this is from a tumbler called texts from hillary clinton. i love this texts from hillary clinton thing. we have a link to it on our blog if you have not seen it. "weekends with alex witt" starts now. a mystery in virginia this morning. some big unanswered questions after that jet crashes into a building. a new poll. how divided is america over the trayvon martin shooting and who is the most divided? the results may surprise you. exit signs? a new report suggests some options or rather some gop presidential contenders, the options that rick santorum could be considering. the painter of light, the artist behind this picture and dozens of other iconic works passes away. good morning, everyone. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." this is what's happening this morning. the navy is investigating why an f-18 crashed into an apartment complex in virginia beach. the plane dumped fuel before the

crash after an apparent malfunction. here's what one witness saw. >> i looked up and could see the plane going straight up with no sound of engines. then i seen it pitch over and go down. >> the two pilots ejected safely. five people on the ground were hurt but they survived. we'll get more on this spectacular plane crash. nbc's jim miklaszewski is at the pentagon with the latest. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. rescue workers are still searching for three people reported missing after the navy jet plowed into the senior citizen apartment complex at virginia beach. according to officials it is not clear whether the three people were there at the time, but they remain unaccounted for. many are still calling it a miracle that there were no fatalities and only seven mostly minor injuries to the two pilot who is ejected from their airplane and five other people on the ground. now navy officials are calling the crash the result of a

catastrophic mechanical failure shortly after the f-18 fighter jet took off from the naval air station yesterday. investigators are not only looking for the cause of why the plane went down, but what exactly was the crew doing at the time. it was a two-man crew, the front-seater pilot, a student, the backseater, a seasoned i instructor. they would like to know if the crew did everything within their power to try to save that jet and keep it from crashing into that apartment complex. now, interestingly enough, the plane went down only several blocks away from the ocean where the pilots, if they would have been able to, could have easily and safely ditched the plane. so speculation here is that if, in fact, they did everything possible, there was just no way to save that jet before it went down, alex. >> thank you, mick. we'll take you to the scene of the crash at the bottom of the

hour. it's a big holiday weekend and many are trying to fly to see families, but delays and cancellations at american airlines in dallas is causing problems across the country. planes were damaged earlier this week by hailstorms spawning a dozen tornadoes. yesterday 300 flights were canceled but today the airline only plans on 27 cans collations in total more than 1600 flights were affected by the storm damage. now to front page politics and key developments in the 2012 race for president. the rick santorum camp insists the candidate has no plans of dropping out. the latest polls in pennsylvania show mitt romney closing in on santorum ahead of the april 24th primary. some polls have romney with a slight lead. and nbc confirm that is former develop presidential candidate rick perry method with rick santorum on tuesday in austin. santorum requested the meeting. perry dropped out of the race in jan and endorsed newt gingrich. and the romney campaign released a new video narrated by

ann romney showing a more personal side of her husband. >> i hate to say it, but often i had more than five sons, i had six sons. and he would be as mischievous and as naughty as the other boys. >> joining me now, political reporter for real clear politics, kate houghy burns and david mcnamara. thank you both for joining me. >> thank you. >> if the poll becomes clear that santorum is likely to use pennsylvania, his home state, does he bow out before that or do you get a sense he'll let this ride? >> it's interesting to look at santorum's career, he's positioned himself this whole time or during the whole cycle as the underdog. so i think there's an incentive for him in that way to stay in the race and continue. however, if he lost pennsylvania last time in his senate race, not only lost, but lost by about 18 points, which was

devastating. it was a wave election year, but he still lost by huge margins. so to return to his home state and lose again would just give him bad headlines and give him an unfortunate for a narrative heading forward and no way to maneuver and he would have to bow out anyway having already lost before. >> well, you know, you have to look at this, david, not only what she's saying, what katelyn is saying, but the long-term politics here. how damaging would it be for rick santorum to lose his home state, not only for this cycle, but anything he might hope in the future, and might there be gop backlash because he's been tearing down romney for so long now. >> people understand in a campaign primary it will be tough. there's a lot of tough criticism. so far they are not seeing lasting damage to santorum. if he were to decide at some point to get out, you're right, if he keeps going forward and drags it all the way to the convention and tries to keep

going, i think that does really risk damaging whatever sort of reenergy he brought to his own personal brand. if he wants a career in politics going forward, give that that. he met closely with advisors the other day and said they are not planning to drop out, but there's a lot of calculating going on. >> yeah, kate lynn, both the president and mitt romney rolled out new ads. we'll take a look at this. >> tax increases not only become a necessity,ly also a desired tool for social justice. >> i have cut taxes for business owners 17 times over the last three years. >> obama's mud can't cover-up his failed energy policies, policies hurting small businesses and working families. americans deserve solutions. >> katelyn, are we getting a sense of romney's approach now to the general election? >> absolutely. when he won the wisconsin primaries and others last week, he pivoted to obama and made this basically saying game on, we're going against obama. he's going against obama on the

economy. he has been this whole entire time and this gives him incentive to do so. it's interesting, too, he use, both the president and romney, attacked each other from the same forum talking to reporters this week in d.c. and he's really pivoting to the general and bringing the economy as the issue while democrats kind of capitalize on this deficit that republicans and democrats have, the advantage democrats have among women. >> david, we saw the president this week ratchet up his general election campaign on a number of fronts, but beyond that ad what exactly has he rolled out? >> the biggest thing is he gave a big speech ahead of time that the white house billed as one of his key speeches on the economy. and what he did with that speech in front of a bunch of newspaper editors is tie mitt romney to paul ryan and the more conservative elements of the gop in a way that is sort of the

president was trying to say, i have a certain vision, these guys have a more radical vision that's bad for the country. the president termed social darwinism saying if you go forward with the ryan budget and the budget the house passed you'll see a country at war with itself, the rich against the poor, and will really leave everybody on its own. the president is talking more about the equitable society. next week he'll be in florida in a key swing state talking about the buffet rule and taxing millionaires. this is a real key element of his campaign with the message he's going to try to bring. >> david, real quick, how did the white house react to the unemployment numbers yesterday, because it was a mixed report? >> the president didn't spend much time on it. the past few months when the report is better he had a mull full-throated endorcement of things being better. yesterday he gave quick remarks about the job numbers that, hey, we welcome the growth, but the bigger thing the white house is saying and the campaign is trying to say is this is a longer narrative than you have

24 consecutive months of job growth. i don't know that's going to register with the public if the economy is still in a sluggish state going down to the election. >> david, caitlin, thank you so much. >> thank you. the next primary are in connecticut, delaware, new york, pennsylvania and rhode island on april 24th. in may, indiana, north carolina, and west virginia are holding their primaries on the 8th. nebraska and oregon on the 15th. arkansas, kentucky, they fall on the 22nd. then the texas primary on the 29th. let's take a look now at the big business stories of the week with the three big money headlines. hires lower? down-sized. snowfall windfall. joining us is consumer expert regina lewis. >> thank you, alex. >> let's talk about march number that is fell he below expectation numbers. the unemployment rate went down from 8.3% to 8.2%, but how do you read this? >> 120,000 new jobs added, 120,000 in the private sector. government jobs down 1,000

mostly due to post offices closing. of course, romney calls this tht they have added 600,000 jobs in the last three months. it doesn't raise questions so much about whether the recovery is us is tapeable, but it does raise questions about the pace of recovery and what we can expect. when you drill down further on the numbers, some interesting sectors, 37,000 manufacturing jobs added, which is terrific, although relative when you consider the 2 million lost during the recession. then 34,000 jobs were lost largely because of ecommerce that takes a lot fewer people to run a website than to staff stores. >> you make a good point talking about that high-profile corporate layoff also going on. jcpenney and yahoo! not good news there. >> ron johnson from apple taking over jcpenney looking to transform the economy. or company. there's nothing he's changing. 600 cut at headquarters and 300

more when they close a customer service center. what's interesting there is some of the changes he's made are causing these cuts. and it's a good business move when you consider that the every day low prices, a return policy that is simplified, fewer people are calling with questions, hence they don't need the call center. yahoo! 2,000 jobs are being cut, and this could be the beginning of the cut there is because that's across the board cuts before looking at divisions more selectively. yahoo! looking for a turn-around but really struggling as people say, you're cutting now, what is yahoo! trying to be. >> good point. what about the snowfall, the fact that all these cities across the country haveless to deal with the snowfall and that saves money, right? >> sure. less snowfall means a windfall in the cash category when you consider that you have to have a budget for snow removal and then when it doesn't snow you have some cash leftover to put it in perspective. take milwaukee, by example. they have a $7.9 million snowfall budget. they are $2 million under what

they normally spend. now keep in mind, it is an annual budget, so it is not over until it is over. in december comes in like a bear, they could go through that. >> that a good point. don't get too excited yet. regina lewis, thank you. see you later. what's your sense of the economy where you live? talk to me on twitter. my handle is alexwitt. thomas kinkade, the painter of light, has died. he was best known for light-filled artwork of churches and gardens an was a devout christian and said he liked to make people happy with his paintings. he died at home of natural causes at the age of 54. let's move on to the weather this holiday weekend. in new york city, things are off to a lovely start. crisp, clear and gorgeous. parts of the northern plains and rockies not so lucky as they get hit with snow, wind and rain throughout the day. bill karins has details on what

the weather is going to hold for the rest of the country. good morning, bill. good saturday morning to you. this holiday weekend looks fantastic. we are not seeing too many areas getting washed out, but it is chilly. that's the only weather story we have out there. we have freezing temperatures in the ohio valley up through the great lakes and much of new england. so it is a very cold start, but it's going to be sunny and a little breezy this afternoon. so even though the temperatures are chilly, with the full sun up there, the april sun, it will warm up later on this afternoon. also pretty cold in the northern rockies. the warmest spots are down along the gulf coast and into texas. as far as the radar goes, there's not a lot to talk about. we have a little bit of snow still leftover exiting montana after the snowstorm yesterday. we had rain showers and maybe embedded thunderstorms moving from kansas towards missouri, but that's pretty isolated. so for your saturday forecast, after a cold start, it's a mostly sunny and pretty nice afternoon from the northeast, midatlantic all the way to the southeast for the augusta golf

tournament. no problem for today's round or sundays. we'll see some late-day showers and storms in texas and also on the west coast where we are dealing with rain. but how does your easter sunday forecast look? for all the easter egg hunts and searching for the basket, we are looking very nice out there with showers in the great lakes and some late afternoon storms in texas and oklahoma. overall, i think this weekend is probably an "a." almost perfect. back to you. >> we like to hear that, bill karins. still ahead, doug the math. one state may change its rules for delegating votes for the primarieses. and i sit down with tina brown who reveals a softer side, in fact, how she reacts when her daughter sends her a text message in the middle of an important meeting. if you're one of those folks who gets heartburn

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now for the latest in the trayvon martin case. we are getting new insight into the americans view of the night the florida teenager was killed. 73% of blacks feel race played a part in the shooting. just 36% of the whites agree with that. as of today, george zimmerman has not been arrested. i want to bring in a staff member from "the root." thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> african-americans see this case differently than whites. what is your take on that? >> i don't think those numbers are shocking in the least. the idea that african-americans over whites that say race played a role in it, black people had the experience in life has they

perceive being motivated by racial profiling. recently we heard of tyler perry say he had such an experience, so that's not the least bit surprising. at the same time, i don't think you have to care about race at all or be at all aware of race to realize that an unarmed teenager was killed and no one has been arrested. so that's an i justice, even if you're completely color blind. >> you're 100% correct there. let's break this down politically. there's another number from "the christian science monitor" that says 64% of democrats say race played a role in the shooting, just 32% of republicans agree. an insight into the political race, wouldn't you they. >> sure. people who take a more political view could be more willing to recognize influential racism that we see happen every day, but i don't think that changes the ultimate analysis of this case. like trayvon martin's parents

have said themselves, it is not just about race but the issue. that's not the bottom line or main concern for most americans here. >> let's get to other developments in this case as zimmerman's family is launching a website to try to raise money for his living experiences and his defense are. they assuming this is just a matter of time? >> if i was trayvon martin, i would be raising all the money i could. most of us are amazing there was not an arrest on the night trayvon was killed and i wouldn't be surprised to see and arrest coming in the next few weeks. >> a lot of people are not convicting the man here in the media but an arrest to be accountable and go forward on that front is really what the big clamber is all about, that that has not been done. i want to talk about from the legal perspective more of what zimmerman's team talked about with the strategy. let's take a listen to that. >> we are familiar with the

shaking baby syndrome, you shake a baby, the brain shakes around inside the skull, you can die. when someone's pounding your head on the ground and you've already had your nose broken, you can be in reasonable fear for great bodily harm that the florida statute calls for. >> what do you think about that as the potential defense? >> first of all, it is pretty bizarre given that george zimmerman is a grown man and not an infant. but taking a step back, i think the issue here is if he and trayvon martin had a confrontation, certainly you can imagine both of them would have ended up being hurt. but what happened before that, if george zimmerman chased down trayvon martin, that's the opposite of standing your ground and that's really not going to serve him well regardless of whether he was hit in the head in the next moments. >> okay. gentleman janae desmond harris, thank you very much. >> thank you. kim kardashian opens up about her relationship with

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and our economy. heidi klum is officially moving on from her husband, seal. the project runway host ez filed papers yesterday citing irreconcilable differences. in this morning's one-minute playback, kim and kanye? she sort of answered questions about the rumors swirling she's dating kanye west. >> did you enjoy going to "the hunger games" with kanye west recently? >> the movie was really interesting, yeah. i'm glad matt is not doing the interview on this part. with the kanye questions. >> okay, all right.

let me ask you one more kanye question, the lyrics of his new song say, i admit i fell in love with kim around the same time she fell in love with him. that's cool, baby girl, do your thing. on twitter they are calling you kimye. do you want to clarify this in any way? >> i completely respect and understand that you have to ask these questions, but i have said before, kanye and i have been friends for years. and you never know what the future holds or where my life will take me. so, i like the song. ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] gross --

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the building there. the pilots ejected safely there before the crash. tom costello, give us the very latest as to what's happening there. >> reporter: well, the latest here is that the fire department is reporting there are no missing persons. late last night three people were unaccounted for. in taking a look at the pictures, you can imagine it was quite a scene and search, but they can report this morning that all of the occupants in that apartment complex, the mayfair apartment complex, have been accounted for. everybody is safe and sound. late last night they were trying to search for those three people, but they said it could have been simply a by-product of the fact that is a holiday weekend and those people could have been away for the easter weekend. four people on the ground were injured. and they were treated for minor injuries. the two pilots, as you mentioned, did safely eject. they suffered minor injuries as well. as for what happened here, the navy says it was a catastrophic, what they call, a catastrophic

mechanical failure. and this investigation is just starting at this point. take a look at the pictures, they say it is nothing short of a miracle that everybody was able to walk away literally from this. we are hearing stories of heroism. one group of neighbors, we heard from one woman last night, one group of neighbors ran into a burning building knocking on doors trying to warn people about what happened. they saw the f-18 and watched in horror as it dumped fuel and crashed into the apartment complex. they ran into the building and started banging on doors and pulling people out. one woman pulled a lady out just as the building was crashing and burning. so you can imagine a lot of these people here are breathing a sigh of relief and saying, thank god nobody was killed. >> it's an absolutely miracle as you say. but tom, how long were people looking into the sky and knowing there was a problem, was it just a matter of seconds or a minute? is there any kind of timeline that onlookers have given? >> reporter: you know, it's a

matter of perspective here. the navy say that is the f-18 was in the sky only a few seconds before it started going down. some of the witnesses that we heard from say they saw the jet just kind of floating almost, maybe it was in slow motion for them, but it was only in the sky for a few seconds. they say they saw the jet dumping fuel as it crashed and burned into the apartment complex. so it's a matter of perspective, but from the navy's perspective, the jet was only in the air for a few seconds before it started crashing. >> tom tron, thank you from virginia beach. now to politics, mitt romney is holding on to a considerable lead in the republican rye mare. still ahead are several key states including pennsylvania and texas, but the primary is increasingly becoming a sideshow of sorts as the main act, the general election, is already beginning. time to do the math now with mark murray, nbc news senior political editor. good morning to you, mark. got your calculator? here we go. >> i do. >> mitt romney does not yet have

the 1144 delegates he needs to secure the nomination. is there a reasonable scenario in which he's not the gop candidate? >> it will be something extraordinary to keep mitt romney away from being the republican nominee. we have crunched the numbers and rick santorum needs to win about 70% of the remaining delegates to actually get to that 1144 magic number. and when you consider that many of the delegates are awarded on a proportional basis in the upcoming contests, it is very hard to keep mitt romney away from that number. rick santorum still has a mathematical chance, but boy, it's a very slim chance. >> you talk about the proportional awarding, let's talk about this. apparently rick santorum met with texas rick perry this week coming amid all the news that the texas republican party is talking about changing their primary from that proportional allegation to a winner-takes-all vote. what are the chances of that happening? secondly, what sort of an impact might have that on the race? >> let me answer your second

question first. it could have a very big impact. as you mentioned, right now mitt romney has a 300 delegate lead over rick santorum. texas has 155 delegates. if it were winner-take-all, you can see rick santorum really starting to cut into that delegate lead. if it's proportional, even if rick santorum were able to win texas, which holds the primary on may 29th, he would get half, 80 out of 155. that could have a big impact. however, how likely it is is unlikely. i spoke with an official at the republican national committee late this past week. and they said that for texas to change its rules, the rnc would have to grant a waiver. don't expect them to grant a waiver any time soon because they would end up creating a precedent that any of the states could change their rules halfway through the game in a nilly-willy fashion. >> we'll move away from the primary side and head to the curtains on the main event, the

general election. what strategies are we seeing emerge as president obama and mitt romney start to go head-to-head? >> the past week was fascinating, we saw mitt romney and barack obama give a back-to-back speech before newspaper editors in washington, d.c. we saw the early strategies emerge as we are starting to look towards the general election. for president obama he was actually talking about the republican party with a focus on the ryan budget plan as well as the entire republican party. in fact, in his speech he only mentioned mitt romney by name once, but mitt romney in his speech was the focus or was focusing all on president obama. he mentioned president obama by name 18 times, mentioned the word obama care four additional times. so you see while mitt romney's trying to make this a referendum on president to into ma, the president and the white house want to make this a referendum on the republican party. >> thank you very much, mark murray, have a great weekend. >> thankses, you too.

president obama appears on primetime television tonight taping an introduction to the film "to kill a mockingbird." the racial classic takes on an important role after the rage over the trayvon martin murder. >> we are all created equal. i'm no idealist to believe in the jury system. that's no ideal to me. that's a living, working reality. >> mike baquero at the white house, good morning to you. what is the president doing relative to this screening? >> it's been a week-long celebration of the anniversary of this seminole film. remember the harper lee novel that won the pulitzer prize in 1960. then in 1962 the version featuring gregory peck came out shaking american society. that's not overstating the case at all, alex. the president's spokesman said

it was a classical film that eludes the right to do the right thing. it tells the story of aticus finch. they had a screaming here at the white house to feature some of gregory peck's family. the actor portraying scout was here and some d.c. school kids. that was thursday night. and tonight you mentioned it is airing on usa. that's at 8:00 tonight. a digitally remastered version of the film and president obama recorded an intro into it. a week-long celebration of the seminole and classic film. >> me indeed it is. any other things going on here? >> the countdown to the easter egg roll. no public events. maybe he'll get to the golf course as he does on the weekend, but he's not coaching

his daughter sasha's team anymore. but monday is the big easter egg roll. >> that's something to look forward to, thank you. in this week's office politics, we are talking to tina brown, editor and chief of "the daily beast" and "newsweek" and she talks about her close family relationships. i begin by asking her to assess the current political landscape. >> i think it's a toxic scene right now that i think has much more grinding roots than we could ever imagine. because this has been a long process, really. this poisoning, in a sense, in american politics. >> the thing that's disturbing as well about it is one would suggest the reason it persists is because it's been successful. i guess you have to define success, right? i mean, because frankly american politics tends to grind to a standstill and nothing gets established. >> there are a lot of people who don't think it is successful at all.

and i think it will only take a massive reverse, for instance, for the republican party this time, to reassess feelings. and i think the democratic party, too, is just receiving -- it is not working. the only thing we can hope for is such a level of dysfunction that some kind of a revolution from inside happens. >> do you think that the actually ideology of the party is so desperate, or do you think this is just for political purpose? >> i don't think it is so much that as the influence of money in politics has become so toxic that now has massive amounts being spent in the super pacs that a billionaire with a hobby can tremendously influence what is done and said and acted upon. >> what comes to mind, madison with gingrich, he's not accruing more delegates and you wonder at what point he wakes up and

smells the coffee. and then he literally could be throwing money away, for what? >> it's tragic to think about what the money could do rather than being used for these projects taking the seriousness off the issues. >> don't you think the general public looks at all of this and looks at the noise and wants people to rise above. >> i think it has gone off the rails. you can see that by the decline on the approval rating in the gop and in congress. the more this goes on the more tarnished the gop has become by this race. and indeed for mitt romney, he's been so battered by all of this, too. in a disreputable nature of it all, by the time he gets the nomination, he'll do repair work to get his ability cleaned up, in a sense. >> you talk about the influence of what people have heard, let's also take this to what people

read. and that puts you at the forefront of things here, at the top of the heap with "newsweek" and "daily beast." what kind of a burden is it to you to get out the proper messages to people? >> thedailybeast does have each point of view we have day. we are not a liberal or right-wing site. we are about independent thought. i think it is important to let people hear both sides. you can only make the informed opinion if you have both sides. >> i think people when they think of tina brown, they think of all your professional accomplishments and yet you have a home that you run as well. are you as tough a boss at home as you are at work? >> i'm afraid i'm a complete pushover to my kids. i have a son and a daughter and we are just such a close family. we text many times a day. and there's a lot of, you know, lots of hugs and cuddles in our lives. i mean, we are very, very close.

i think that's the great source of strength. i know, alex, you have had wonderful times with your two kids. it's important to have that on the perspective and we are very lucky to have it. >> we really are. are you the kind of mom that if you get a text in the middle of the minute, you are like, just a minute, my daughter or son is texting? >> i write back. we have little codes that we text each other. she calls me, me! it's a love dot. i love dot back. >> i have my phone on the set with me. i'll hit the send button in the middle of an interview and if they hear me talking, be quiet on the commercial. >> yep, here it is. my conversation with tina continues today at 1:30 eastern. she'll tell us how to add vice

president obama and tells us what many do not know about her friend, princess diana. coming up next, a new winner of the record-setting lotto jackpot has come forward, but will we know who the ringer is? marine while, the maryland mom who claims she lost one of the winning tickets says she has not spent a lot of time looking for it. really? why not? you're watching "weekends with alex witt." we make meeting times, lunch times and conference times.

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winning ticket but there was confusion over the ticket she bought for her coworkers at a mcdonald's restaurant and now the ticket is missing. joining me from baltimore is a reporter for "the baltimore sun." good morning. >> good morning, alex. >> where are we in all of this, we know there was a winner there, right? >> right. but that person hasn't come forward yet, at least hasn't produced a ticket yet, i should say. >> okay. that's kind of key there. i mean, was there surveillance video of the store when the ticket was bought or anything to confirm or determine the win her? >> there was surveillance video, but apparently the timing on the video doesn't quite coincide with the timing on the machine, so you can't pinpoint exactly who the person was. and there was a steady stream of people coming in at that time to buy tickets and the store hasn't made the video public. we don't know if the woman appears on the video or not. >> now this woman who said she had the ticket told reporters

she doesn't have it now. you have to listen to this. here it is. >> did you lose the ticket? >> i misplaced it. >> you now have misplaced the ticket. >> what is going on, yvonne? >> it's a big mystery here in maryland. we really don't know. this time last week i was standing in the 7-eleven parking lot when all the announcement was excited that they sold one of the three winning tickets. and this week has been pretty interesting here in maryland. >> what about the mcdonald's workers who say they deserve part of the share because the tickets were bought for them? >> the mcdonald's owner won't let media on the property to talk to employees or customers, actually. but the franchise owner said that he cautions anybody from jumping to conclusions, that e he doesn't know if there was a pool or if -- and says there's no evidence that ms. wilson hid

the ticket in his restaurant. >> well, more to come on this, no doubt, but meantime, thank you very much, yvonne. the national debt is higher than ever, but our next guest says it is not as dire as you might think. you're watching "weekends with alex witt." when skin meets god. romance happens. confidence happens. ♪ when skin meets goddess, anything can happen. introducing venus & olay, a match made in skin heaven. olay moisture bars release skin conditioners to help lock in moisture and boost your shave. while five blades get venus close. revealing smooth. renewing beauty. and goddess skin begins. only from venus & olay.

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t there. - one serving of cheese is the size of four dice. one serving of cereal, a baseball. and one serving of fruit, a tennis ball. - you know, both parties agree. our kids can be healthier... the more you know. >> the national debt is now 15.6 trilli trillion, which is nearly $50,000 for every american. it's an issue that's become a political football. >> we have a president comfortable with trillion dollar deficits. how can that be? >> well, a new book looks at how the national debt affects the country. joining me now is simon johnson,

co-author of "white house burning." simon is also a professor at mit's sloan school of savings and management. let's look of those that the coup tri- faced following the war of 1812. >> well, the war of 1812 was a fiscal disaster for the united states. and it ended up with the british taking and burning washington because we hadn't put enough money into the military. and we didn't have the ability to issue and manage our public debt. and the point of the book -- the point of starting with the book is to remind people that bad things happen to good countries. we need to get control over the debt and the deficit in order to stay with our current trajectory. >> and, in fact, those angry mobs marched to the treasury, didn't they, simon? >> the only good news for the american side that day was when

the british broke down -- the british army broke down every door and opened every strong box in the u.s. treasury, there nothing in it. at that moment, the u.s. was effectively broke. let's not go there. let's get ahead of this problem before it gets out of control. >> so how does the national debt affect the average american? >> the national debt does have an impact depending on how you look at it. if you say we can't afford social security, or we have to end medicare, that is dramatically going to change the welfare of both older people today and people who plan on retiring in or 30 years. social security is $13,000. you don't get rich on social security. it's there as a buffer. if you end upturning the debt into what some people call a fiscal crisis and cutting social security, that is life-changing for millions of americans. >> can you put in perspective

how social security medicare, how that impacts the country's finances? >> well, social security and medicare is basic social insurance programs that are there for you when you're older. they have become, because of the age of society, they have become the number one item in government spending. most of what the federal government does is provide income to older americans. 40% of people, by the way, who use social security, don't participate in any government program. it's not only the quintessential government program. that is a big chunk of what the federal government does. >> can you give us a percentage? 50%? 30%? what percentage is it? >> well, it's greater than 50% now. but the trajectory, alex, is the key thing. if you look over decades, it's closer to 60, 70%. people are living longer. this is a success. this is a great demographic success for the united states, but we have to deal with the fiscal implications and we have to think about what revenue do you need, are you willing to provide on a sustainable basis.

you can't have it both ways. you can't have something, generous pensions, for nothing, not paying taxes. people do not want to have that difficult conversation. >> can you answer this question succin succinctly? >> president dwight ieisenhower had a dramatic shift over the past 30 years. newt gingrich's current proposals are for a debt to gdp at 150%. that's greek levels of debt. so i'm afraid, largely, it's the republicans and the republican party elite. >> okay, simon johnson, thank you very much. we appreciate it. that's a wrap. be sure to join me for a two-hour edition of the show at noon.

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