline high above me. (yells) can i go now? sure! and we'll talk when i get there? yes, we'll talk when you get here!

every politician has -- >> there's a plan but nothing seems to work. >> work. >> we need to work. >> work. >> work. >> we need to work. >> but now there's hope. >> imagine a portland with 100% employment. >> a portland where we all have jobs. >> some of us get paid to start a sentence. >> and the others get paid to finish it. >> finish it. >> kids. >> soccer couples. >> idiots. >> people who are not good at reading. >> time for a programming note. well, this is actually more of a programming explanation. many of you for a long time now on twitter have wondered about and or complained about the fact that i do not do a friday version of "the last word." the last word is reliably

delivered to your homes monday through thursday but on friday it's time for me to kick back and watch this television a.ment. >> i'll be taking care of you today. if you have any questions about the menu, please let me know. >> i guess i have a question about the chicken, if you can tell us more about it. >> it's heritage breed, woodland that's been fed. >> and it's local? >> yes, abts lawsuitly. >> and it's loek glal is that u.s. organic or portland organic? >> it's all across the board organic. >> hazel nut r. they local. >> how big is the area that the chickens roam free. >> four acres. >> joining me is the co-star and

co-create for of portland dee yeah, fridays at 10:00 p.m. fred, thank you for joining me. local is important to new a chicken? >> yes. every ingredient. >> that scene goes on and on and on. the most wonderful take it far beyond its extreme exchange with the waitress the details of the menu. >> and we never get to eat. >> and this is shot in portland? >> we shoot the whole series in portland, yes. >> you get the feeling that it's a rather liberal place up there. there are some people on your show who are to my left when i think about their politics. >> yeah, i would say it definitely leans that way. you can see it all around you. especially downtown. every kind of store, you just -- it's like a feeling you get. the bumper stickers everywhere. >> there's kind of a hippy feeling, an old hippy feeling kind of still in the air? >> yeah, kind of post-hippy in that these people have built very nice lives for themselves.

>> you have one of the toughest jobs in show business, the role of president barack obama on saturday night live. >> yeah. >> that from the start -- i just thought, wow, what a challenge, because the guy -- you really have to study -- you've had to study his manner to find those little things that we go, yeah, he does do that, doesn't sne. >> yeah. it's the writing, too. jim downey, as you know, writes most of those pieces, as does seth meyers and it takes a lot to figure out the things he talks about and the way he says them. so that's a huge part of it as well. >> this republican campaign this year has just given your writers, you guys at "snl" -- >> we couldn't have imagined it. >> you thought michele bachmann was enough, she's running and then herman cain, you didn't see him running. >> we didn't see any of this. and the dialogue, the words, we barely have to change anything. it's a really lucky thing. >> where do you fit portland dee

yeah's shooting into snl? is that done during the "snl" hiatus? >> yeah. we end snl in may. we shoot all summer in portland and we're done by the end of summer. >> so you don't get the summer rest? >> i don't sleep anymore. sleep is but a memory to me. >> and this weekend you can't tip your hand on what's going to happen at 11:30 saturday night? >> no. mostly because we don't know. >> what is the writing schedule of the show? >> we pitch on monday, tuesday we write during the day but mostly during the night until the next day and then thursday and friday we just write. wednesday as well a little bit. we just keep writing. >> but then you can get hit with news events on sffriday? >> yes. that suddenly demands to be the opening of the show. they will go into overdrive to

produce something? >> yes. it's like a movie where they are crossing things out and throwing things in. there are a lot of last-minute things. even during the day they will switch things around. >> you always create more material than you use. you use a run through early and find out you have more than 20 minutes -- >> more than that. there's always a few extra sketches, maybe three or four that never see the light of day. >> why can't we see online some of the stuff from the rehearsal show that doesn't make it into the show? >> yeah. i would -- maybe that's something that might happen. once in a while they will have something online but -- >> should we go over now and just see -- >> yeah, he's only a few floors that way. >> if you don't have room for it on your website, we can put it it on our website. >> please do it. >> fred armisen from nbc's