this sunday, the outrage over the shooting death of 17-year-old trayvon martin. it's reached the white house. >> if i had a son he'd look like trayvon. i think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how something like this can happen. the troubling questions about racism in our society that feeds suspicion of young black men. will the president lead a national conversation? we'll ask his top political adviser this morning, david plouffe. and our special roundtable discussion, president of the naacp, ben jealous, npr's michele morris, former republican governor of mississippi, haley barbour, "new york times" columnist david brooks and historian doris kearns goodwin. also, who do you blame for high gas prices? even as republicans begin to close ranks around mitt romney,

this energy debate may overtake jobs as the economic fight of the fall campaign. finally this morning, a conversation with msnbc's rachel maddow, author of the provocative new book "drift" which asks when did this company make peace with the perpetual state of war? captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning. a big win last night in louisiana for rick santorum. >> we have won our 11th state in this primary fight. and i want to thank you for that. >> 49-27, that is how it looked in louisiana over mitt romney. and it shows santorum's continued strength among conservative voters but romney still has the upper hand in the overall delegate race, week in and week out. romney at 490 and everybody else well behind. meanwhile, the president is in south korea for a nuclear

security summit. he met with u.s. and south korean troops. hours ago he held a join the press conference with south korea's president during which he addressed north korea's plans to launch a long-range rocket next month. >> they need to understand that bad behavior will not be rewarded. >> here with me now, the president's top senior adviser, top political adviser, david plouffe. mr. plouffe, welcome back. i want to start on foreign policy. you faced the prospect of a nuclear program in iran and ongoing problem with north korea. as we listened to the president this morning, what is the or else for north korea at this point? >> the president said we can't reward bad behavior. we have a unified global commune in the terms of the approach to north korea here. it's a country that has trouble feeding its people. that's one issue obviously in terms of food aid. i think what's important here, you see this in iran.

to see a unified global commune in the terms of the crippling sanctions in iran that have a devastating impact on our economy. obviously in north korea you have the same situation where you have the world united that's really our approach here, to make sure we have the global community united and as we said in north korea, if they continue down this path, it's a familiar path, it's been going on for decades. >> there's a lot to talk about, gas prices offer politics. trayvon martin is such a difficult story for the country. the national outrage and the president talked about it, he talked about it carefully but also very personally as we just showed in the open. as protests go on around the country, i wonder, does the president believe at its core this case was about racial profiling? >> well, listen, i think the president spoke as a father. if he had a son, he said he'd look like trayvon. no matter the gender or race,

anytime you read about this with a he young person, it's a tragedy. there are investigations going on at the local level and federal level. >> does he think race was a factor here? >> we have to have the investigation. i don't think we want (o get ahead of that. everybody would be well served to let the investigation continue on the local level and the federal level, let that span spire in the right way, the appropriate way and you'll see where the facts lead us. >> the country is having this conversation. obviously there's violence that goes on in this country every day. the president of the united states would not have spoken out about this this personally with an african-american victim if he did not believe race was at the core. >> i think that it has galvanized a lot of people to get interested in this. again, as the president said, we need to examine the causes that led to this. our focus now ought to be on the tragedy that befell this family, the tragedy of losing this promising young life and make sure the investigation goes on.

>> has the president called the parents. >> he has not. >> would he like to? >> he spoke about it friday. >> he called sandra fluke in the other incident. >> that young woman was under attack for policy issues. >> reverend al sharpton on msnbc is calling this week coming up for a national summit on race, which it seems he would like the president to lead as past presidents have done around big national moments. is president obama inclined to do that? does he think that should happen? >> i think working obviously protecting our union say long-standing needed goal in this country. we've made a lot of progress and we have a lot more to make obviously. what the president is focused on right now, he's in south korea making sure we continue to make progress and continuing to work on the economy, create jobs, continuing to make progress on those issues.

whether we'll get involved in a particular summit, i don't have -- >> there are people who made the observation, back when professor gates at harvard was arrested, he thought the cambridge police acted stupidly. he said so publicly. he's been cautious about talking about race. as the country's first african-american president it was an issue of sensitivity during the campaign. but some people question why he doesn't lead more forcefully and say, this is a conversation we should have and i should more directly lead it. why not? >> he's president of every american. i think whether you look at the comments he made at the memorial was established, if you look at some of the comments ed made throughout his presidency, he feels powerful about the journey the country has been on. he's an important part of that journey obviously. his election made history in that respect. i think his leadership is profound. he's had a huge impact on african-american girls and boys, thinking they can do anything with their life. obviously we have to continue to make progress here and you know,

in these areas of race in general we have too much inequality in terms of women's wages. we have a lot we have to make progress on. >> i want to turn to other affairs in politics, particularly the fight over who do you blame for high gas prices? i raise the question in our open whether this will become even bigger than the jobs debate. here are some of the facts. if you look at gas prices in the course of the obama presidency, they have gone up from 2009. now an average of $3.89. obviously higher in some places. it takes a political toll. all you have to do is look at the polls, disapproval at 65% on gas prices in a recent poll in terms of his handling on gas prices. is he responsible? >> well, first of all, the chart you just showed, those gas places were low because we were teetering on a great depression are. in the summer of '08 they had been up over $4.

what the president said then, he was running for president in the middle of a period of high gas prices. others said we ought to cut the gas taxes. no, we need a long-term energy solution. the american people know there's no immediate silver bullet. they know we need to do as much as we can in terms of oil and gas exploration and drilling, which we're doing. we also have to look at the fuel. we used less which is why the fuel efficiency standards introduced to the automakers are so important. it will save the average family $8,000. we have to utilize our resources here, oil, natural gas but we also, this is sad for the country, biofuel, wind, solar, next generation auto, this is a bipartisan issue, now those things are mock by those in washington's republican party. we know that's where we need to go. that's where the country needs to go. the solution here, we need to do everything we can in the short

term. the real answer so we're note visited by this every summer for the next 25 years is to continue on the path -- >> we talk about honesty with the american people. one of the things the 3rez has always said, this is used as a political club, these americans are trying to blame the president. it's politics so they go down to the gas station and complain about the price of gas. well, back in 2008, then candidate obama had a similar complaint and look where he is in this piece of tape. >> -- with the washington experience, my opponent are good people. they mean well. they've been in washington an awful long time. and even with all the experience they talk about, nothing has happened. what have we got for all that experience? gas that's approaching $4 a gallon. >> is this a guy with a long-term plan or was he just plying politics? >> he was responding to the political gimmick of the moment. at that point in time in our campaign our opponents in both the democrat and republican party were saying defend the gas

tax as if somehow that would do anything in the short term. he was standing up then and saying, no, we need a long-term energy strategy. gas has been high the last few highs because of demand in china. that's going to continue. we need to have a long-term energy strategy where we're producing as much as we can here, diversifying, using alternative sources of energy and we use less, which is why the innovations that will happen in the american auto industry -- by the way, the industry that would have been gone had others had their way. >> the president even gave an interview back in 2008 with "rolling stone" i'll put it up on the screen, this is something he said, gehl goals for the fi time. if i hadn't gotten combat troops out of iraq, passed universal health care and created a new energy policy, then i've missed the boat. he hasn't been able to do that, even after the bp oil spill. he still hasn't been able to

accomplish that. then you see him playing politics, it appears, not only with a trip this week where he's going to swing states to talk about more domestic production but on the keystone pipeline, he tries to please environmentalists by pushing this off until after the election, now comes out and says i'm for a portion of it. >> i take issue with the whole premise of it. we're on track to meet an aggressive increase in terms of dependence on energy goals. >> to be fair -- hold on. to be fair, a lot of that goes back to the bush administration. there's a lead time. i've spoken to experts on this. a lot of increases in production went back to the bush era decision and most of them, of course, are on private land. you're taking credit for the boost in exploration, is not really fair. >> i was talking about diversifying our sources in erm its of wind and solar and biofuels we're making great strides. the alternative battery industry, we are 2% when 24

president came in office. we're on track to be 40% by 2015. we're laying the foundation for new energy. that's a promise that's been delivered with real tough opposition. on keystone we approved dozens of pipelines. oklahoma is not a particularly swing state. we don't think mexico will be either. it's not about politics, it's about telling the country what a long-term energy strategy looks like. there's a glut because of long-term production. we need to get that oil to market. that's what the pipeline will do. there are real issues around the water supply in nebraska. with a company that said we'll siene in a knew -- new application and it will be reviewed. here's the question for country, who do you trust to have the energy policy and strategy that's required? the president saying we need to do everything we can here to produce but also boldly, double down on things like solar and biofuel or the folks that are running against us, they think it's oil only. that's a terrible strategy for the country.

it will be a big question for the american people. >> health care, big debate coming up in the supreme court this week. it will become dominant again in the blil debate. bottom line, is health care reform that was signed by this president ever really going to be rolled back? >> we certainly don't think so. and shouldn't be. obviously the court arguments are happening this week. we're confident in the constitutionality of the health care law. you had republican and democratdemocrat democratic jusists. they upheld the law. we have 2.5 million kids between 18 and 26 whoç are now on heal care on their parents' plan only because of this law. you have seniors saving on prescription drugs, children can no longer be denied coverage because of certain conditions. huge progress. >> you're not really winning the argue. to you feel like you're winning the argument? >> here's what i think.

i guarantee this, i don't make many guarantees, by the end of the decade, we'll be glad that we have obama care. what people and i say about it is not going to matter in a few years. it will be what people's experience is. what people don't want to do, they don't want to refight this political battle. what they want to do is implement the law smartly, make smart adjustments where we can like giving states flexibility. mitt romney is the godfather of our health care plan. if he's president, he's running a way from that path and we'll have a big fight about health care again. we know we have to do this for our economy, our deficit, and the health and safety of the american people. >> romney is the godfather of the obama health care plan. will he get the credit if it all goes well down the line. >> maybe in 2016 when he's a professor or whatever he's doing, he'll remark on that. it's a mod that'll we utilized.

list listen, the president said if individual states have a better way to get there, they should do that. we need this for the country. most of the country is not experiencing it yet. for those who are it's having a profound impact. >> as you look at the republican race, no doubt you're looking at jobs, what is your assessment of where mitt romney is at this point as he grinds his way toward what a lot of people think will be his nomination? is he hurt by the length of this. >> i'm not running the campaign. my colleagues in chicago are. this will be a very close race. i thought that last year. i thought that now. i'll think that in four months. presidential elections are close. we want what's considered a land slide. we still only got 53% of the vote. still a close race. that being said, the other day his top adviser said the general election would be like an etch-a-sketch where you can erase your record. mitt romney will cut taxes for

people like him. huge tax cuts, he thinks that's the way to end the deficit. criticize the president for war in iraq. criticize us for having a timetable to end the war in afghanistan. those things are etched in stone. they'll be seared in the public's conscience this year. i think the bigger problem is he's offering the wrong solutions to the american people. >> did you say he's done great damage to you, the president? >> to himself. >> to himself. >> the point is, i think the fundamental question is, we came through a great recession. do people want to go back to the same policy? that's what's being offered, that is not the recipe for an economy built to last. >> let me ask you a safe political question before i let you go. new york senator kristen gillibrand said she's calling

for hillary clinton to run in 2016. >> obviously there's a lot of people who would be strong candidates. she'd be a strong candidate. >> do you think she'll do it? >> what she's focused on is doing one of best jobs in the country as secretary of state. >> david plouffe, thank you. coming up here, more on the shooting death of trayvon martin and troubling questions about racial attitudes in this country. plus, politics and the latest on the 012 campaign. we have a special roundtable here this morning, the naacp's ben jealous, npr's michele morris and foreign mississippi governor haley barbour, also from the "new york times," david brooks and historian doris kearns goodwin. later on, msnbc's rachel maddow is here to talk about her provocative new book that's called "drift: the unmooring of american military power." called "drift: the unmooring of americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow.

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coming up, a special round table discussion on racial attitude. joining me, michele morris, haley barbour, president of the

we are back with our roundtable. joining me "new york times" columnist david brooks, presidential historian doris kearns goodwin, nxz prksz rrksz 's initial norris, haily bar boar and the president of the naacp, ben jealous. welcome to all of you. this trayvon martin story is so

painful for so many people and the president talked about it, as we say, in such personal terms. this is a portion of what he said on friday. >> i think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen? that means we examine the laws and the context for what happened. as well as the specifics of the instance. >> ben jealous, what does it mean that the president lent his voice to this in the way that he did? >> look, he spoke to the specific pain felt by the family when you look at the whole remarks. universal felt by the human family but he also, i think, put out a call for us to really look at how this happens in our country. the reality is that for too many years in too many places in too many cases, it's been the case that we've given permission to target and even kill black men. i held hearings this week. you heard two things, people talking about profiling and people talk about dead black men in their lives whose murders have not been properly followed up on. whether it was at the hands of bad cops or whether it was at the hands of thugs. in reality, there's a sense that black men's lives aren't worth as much. that we're almost born suspects in this country.

we're suspect just by virtue of being black. the one thing that he said was if trayvon was his son he would have looked like trayvon. the reality is, even if you're the son of the president of the united states, if you're a black men walking down the street, you're a black man walking down the street. in too many instances you're suspect because you're black. >> let me pick up on that point, doris. you heard david plouffe this morning. the president seems cautious or uncomfortable with leading this next discussion. about racial attitude, about what we have unearthed here. what we need to be focused on. why do you think? >> i think as he has said, he knows he has to be responsible for the country as a whole. for northerners, southerners, blacks and whites. and wants to make sure he's not looking out after a special interest, even though it is him. by speaking as emotionally as he did, he gave a humanity to tray that is what we need to go over

the bridge of seeing him simply as a black kid, to see him as somebody we might know. my own hope is that somehow this event is going to be one of those events in history that really, like selma marchers were, as lbj said, moves the secret heart of americans, makes us look at the situation, look at those laws, look at racial profiling. i hope it's not one of those events that once justice is done there, which it might be, the energy dissipates and we go on to something else because our attention span is so little. there's something about the fundamental unfairness of this that i think has stunned the nation. i still think he gave leadership to it by giving humanity to that child. >> it's an important point about elevating trayvon and yet, michele, the caution. the leadership caution about dealing with race. did he it powerfully in the course of the campaign. after the shirley sherrod incident where she was fired. after people thought she made racist remarks and she clarified those remarks.

there should be a conversation. he seems reluctant to lead it himself. >> i don't necessarily hear the reluctance. because he's the president, we've heard this man talk frontally about race more than any other person who has sat in that office. there's this expectation there's going to be a national conversation about race. everyone's going to sit down on tuesday afternoon and everyone's going to talk about this all at the same time. i think one of the more interesting things he said about race was when he spoke to the urban league. he said the most productive conversations about race are usually the ones you don't hear unless you're party to them. they don't take place on grand national stages. they take place in church basements and in locker rooms and in private spaces and barbershops. is the president the person who should lead that conversation? i think what we heard from him is calling on people to engage in the conversation and not necessarily expect him to lead that conversation but to participate actively in it. >> david? >> i'm concerned it will get to the laws. we can talk about stand your ground and all those laws. from what we know now, essentially the primary thing is we have to be careful at how we look at each other. one of the things we know about how we study, how we think, is a

couple things. one, if you have a gun you're more likely to perceive the other person having a gun. that may have been a factor here. the crucial thing is when we look at people from other groups we just tend to stereotype. i'd invite viewers to go on the website, it's an online test, it will take five minutes, of how you process people from your own group and other groups. what you'll find if you're like the vast majority of human beings you process people from other groups differently. you associate them with violence and other things. and that -- >> people of color. you take the test and you find that even people of color are more likely to ascribe negative attributes to darker skin people. >> right. just one point. racism isn't a disease. it's a natural thing that we're born into. therefore, we have to fight it through civilization and artifice. by the way, it's one of the reasons when you have somebody with a gun in a neighborhood, it has to be someone trained and not just somebody floating around. >> let me get governor barbour

into this. what do you make of all of this at the end of the week? i asked david plouffe, does the president thing it's racial profiling? do you think it's -- >> i think david plouffe's answers were very rational. we shouldn't decide what we're going to do until we know what happened. this is a terrible thing. no matter what happened. no matter whether there's race involved. whatever. when a teenage kid gets killed it's a terrible thing. even if the person that killed him didn't do anything evil or didn't do anything wrong. let's find out what happened first. that's what -- if you're the governor or the president, your job is to make sure the laws are executed the right way, get to the bottom of this. if there needs to be a prosecution, have a rigorous prosecution. let's don't jump to the conclusion of stuff we don't know. >> newt gingrich spoke out powerfully about this in the political realm. this is how he reacted in part to president obama's comments. >> what the president said in a sense is disgraceful. it's not a question of who that young man looked like.

any young american of any ethnic background should be safe, period. trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. i really find it appalling. >> was that responsible, governor, what he said? >> i wouldn't have characterized it that way. but, look, he's right. any child, white, black, brown, red or yellow, that gets killed, it's a tragedy and we need to get to the bottom of it. he's absolutely dead right, there's no difference because of what race somebody is when something like this happens. >> the heart of the matter is, ben jealous, what initially happened in this case. there are a lot of answers. we're learning more about zimmerman's part of the story. there apparently was a fight of some kind. it seems to me the most charitable interpretation is if there was a fight between george zimmerman and trayvon martin in the end zimmerman stepped back and shot this kid dead. >> and he also, we have an audio tape that strongly suggests he tracked him down on the street, pursued him with a gun in his

hand. >> and used a racial epitaph. >> yes. when somebody runs you down on the street, somebody pulls out a gun on you, if somebody tries to kill you, you have the right to use equal and opposite force to defend yourself. in this instance, that would be trayvon. what it does not say, to chase somebody else down, pull out a gun and try to kill them, and they spring on you trying to defend themselves that you have a right to kill them. that's the part we can't get distracted from here. george zimmerman needs to be locked up. no matter how we feel about these laws, this laws is what gave permission for him to do this. what gave permission, a chief and a force in that town that was willing to misconstrue this law to the benefit of somebody who they had talked to 46 times in 56 days. they should have known something was off with this guy when he called the cops 46 times just -- >> we are going to learn more about the facts, michele.

one of the things that caught my attention this week was getting to the bottom of attitude and suspicion. charles glow wrote about that in "the new york times." we'll put a portion of it up on the screen. the curious case of trayvon martin. as the father of two black teenage boys, this case hits close to home. this is the fear that seizes me whenever my boys are out in the world. that a man with a gun and an itchy finger will find them suspicious. it's the point david raised about how do we feel as we encounter young black men in a neighborhood anywhere. >> to the extent this is about race, there are all kinds of law enforcement officials who will investigate this and determine how or if race played a factor in what happened in sanford, florida. but race is certainly a part of the action to this. what you see is a case that touched many people in a deep way. a lot of people look at this picture of this kid and see the humanity. see a kid who maybe looks like one of their kids. looks like someone who sits at the table with one of their kids even if it doesn't look like a

member of their family. it really touched many african-americans very deeply because it went to this talk to people still have even with a black man sitting in the oval office at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. when they send their sons out into the world, they sometimes have to tell them the world will look at you and will see suspicious. will see someone who's young, black and suspicious simply because of the color of your skin. it went to this thing that a lot of people know about but we don't talk openly about. this thing called the talk people have with their son and sometimes with their daughters. the fact this is still happening in this moment, i think what you see on the streets in the marches that you participated in this week was not just anger but anguish. and a sense of vertigo. how can we still be in this moment that we send our sons and our daughters out and we assume people will look at them and see someone who has the potential to be harmful as opposed to someone who just has potential. >> i think one of the reasons that that picture, the innocence

looking of those pictures may make martin this generation's emmitt till was -- he was 14 years old. his mother kept his casket open so you could see the contrast between innocent child he was. what happened to him after he was beaten. his eye gouged. new york reporters came down, "the new york times" was the only guy covering it at that time. then 70 reporters came down. three months later after the trial where the four guys were acquitted within an hour, there was outrage. the good thing that's happening now compared to then, then mississippi acted defensively against the north. now you've got at least the people in florida and sanford, they're marching. you've got the governor saying maybe i'll look at a revision of these laws. we've come a long way. >> there's a white republican saying doj please come in. please look at my department.

there's a -- i think one of the most important things that i read this week was from rosanne barr. who talked about the fear she feels for her son's friend. her son's black friend. the reality is the difference between now and 50 years ago is that, look, george w. bush has a nephew who is latino. rosanne barr's son has friends who are black. that anxiety about young black men, young brown men being misperceived is more universal than it ever has been. yet it's been ten years since we've had an honest conversation about racial profiling in this country. george bush was cam tpaigning about it in 2000. >> this is the point, governor. i was talking about this at the dinner table with my son who is 9. has come of age understanding something about politics with the first african-american president.

he has no frame of reference why he as opposed to his black friends at school would be viewed differently on the street. the juxtaposition, how does that compute? >> it computes as huge change from two generations ago. we were talking about emmitt till. what ben said about the mayor of sanford is what you should want. this is a guy who is saying, we want to make sure this is an actual, full-blown invest so we're going to bring in the best to help us do this. or to do it for us rather than somebody saying sanford's wiping this under the rug or sanford's trying to keep from getting a bad reputation. that's what leaders are supposed to do. guys, it's in our interest, it's the right thing for the city, the state, let's bring the fbi in here. let's bring the florida state police in here. let's do whatever it takes to get all the cards on the table and figure out what to do. >> i'm a little concerned it's going to become a very easy and comfortable conversation that we

all condemn some racists out there. there are people shot every day. and the causes for most of the shootings are incredibly complicated, having to do with economic problems, family problems, drug and gang culture. some of the people mentioned, that's much more difficult conversation because it involves a lot more complicated issues. >> we may not be able to do much about family breakdown issues. or those kind of issues. maybe we can do something about vigilantism or these laws. >> but how the cops respond to any murder of a black man. i sat there in the church for hours listening to the pain of people in the community. the sharpest pain was black men being killed by whomever. some by thugs. some by bad cops. it's not being taken seriously and the killer is not being caught, the killer is still out there presumably able to kill somebody else. the other piece of this, the loudest applause line of the night is the way people talk about black cops in their own community discriminate against

black children. it would be a mistake for us to say it's about lone racists or just racists. this is about a culture in which black men are seen as more suspicious sometimes by other black men carrying guns and badges. >> the final point on this before i move on then, are you concerned about violence, the black panther party issuing a bounty for george zimmerman. are you concerned about how volatile the situation is? >> the town there is very tense. the ku klux klan is very active in that town. there have been incidents this week that we generally don't talk about the specifics, not trying to encourage other copycats. the reality is, i've seen that town -- i got there at the beginning of the week and it was terrifying how tense it was. it was teetering from a riot and a race war. by the end of the week doj has opened an investigation. the state's attorney had set a date certain for the grand jury. longer than they would like but a date certain. a new state attorney was appointed. the police chief was forced aside and there was a sense that

the wheels of justice were starting to move. when you looked out into the crowd of 30,000 people in a town of 50,000 who were there that night, there were white people, latino people, asian people. a lot of my folks. but the reality is, it felt like the town was coming more close together. you saw, again, a very tense situation with a white republican mayor standing up and pushing to ask the chi-- oust tf and saying come in, doj. there's a sense that this town can be stabilized, move closer together. >> i want to talk at our trend tracker, the hot political stories we're watching. santorum which i talked about earlier, winning louisiana. the president in north korea. and one that i wanted to highlight. former vice president cheney has had a heart transplant. we have a live picture in the fairfax hospital in virginia where he's recovering in intensive care. a history of heart trouble, of course, for mr. cheney.

we wish him all well. let's talk about some of the big issues driving this campaign. you heard me talk about it with david plouffe, the energy crisis in america. this fight over who do you blame for high gas prices? we were talking, nothing hit the president's approval harder. who is going to win the blame game argument this year? >> there's no question that presidents lose popularity with gas prices. house issues, health issues appear as pretty vague. every time you're at the gas tank, oh, my god, he's responsible. even if he isn't responsible. carter definitely got blamed. it was partly the way he handled it by telling people heating oil was going up. put on a sweater in your house. it made him feel like he wasn't on your side. i think what the president is trying to do now is fight on behalf of people talking about energy independence, talking about price gouging, talking about the need for more exploration. there's no question gas prices hit home more than anything.

in world war ii they rationed gas. ordinary people had five gallons. the most important people in the country had unlimited. congress voted themselves unlimited. they got slammed. >> in 2006 democrats were asked is bush responsible for gas prices. back then 73% said yes. then they were asked is obama responsible now? only 33% said yes. everyone's a hypocrite on this. republicans are a little less hypocrite c hypocriteal. i don't think the president is responsible for current gas prices. he does have a bit on an energy problem. we're in this tremendous opportunity to expand oil and gas exploration. he's not been bad. he's not been great. he's tried to straddle the issue. people want somebody to lead from the front on energy to realize the incredible opportunity we have in front of us. >> one fact on this. the ap had a story this week.

more drilling does not actually reduce the price of gasoline. there does more u.s. drilling ease gas pump pain? >> the biggest problem the president has here is his rhetoric and his policies are very different. first of all, he's got a secretary of the energy who said in 2008 what we realitily need to do in the united states is get the price of gasoline up to where it is in europe. why would somebody say that? you heard david plouffe talk about it. so people would use less of it. that's been their policy. today you're getting about half as many permits for drilling in the gulf of mexico as you got during the three years before the bp deal. i can remember president clinton when we passed the drill end war he vetoed the bill and said we wouldn't get any other oil for ten years. wouldn't we liked to have had 2 million barrels or 3 billion bayers autoof anwr in 2006, 2007

and oil coming down the keystone pipeline. three years of policy cannot be a silver bullet. he's right about that. he needs to be held accountable for the three years of bad policy. >> look, we have george bush who thought cheap gas was a bad idea. then we had gas at 4 bucks in the summer of 2008. i mean, it just seems like we need to be honest here, that gas prices go up and down and that quite frankly we've had politicians in the republican party and the democratic party say that cheap gas was a bad idea when they were in power. >> for those who want higher gasoline prices they've got to be happy. it's about the only obama policy that's worked so far, double the price. >> running out of time. beyond gas prices this is how things look in the republican race. mitt romney according to gallup this week is at 40% in the polls. first time he's hit that. santorum at 26%. governor barbour, is it time for this race to end, for the party to fall in behind romney? >> that's for the primary voters to decide primarily. they voted for santorum in illinois yesterday.

romney had a big victory in illinois on tuesday. i'm not one of those that thinks you should say to people, you've got to get out. these guys have made huge sacrifices. they've run hard. they have a lot of people supporting them. this will wind down. it has a natural pace that it's going to wind down. and unless something unusual happens, unless romney steps on a land mine, it looks like he's going to be the nominee. >> all right. i'm going to leave it there. thank you all very much. we covered a lot of ground. appreciate it very much. coming up, msnbc's rachel maddow is going to be here with me to talk about her provocative new book "drift," which raises tough questions about how and when this country became comfortable with a permanent state of war. she's coming up right after this.

joining me now, host of msnbc's "the rachel maddow show" and author of "drift: the unmooring of american military power," rachel maddow. welcome. good to have you here. >> great to be here. >> i am so interested in this book. as i sum it up, it is about the idea that somehow america got comfortable with the idea of being in a perpetual state of war. and have we really debated that and can you dismantle what you call this military super structure? i have to ask you, of all the topics that i thought that rachel maddow would take on, this was not the one i put on top of my list for your first

book. >> when i got the contract to write this book i had a radio show and i since have a tv show. i goodette to talk about whatever i want. i wanted to write a book because i felt like i couldn't talk about this in the other things that i did for a living. i feel this is a longer idea. this is not a sound bite thing. this is not a between the commercials idea. i felt i needed to lay it out long form. it's been bothering me for a very long time, this idea that we've made a series of changes over time, over the course of my lifetime, i think, that in all cases have made it easier, less -- given us less friction towards using war, less political friction, less public discomfort with it in a way that we have gone to war so frequently and felt it so much less. it bothers me emotionally. so i wanted to treat it in a long form way to lay out the case. >> there's a lot to this. as i was reading it i got out the black pen and underlined this particular section of the book that i'll put on the screen. while america has been fighting two of its longest ever boots on

the ground wars in decade following 9/11, the fighting them simultaneously, less than 1% of the adult u.s. population has been called upon to strap on those boots. not since the peace time years between world war i and ii has a smaller share of americans served in the armed forces. half 6 the american public says it's not been marginally affected by ten years of constant war. eve never in our long history been further from the ideal of that america would find it impossible to go to war without disrupting domestic civilian life. that carries a high cost. >> that has a moral consequence to the country. you can talk about the strategic costs, too. i think there's an argument to be had. it's not necessarily the argument of this book, if the public doesn't feel it, we use more and more. i think that's sort of the implicit case we found ourselves in. what we decided to do is give

ourselves a giant trillion dollar tax cut. and right after we started a second simultaneous giant land war in iraq, we gave ourselves another round of tax cuts. that is a symptom of something wrong. that is a symptom of a country that doesn't feel it, that we're at war. we feel like the military goes to war. the country doesn't go to war. when the iraq war ended, more than 4,000 lives lost, st. louis threw a parade, new york decided not to. the over all feeling among the american population was, oh, was that still going on? we ought to be a country that goes to war. >> we talked about this off the air, what strikes me about this as a progressive and somebody who knows program, obviously knows your views, your analysis and criticism is distinctly bipartisan. >> yes. this is not a problem that emerged because one party did

something wrong and one party had the right idea but they lost. this is something that emerged over multiple administrations with people not acting in a responsible spe conspiratorial way. i think a lot of the changes happened post-vietnam and leading up to 9/11. the clinton administration bears responsibility, the reagan administration, the george h.w. bush administration as well. we went through the changes over time. presidents trying to get around the political problems they had made rational decisions about how to get around them. we didn't want to upset the pub&c. we had a political constrain the from the congress who figured out ways to go to war around the congress. all of those decisions have been decisions to make war easier, less upsetting. >> there are threats that still face the united states. >> sure. >> from terrorists and others in the age of 9/11 that we still live through. you concede that point in book but you make the point as well

to use your words, military super structure is going to be really hard to take apart. >> yes. >> that's what you think is critical. >> we need a great military and we occasionally need to fight wars. i don't think we need 1,800 deployed nuclear weapons right now with thousands more ready to be deployed and thousands more in reserve beyond that. because the military has become isolated from our political processes, because we find it awkward to fight about them, we've made it easier for it to go on on its own, we've ended up with a military super structure that isn't anything anybody argued for. the official told me the only problems we have are over programs that congress want us to keep. what other part of our government works that way? >> i want to mention something that in addition, you talk a lot about our returning boots and the issues they're going to face. >> yes. >> because of long deployments.

one of the things nbc news is doing, in conjunction with the u.s. chamber of commerce is hiring our here rose, launching it today. it will be on the "today" program, across all of our platforms in a big job fair on wednesday. the notion that these returning soldiers, these men and women should be hired. they should have the emotional investment to say they've had an incredible experience and sacrificed so much, what do we do for them when they come home? >> focusing on veterans and in some ways in calling them our heros is a thank you. i also think of my generation of veterans, i know of nobody else in my age cohort who is more impressive, who has worked harder, accomplished more in my age group than the people i know who have been to these wars. they are an impressive group of people. they are leaders for our civilian life going forward. >> what they learn, i often talk aboutmy wife, a captain in the army, a daughter of a nuclear

submarine captain. she learned as a professional to be decisive because of her military training. those skills that are battle tested literally are of tremendous value in the private sector here. >> we've had nearly 2 million americans who have deployed to iraq and afghanistan since 9/11. their lives and family's lives have been so different than civilian american family's lives and bridging that divide, which is a cultural divide, is something we have a moral responsibility to pursue with the country. >> the book is "drift," rachel, thank you very much. >> thank you, david. i appreciate it. a quick programming note. i sat down with condoleezza rice. i sat down with condoleezza rice.[ male announcer ] this is the network -- a living, breathing intelligence teaching data how to do more for business. [ beeping ] in here, data knows what to do. because the network finds it

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