how obama fought back against boehner, cantor and the tea party." president obama just wrapped up speaking at the building and construction trades department conference making his case for re-election on reliability. >> not a perfect man. michele can tell you that. not a perfect president. but i made a promise i'd always tell you where i stood, i'd always tell you what i thought and most importantly i would wake up every single day working as hard as i know how. to make your lives a little bit better. i have kept that promise. and i'm still thinking about you. >> of david corn, this is your first time in this rodeo. i'll go to you first on this. what do you make of that, making the case forever consistency and reliability? >> you know, for the book that you just plugged, thank you for that. >> an incredible book. i encourage everyone to buy a

copy immediately. >> that's even better. >> spoke to -- i just won't say anything. i spoke to some of the campaign people including jim messina. in preparation for this campaign, he went back and read basically every book he could find on every presidential campaign of the last few decades. he came out of it with a very obvious conclusion, which is that campaigns are about the future as much as we will hear mitt romney denigrate the last three years or democrats say mitt romney, look weather did in massachusettses in jobs production, most people look to the president to guide them ahead. so leading forward, marching forward. >> forward in general. so working slogan. >> it's a good thing. it's optimistic compared to the pessimism that the republicans have been pushing with the ryan budget and cut and retrench. it encapsulates an a lot for the president. >> robert traynham is nodding his head in what i presume to be agreement.

>> look, elections are all about the future. remember in 1996 when bob dole said i want to be a bridge to the past. bill clinton said no, we want to be a bridge to the future. so david's exactly right. it's all about the future and what republicans are going to try to say is absolutely it's about the future. if you want the future to look like the past three years, then you need to re-elect president obama. here are the reasons why, the economy is still staggering along. the last president to win re-election with unemployment this high was roosevelt back in 1936. so if you want this future or your future to look like the past, vote for barack obama. >> if i can just jump in, i think you can spin the economic numbers right now either way. the fact is we are in a recovery. gas prices are going to be coming down. tensions in iran are easing. there's good news moving into the fall. the president can spin it in a different way. >> the team obama is certainly trying to put things in context. in order to do that, you have to look backwards to some degree.

there is a new seven-minute video that does a fairly fine job of doing that, putting into perspective what president obama came into office with. let's look at the beginning of that video. >> the worst financial collapse since the great depression. >> this is cataclysmicing. >> american workers laid off in numbers not seen in three decades. >> whoever wins in november is going to come into offices in january facing trillions in new liabilities. >> this is a once in a half century, probably once in a century type of event. >> so the ari, you see that, a lot of gloom and doom. the video is seven minutes long. it goes on to list all of the accomplishments that the president has made, legislatively while in office. we have the unveiling of the new slogan forward. a look back but emphasis towards the future. >> i think the rational mind looks at that and says here's that counter fak cannule argument about what might have been if you had a different response. and the president's response was

the best under the circumstances. they will continue to make that. i think the emotional response because elections are also about emotion and not things you can just spell out in words and ideas, the emotional response is be very afraid. it's economic fear. we've hel other elections on security fear. the fear is suggesting the idea at that time republican party of mitt romney are the not looking out four. so in these tough times, you should be afraid of what the future would be under an alternative leader. >> that's exactly what president clinton said stumping for president obama yesterday. he says he's gotten -- speaking of president obama, he says he's got an opponent who basically wants do what they did before on steroids which will get you the same consequences you got before on steroids. i think it's also important to note as we talk about the shifting sort of messaging strategy of team obama, looking at what the romney camp is doing. we have sort of word from team romney they're going to be focusing less on the red meat conservative issues and not trying to touch abortion and immigration certainly.

the president and i would said republicans in state houses across the country are not doing a great job of helping him avoid those issues. >> what a surprise he's not coming out for mandatory ultrasounds weekly for women. this is what the etch a sketch debate was about. it will make his base restive and remember, about a week or two back, it was bill clinton and other people's advice to team obama, hey, you know, you've been portraying him as a flip-flopper without core but make sure that people don't forget during the campaign, he called himself severely conservative. and going back to ari's point that the conservative economic policy which people associate with the bush years partly can be blamed for what got us to this point. reminding people he's severely conservative while being a flip-flopper is good strategy for them. >> when you talk about conservative economic policies what was amazing this weekend eric fern strom -- play what he said in a "washington post"

discussion this weekend regarding the auto bailouts and the saving of general motors. >> they went to the that managed bankruptcy process. it's exactly what mitt romney told them to do. so consider that. the crown jewel, the only economic success there's president obama has had is because he followed mitt romney's advice. >> okay, rana, let me repeat that again. the only economic success that president obama has had is because he followed mitt romney's advice on the bailouts. which seems to be counter to the facts that exist. what's the difference between a managed bankruptcy process and basically a federal bailout of the industry? >> i don't quite know where to starpt with all the problems in that statement. the president actually could have -- did he great thing by bailing out the auto industry. i think the banking bailouts are problematic. he could be doing a lot more if there was more consensus in congress around job creation. romney completely misplayed the

bailout situation during the primary season. and i think again, it's going to be very hard for him to tack into the center because of where he ended up going back to the points too about the issues he's going to try and avoid, immigration will be very difficult for him to avoid. it's such a big part of the economic conversation right now. >> also to zero in on the quote, there's a credibility problem because he's lying about the history on the bailout. that's a lie. much like there are lies about the state of women in the economy. there's going to be a set of issues here where the facts are so bad for the romney proposal, if you don't want to change the approach at all, right, then you end up saying, well it can't be a problem. so there isn't a problem in how women are paid or isn't a problem in detroit. it's wrong. >> i thought it was brazen to say this is exactly what mitt romney suggested. no, managed bankruptcy is no what we did. that's reliant on the free market and it won't have saved the u.s. auto industry. i'll read the white house response which is gm and chrysler are posting some of

their most profitable quarters in history because president obama bet on american workers. if romney had had his way the american auto industry and the politicalons of jobs it supports would cease to exist. .president obama took his cues on health care from mitt romney. what do you think of team romney trying to own the success of gm and the industry? >> i'm not sure where they're going with this. i think he misspoke. i think he was being disingenuous of the facts. i didn't see the entire quote. the bottom line is to go back to your original point, elections are not only about the future, they're about choices. and then the question becomes about the independent voter according to the gallup poll, the news week and every single poll out there shows independent individuals are still up in the air as to what choice they're going to go with because they've had four years of president obama and so am biv valent when it comes to the economy and

looking at romney and saying -- first of all, what primary. >> where the independent voters are according to the polls, they don't remember him being a severe conservative or to the right on immigration. what they remember him is someone somewhat in the middle who is a moderate and thus in the process may very well from a symbolic standpoint be on the side of the issues that that's important to them. so when it comes down to the election, when it comes down to battleground states and down to the independent voter, they're still very much up in the air. let's be clear about it. >> you know what's really interesting here, you said it's a choice. elections are choices. but they're not always choices. often there's referendums. when there's as incumbent, the other side wants it to be a referendum. i tell the story in the book but the whole general strategic aim from president obama, he decided this himself after the 2010 elections was to make it a choice. not just between him and romney or whoever it would be, but a choice in values and visions between democrats and

republicans. i think mitt romney and the republicans have totally played into this. mitt romney gets out there and says this is election is a choice about the future of america but also the vision and values of america. that will gives barack obama i think much more of a chance than he would have otherwise had had they just come out and said economy, economy, economy. >> i think what's interesting, that's a great point, david. and the word values i think has been coopted by the right for a long time now. it is great to see the left fighting back and saying look, values are at the core of what we think of when we think of policy. >> look at the catholic church and the ryan budget when you talk about values. >> the issue of -- that religious issues around marriage that were big earlier in the primary season. president obama has probably done more more marriage by bailing out detroit because men have jobs. and that's one of the reasons that is marriage --sh. >> draw an economic line. a lot of people that study this

will tell you that. >> that's why she's on the show. while president obama tickles funny bones at the white house correspondents' dinner, mitt romney's campaign tries to make the case that mittens can bring the funny, too. we'll discuss next on "now." [ female announcer ] it figures...on your busiest day you see the gray. try root touch-up by nice 'n easy. just brush our permanent color matching creme right where you need it. then rinse. in ten minutes zap those grays and get on with your day. nice 'n easy root touch-up. all at 150 calories or less, there's definitely a temptations for you. unless you're one of those people who doesn't like delicious stuff. temptations. it's the first jell-o that's just for adults.

much as my stepfather always told me, it's a boy eat dog world out there. we've got men in tuxes, women in gowns, fine wine, first class entertainment. i was just relieved to learn this was not a gsa conference.

my father was born in kenya. and i was born, of course, in hawaii. >> that was president obama saturday night poking fun at himself while addressing some of his critics laughing hard in that shot. callista gingrich. did you see that? >> she has to laugh about something these days. >> david corn. wait till wednesday, my friend. wait till wednesday. president obama, ari, remarking on berth certificate, the birther controversies. eating dog which has become its own controversy. the gsa and secret service were also hit on. too soon do you had i? setting aside the birther stuff? >> i don't think it was too soon. i do think that more than other presidents this president is very careful about making fun of things that seem to be about him but are not. so while gsa has been a

political mumbling bag, it is not a personal failure of the president. the secret service a complex issue that has not even been blamed on him for obvious reasons. he did those but didn't get into the what might be bigger eventual feshlts of his like health care or how they're dealing with the arizona case. >> he did make a joke about passing health care again in his interesting term. >> i don't think the premise of that joke was about him having a problem. that was about -- >> the supreme court. >> interests aligned against him. jokes he made about trump saying we had this big anniversary of defeating a terrible person people are thinking is bin laden and it turns out to be trump. last year's controversies look stupid now. >> it's a way of totally neutralizing the controversy. >> i think he was building. he was building on last year's comedy bit with this year's comedy bit. that was one of the most visceral white house dinners i've ever seen because not just eviscerating donald trump but

all that silliness, birtherism, secret muslim and he did it while he was waiting for word of the mission which was to come the next day. it was actually supposed to happen that night but because of weather it was delayed a day. >> you talking about bin laden last year, his killing. >> a lot of that was put behind. he was just kind of doing a little bit of a victory lap so the speech this year didn't have to be as pointed. you know, people still i had i had the memories of last year. >> just to be really superficial for a minute, what i liked about the president's joke last night or was two things. how much of a natural he is, how comfortable he is in his own skin and also how he was able to laugh at himself and laugh at his own jokes. that tells me he's not taking himself or these other issues too seriously. >> i agree. >> we need to see more of that with elected officials. >> this is the controversy that erupted last week, when you see the president at an informal

setting, whether it's slow jamming the news, that became sort of a reason for the romney campaign to attack him saying the president shouldn't be seen like this. i thought it's a reminder of just how the comfortable and how well he interacts with the electorate. >> this is the harvard guy. if it was ronald reagan, maybe not. but i think this does let people know he's comfortable. i love his timing. when you think about jokes, it's so in contrast to romney. i wish i col play a clip of romney. >> we know reveal this had weekend details on mitt romney's merry prankster side. eric fern strom trying to give romney credit for the success of general motors is talking about romney and short sheeting the bed. >> one of the troopers who was assigned to his protection detail short sheeted his bed. the governor in order to turn the tables on this trooper sat

down and composed a letter as if it had been written by the hotel manager, apologized for the bad housekeeping and the short sheeting of his bed and informed him we have taken action to fire the chamber maid responsible. the governor showed that to the trooper. >> okay. all right. say what you will, it is amazing to me that the instance of romney being deemed funny is a joke about firing people. >> what could be funnier. >> nothing's funnier than a chamber maid. also downtownton abbiesque. >> in fact, he once fired 10,000 people as a prank. guess what, those pink slips not real. >> and this comes from someone working on the campaign in a strategic role, my advice is free advice. free to ignore would be to cut down on the upstairs, downstairs humor. >> you know, i was sitting next to a director for "saturday night live" during the

president's speech and five minutes into -- five seconds into it, i just looked at him and said can you imagine mitt romney doing is this? and he said no. >> but i'm sure he wanted to imagine it because the snnl send off of romney would be funnier than the address he might give. let's talk a little bit about mitt romney's comments over the weekend that have nothing to do with the white house correspondents dinner. the sort of wooden out of touch thing and his problems therein. this is what he said at autobahn university on friday. >> this kind of divisiveness, this attack of success is very different than what we've seen in our country's history. we've always encouraged young people, take a shot, go for it. take a risk. get the education. borrow money if you have to from your parents. start a business. >> okay, robert, and look, i agree that the idea of american entrepreneurernal spirit is important, should be fostered but inherent in that sort of

litany of things that young people should do, borrow money from your parents, i think an understanding or some sort of feeling that mitt romney has, everybody has access to capital. >> come on. let's not nit pick this too much. everybody borrows money from their parents. there are a lot of dotcoms in silicon valley where a lot of folks borrowed money from their parents. from my poirnts, i borrowed $10. i think to put it into context for someone to sit there and say, oh, mitt romney saying let's borrow money, that's not fair. that's not fair. >> this is why it is fair because this is after mitt romney has said things like go to the cheaper school, the government's not going to help you with your debts. he's not afforded any sort of ongss. >> i'm not going to own that. i'm not going to sit here and defend him when he talks about nascar owners. >> i'm not talking about nascar owners but his programs for student loans, the paul ryan budget. >> we're trying to paint a

picture of someone elite, out of touch and very successful because of that. i am going to sit here and defend that by saying it's okay to borrow money from i an family member. regardless of whether some people have more money than others is not the point. that was an unfair statement for individuals out there to try to paint him that way. >> here's what's worrisome so me about those comments. it's that there's this myth nothing america that you can boop separate your way. whether your parents have $10 or $1,000, that you don't need the state help. >> you don't need an education. >> that you don't need education. that's dangerous about that. >> there's another point. take a step back and say, who is he talking about? who's out there attacking success? he's made the case again and again than barack obama system anti-success. that he doesn't understand america, he doesn't get america. he wants america to be europe? i mean again, this is his version. >> where mobility is higher now. >> there's something different and foreign been barack obama.

he doesn't really understand the nation that he was successful in himself. and that to me is the metafewthy he's trying to promote for the next six months. i find that kind of offensive. >> we will be discussing romney's attitudes for many weeks to come. the obama administration does a delicate dance with the chinese government over democracy and human rights. that is next on "now." i'm walt gale, i worked at the colorado springs mail processing plant for 22 years. we processed on a given day about a million pieces of mail. checks, newspapers, bills. a lot of people get their medications only through the mail. small businesses depend on this processing plant. they want to shut down 3000 post offices, cut 100,000 jobs. they're gonna be putting people out of work everywhere. the american people depend on the postal service.

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the president tries to balance our commitment to human rights making sure that the people throughout the world have the ability to express themselves freely and openly. but also that we can continue to carry out our relationships with key countries overseas and china, u.s. releases is very important. so we're going to make sure we doe this in the appropriate way and that the appropriate balance is struck. >> that was the president's chief counter-terrorism adviser

john brennan yesterday discussing chinese dissent chen gaung cheng. ron, i want to read to you a little bit of a "wall street journal" op-ed which nailed this delicate dance here. the u.s. cannot turn him over to chinese control without betraying its own principles and the millions quietly cheering his escape. the government lost fear his be that his moral authority poses a risk to their legal and political control. >> what's happening now is only one part of a larger scandal in china. china is going through its own watergate right now. this represents, this human rights issue represents a split in the chinese communist party. there's a group of conservatives pushing really for more oppression, a move back even in a worst case scenario to sort of cultural revolution type days and the reformists, hu jintao

would like to see the country head in a different direction. which direction they go is going to be seismic for us and them. >> it will be interesting to see how the u.s. handles it. hillary clinton is heading there now. more in the coming days. coming up, we will discuss why equal pay isn't going away anytime soon next on "now." thanks for babysitting the kids, brittany. so how much do we owe you? that'll be $973.42. ya know, your rates and fees aren't exactly competitive. who do you think i am, quicken loans? [ spokesman ] when you refinance your mortgage with quicken loans, you'll find that our rates and fees are extremely competitive. because the last thing you want

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nespresso. where there's a grand cru to match my every mood. ♪ where just one touch creates the perfect cup. where no one makes a better cappuccino, latte, or espresso than me. and where clothing is optional. nespresso. the best cafe. yours. do women make less than men for doing the same work? >> no. men work an average of 484 hours a week. women work 41 hours a week. men go into engineering science and math that earn more. >> this is not a math is hard conversation. women are making 77 cents on the dollar for what men are making. >> that's not true. >> let rachel make her point. >> every businessman in america would be hire only women is, save 25% and be hugely profitable. >> equal pay for equal work led

to a heated discussion on "meet the press" this weekend and continues to spark fiery debate on the campaign trail. .rana, you are a working woman as am i. this issue doesn't seem to be going away. it's not just the scott walker stuff happening in wisconsin but, of course, on the national stage. the president is talking about fair pay. play a little bit of sound from him on friday. >> as long as i'm president, we're going to keep moving forward. you can count on that. you don't have to take my word for it. you've got my signature on it. because something like standing up for equal pay for equal work isn't something i've got to get back to you on, it's the first law that i sign. >> and president obama there sort of making a slight dig or not perhaps not a slight dig, a dig at mitt romney referencing the phone infamous phone call where the huffington post asked romney that's your position on the lily leadbetter fair act.

long paws and they respond i'll get back to you on that, sam. this is something the white house is going to keep pushing. it's an actual problem in terms of the american economy, however. >> it is. a few facts. women are getting 60% of college degrees these days. working women are four out of tin are already making more than their husbands. so the economics of the situation, women have more economic power and they will have more political power right now. so this is all changing regardless of what the debate is already sfloofr and women typically make the most decisions, financial decisions in a household when it comes to a house or a car zmi disagree with the relevance of the way those factors are being used. that is to say we have a lot of progress. if you look at law schools and business schools, you see higher enrollment rates of women than ever before. when you look at the overall economy, women are paid less than men for similar work. >> they are. >> second as a policy matter and this is what's so important about the question, it would seem fairly basic to say yes, i

can support a law that requires equal treatment. >> no, i'm with you on that. >> the fact they can't answer that is a big red flag. >> and the other way this is playing out in the debate is if you look at, we talked about earlier, the ryan budget and where the cuts are and whether they're going to hit women or men disproportion notally. if you look at single women who need help with head start, the food stamp program, all these things, they are going to hit women more. yet the romney campaign is out there with these false phony sticks that more women have lost jobs and i think ultimately this -- we're gog have this debate for the next four or five months but obama's coming out strong. >> the stats that you mentioned just now about the paul ryan budget disproportionately hurting women are in a new obama ad out today. certainly talking points that we're going to hear for some time to come. harry reid is bringing to the floor the paycheck fairness act in the coming weeks which protects women from being

retaliated against if they ask about male colleague salaries. look, i support transparency on many levels as far as the workplace. but it's crazy to me that you're going to -- anybody is going to resist so thing for a bill like this, yet, in 20 10, a similar bill was brought up, no one in the republican party voted for it. >> a few facts what romney's been spinning on obama and jobs and women. right after the financial crisis and recession, men weren't actually hit harder because of the demise of manufacturing, construction, detroit, obama's done a lot obviously to correct that problem. women then disproportionately look like they're losing more jobs because they're in the areas where job growth isn't more strong. going forward, the areas that president obama would like to spend more money on, education, health care are areas where women are disproportionately misrepresented. >> mitt romney said people want jobs. if they want bigger paychecks, they can vote for him. which denigrates the entire

problem that we have which is that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. also keep in mind that working women, there are 66.2 million of them as of 2009. that's 22% of the population. >> absolutely. look, i have two comments. one, according to the latest pew poll, women dropped five points with the president from 5% to 53%. romney leads 49-42 when it comes to married women just as an fyi. what i also find interesting is the hypocrisy or the slight hypocrisy with the obama white house with this. let me be very clear from my lips to your ears, i am for equal pay for women and equal everything when it comes to human beings. however, according to anita dunn the former communications director of the white house this place would be in court for a hostile workplace. obama white house pays women less than men, records show. this was as of march of 2011. every obama himself and i'm

quoting obama himself is responsible for work atmosphere that are marginalizes and ignores women. that's in "time" magazining. >> robert. >> former economic christine romer. i feel like a piece of meat in this white house. this president does not according to this, this president does not lis. >> and on the anita dunn quote, the full quote was if it were not for barack obama, this would be a who had till workplace. that's the full quote. if you want to quote her, quote the full thing. she's been on in the papers explaining that it was a selected editing job on than particular quote. >> i would also say, look, i don't think that there's any excuse for all workplaces hostile toward women. we're talking about fiscal policies and a party that has every single time done nothing to address the problem of pay parity and gender equality and in many cases walked it back. look what scott walker is doing in wisconsin. >> when you look at senator kay bailey hutchinson, she has

introduced pieces of legislation that specifically helped women. done nothing. >> do you think the current republican party is doing anything to address fair pay. >> susan collins does not represent the republican party. you know the that. >> look at the facts. republicans do not control the united states senate. when republicans introduce bills, it is up to harry reid and other folks to bring it up to the floor. i'm taking issue with alex's point about doing nothing. >> do you have a bill an that passed? >> i'm not a united states senator. >> robert's bill. >> look, you've already. >> do you have a bill that passed? >> the fact that people introduced bills is nice. >> i think the point stands that this republican party has basically blocked or voted against all attempts to make pail parity a legislative priority. >> let's talk about doing nothing. . the senate was controlled by the democrats for the last three years. let's talk about how come they haven't done anything over the last three years when it comes to women. >> we have to go 0 to break.

>> filibuster. >> a bill, the same bill that will reid will introduce in the coming weeks was introduced in november of 2010 and no one in the republican party voted for it. it's hard to argue that the republicans have made this a priority when no one is voting to address the issue. unfortunately, i have to leave it there. i'm sorry to make you the one to defend these policies. after the break, on the one-year anniversary of the death of bin laden, where do we stand in the fight against al qaeda. >> we'll discuss with the former cia covert operations officer next. follow the wings.

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what's in your wallet? here's your invoice. >> even jimmy carter would have given that order. >> that was mitt romney moments ago in new hampshire commenting on the obama campaign's criticism that the former governor would not have ordered the killing of osama bin laden. it comes as the president's chief counter-terrorism adviser

john brennan delivers a speech in which he outlines why american drone strikes abroad are legal ethical and necessary. joining us now from washington is former cia covert operations officer, now president of the security firm diligence llc, mike baker. thanks for joining the program. >> sure, thank you very much. >> so on the one-year anniversary of the cale of bin laden, i wanted to talk about the threats america now faces. there's been a lot of discussion about whether or not al qaeda has been untangled. one of the spiders web has been untangled enough for us to breathe a sigh of relief. "the wall street journal" makes the point addressing the u.s. interests in the far east is important. the arc running from north africa to the middle east and south asia that is the heart of al qaeda's territory very much saying al qaeda is alive and well but just in different parts of the world. >> it's true. and you know, a year on everyone bin laden's death, and the big

question you tend to hear a lot, are we safer now or are they done for. and you know, al qaeda has been morphing for years into a different animal. they've flattened out their organization in part because we've had a lot of success in degrading their leadership. and they've got at times it seems a bottomless well of potential recruits. what they don't have the usually is well-trained, committed, hard-line people at sort of the lieutenant and above level. so you take out the leadership. it takes longer for them to morph into additional new, fresh leadership that can take them places. but you know, could you argue that are iraq and afghanistan in particular you know, outsize reaction to the threat in the sense that you know, shortly after spring of 2002, al qaeda and the elements involved that got us there in the first place has already dissipated. they had gone off to different areas. >> mike i want to know what you make of how the president is --

the president's national security policy and his counter-terrorism actions, the drone strikes are certainly one piece of that. a "new york times" op-ed by peter bergen yesterday calls the president the warrior in chief and makes a point that beyond al qaeda he overthrew gadhafi, the drone attacks in pakistan, covert warses in yemen and somalia, an increase in the troops in afghanistan and the authorized assassination of anwar al awlaki. a u.s. citizen. and he continues to battle this sort of public impression that he's this deliberative professor. is president obama more of a hawk than perhaps he's given -- i don't know if the word is credit but credit for? >> right, no understood. certainly i think you know, in terms of sort of the left that brought him into office with hopes that all of that would just go away, i think yes, he's certainly far more committed to following certain course of action than they would have ever anticipated. you have to give him credit.

you mentioned the drone campaign. that's been a very up critical part of this global war on terror. going into somalia, dealing with high value targets in yemen, again, kinds of goes back to that point we were talking about in terms of how al qaeda has dissipated moved off to different areas. so you have to where possible, you have to chase them down and deal with it, but it does take an administration willing to say yes, this is what we're going to do. >> i want to unpack that piece of it, what the administration is willing to do. david corn, you have a book that details a lot of the decision making behind the killing of bin lad laden. tell us more about that and the credit that the president is due and or how reflective the decision making process is of his administration and his ethic. >> well, my chapter on bin laden is my favorite chap per. i think it's a great episode in presidential decision making. you used the word deliberative. i would also say decisive. i'll give you one very small

example. the last meeting national security council meeting on this was thursday before the sunday raid before he gave the go order on friday morning. at that meeting, up to then, cia analysts told him, we have a 60 to 80% certainty that the guy there is bin laden. mike knows how this works. they took a red team exercise, that is they gave the same intelligence to a bunch of analyst who's who hadn't looked at it before and they said we think 40 to 60. here it is going in the wrong direction at that meeting, bob gates and joe biden both say don't do it, we need more time to get better intelligence. there was not a majority of people in the room who wanted to go ahead with that raid. some wanted a missile strike everybody afar which would be harder to determine if you got bin laden. so the president basically said, listen, it's always going to be 50/50. i made a promise if we had a chance, if it was a good enough opportunity, i would take it. he acted decisively knowing most

importantly his presidency was on the line. can you imagine what would have happened to his presidency had he failed? >> but what's interesting today is that this has become sort of a very heated political debate whether the white house is being too long opportunistic about this. ed gil pes me saying the press is converting it into a divisive political attack. robert gibbs saying that mitt romney won't have made the same decision based on what he said in the 2008 presidential debates. >> i think the politics of bin laden have been around since he attacked us and before. you had president clinton target him. you had the attack and a republican national convention held in new york with great, great fanfare around both the attack which was a terrible trauma for all of us as well as the response and the leadership of president bush. i remember sitting at the very end of the kerry campaign with two days to go and seeing bin laden back. i thought what's going on. everyone ran around the tvs and he was doing another video and

all the candidates responded. now the big difference is instead of republicans using missing bin laden of fear for politics, you have a president who actually caught him saying this is something relevant i did. you might want to factor there into your vote. you're damn right. >> it's worth noting that rudy giuliani is going to be taking to the stump with mitt romney tomorrow on the official anniversary of bin laden's death. mike, thanks so much for joining us. coming up, new word that occupy wall street is planning worldwide may day an marches tomorrow. details next on what now. >> coming up, two for the price of one. former president clinton is raising millions for president obama. the fight over bin laden politics and joining us, stephanie cutter from the obama campaign and romney support irvin webber. plus, former defense secretary william cohen is here on the first talking about the first anniversary of the raid on bin laden's headquarters and also the great escape in china.

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clshz. welcome back. time for what now. may day is not observed as an official holiday here in the united states but occupy wall street protesters are still planning to make a day of it tomorrow. ari, they are attempting to bring 125 u.s. cities to a standstill to commemorate international workers day. and it's billed a day without the 99% to bring the nation's attention to the working class. >>. >> i think it could work. the last big national one was actually about immigration in 2006. .other days have gone more quietly passed by. here you've got the political topical interests they're going to do this and the conventions and we're going to see whether they get another food hold. >> what i find interesting is right after the times did a

front page story about apple making billions of dollars and not paying taxes on it, it's interesting quite frankly these protesters, these citizen protesters frankly have a right and also somewhat of a mole hill to stand on because look, there's a lot of corporate tax loopholes out there and they should it be shut as well as with other things, as well. >> it brings the conversation back to the fairness issue, right? >> this is a good test, too, because they got a lot of attention back in the fall when they came out. they were new and then winter sort of drove them out of the camps and a lot of the protests became about the protests rather than let's do something about the top 1%. now they need to figure out how to move forward and we'll see if this works tomorrow. >> okay. jeremy lin linhan to turn down an invitation to speak at stuyvesant high school's graduation but he left the kids with something else. >> stuyvesant high, i'm going to

give rapping a try. the video welcome back the class of 2012. >> when i'm done with my life, i don't want to look back and have regrets and wish that i had tried harder here or i was more disciplined here or had extended myself and done something a little out of my comfort zone. >> i think he might want to regret cut tag rap video. >> glad he has a day job. >> don't give up the day job. >> jeremy lin, we love you, await your appearance on this program but maybe stay away from the 16 bars. >> as you know, i chair the dorky hip-hop alliance. >> you do? >> of in irk. >> all for that? >> we welcome. >> i'm chair emeritus. >> we welcome having someone who sets a lower bar. >> thanks again to robert, ari, raa and david. i'll see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern/9:00 a.m. pacific when i'm joined by the jonathan good night and joe ann reid. till then, finds us at facebook.com.

andrea mitchell is next. happy monday morning to you. >> hi there coming up next, the growing diplomatic crisis that secretary of state hillary clinton is going to face as she leaves for china. voter i. dfrlg laws preventing fraud? and the debate over osama bin laden. plus a new human rights campaign to combat bullying in our schools. kerry kennedy and gloria ruben will join to us explain. andr"andrea mitchell reports" i next right here. power surge, let it blow your mind. [ male announcer ] for fruits, veggies and natural green tea energy... new v8 v-fusion plus energy. could've had a v8. with our babysitter. no. these work, right? no. all right. mom! look what i found in the shed! no! no! no! ♪ ew! were you guys just making out in here? what? no! is it okay if i quit my job and start a blog?

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right now on "andrea mitchell reports," bin laden politics. republicans cry foul even as the obama campaign features it in a new video. >> the victory no one saw coming. >> this is an nbc news special report. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> tonight, i can report to the american people and to the world that the united states has conducted an operation that