that he would accept. >> i'm not asking to discuss it. >> how about rudy? he has just endorsed mitt. >> i didn't go to the nicest drx i went to the best doctor. >> yes. mitt romney. the candidate who reminds supporters of prostate cancer. good luck. that's right. we begin with mitt romney in pennsylvania with marco rubio this afternoon and fueling more speculation about just who is on the romney's dance card as he courts potential veeps. and bringing a touch latin flair and a healthy dose of gop star power as evidenced today. >> there is only one choice running for president that will help us reclaim and recamden you are that make this nation different from all the other countries of the earth. and he happens to be here today.

his name is mitt romney. >> yes, indeed, the dynamic duo of romney and rubio. with paul ryan and rob portman among other top prospects, you can see the skin consonants are a key consideration. but to hear senator rubio tell it, he is nowhere near picking out his nomination suit. >> do you still stand by, i wouldn't accept it if he -- >> i'm not going to discuss the process. i'm going to be respectful of the process he has put in place. i'm not going to discuss it. there's a real process put in place. i think it would be wise for republicans to respect that process. >> i'm getting the idea that there is a process and it is in place. what about another famed floridian. one jeb bush. doesn't he get a turn on the dance floor? here ensues a bit of political do-see-do. >> i can't speak for governor

romney and i can't speak for senator rubio. if i was on both sides of that conversation, i would ask and i would hope that marco would accept. >> that's very nice of jeb. i hope he'll say yes if future president romney asks hill. i think he would be a fantastic vice president. >> that's adorable. do you know what's not adorable? prostate cancer. that appears to be all that comes to mind for cancer survivor rudolph giuliani when he tries to say nice things about mitt romney. >> this reminds me of going to a surgeon, right? if i've got a terrible cancer or something to be operated on, when i had to be operated or for prostate cancer, i didn't go to the nicest doctor. i went to the best drx a doctor can have great jokes but put the knife in the wrong way. >> just how we want to think of ourselves. seriously ill patients in need of surgery. perhaps romney should switch his campaign slogan to, i want to be sedated. let's bring in our panel, none

of whom are sedated. clarence page, msnbc political analyst richard wolffe, and political report he for the "washington post." good afternoon to all of you. if i might start with you. marco rubio will not even itary word that rhymes with veep. he is respecting the process. what do you think? could he bring aboard the passion and fire that romney really lacks? >> he could but that's a real danger as you saw. he would overshadow the top of the ticket which is not a desirable situation. whether you have a surgeon's knife or not. and the thing with rubio is, i think the decision really is going to be in his hands more than it is with the nominee. because if he's got any real prospects, any real talent, he would know that being a winning or losing veep this time around will not help him get the top job. winning and losing veeps have terrible track records. here's a guy with a real shot of

winning the nomination himself in 2016. he should sit it out. >> you really think that. we heard a bit of the lovefest. would the name bush really help romney on the ticket? >> probably not. you see that the obama campaign is already trying to link romney to some of the politics of the past to the bush campaign. and it worked obviously very well for them in 2008. i don't think nominating jeb bush would necessarily help this ticket and i think again, they're the same considerations that marco rubio is administration. jeb bush trying to look at his political future and probably figuring being a winning or losing vice president wouldn't help him get the top job eventually. >> we've seen new reports from the associate press today that unemployment has dropped in more than a dozen battleground states, including pennsylvania, where romney is today. so if that trend continues, i guess it doesn't make any difference who the vp is. >> good news for the economy and

for most americans is bad news for the republican ticket right now because their strongest selling point, as we've heard mitt romney say repeatedly, is that president obama is not up to the task of making the economy grow faster. whereas i mitt romney am. that issue is taken away from him. it is hard to say what else he has. maybe health care, depending on how the supreme court decision comes out. >> right. richard, politico.com reports faye former president bill clinton is working as something of a campaign whisperer for president obama. suggesting he abandoned the line that romney has no core and instead depicts him as he likes to call himself, severely conservative. do you think that's the right way to go? >> i think i've read those clinton stories in every single cycle. which either shows that he is the whisperer to all candidates which may be true. he does have a very sharp political antenna, or those stories serve somebody's purpose there. do i think it is true, yeah, no

question the obama campaign is striking more firmly at this idea that romney is at his heart, really, truly severely to the extreme of where america is right now. so yes, extremism is there. but i don't think they will drop it. i think it is an either/or. they are saying that he is a flip-flopper and has no core and that he has adopted extreme conservative positions because of this primary situation. there is no reason, the truth is what it is. there is no reason why you can only argue one side of this. because mitt romney is trying to have it both ways. >> clarence, i've noticed mitt romney is now using certain attacks on him to defend himself. and he is almost playing the role of victim. he says when people talk about his vast amount of money, that what they're really doing is generating the ideas of division and jealousy. when in fact what we want to know is why does he have swits bank accounts, why does he store money in the grand cayman, why

is he delayed submitting his tax returns. >> playing the victim card can be a useful strategy if the public identifies with you enough that they feel an attack against you is an attack against them. we certainly saw newt gingrich and other more hard core conservatives play that card well in the past for appealing to their base. mitt romney is still in search of his base. while also reaching out to those undeclared middle of the road swing voters out. there i don't know how much the victim card will help him in this instance. nevertheless, you play whatever card you have and this is one that mitt romney finds convenient. >> he does. another one that he's playing is him delivering his usual untruth about the president's alleged apology tour abroad. take a listen, nia. >> we need to have a president who will stop apologizing for success here at home and stop

apologizing for success abroad. >> the president has never apologized. that is an outright lie. yet he keeps saying it. >> it's true and it's vex mitt romney in search of the base. in search of a way to fire up the base. it does have a great amount of disdain for this president and mistrust for this president. so you do hear him saying that in almost every stump speech. he has now not only paired this apology idea abroad with also success at home essentially saying that the president is somehow apologizing for success at home which of course, he is pointing to his own position as a very wealthy man in that instance. i think eventually, and i think we're already seeing it to a certain extent. mitt romney will have to drop some of these sort of red meat base generating excitement base excitement lines and start to pivot to the general and a more moderate mitt romney. and you're going to have to see what the obama campaign does in

that instance. they try to frame him as somebody who is severely conservative or a flip-flopper. and i agree with richard that it will probably be both. >> nia-malika talks about the smoke screen. first he accuses the president of apologizing every day and then he blames the president for things that happened during george bush's presidency. there was that ludicrous situation last week where he was about a factory that closed. and of course, it closed during the bush presidency. not during the president's. >> let's have a moment of pity and sympathy for mitt romney here. i think really hard to make the argument on the economy which is the core of his premise for being president. it is not just that the unemployment rate is dropping in those core battleground states as you said a moment ago. the argument at the heart of it is that the economy could have been, should have been better were it not for president obama. that's a might have, conditional

situation. whichch actually the president was trying to argue in 2010. but for me, things would have been worse. it's very hard to project out what might have been. and if you are going into an election saying, things could have been better if republicans were in charge, it is pretty thin. so i can see why he is trying to shift his arguments, find something that work. in the enhe is getting back to locking down his base. he has not done that either. >> indeed. does romney continue this kind of smoke screen tour? or does he start telling the truth? >> let me hard back to when bill clinton apparently said, according to politico. that romney, it's easy to attack him as a flip-flopper. that has been done and he has offered ample material. what could really hurt him the most would be the image of being the severe conservative that he tried to describe himself as, appealing to his base. i think that clinton is on to something. he has a pretty good ear for what's going on in middle america.

a lot of american find his being a flip-flopper to their advantage. that maybe he isn't that hard core and maybe he'll flip-flop into my direction. that's the kind of thing a politician vants voters to think. for mitt romney, he still has that dilemma of appealing to that hard core conservative base while trying to reach the swing voters who like flip-floppers. >> indeed. clarence page, richard wolffe, mia-malika. thank you all. the last quarter was the best quarter we've had in six years in job creation. the last quarter was the best quarter we've had on manufacturing in two decades. >> he says, well, look, things are getting better. i hope they're getting better. gosh, i hope they're getting better. that's not because of him. that's in spite of him. i remember the day my doctor told me i have an irregular heartbeat,

and that it put me at 5-times greater risk of a stroke. i was worried. i worried about my wife, and my family. bill has the most common type of atrial fibrillation, or afib. it's not caused by a heart valve problem. he was taking warfarin, but i've put him on pradaxa instead. in a clinical trial, pradaxa 150 mgs reduced stroke risk 35% more than warfarin without the need for regular blood tests. i sure was glad to hear that. pradaxa can cause serious, sometimes fatal, bleeding. don't take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding, and seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. pradaxa may increase your bleeding risk if you're 75 or older, have a bleeding condition like stomach ulcers, or take aspirin, nsaids, or bloodthinners, or if you have kidney problems, especially if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all medicines you take, any planned medical or dental procedures, and don't stop taking pradaxa without your doctor's approval, as stopping may increase your stroke risk. other side effects include indigestion, stomach pain, upset, or burning.

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the president's team on defense over some troubling poll number in our innings "wall street journal" poll. case in point, the six-point lead that mitt romney apparently holds on the president, on issue number one, the economy. while the president leads overall in our poll, that number was enough to get obama adviser david axelrod wielding magical mixed metaphors on "meet the press." >> i think that government romney at the early stage gets a bit of an advantage because he has the businessmen and people assume because of that, he'll bring some magic elixir to the economy. when they get under the hood and see what he is proposing, more massive tax cuts for the wealthy, fewer rules for wall street. i think people will say we've seen this movie before and it

didn't work. >> i'm delighted to say that we're joined now by dnc chair woman debbie wasserman schultz. we're delighted to have you here. you're facing a candidate who changes position more time than the u.s. gymnastics team that's going to the olympics. he is a candidate whose own party regards him as inauthentic. all the polls suggest that the public say they trust the president more than they would trust romney. they say he would say things just to please them rather than tell him the truth. in the new york time, he is neck in neck with the president. what's going on? >> well, actually, let me take up with a microscope what david axelrod said this weekend. and just look at the record. as a public servant, the only record we have is when he was governor of massachusetts. at the end of the day you'll see the american public support president obama because we've gone from bleeding 750,000 joks

a month when he took office to after three years, 25 straight months of private segtor job growth. compare that with the only opportunity and massachusetts was 47th out of 50 with job creation. they had double the national average in reduction in manufacturing jobs. >> notwithstanding these facts, the polls suggest that the president and romney are neck in neck. >> that's why we have to not put too much stock in april of the election year. >> you say that -- >> even with president obama being ahead, i would say that when polls favor us and when polls are not going our way. the american public is not paying extremely close attention to the two candidates. you've got the general election, mitt romney hasn't even wrapped up the nomination yet. when the voters get the opportunity to get a really close look, mitt romney is still

a job destroyer. someone who took companies apart, sold off the pieces, let people go and sold the pieces for profit. >> in the book, the rude guide to mitt. mitt romney is very weird. he seem incapable of natural conversation. all video of him attempting to interact with normal humans is cringe inducing. cookiegate last week was another example of an embarrassing inaction with the public. and yet in polling, i have to put it back to you. the president isn't ahead. if he is, it is mild. it is within the margin of error. >> if you look at the key, again, not putting too much stock in polls. if you look at some of the key groups, demographic groups going to arguably be the deciding vote. women, latino voters, middle class voters, indianependents a

moderates. the president is ahead in all those groups, at least latinos and women by double digits. in the polling that came out recently, the president is ahead with men by three points which is extremely rare most don't end up being ahead. that's because president obama has been fighting for the middle class. fighting to get the economy turned around. mitt romney is obsessively helping people doing well and sure they can do even better. >> you've never struck me as someone who overreaches or makes grandiose claim about a forthcoming election. >> thank you. >> do you feel vulnerable about november? >> i don't feel vulnerable. i feel focused. we need to make sure that you cannot sit on a lead. you cannot take anything for granted. you have to be singularly focused on doing exactly what the obama campaign has been doing in the democratic party as well and that is standing up, the most dynamic grassroots campaign in history. while the republicans are

cowtowing to the special interests, trying to outdo each other. we are focused on the middle class. we're focused on organizing, opening obama campaign offices around the country, thousands and thousands of contacts through phone calls and door knock and one-on-one meetings and really making sure that this is a people powered campaign. >> some people have the that the republican appear. pugh polls suggest the president as a result of thing said during the republican primary has been attacked more negatively than romney. >> they have certainly spent an extraordinary amount of time attacking the president. >> and it looks as though it's having an effect. >> i think it is having a pretty damaging effect on them. particularly with women. there is now anywhere from a 13 to a 23-point gap with the president being ahead with women. because it's clear that mitt romney is dramatically out of touch with women in the issues

and the priorities that matter to us. wanting to take us back to a time when insurance company could drop us or deny us coverage simply because of our agenda. a preexisting condition. charging us up to 50% more simply because we're women. focusing on not making sure that we can have access to affordable birth control and taking us back to a time when we had to worry about that. those are things, i have never been more concerned in my life. in my generation of women. has never been more concerned where my rights that i have accepted and taken for granted for far too long are in jeopardy if mitt romney becomes president of the united states. as a woman. >> congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz. as we go to break interesting president strikes a pose. stay with us. >> we have to see you strike the heisman pose. [ female announcer ] with swiffer wet

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will the conundrum could be drawn by the new york time writer timothy egan who does not deal in half measures. take george w. bush. he enjoyed a warm relationship with alcohol until he decided to ditch the stuff after weighinging up with a hangover on his 40th birthday. a hangover. perhaps a perk word to describe the condition of the country after his second term. jimmy carter was also a tea totaler. and he remains a famous obama comparison among republicans. on the flip side, many of the

most legendary leaders have also enjoyed the greatest libations. ronald reagan certainly enjoyed a bottle of suds and remains a political hero for even the most sober of political politicians. how about fdr to whom all drinkers should raise a glass? he managed to navigate the new deal, steer the nation through second world war, while imbibing a range of martinis and of course, ending prohibition. then there is the current president. a leader who decided to poor cold beer when a racial firestorm threatened to break out involving a harvard don and a local police officer. thankfully the beer seem to do the trick. which leaves with us this question. who would you rather toast? for me the answer is simple. an expert in drink and diplomacy. a man who said, i could not live without champagne, in victory i deserve it. in defeat i need it.

the incomparable winston churchill. stay with us. >> this reminds me of going to a surgeon, right? if i've got a terrible cancer or something to be operated on, when i had to be operated on for prostate cancer, i didn't go to the nicest doctor. i went to the best doctor. a guy can have a great personality and tell great jokes but put the knife in the wrong way. ♪

oh. let's go. from the crack, off the backboard. [ laughs ] dad! [ laughs ] whoo! oh! you're up! oh! oh! so close! now where were we? ok, this one's good for two. score! [ male announcer ] share what you love with who you love. kellogg's frosted flakes. they're gr-r-eat! from mitt's magical elixir and a fist pump, the top lines. ? ever got romney gets a bit of an advantage. people assume he will bring some magic elicks ir. >> we're not stupid. it is the economy. >> the last quarter was the best quarter we've had in six years. >> you'll see one person after

the other castigated. my dd's dad went broke more than once. >> it was the bush policies updated. >> i'm a huge fan of marco rubio's. >> i hope he'll say yes. >> among many candidates, marco is probably the best. >> i love you. i'm not even embarrassed to say it. >> why cannot we say it more often? >> i'm not going to discuss the process. i'm going to be respectful of the process. >> some joker taking pictures of me at madison square garden. i put my head back and listened to the song. i was fist pumping during the song. >> they were not like secret service agents. they were acting like a bunch of students at spring weekend. >> i can't help but keep asking the question. where are the women? >> we don't want a president who shoots first and asks questions later. >> the parties are supposed to be big.

bring in all ideas. >> at love republicans ntsb tlals of this reign of terror. >> what they do in china. they knock you out. governor romney and the party have gone way to the right. >> this reminds me of a surgeon. >> a guy could have a great personal and tell great jokes and put a knife in the wrong way. >> let's get right to our he is steamed political panel. michael erick dyson is the author of debating race. from the new york daily news and hope of the show at glenbeck.com. romney said he is the victim of a vast left wing conspiracy. take a look at this exchange from sunday morning. not with the candidate but with a surrogate doing his bidding. and listen to how he says romney refuses to appear. >> thank you very much for joining us. we hope he can check that with

you from time to time as we get closer to november and of course we would love to have governor romney on "face the nation." >> thank you for having me. >> what about governor romney? >> we're in constant discussions with your staff and i'm sure we'll find an opportunity in the near future to bring him on the show. >> as he asked him in today's show, does romney think we're all stupid? >> i mean, obviously so. first of all, a little show that bob schieffer, a goo you don't know in journalism. he's only been around 40, 50 years can that even get mr. romney to show up. playing the victim card here is quite deliciously ironic since it is the republicans always claiming it is liberal who's are constantly evoking and e-vincing the victim card. and can't you write your own lines? now you're pilfering from the '90s? and hillary rodham clinton who was roundly dismiss asked denigrated as some kind of lunatic fringe paranoid and now mr. romney is bringing back that line from the clinton

administration? they just can't get enough of the democratic lines. let's keep a democratic president to fulfill a democratic ambition. it seems to be that end point of what mr. romney is ill applying. >> what is he frightened of. is he frightened of bob schieffer? "meet the press"? david gregory? are these people, you know, blig renl , belligerent men who will eat you alive? >> i think mitt romney is a very disciplined man. risk averse. i think they've been trying to corral and control the coverage that they get. name me a politician who is not at one time complained about the press. newt gingrich complains the press didn't ask him the right questions at the debate. >> let's stay with mitt romney for a moment. he is the presumptive nominee. he is frightened of bob schieffer. >> i don't think he's frightened. i think he is trying to run art sma campaign. it is better than obama's campaign in which he booted

three conservative journalists off his plane and then tried to keep fox news out of the press pool. >> he went on fox regularly and i don't want to go into prehistoric or ancient history. >> it is not prehistoric. it was the last election. president sat down with bill o'reil o'reilly. i would love to see romney sit down with rachel maddow or the equivalent. mitt romney knl even deal with a fox interview. you saw how brett handled him. if i'm his campaign staff, i don't let him go on these programs either. he gets so uncomfortable whenever he has to go off the skrip. whenever he is challenged at all. he can't deal with it and he bristles. they have to keep this very tight control whenever he is not being fed talking points or reading a teleprompter. >> to krystal's point, even when he was sitting next to people and eating cookies, he managed to be disrespectful to the cookies and sneering toward

them. >> are these real questions? come on. >> that's the point. to krystal's point, this is a man who left to his own devices and subjected to an open conversation like we're having, is actually not very able. i don't think that he is not able. i admitted the first, in the first sentence that i am here, he is risk averse and they've tried to run a very controlled campaign. >> inadequate. not risk averse. >> drive tried to run a controlled campaign. >> professor? >> admit, mitt romney cannot even stand up and articulate his fundamental sveuviewpoints. how do we expect him to make progress in terms of the big issues that confront us if he can't even face a very genial journalist, bob schieffer. i've been on the show several times.

i second to martin bashir, he will not attack you, undermine you, trick you or otherwise mislead you. why is it that mitt romney cannot step up to the plate and put his big grown man pants on and answers the questions of the free media and the press the pugh research central has a study out where they analyzed the media coverage. and romney has gotten the most favorable coverage. the president on the other hand has been at the bottom of the list. >> 34% negative against the public versus 32% for mitt romney. >> and second of all, i think this is part of a broader problem with the romney campaign. they're very short term thinking. it may may very well with the conservative base to be the victim of liberal media bias. but when you're trying to sell yourself to independents as the potential president of the united states, do you really want the image of you to be that you are whining and that you're a victim? that's been very presidential. >> he hasn't been whining. he just started talking about

the press. he spend an entire year avoiding this issue. >> stay with us. next, are republicans prying to blame the president for the secret service scandal? stay with us. [ male announcer ] when a major hospital

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more than 50 times a day? so brighten your smile a healthy way with listerine® whitening plus restoring rinse. it's the only rinse that makes your teeth two shades whiter and two times stronger. ♪ listerine® whitening... power to your mouth. the latest attempt to connect the white house to the secret service scandal in colombia come via republican senator chuck grassley of iowa. he asked whether the investigation includes white house personnel who are also present in colombia and might have entertained guests of their own. admittedly, this could be a legitimate avenue of inquiry. however, this is the same senator who call the president stupid in a tweet two weeks ago. we've already seen several republicans trying to link this to the white house as well as the gsa scandal. interestingly, it is the republican master of the dark

arts, karl rove, who told his gop candidates regarding the gsa scandal to stand down from these wild accusations. >> sure, it creates a problem for president obama. it adds to the sense that washington is broken. if the republicans try to make this a point in their arguments, player making a big mistake. >> back with us, has karl rove lost it? i thought the whole point of these campaigns is to take every single experience opportunity and attack the opposition. he's saying no. >> well, look. i've been very honest on this program as well. you cannot blame the president for gas prices. that's just not fair. and i don't think you can blame the president for the secret service scandal. the gsa thing i think is a little murkier waters. but look, if the white house ignores the secret service issue, doesn't fully investigate it, then i think it is fair to call into question their oversight and leadership over what could have been an

incredibly dangerous and damaging moment for this president. >> just so you know, jay carney, the white house chief press spokesman, said that the white house counsel has conducted their own inquiry already in relation to white house staff. >> that's good. that's good. >> therefore, they're doing as you say. professor dyson, given that mr. grassley called the president stupid about two weeks ago, i guess we can't really take any criticism that he offers. and jay carney said today, the white house looked into the matter. said there is no indication of any ill proper behavior. >> this is just ridiculous. to try to besmirch the president's behavior or suggest that he is connected to this when the very men who are supposed to be protecting him and keeping him out of harm's way were engaged in all kinds of nefarious activities off the books is to really be misled here. i applaud mr. rove for saying this is not the right thing to do. stay out of these murky waters.

it ends up resounding negatively back on the republicans. you can be guaranteed the problem is with the democrats. very soon a similar thing can happen to the republicans. if you have your hand in that cookie jar, it will get cut off too. >> i want you to listen to this. here's one point brought up by two female senators. one republican, one democrat. listen to this. >> i can't help but wonder if there had been more women as part of that detail. if this ever would have happened. >> only 11% of the agents are women. and we agree on this. if there were more agents on the ground, maybe we would not have had this. >> they're right, aren't they? >> a great point. how often do you see female members of congress having the zipper problems that so many of the men do. and just like as in so many spheres of our public life, having a balance of men and women make for a more effective product, brings a more balanced perspective and is important. so i agree with them there.

and going back to that conversation between them, i think that republicans are frankly desperate for the president to have some sort of scandal. and from -- >> you don't think that was a scandal? we've got plenty. we're not desperate. >> by the standards if you look at my alma the matter, he has not had a scandal for a longer period of time than any president in modern history. the next longest period was following 9/11. so it is no surprise that the republican party who said their number one objective was to get the president out of office, is trying to gin up and find something that they can use that they can talk about. >> republicans have plenty to work with. they don't have to go to scandals. to susan collins' point, and i respect her, when it come to the national security of our president, i don't want equality. okay? i don't want this quota amongering. i want the best people protecting our president. so if that happens to be all

men, that's fine with me. >> all the agents were employed with prostitutes. they were otherwise engaged. >> let's not offend and insult an entire body politic of people who by and large do a great job. >> indeed they do. >> by insinuating if there had been women there somehow, these scandals wouldn't happen. i want the best people pregnanting my president. men or women. and i don't like this equality effort. >> professor, you know the whistle blower was in fact a woman. professor? >> we don't want patriarchy to speak through a ventriloquist act here. a woman speaking still patriarchal ideas. women are as equally qualified as men. it is not predicated on gender. what they were arguing is that ability of the women toward the task and these. we wouldn't have been as easily seduced by those activities as has proven to be correct might suggest that women bring a different quality than men who

might be otherwise distracted. i think we have to be careful not to automatically dismiss women as if they are not equally qualified. >> i didn't. i said i wanted the most qualified person for the job, male or female. the idea that somehow women are above this stuff. a long list of women -- >> to immoral behavior. we are not above it. trust me. >> thank you for being so honest. >> you're arguing against a straw man or a straw woman in this case, no one is saying that a less qualified person should be put in that position. we're just saying that we should open our mind up. >> is it closed? are women not allowed? >> i think it has been difficult. thank you so much for joining us. next, we go to the white house. first, amanda has the wrap-up. >> why don't we look at how stocks are doing. we're starting out the week very much in the red.

i should say we are off the day's lows. the dow is still below the 13,000 mark. down by 102 points. the s&p is at 13.66. the nasdaq is below the 3,000 mark. it is off by 28 points. we are first in business worldwide. [ female announcer ] new crest 3d white intensive professional effects whitestrips. it goes below he enamel surface to whiten as well as a five-hundred dollar professional treatment. wow, that's you? [ female announcer ] new intensive professional effects whitestrips.

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just a few hours ago, the president marked the remembrance of the holocaust. the president was introduced by a holocaust survivor and nobel peace prize laureate. >> these are the seeds of hate that we cannot let take root in our hearts. >> nbc kristen walker joiter jo from the white house. he also proposed new sanctions

on syrian agencies and companies that commits human rights abuses. was that designed to make a strong statement coming on the same day as we know he visits the holocaust memorial? >> well, some of the president's republican rivals have certainly criticized him for not being tough enough on iran, on syria, so certainly today the president trying to make the point that he is being tough enough on those regions. he talks about the fact that he's imposing new sanctions specifically on people who are deemed to be using technology to limit people's human rights. and then he spoke more broadly about his foreign policy, martin. he said that this administration has saved countless lives. so to some extent, he was defending the work that had already been done as he announced his new executive order. of course, these comments came on the same day that 19 people died in syria. that situation, a lot of people concerned is moving towards a civil war despite the fact that there has been some level of

intervention. but that is a situation that continues to really dog this president. but today the president announcing some new measures that he hopes will take root and have some impact there. martin? >> kristen, when i was listening to the president speak, particularly about the importance of words and not being abusive so others and not describing other people as something other than human, it's hard -- i'm hard pressed not to imagine that he might have been thinking about some of the things that have been said about him over the last few months. >> well, it's possible that he has been. as you know, he has been criticized from a number of different angles over the past several months. and today he certainly talked about the broader importance of human rights, of intervening when human rights are being stripped. so i think that all of that was at work today, and what was interesting, martin, is that we saw him a bit emotional when he started speaking. you could sort of see it in his eyes and you could hear it in his tone.

martin? >> nbc's kristen walker as always. thank you, kristen. >> thank you. >> we'll be back to clear the air.

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at bank of america, we know the impact that local businesses have on communities. that's why we extended $6.4 billion in new credit to small businesses across the country last year. because the more we help them, the more we help make opportunity possible. time now to clear the air. and on saturday the nation lost a man that proved even in the cynical world of politics, repe repentance can lead to a generated life. chuck callson, whofrs once described as the evil genius in the nixon administration, passed away from complications from brain surgery. before the scandal, callson was an operative who would do anything to further his and his boss's kbiambitions.

he once said he would walk over his own grandmother to make sure he was reelected in '72. one of the most powerful presidential aides, variously described as a trouble shooter and as my master at dirty tricks. those dirty tricks included a so-called intelligence gathering exercise run by a white house special operations unit called the plumbers. callson commissioned the plumbers to break into the office of daniel elsberg's psychiatrist. elsberg had released the credited papers and callson hoped to bring him down. instead, he brought down the entire government. nixon resigned and callson was sent to prison. just before going behind bars, callson said he had found faith and become a christian. the critics quickly suggested this was just a ploy to ensure a lesser sentence. the boston globe memorably

stated that if mr. callson can repent of his sins, there has to be hope for everyone. but colson's repentance was real, and for the rest of his life, he would campaign for humane prison conditions, work release programs, even marriage seminars to help prisoners preparing to reenter society. it took him 40 years of service to prove that his repentance wasn't a highly planned political maneuver but a genuine act of contrition. chuck colson was 80 years of age when he passed away on saturday. thank you very much for watching. dylan ratigan to take us forward. dylan, glad to have you back. how are you? >> great to be here, thank you very much. the show begins right now.