campaign hopes on pennsylvania w. more than two weeks the romney machine may have planted its flag there. romney spoke this morning in harrisburg and didn't mention his republican rival. s.e., what -- humiliation? what happens if mitt romney wins pennsylvania? >> it's a dicey couple of weeks actually for both of them. rick santorum is faced with the dilemma, do i go ahead with pennsylvania, hope to pull through, and then i actually think he has a pretty good looking may with texas and arkansas and kentucky and states that could actually be really embarrassing for mitt romney if someone else is still in the race. or, do i get out now, bow out gracefully because it looks like pennsylvania is kind of in play and sort of spare myself some humiliation. >> how much can you withstand the pressure coming from the rest of the republican party. >> it is. >> richard, i'm thinking beyond

the delegate count which is not in rick santorum's favor the notion that it's embarrassing to the presumptive nominee for him to lose in future primary races. >> if there were an establishment of the republican party that still existed in anything but name maybe they could exert influence. it doesn't exist there, the idea you would want to avoid embarrassment or that there was some kind of graceful pattern. after all we've seen with michele bachmann and herman cain it's not a factor. so rick santorum could solidify his losing position by continuing. but it's over. it's over. so it's about ego and it's about 2016 or just running because he's not nothing better to do. >> he is taking four days off for easter, santorum would need to win 70% of the remaining delegates. i'm waiting until nbc news reports that he needs to win

187% of the remaining delegates. i want to move on. this is like not great news i think, but john harwood in "the new york times" saying, quoting someone saying mark melman, a democratic pollster who says it is utter nonsense to expect large gyrations in the voters' preferences this fall. the election he contends is between party loyalists falling in line and mitt romney, if he is the nominee, and barack obama fighting for the small slice of independents and undecideds. which could be sort of a long winded way of saying this may be a very boring race. ari. >> i hope not. our life depends on excitement. >> the latest new york times cbs poll shows obama at 47%, romney at 44%. undecided at 9%. now, if we compare a usa "today" poll it shows some shifting. in october are 2011,

independents 41% for obama, 48% romney. that flipped. so what do they do to gin it up. >> there was volatility, the carter race and dukakis who moved 18 points. people were paying attention and minds changed but this is not that cycle. the kerry year was about 5%, about 8% persuadable in the last cycle and here we're back between. i think that reflects the fact that a lot of the people who might be turned off 18 sour economy and a lot of downscale voters and african-american, latino voters look to be loyal to this president. so the economic bite that we think of in terms of where you are situated is not as strong as where you are situated politically. so it's more if you're a republican, republican leaning, you are unhappy with this president. that's not a surprise. >> i do want to talk a little about mitt romney's strategy which is -- there is a

difference between the then and the now. i will drop the phrase etch-a-sketch only because i have to in cases like this. but i thought romney spoke yesterday, sort of responding to the president's speech in front of newspaper editors in washington, d.c. and i thought what was interesting he sort of took his greatest weaknesses and tried to use them -- to sort of map them onto the president. let's listen to what he said. >> he doesn't want to share his real plans before the election either with the public or the press. his intent is on hiding. you and i are going to have to do the seeking. i'd be willing to consider the president's plan, but he doesn't have one. >> does this work? i listen to that like who is he? is it mitt romney or is it president obama. >> it's the i know you are but what am i attempt at a mind trick. this is a guy, he had a very interesting six years of trying to run for president. he's been the kid that nobody wants to play with except for the fact that he's a nice pool

and an x box and that makes them resentful. this reluctance to marry mitt romney which has come around to use your weakness, we'll see if that sticks. there is a lot up in the air but i don't think that's going to work. >> s.e., i mean, i think the downside of this of course is that it draws attention to mitt romney's very weaknesses. if you don't buy it you really don't buy it. >> it does. it's a real shame. it's doubly ashame because the president laid out essentially his campaign centerpiece the other day in a speech. gave mitt romney ample opportunity to criticize him not rhetorically but on specifics but he is taking, i know you are but what am i roll reversal. he doesn't have to work that hard. he doesn't. we had a whole speech about the i am my brother's keeper, we all need to take care of each other. go after economic paternalism. >> economic paternalism. >> i said it.

>> darwinism. >> this is a rope a dope thing. mitt romney saying there is no difference between us. and that's actually i hate to say these words that are going to come out but rick santorum has a point. if he's running as another centrist poll 6 he's saying you don't like the other guy but i'm kind of the same and i'm a little shinier because i haven't been dinged up so much. that's not going to drive turnout and that's what he really needs in this election. >> the white house is trying to take a very -- sorry, the obama re-elect campaign they are lass soing paul ryan and mitt romney together. they are some sort of far right leaning budget cuts and plans for medicare and so on. >> that's exactly the campaign strategy romney needs to attack. the obama campaign strategy is to say you have a choice, vote for us, we'll take care of you. vote for the other guy you're on your own. go after that. that's an economic and philosophic policy.

>> it's a fundamental debate. >> we saw what happens when you leave people to your own. you get financial crisis like we tried that path before and failed pretty empirically truthfully. >> it's actually i think a debate both sides would like. i think the white house loves it and -- >> as a conservative i'd love to hear it. >> romney saying they need to be clean energy investments after spending months going on fox news why does the president want us to buy cars that the sierra club wants. he's going back to where he was and that's not going to give voters much choice which means a lot of them are going to stay home. >> it's interesting the pivot is swift and very marked in terms well, not just clean energy but immigration, his comments we need to be the party that welcomes immigrants to this country after talking about turning out the magnets for illegals. around women saying that ann romney has been reporting back and i know we're focused on the issues that women care about.

>> i love the fact his wife reports back to him. weird language, man. a little out of touch. >> oh, come on. >> hierarchy chart in any business plan. >> any business. also known as marriage. the white house is starting a hold mitt accountable campaign called the truth team. let's listen to a new obama web video from the truth team. >> he said that in an ideal world government can spend as much as it wanted. >> now if this were a perfect world with we would have unlimited resource, no one would have to pay taxes and we could spend as much as we wanted but we live in the real world. we don't have unlimited resources. we have a deficit that needs to be paid down. >> youtube is the ultimate truth teller apparently. but i do think, i mean, this is a question. we're talking about how the

small slice of undecided voters are going to decide in the days right before the election who they are going to vote for. does this sort of stuff fall on deaf ears, the correction, mitt romney is out there spewing nonsense about health care and the president's position on the economy and what he said about 8% unemployment and here are the the facts, are voters listening or are we so far on our sides that it's -- >> i think you can reach people with that. one of the most effective and highly viewed videos that the obama campaign put out in 2007-2008 was about the rumors that he was a muslim. it was a well done video with a bunch of citizens saying look, that wouldn't be a bad thing, but also it's not true. and they dealt with it with more depth than i think you can in a sound bite or 30-second commercial. probably not going to run a 30-second spot in ohio whether or not you're muslim yet you need to hit on. the video you showed alex, is obviously something a little more arcane, it's a random attack line. to the extent it's a big deal or

part of the right wing talk radio key points, you have people ready with a clear way to respond. they don't have to write up hair e-mail. press forward on the video. >> mitt romney, there has been a lot of fact checking as he's giving his general election speech. there are a lot of i think half truths in there about the president's record. >> when there's a lot of lies you need more fact checking. >> the truth team will have its work cut out. it's all about the economy and we prepare for friday's monthly jobs report. the romney and obama and romney campaigns tighten their focus on what is likely becoming the general election main issue. we'll unpack the rhetoric next on "now." [ female announcer ] water was meant to be perfect.

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>> in a couple of hours political squabbling will give way to a brief display of bipartisanship in washington, house majority leader eric kanter expected to watch president obama sign the jobs act. that's jobs into law. richard, you are a denison of 1600 pennsylvania avenue. is this akin to having a unicorn traipse across the front lawn? eric kanter and president obama agreeing. >> i like the comparison of eric cantor to a unicorn. squabbling will give way to more fighting. this is small ball. it's so tiny, yes, it's great they can agree. the most significant thing about this i think is that the politics has changed sufficiently that essentially the leader of the tea party republicans feels he has to do a little something to show that he can be bipartisan. that does suggest that the outright pitch battles of the

debt ceiling nonsense has given way to a little bit of hedging. that tells you the polls have moved. >> that's against the backdrop yesterday of the president signing the stock act into law and there were some scott brown was there, i believe shawn duffy, some republicans. >> they were fighting to get there, i heard. they wanted ticket so they could appear bipartisan for a minute. >> back in the 90s republicans and democrats agreed on atm fees being bad. this is the equivalent. everyone hates insider trading by members of congress and they love unicorns and puppies. >> they like the word jobs, too. >> why does have the to be soft puppies. >> hard puppies no one likes. you know, the jobs act stands for the jump start our business start-ups act which remarked on as just -- everybody, harry reid

said job creation will be somewhat limited. this is basically an act to loosen credit or loosen investment for start-up businesses but as far as actual job creation the jury is very much still out. that said, it is the optics of the president working with congress. both sides have something to gain. >> you had an extended period time that no was the loud response from the republican congress, they felt emboldened by 2010 and a lot of that faith and credit has run out as we see jobs being created, closer to election day, it's not enough to just say no on that program. so to your point even the appearance is -- has some value to those were sent to congress to say no a lot. >> it's worth noting, let's talk about the economy because jobless claims fell 6,000 to 357,000 which is the lowest level since 2008. with both unemployment and jobless claim there is is always an asterisk. but it would seem we're on an upward trajectory as we talk about the backdrop for november

and 2012. i thought this was interesting, tim geithner yesterday at the economic club of chicago saying cutting deeply into the safety net for low income americans is not financially necessary and cannot plausibly help strengthen economic growth. repealing wall street reform will not make the economy grow faster. this strategy is a recipe to make us a declining power. a less exceptional nation. it's a dark and pessimistic vision of america. pretty sharp language and also some of the rhetoric used on the right to i think attack the thapt he has a pessimistic vision of america. doesn't believe in our exceptionalism. >> sure, everyone should be happy when the job numbers are good. it's something of a shame we won't have the markets open tomorrow to see what effect they have on the market and get a better gauge. consumer numbers are up. this is good news. it's not to turn back to politics but it's going to come down to mitt romney, whoever the

nominee is. to the -- >> a soft puppy. >> to deal with that in a way that is both convincing to voters and saying we're happy with these numbers but there is a lot of work to do and obama's not either responsible or -- the best person -- >> it's hard to not trample on the good news. >> bloomberg magazine had obama on the cover. the title is lucky or good? the obama recovery. so there is this sense among a lot of people. if the economy is good, obama's either responsible in a good way because he knew what he was doing or lucky. either way, good news for him. republicans have to find a good way to deal with that. >> there is plenty of bad news. we talk about cyclical, the long term unemployed which folks jobless over 27 weeks is still 5.4 million. that poses a serious problem. that is i mean, if you talk about america and how strong we

are going into the future, the long term picture, that's a serious issue. the number of part-time workers, folks who can't find full time work, still at 8.1 million. >> there's plenty of bad news. >> yeah. >> the problem there is, the other thing if you focus on the recovery, 7% of the total increase in incomes went to the 99%. 37 went to the .1%. of the population. so we talk about income redistribution and fairness and equality it gets republicans to a little bit of a bear trap having to address the economy and when you have numbers like that. >> the lucky or good conversation, that's good for every president. presidents don't run the economy. they take credit when it does well. they lose when it does poorly. people associate them. h.w. bush won a war, lost the economy, lost the election. and obama in part became in power to be president because the economy was bad. the bad economy helped him and

be able to blame bush. if he is able to ride that wave. >> they will be waving the job creation graph for the next few months as evidence. we'll be talking more about the white house and the president's position on the affordable care act and activist judges after the break. this one's for all us lawnsmiths. grass gurus. doers. here's to more saturdays in the sun. and budgets better spent. here's to turning rookies - into experts, and shoppers into savers. here's to picking up. trading up. mixing it up. to well-earned muddy boots. and a lot more - spring per dollar. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. wipe out weeds for less, with bayer advanced durazone weed and grass killer, now just $19.88.

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>> he believes that because of the overwhelming precedent here in this case, that the supreme court will uphold the constitutionality of the affordable care act. that was the point he was making all along both monday and tuesday. >> that was press secretary jay carney at the white house briefing addressing president obama's comments about the supreme court. ari, that was in reference to the president saying he hoped

the high court would not take an unprecedented extraordinary step in overturning the law. what do you make of that. is that a walk back? >> i don't think it's a walk back. i think the discussion has gotten a little ridiculous. president obama who also taught constitutional law at -- who also taught, i'll keep talking. who also taught -- only got out seven words. >> all right. continue. >> president obama who also taught constitutional law at the university of chicago knows this area and this is a question of how specifically you want to address it. he can also say in these remarks that there are only two cases that have ever limited the commerce power in the modern era and they related to guns in schools and violence against women. in every other case testing interstate commerce when there is clear interstate commercial activity congressional mandates have been upheld. you have to back to the 30s, a case called lockner back during fdr's time when big economic

legislation was challenged on constitutional grounds. that's so clear and law school 101, the fact people are trying to twist it but the president knows that, that's what he's talking about, the supreme court will do what it does and we're a nation of laws and will treat what they say as the constitution as the constitution. but there is no doubt and many republican scholars have said, there is no doubt it would be a big change if they determine the health care market was not interstate commerce. >> but certainly sort of throwing back the idea of activist judges at the republicans is a political calculation, i think it's worth noting that republican response, mitch mcconnell is speaking saying with his words he as in the president was no longer trying to embarrass the court after a decision, rather, he tried to intimidate it before a decision has been made and that should be intolerable to all of us. >> briefly, that is not a justifiable position for senator mcconnell to take. subsequently the department of justice argues that laws are constitutional, the president is saying he think this is law is constitutional, he is well within his means to state that

view. he will uphold, i think, and honor what the supreme court does. no one's doubting that. >> again, though look. is it a good idea to be talking about the decision in those terms when look, i think the white house is probably surprised at justice kennedy's remarks in the oral arguments and maybe a little worried how they are going to decide this. >> of course it is. of course it is. i think as much as law school 101 comes up, marbury versus city of madison law school 101. for the president to be coming out this early before ruling is set, couching this in terms of how unpress decedented it would and abuse of power it would be i think shows not only naivete but des per ag. >> that is their position. that is what they are arguing that this would abdeparture from interstate commerce juris prudence. >> the military trial scheduled for khalid sheikh mohammed is raising new questions about the

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we give you commission-free etfs, no-fee iras and more. come see why more investors are saying... i'm with scottrade. >> our legitimacy is reduced when we've got a guantanamo that is open, we suspend habeas corpus. those things erode our moral claims that we are acting on behalf of broader universal principles. >> that was candidate obama in 2007. five years later guantanamo bay remains open. yesterday the pentagon announced it would hold a military trial for khalid sheikh mohammed and the four suspected of working with him. that will likely take place at guantanamo. joining us is hina shamsi. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> let's talk a little about the military tribunals which we've

discussed with a certain amount of wariness. we know the administration is trying to reform them and you have thoughts how effective that reform is. >> i think that when we're considering the guantanamo military commissions we have to take a step back and look at how and why they were established. they weren't established to provide truth or justice, they were established to provide show trials, to permit the use of evidence obtained through torture and at the same time to hide the fact that torture has happened. their legitimacy was undermined right from the beginning and that shameful legacy continues to taint them today an undermines their legitimacy irrevocably. >> you think the efforts toward transparency, having the justice department, prosecutors involved is none of that ameliorates what sound likes too broken to fix. >> i think there are good and honorable people who are involved in trying to improve the military commissions, but the improvements that have been made and the rules and the practice so far don't go far

enough. so take the issue of torture. it is true that the rules no longer permit the use of confession obtained through the torture of an accused person. >> as they did during the bush administration. >> correct. what they do permit are loopholes that allow torture or coerced evidence to come in through the back door including through the fruits of coerced evidence, including through information that might have been obtained from someone other than the accused. and because the hearsay rules that permit information is second and third shand presumptively admissible in military commissions in ways they are not in federal courts. >> i think one of the things we due not pay a lot of attention to, unfortunately, is this administration's counter terrorism policies which in a lot of ways certainly the president has tried to make steps to correct what he sees are wrongs but in a lot of ways are very close to the bush administration's policies which is in some cases in terms of states secrets privilege, there has been progress there but at

the end of the day, richard, you look at that footage, guantanamo is still open and is a complicated question. the president tried. congress pushed back. it remains open. >> a couple of things that are different. for a start, torture. the brightest line of all of this, the reason the commissions are tainted, evidence is tainted is because of torture. nobody is suggesting that torture is part and parcel of this administration's approach in the way the bush administration strained itself to justify and extend the use of torture. wasn't one or two cases. secondly, this administration wanted to close guantanamo bay. it took every step to close it and we have to face up to the fact that democrats and republicans in congress voted to deny the funds that would have allowed those detainees in guantanamo to come to the american mainland and into civilian courts. the question that the serious people have in the white house is, is there any form of military justice that would work? given that you cannot move them

to civilian courts on the mainland, is there a military justice that can work or is the entire system, the entire fabric of military justice tainted. they say there is a middle ground but we have to see what type ofhearsay and coerced evidence is acceptable. as far as i can see it's not clear. until those tribunals get under way we don't know. >> i guess hina, i would ask you, this is on the heels of the ordered killing of anwar alwa lackey, in terms of the killing of an american citizen as ordered by the federal government. where do you see this administration on its counterterrorism policies balancing that out with civil liberties. >> unfortunately the record on counter terrorism is not good in this administration. it's true torture no longer continues and that is a good fact. but part of the problem is that large swaths of policies that were used by the bush administration have been taken

by the obama administration and used further. and what we have today, it is absolutely the case that congress played politics with the most important terrorism trials of our time and that is why they are going to be tried in a second tier system of justice, that is unfortunate both as a matter of justice and because of the american people deserve better. but the president and the administration could also fight more for the principles that they came into office with. and that also remains true. >> i think in the previous segment we were talking about whether the government has the power to make you buy insurance. that's an open constitutional question. well, we also should be talking in this country about whether the government can kill you without trial, without a process, without even verified public evidence. the military context traditionally has been different than the civilian context and some of these issues are open questions because we have a different stateless enemy. so i don't think they are easy questions about but it is true that the obama administration in

several significant areas on secrecy, clearly on assassinations, and as well as not doing any serious investigation or prosecution of what richard said, the torture that did occur on all of those areas, ratified big plafrns of the bush-cheney secrecy agenda. >> it was the bush administration doing this there would be far more outcry from the left than there is now. >> plenty of outcry. look, we have two people on this panel, full of outcry of this. >> i don't think in the same way that the president as i think chastised or is criticized for not having comprehensive immigration reform or climate change or sorry, energy policy, this kind of the counter terrorism stance of this white house has not been i think subject to the scrutiny that it would have been if it was republican. >> as a candidate, in 2007 and 8 he said he was going to pull down the troops from iraq to concentrate on the counter

terrorism against al qaeda. he made that clear. it's been clear throughout that they were going to target the leadership and they have done that. of al qaeda. you know, the question for candidate obama that i think a lot of liberals didn't hear his answer to was how were you going to continue with the fight on the war on terror and against al qaeda in particular, and his answer was that he was going to pursue it even more vigorously. he felt that president bush had taken his eye off the ball. you can say that's wrong, you deny disagree and a lot of people do but to say he hasn't lived up to that i think was willful ignorance. >> what's amazing s.e., he gets pillaried as weak on terror or apologizing for america by the right. >> yeah, and some of that narrative is destroyed after we essentially invaded other countries and killed american citizens. but you have that skepticism because in the months after obama was inaugurated he had been as candidate obama promising i'm going to close

gitmo, no one asked him how. i don't think they pondered that. so went came time to do the business of closing git-mo and ending military tribunals, how do we do this and it came out without answers. and had to back pedal. >> there was fort leavenworth, there was a military brig and the illinois facility. they needed to upgreat the security. congress denied the funds. you captain transfer people into a non-secure facility. >> you could say the white house was caught a little off guard with the resistance. look at greg craig and how it was handled. we have to leave it there. thank you so much. the trial will be under way in the next 30 days. i'm sure we'll be talking to you again soon. after the break from climate change to evolution, why do some republicans deny proven findings. s.e. cupp is going to explain. turns throughout may be science behind their beliefs. we'll take a look inside the republican brain. ♪

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>> i had a mother come up to me in tampa, florida after the debate. she told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation. >> they put forth these phony studies, i refer to global warming as not climate science but political science. >> that was michele bachmann questioning the safety of the hpv vaccine and rick santorum wondering if climate change is real. joining us is the author of the republican brain, the science of why they deny science, and reality. chris mooney. welcome to the program. >> great to be with you. >> chris, so you are arguing in the book there's sort of physiology at root that sort of dictates whether we are republican or whether we are

democrat. tell us a little more. >> yeah. all of the scientific research and there's quite a lot of it says that politics is personality. we don't just differ about ideas, we differ about a number of traits. liberals are messier. so politics is about much more than just ideas and i use this to argue about why we're divided over facts, why liberals tend to be actually right and what we can do about that. >> it's worth noting that in terms of conservative skepticism of science there is increasingly a greater amount of skepticism of science among conservative circles, a study from the american sociallogical review shows in 1974, 48% of conservatives were skeptical of science, now 35 -- sorry now 35%, i think those are reversed. now 35%? the point is, those graphics. >> trust has declined. >> what do you attribute that

to? i know certainly we are getting our news and we are increasingly shepherded into more ideologically partisan circles. does that have something to do. >> this study was testing the thesis of my first book and validated it. the reason that conservatives lost trust is first, they created their own reality in think tanks like fox news so they can attack because they have their own experts now. conservatives are different people now than they were then. psychologically. there has been a stronger strain of authoritarianism in the republican party. there is a lot of research on that. if you are authoritarian you see the world in black and white ways. my way or the highway. science does go well with that. >> chris, i'm sure you can hear the giggles from set from s.e. cupp our resident conservative. s.e., i mean look. you do have to say there is -- you look at the republican

platform. jon huntsman was pillaried for i believe in science, call me crazy. >> they did call him crazy. >> science sometimes does seem like a four-letter word. you not agree with that? >> here is what i find infuriating. no offense to chris. i, too, write books that predicate on sweeping generalizations about half the country. i've been there. it's exasperating work. this is not a pot shot. here's what i find infuriating. we have a long and glorious tradition in this country of questioning science. we have been questioning science in fact for centuries, asking is science right on this. and the idea that science is some unitch peachable institution that cannot be questioned flies in fact in the face of the bedrock of the scientific method which is skepticism. whether we're trying to disprove science as junk science or exposing certain science as immoral, i'm thinking ugenics or population control.

the idea when a republican does it it is scary or backwards is exactly why the public is skeptical of science as having been politicized because of suggestions like this that republicans at large are afraid of science. >> honestly. we have seen the pictures of newt gingrich on the couch with nancy pelosi talking about climate change. >> there have been to quote rick santorum phony studies on climate change. east university. >> and that study -- >> every time science has been corrupted by politics, everyone in the scientific community should be worried. >> chris, let's talk a little bit about -- let's talk a little about that. and science specifically. last year all 31 republicans on the house and energy commerce committee declined to vote in favor of an amendment acknowledging scientific consensus around climate change. >> the science says that global warming is real and caused by humans, there is not a serious debate about that. it says that evolution is real

and the cause of humans. there is not a debate about that. but republicans disagree with both things. they reject the scientific consensus. that's the fact. and we know that their trust in science in general has declined. it's fine to question a couple aspects of science. it's good to be open minded but at some point you have to interests process and the scientific consensus that emerges. that's what doesn't happen from the right. >> this picks up on, chris's book pick up on what chris hayes has 18 book. >> host and editor at large of the nation, so tied to many things but also has a really interesting idea about the fact when you have a fundamental decline in institutions of authority and science it gets harder to make any kind of public debate mean anything because you don't have common facts. that goes all the way back to something senator moynihan said. my question for chris to tie together something i think s.e. was raising that is an important

distinction is, how do you differentiate between, say, climate science where you say the complete lack of faith if you will, in the facts, blocks any real debate over the science, how do you distinguish that from the american medical association classifying homosexuality as an illness for a long time? she's talking to some degree about the fact that politics should be able to push back on erroneous things that are couched as science. >> right. but of course, the american medical association changed that position and that's why liberals tend to get along better with sciences that they are less fixed, more flexible and willing to change, that's why most scientists are liberal. conservative denial of science and you find it's over 100 years old. tennessee is now going to undermine evolution again about 80 years after the skoks trial. that doesn't change because the views are fixed. there is this natural relationship between liberals and scientists. >> thank you, chris mooney author of "the republican

brain." coming up, the scandal around rupert murdoch's trial. >> coming up on "andrea mitchell reports," smash star and "american idol" runner up catherine mcfee has a role, spokeswoman for the group malaria no more. she joins me on this important health campaign. why is the republican leader comparing women's rights to cater pillers. we've got the new controversy. mitt romney is moving in on rick santorum's home state three weeks until the pennsylvania primary. santorum secretary is here. join us. polar shifts will revee the earth's gravitational pull and hurtle us all into space. which would render retirement planning unnecessary. but say the sun rises on december 22nd, and you still need to retire. td ameritrade's investment consultants

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>> welcome back. time for what now. ruper murdoch's channel admits it allowed reporters to hack into computers. the news follows james murdoch's

resignation as chairman of sky news channel's company. the onion was accused of hacking into computers for public safety. right? i'm just kidding. >> what a bait and switch. no idea. >> what do you make of that? >> when i think rupert murdoch, a man who puts the public interest above autumn. i'm sure he is genuine to strans the call of democracy by keeping the public as informed on the facts as possible. i wish him the best in this crusade against himself. >> richard, as our resident brit. >> american but it's okay. >> you are. we welcome you with open arms. with the appropriate accents to weigh in on this. how much, how damaging is this to the murdoch empire? >> it's the most profitable part of that media empire in europe

and internationally, because i mean i'm not including the fox news empire but the b sky b piece the thing they wanted to protect. there is under british law a public faith, a responsible citizen test for ownership. this is what is damaging, where the growth is for this company and the fact that these unethical reporting practices have spread into it is really threatening the empire as it is in europe and asia in particular. so, you are looking at more of a withdrawal, his son, the next appointed leader has had to step down. the truth is ha redefined the public interest to mean anything that interests the public. that's not what most understand it. fundamentally undermine, even more when they make these nonsensical arguments. >> i want to pivot quickly the latest invention from the folks at google. google glasses. would allow you to see your world with the help of the internet. they are voice controlled, check

the weather and respond to e-mail. you and i are the only people not wearing glasses. >> i don't want a pair, i hate the idea, i hate it would probably be popular. >> if it will make you look smarter. >> you hate that i will get them. >> i can't get them. >> can't wait to see the internet through a pair of glasses. thanks to ari, baratunde and richard. i'll see you back here at noon when i'm joined by martin bahere is. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. hello. >> hi, alex. thanks so much. we've got a big show coming up. the war on women, what does that have to do with caterpillars. is it too soon to talk about a running mate for mitt romney. plus, "smash" star katharine

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rick santorum off the trail for a five-day holiday. is he coming back? santorum soul searches mitt romney stumps on santorum's home turf. >> i need your help, you guys. as you know i want to win pennsylvania in november. i'm going to win pennsylvania in november. >> and if men are from mars and women from vee nurks what do women's rights have to do with caterpillars, the insects, not the tractors. the republican party leader sets off a gender controversy. "smash" star katharine mcphee. from broadway to the world stage, now fighting malaria in africa, just back from gh