rick santorum is holding a press conference in a small room. president obama is pushing the buffett rule. former president george bush is talking about renaming the bush tax cuts to, and i quote, some other body's name. it's tuesday, april 10th, this is "now." joining me today, jonathan capehart of "the washington post," new york "daily news" columnist s.e. cupp, salon.com editor at large, joan walsh and msnbc political analyst, the man who has forever changed the vice presidential nominating process, john heilemann. rick santorum holding his first event since taking a break from his campaign to go to the hospital for his daughter bela. joining us live from gettysburg with more on that, nbc's ron mott. there's a lot of talk about what

is going to happen at 2:00 p.m. fill us in. >> reporter: hey there, alex. good day to you. a lot of talk whether this is the day that rick santorum drops out of the race. the campaign is saying very strongly that he is not dropping out of the race but there are signs in the air perhaps that this may be the end of his campaign. this is a very small room, as you mentioned. we walked into the room and said, there's no way this is going to hold a rally. he did have a rally planned in bedford, where his press corps woke up, a two-hour drive, folks had to scramble to get over here for the 2:00 event they are terming a press conference. we don't know what specifically the former senator will talk about. as you mentioned his 3-year-old daughter bela apparently released from the hospital yesterday after being admitted to a hospital on friday with complications. and so we know that that is certainly top of mind for senator santorum and his family now. we have no idea exactly why he's bringing the press to grettiesburg. it's an interesting location,

because president lincoln talked about freedom and rick santorum, when he held an event here at the very hotel behind me, he talked about freedom and the reason he got into the race because of at fordable care act, also that he refers to as obama care, why he wants to run for president to restore freedoms to americans. >> ron mott, thank you for the intel. that's a lot to unpack. john heilemann, what does it mean when you have a press conference in a small room amid calls for you to get oust the race? >> it usually means you'll get out of the race. i think they will not call it that. you don't drop out of a presidential race, you suspend your campaign and there's a way in which his press people can be honest with our correspondent saying, look, we're not going to drop out, and they may not. there's no upside for rick santorum anymore in staying in this race, i don't think. he's, i think, likely to lose pennsylvania if he continues to fight there. the romney campaign suspending its advertising for a while but ready to back on if he decides

to fight. if he loses his race he damages himself in perpetuity if he runs in 2016. if he wins the race, he won the home state, big deal. if you add to that the health problems with his daughter that are obviously lamentable and regrettable, he's got not an excuse but pressing family issues that he can cite legitimately in addition to the political calculations as a good time for him to step aside and be with his family where he's needed. >> he's taken a pause already, and i think charitably and honestly it could very well be this weekend and this latest crisis brought home to him that what am i accomplishing out of the campaign trail? he's done all of the good he can do for himself and even for his movement at this point. it wul be a perfect time to take a time. >> s.e., you're looking on with i don't know a mixture -- >> i have mixed emotions. rick is a friend. and i like him. i like his candidacy. and the upside to him staying in is the month of may, which looks

really good for rick santorum even though it doesn't get him ultimately to the nomination, math as we've said is not on his side. i'd like to see him stick around, but i think most conservatives also feel as though the time has come for the republican party to focus on obama instead of each other. most conservatives are ready for that, as much as they may like rick santorum and feel indifferent or apathetic toward mitt romney they want to be focused on obama and if that's what rick santorum is going to respond to today and come out and or suspend his campaign, i think a lot of conservatives, even those who love him, will feel a sense of relief, we can move on. >> let's not forget talking standard forbearers, newt gingrich remains in the race, perhaps not as angry, jonathan capehart. >> perhaps not as angry, and it's, you know, debatable whether he's really running for president or just extending his

glorified book tour documentary tour, take a picture with me for 50 bucks tour. >> don't forget the zoos. >> zoo visits. >> priorities. priorities. let's turn to the presumed -- the front-runner in the perhaps presumed nominee, mitt romney. a new "the washington post"/abc poll shows head-to-head matchups between the president and mitt romney on the economy, in terms of creating jobs, running in a dead heat, 43% of americans voting for mitt romney. on that 46 for the president on handling the economy, another close race, obama at 43, romney at 47. handling the deficit, obama 38%, romney 51%. mitt romney is at 26%. >> yeah. you know, here's the thing. in "the washington post" poll, and in the third way poll of swing independents, i think there are -- there's good news and bad news for both men, president obama and mitt romney

and these two polls. mitt romney is the guy that people think can do the things they want the country to do in terms of handling the deficit and tied with creating jobs and handling the economy. when you look at swing voters polled in the third-way poll, those voters, they don't like the income and equality message, they like opportunity. the number one thing they care about is the deficit, 57%. but you take that into account, in both polls, president obama wipes the floor with mitt romney when it comes to likability, favorability and who who they think cares about the issues they that care about. >> that's true but some extent, polls, schmols. >> revisit this, in 1992, in june of 1992, president then-governor bill clinton was polling at 16% favor ability, in

june. a guy who went on to win the white house. >> to your polls schmols comment, among independents obama at 35%, romney at 29, undecided 36%. >> that is the big number in that poll. it's amazing to me. it gives romney a lot of room to grow. the case for romney to say i've had, if you're making the case why he's viable, he's had a horrible four months, huge problems with various constituencies, a huge likability problem, on the economic issues neck and neck, 36% of the independent vote undecided. if i'm romney i'm looking at my bad first half of my basketball game and thinking if i can start shooting better than 22% from the field i can get up to 40% of the field i can move on these numbers and get to a place where i'm running neck and neck with the president. >> you're looking for your jeremy lin. >> anything i can do to work a bad jeremy lin pun is in a successful show. president obama set for a key speech on the economy, touting

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we have a tax system that's rigged against the average person, rigged in favor of the very wealthy and we need to fix that, and this buffett rule will address that. >> i think people think the buffett rule is a budget pixie dust, it pays for about 6% of the president's proposed deficit spending. two, it represents a huge tax increase on job creators. >> both sides of the aisle digging in their heels over the proposed buffett rule, that is what president obama will be speaking about today in florida where he just landed moments

ago. joan, you know, the buffett rule is an interesting -- david axelrod, like to talk about ka buky theater and this is a version of the white house's ka bookie theater, it's not expected to go anywhere, and a fantastic talking point about income and equality and fairness. >> the ryan budget isn't going anywhere. the republicans are better at putting out what they believe in, taking a firm line, a sharp line, extremist line, and even if they go down fighting they go down fighting, they may lose, and i think the president is trying to define new terms of the debate around fairness and opportunity. and i think -- i mean paul ryan is so hilarious and whiney sometimes, it's ridiculous to say the criticism is it doesn't raise enough revenue. buddy, your budget will bust the deficit right open. >> budget pixie dust. >> the president's not only using it to frame the debate, but the president is using this

as a way in his re election campai campaign, talk about mitt romney's taxes and this gets to an issue where there's an issue of around fairness which is a big theme of the campaign but it creates a personal opening on romney, he's in a situation where he's released one year of his tax returns and they are the most probably cleaned up year of his tax returns. >> right. >> having given 23 years of tax returns to the mccain campaign vetted for the presidency in 2008, they're on the shelf, and many people suspect those tax returns would be embarrassing and play into the grander theme of fairness. mitt romney opposes the buffett rule. we're talking about tax returns a lot this week in chicago. >> s.e., the candidate that the white house wanted to run against but thought it would run against, emphasis on the wanted part. mitt romney embodies everything that the president's talking about. a multimillionaire who has had his money held in overseas accounts, who has paid a lower tax rate than the secretaries around the country, and who has a real problem connecting with ordinary voters.

john's point, i think the tax thing does not go away. i don't understand how mitt romney gets out of releasing more tax returns. >> you're right that romney should have been the candidate that obama wanted to face. but the climate is certainly ripe for romney as well, if only he could seize on it. i mean, if president obama gets rea leched with unemployment over 8% and $5 gas this summer we can throw historical predictors out the window. that shouldn't by all accounts happen. and it frankly romney's to lose with this economy. tax or no taxes and the buffett rule, $47 billion over 10 years that's a gimmick not a policy. he should capitalize on this. >> you say it's a gimmick, not a policy. yet the republicans have wasted a lot of valuable air time in the world -- air time in the world -- wasted a lot of valuable air time talking to npr, which is five -- i think $500 million over 10 years, nothing the national endowment for the arts, $60 million over

10 years, food safety and inspection services $530 million, amtrak $2.2 billion. >> consider that the tax system is broken and that's frequently invoked when the president is talking about the buffett rule, which does nothing to fix the tax system. with obama care adding 5,000 irs jobs to the dole, i mean -- >> a dole -- >> no it doesn't. >> yes it does. the irs wants to hire 5,000 new people to administer obama care. that is clearly worsening the tax system and not fixing it, along with buffett rule which complicates it. it doesn't make it any bet. >> alex, all of this talk about drop in the bucket, why are we fixated on the silver bullet? why can't we talk about the fact that the buffett rule is one of many things that need to be done to close the budget deficit? so the buffett rule doesn't raise as much money as paul ryan wants to do, it's pixie dust. you know, as you pointed out or joan pointed out what does this plan do?

>> it doesn't do anything. his -- it doesn't raise any revenue. >> it doesn't do anything. >> it doesn't do anything toward revenue, it's a ridiculous comparison. >> can we talk about mitt romney's taxes? >> yes, we can. >> what else do you know? >> i think, look, what -- i think alex, you're right, there's a huge amount of pressure on him to release more tax returns. at least eric fehrnstrom said the president's people should release 23 years is ridiculous, the president's only released eight years. ten years back, my guess is that what those taxes will show is nothing illegal but an aggressive strategy of tax avoidance. i think there's a big question when the obama campaign prosecutes this, is it okay to be president of the united states if you hired team of lawyers and accountants to pay as little tax as possible to engage in every possible to strategy to minimize what you pay to the common good of the united states? that's an argument that's not about legality, it's about an argument of patriotism, to the

country's best interest. >> strong words. when do they need to do that, john? the thinking is -- >> they need to see tax returns before they can make that argument. the question is what it takes to get the pressure to build. you can't make that argument until you see returns. that's when they have to wait. >> team romney, what point do they need to do this? i think it would behoove them -- >> when is summer vacation? >> in july. >> it will be memorial day friday. >> friday night dump. >> the olympics. >> 4:30. >> during opening ceremony of the olympics. >> it's all giggles here. this would be -- sitting on this until the general, after the conventions, would not seem like a prudent measure. getting it out of the way now may be, hoping the american public isn't paying that much attention would be the most sound strategy. >> i'm not sure it goes away. whether he gets out of the way out in or the last minute, i don't know which does better. >> i don't know the answer to the question. but i will say prudence is not

the watch word for the campaign because they should have gotten that out of the way a year ago or 15 months ago or 4 years ago. they could have dealt with this a long time ago. they're kind of trapped by it. i'm not sure there's a right way out. >> it wasn't an issue four years ago. that is a measure of how the conversation around taxes change that they didn't feel like they had to do this. that is a very interesting change that benefits president obama. >> eight months ago when there were seven other people running and he had cover that would have been an ideal time. >> engaging in different tax strategies running for president. >> he didn't do anything illegal, let's be clear about that. >> it's already the argument about the car elevator, the car elevator. it's the car elevator. if you're running for president and you're trying to connect, working and middle class, do you need a four-car elevator right now? >> does anyone need an elevator? >> and a swiss bank account or accounts in the caymans, you don't need those things. >> they are legal things.

optically problematic. >> speak to mitt romney's tin ear, whether -- leave aside the taxes but the car elevator and the i don't care about poor people and the other things that he has said. >> the two cadillacs. >> ann drives two cadillacs. he has a way of talking about his wealth and his circumstances that make it abundantly clear that he's over here, and the people he hopes to lead are over there and there's no connection between the two. >> oh mitt romney, after the break, president george w. bush makes a rare public appearance discussing taxes and the economy. details next on "now." who is the "your business" entrepreneur of the week? like many small business owners, carmen from auburn, new york, struggling with the rising cost of gas.

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you, and i have decided to stay out of the limelight. i had plenty of the limelight. i don't think it's good, frankly, for our country to undermine our president and i don't intend to do so. if you raise taxes, in other words, i wish they weren't called the bush tax cuts. if there call some other body's tax cuts they're less likely to be raised. but if you raise -- if you raise taxes, you're taking money out of the pockets of consumers. >> those were some of the highlights of former president george w. bush's speech this morning at an event in new york city. s.e.? >> look, i'll leave it to some other body, too, to criticize. say what you want about president bush i think he's handled himself in a really classy way since leaving. and really has not, as he mentioned there, injected himself into the national discussion about this president and the way that some former presidents have right when they leave office, can't seem to let go of the limelight, and i think

he's been a really sort of selfless former president. >> he is coming out -- perhaps unsurprisingly -- in support of the bush tax cuts. >> he's being very selfless because he's doing president obama, again, a huge favor reminding us of the bush tax cuts and the fact that they did not create jobs, they did not buoy the economy, the economy was destroyed under his presidency. tying himself to those tax cuts is a very good thing for the president. >> obama extended them. >> well, under duress, with a gun to his head, with the congress that wouldn't do anything else. >> okay. all right. >> but they will ex-spipire thi year. >> i'm reminded, watching george w. bush, thinking about the heated rhetoric and the name calling and that's putting it mildly, that's directed the way of president obama, is george w. bush, i mean, where would he sit in the modern republic, in the current contemporary republican party? >> i'm not sure. you know what?

in that clip that you showed, it shows i think the real george bu bush, the statesman george bush when he said not just that he's going to relinquish the limelight but said i will not undermine our president. >> right. >> by stepping in. that's what a statesman does. in the republican party, unfortunately, there aren't that many statesmen. poor speaker john boehner is the only person i can think of in the republican party who rises to that level. and if more -- >> occasionally and then gets pulled back. >> if more republicans could follow bush's lead in terms of being a statesman, i think the country would be in a much better place. >> bravo, jonathan capehart. >> like not calling him stupid, maybe not calling the president stupid. >> one other way, the couldnntr would be in better shape, president bush was a republican, and really across the board, a visionary when it came to the

importance of the hispanic vote in the republican party, a hero as governor of texas resisting draconian anti-immigrant legislation, he came into the office, won 40% of the hispanic vote 2004, understood, along with karl rove, if the republican party could not capture over ho, closer to 50% the republican party would never be a national governoring body, something the republican party has forgotten to its peril. >> a bush love fest today. >> not quite. >> but it is a reminder of how far rightward the party has swung and the uphill climb facing mitt romney as he tries toive pivot back to the center. >> the hispanic population in the u.s. is exploding. very questionable political strategy do what they're doing but again, getting inside the mind of a republican is a difficult thing, s.e. >> get out of my mind. stay out of my mind. >> we will. coming up, the tea party puts the heat on long sitting

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obama's failed energy policy has gas prices skyrocketing. families are paying the price. yet dick lugar wanted to raise gas taxes a dollar a gallon. that's right, lugar wanted us pay an extra dollar for every gallon of gas. that's outrageous. >> that was a new ad taking aim at indiana republican senator dick lugar, the 35-year incumbent facing a tough fight from a tea party challenger, a sign that the gop's old guard could be at risk this election year. dick lugar, under fire from an indiana state treasurer, richard murdoch. we talk a lot on the show about the decline in moderates in --

or the endangered species that is the moderate republican or moderates in congress. dick lugar is now being attacked for not being conservative enough. the murdoch has backing of the nra, club for growth. he's been in office for 35 years. it's a long and storied career and to some degree everybody has to sort of say good-bye at some point. but it is i think a really interesting case study in what is happening to the republican party between the splinter not just old and new but moderate and extreme. >> why doesn't anyone bring up the splinter that's happened in the democratic party when folks like ben nelson and blanch lincoln leave? i think you're right, it's hard to be a moderate but it's hard to be a moderate on both sides. both parties are pushing to the extremes a little bit and i think it's a little disingenuous to suggest this is happen because of the tea party on right when it happens on the left as well. >> come on, s.e.

>> wasn't driven out by a left wing primary challenger. those people are also being affected by the general conservative drift in their states. >> you also have -- >> affected by the idea that they can't get re-elected and going out. >> when you have someone like senator bennett in utah who has been there for a long time, seniority, people loved him in the state. >> right. >> no moderate. >> right. wildly conservative. and was driven out in the primary process. so what's happened to senator lugar is not a new thing or novel thing, he's one more domino in a lot of dominos that have fallen as a result of tea party challenges or i should say far right challenges in their own party. >> you have to wonder, when dick lugar decided back in 2006 to become barack obama's best friend in the senate, whether he realized that being at the republican who barack obama most talked about as being the republican who heed amered and who he could work with and goes

into -- a symbol of the bipartisan climate he wanted to foster in the united states capitol you wondered if lugar wouldn't realize it would be one of the things that contributed to the downfall. >> governor cyst in florida, the hug. >> the hug. there is data to support the rightward swing of the republican party has been more severe and dramatic than on the left. but talking about the tea party specifically, a fox news poll from last month on the tea party, favorables in april 2010 were 36%. now 34%. now at 51%. i think you're starting to see is democrats starts to run against tea party and to say this guy was a champion of tea party politics in congress, i'm running for the seat, give to me, policies are not only obstructionist but some level draconian. >> i think it's hard to be a tea party candidate that came in in

2010, you're damned if you do, you're damned in you don't. when someone like marco rubio endorses mitt romney, he's called a shill for the republican party and his tea party accolades are questioned. when someone who is a tea party candidate stands up for principle they're called an obstructionist. it's been a difficult road but there's still this tea party ethos out there that wants these people to continue to run, people like murdoch, to continue to run and fight, especially when you have someone like john boehner who has been mealymouthed, not a little, a lot mr lot. >> or a statesman. >> trying to do something -- >> we saw this in 2006, places where tea party candidates won in senate elections statewide, christine o'donnells a good example, sharron angle, tea party candidates won, and seats they could have won and house seats are different, few house seats where a tea party candidate is currently occupying a seat that the democrat could

win the district. >> i don't know about that. >> but having a tough time -- >> with one or two. >> we'll see. >> you have congressional seats in new jersey, illinois, new york, where folks are saying i'm running against the tea party. >> yes, but they're not going to win those races. >> ooh think it's a testament to the unpopularity of the tea party. it's worth noting in terms of fostering, if tension more than anything else, eric cantor pouring $25,000 to a republican group that is focused on defeating other republicans and you talk about the split between boehner and cantor in congress, i think that this is evidence of just how the old and the new aren't mixing very well. but s.e., you say no? >> well, i'm not going to disagree there's clearly a rift. but maybe it's a well-designed rift. maybe it's these two folks playing good cop, bad cop. one speaking to one group, one is speaking to another. >> there's strategy behind this. >> it's amazing -- >> i don't know if it's working

well. >> it's amazing that idea of someone in the congressional leadship should be backing primary challenges against his members is unprecedented. it really is an incredible thing. >> that's a strategy, it's an interesting one. >> i think it's a scorched earth strategy. a new book calls a number of people living alone the biggest um named social challenge of last 50 years and argues that's a good thing. talk going solo with the book's author, next. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site.

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it's a mix of women, middle-aged adults and elderly. joining the panel, kate bolick contributing editor at atlantic. and eric klinenberg, author of "going solo, the extraordinary rise and surprising appeal of living alone." let's talk a little bit about this. these numbers are surprising. 1950, 22% of american adults were single, 4 million lived alone and accounted for 9% of all households. today, 50% of american adults are single, 31 million living alone, that's 28% of all households. >> i call this the biggest social change of the last 60 years that we have failed to name or identify. it is something that exists on a big scale, it's changes the world. it's changed our cities. it's changed the economy. it's also changed our personal lives. we live differently today. >> kate, you did an incredible amount of research for your story in the "atlantic," looking

at it from the female perspective, social norms of women living alone have changed greatly, it's not the old maid syndrome, i'm independent, this is a choice. >> the stigmas have fall an way. it's changed how at front end of our lives when we're younger we're getting married later and less often so we have this longer chapter of being on our own and then at the other end we are divorcing more rapidly in the kind of 50 and over set so we have people living alone, there as well. and someone thing that interests me how this changes family formations. so we have, you know, now that we have more women who are secondle, unmarried longer, childless longer they have more time to be an aunt, for instance, and spend time with their nieces and nephews in a way they couldn't in the past. >> uncle jonathan? >> love them when they start crying, to mama. >> eric, you write in the book,

we move so often that some sociologists call modern neighborhoods communities of limited liability, places where people make connections without expecting links to be deep or lasting. for the first time in history, the german socialists chimed, the individual is becoming the basic unit of social reproduction. everything revolves around it. >> it's a big change, you know? 30, 40 years ago, even if you were in a marriage and it wasn't working out, you had to justify getting out of it. today, we're so compelled by this idea that we should do what works for us as individuals, that if the marriage isn't working, you have to justify staying in it. >> staying in it. >> things have changed. you can see it as a story of the rise of selfishness and narcissism but i think it would be a mistake, and here's why. turns out people who live alone are more likely to socialize with friends and neighbors than people who are married, that we know that they are more likely to go out at night, spend time

in money and bars and cafes. they're more likely to volunteer in civic organizations than people married and that's true for women who have more time on their own, when in a family they're taken by a lot of other concerns. >> do you have more time to go out to cafes and do civic organization, joan? >> yes, that's all i do. i mean, my daughter's in college now, so i officially am living alone, with my labradoodle, i have to add, for the first time in you know 25 years. so it is different. but i -- you know, i love it in a lot of ways. you do find these surprising pleasures. and i like hearing you say that actually people, it forces people to form new kinds of communities that we weren't -- we haven't figured out yet. we don't really know what society's going to look like but having people going out rather than staying home is good in a lot of different ways, social capital. >> we talk as if there was once

a golden age, 50 years ago, when our marriages were stronger, our communities were tighter, the children were happier, no one was lonely, this whole story. and it's leak there's been a fall since then, we keep losing everything. i don't think that's right. i think it's a myth. i think in fact people are remaking lives in all kinds of fascinating ways today, finding new ways to make connections, some people use the internet to make connections, social media, but also making connections face to face. what's exciting to me is to see how incredibly capable we are of making meaningful lives in these new situations. >> look back at the women question, because they are more often than not folks living alone female, 2009, 21% home buyers. single men accounted for 10%. in some ways living alone an ex-tr ex-tre extrapolation of successful women, when in 1957 when folks who lived alone were considered

sick, immoral, nur rottic. but is it a testament to women and choices they have, is it not? >> exactly. we have more financial freedom to make choices we couldn't make before has changed a lot. >> women have more control in their lives in general. economic independences a big driver but you need that personal independence, too. saudi arabia is a place where there's high levels of affluence, almost nobody lives alone because women can't opt to do that. whereas in countries where there's women's liberation as well as economic prosperity, you see tremendously high levels of living alone. >> you know, when talk about this, obviously there are a lot of single folks living in new york city. but we talk about the rhetoric in the current presidential race, someone like rick santorum, who has written a book called "it takes a family" and is nearly obsessed with the idea of the family unit and a husband and a wife and traditional nuclear family. >> a particular kind of family. >> very traditional. and you read this, it's like well the rest of the world, or at rest of the country may be

moving in one country and here's a platform that seems out of step with the times. >> yes, which might explain one of the reasons why you know, rick santorum does -- is doing reasonably well in the republican primary but talking about republican primary voters. if he were to become the republican nominee, his chances of beening president of the united states are slim because the vision that he has of this country, particularly his vision of what family means is so out of step with where the majority of the country is now. there are a lot of people who don't fit the narrow, traditional band definition of family who are empowered economically but socially to not put up with a view like that, certainly not vote for someone who would espouse that from the white house. >> all of the single ladies are voting for president obama in every poll, that's clear. >> i want to talk about the economic impact of living alone.

as folks get closer to retirement, this is a greater -- if you are living alone, you are relying on your own finances to support you, not that of a spouse or partner. and this sort of impact that has on the social safety net, especially when talking about dismantling the social safety net. >> two big things happening now. one, boomers are aging, we're about to see more people aging alone than ever before. it's not clear we're equipped for the challenges that come with ageing alone. and the big reason is because who knows what's going to happen to all of these social programs, you know, home care, health care, subsidized housing, social security, all things are up for grabs. one way to see a substantial drop in living alone, the bottom falls out of that stuff the recession has not resulted in a decline living alone. on the contrary that are far more americans living alone in 2012 than 2007. tough economic times are tough on marriages, divorce rates tend to go up.

if you're single and not doing well economically, you're reluctant to take on the responsibility of a marriage so people hunker down a little bit. that's not just true in the united states. you find that in many other places as well. a big economic collapse and the end of the welfare state that could do something. let's hope it doesn't happen. >> let's hope the boomers are listening to this as they make their choices at the polls in november. thank you kate bolick, and eric klinenberg, the best book written about "going solo" on newsstands. ozzie guillen apologizes for praising fidel castro. we'll talk about that next in "what now." what's with you? trouble with a car insurance claim. [ dennis ] switch to allstate. their claim service is so good, now it's guaranteed. [ foreman ] so i can trust 'em. unlike randy. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate.

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i'm very, very, very sorry about the problem, about what happening, and i will do everything to make it better. i don't blame those people to think what they think right now because they have all the right

because i hurt a lot of people and i'm aware of that. >> welcome back. time for "what now." miami marlins suspended ozzie guillen five games over his comments over fidel castro. guillen apologized for his remarks. joan what do you make of this. bud selig says mr. guillen's remarks offensive to a important part of the community and no place in our game talking about fidel castro. >> i find it interesting. ozzie is being ozzie, he says stupid things with regularity. he was not suspended for a gay slur he used a few years ago. he apologized. it's interesting that you can slur gays but praise fidel castro and you're sitting on the clubhouse for five games. >> ozzie lives in little havana. >> i sort of think that just like he's going to get a punishment enough just like around the house.

every time he tries to come home. >> even in his press conference he allow oewded to that, i feel that i've offended this community. >> right. >> ozzie being ozzie, as joan said, is right and he's said lamentable things. vie to imagine a number of managers and players over the course of the years have said really lamentable, offensive things. to be suspended for making political comments that were dumb, i think that's a little weird, bordering on free speech issues. >> i totally think it's bordering on free -- say what you like -- >> i'm no fan of fidel, but that's weird. >> should you not talk about your own personal political beliefs in. >> as a birdie told me, isn't it ironic that he's exercising free speech, talking about the leader of a country that doesn't allow free speech. >> yes. >> this is what the anti-cuban, anti-castro hard-liners of the united states do all the time, use intimidation against people who want to change u.s. policy in cuba, in the service of

greater democracy in cuba, there's a lot of hypocrisy that goes on. >> if you muzzle ozzie guillen, get him the of the game. >> speaking of the u.s. constitution, arizona sheriff joe arpaio happy two members of congress are taking results of his cold case posse birther investigation seriously but he says gop presidential candidates are, quote, hiding the issue. i did you know, arpaio saying, i appreciate two representatives, speaking of vicki heartsler and cliff stearns having colonel to speak out about the legitimacy of the obama birth certificate released by the white house. when -- it's never going to end, is it? >> no, it's not going to end, because you have the republican party and then you have the far right wing of the republican party and then you have these birthers who will not accept any solid proof whatsoever that barack obama is president of the

united states and he is there legitimately by birth, by citizenship, and by the american people who put him there. why are we continuing to talk about joe arpaio and his silly birther pseudoinvestigation is beyond me. >> that's the mark of every conspiracy theorist, they're not compelled by facts, not convinced, they will not go the grave not believing the facts. as someone who used to live in arizona i miss the era when sheriff joe was this awesome guy who made prisoners walk around in pink uniforms. >> being investigated by the justice department at present. if this is certainly not the last time we'll talk about and the cold case posse. that is all for now. see you back here tomorrow, noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific, joined by former assistant secretary of state, p.j. crowley, and michael steele. until then, you can find us

facebook.com/nowwithalex. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. hello. >> alex, thanks so much. next is the buffett rule just pixie dust, as paul ryan claimed on "morning joe"? what gene spur ling has to say about that when we talk to the president. top economic adviser a few minutes from now? we'll hear from w., a rare appearance from the former president. taxes, budgets and life after the white house. plus, wildfires, bears on the loose, and a top marlin suspended. all that next here on "andrea mitchell reports." bu t will it last. [ male announcer ] new lashblast 24hr with anti smudge power will last through all your drama. who knew lashes this big could last this long. [ male announcer ] new lashblast 24hr from covergirl.

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