all the way along. it's a ridiculous charge. how could anybody be more hoosier? >> and would the tsa have caught that bomb had the plot not been stopped by the cia? >> whatever we learn from this ied, we're going to ensure it's going to be incorporated into the measures that we take at airports. >> plus, a mother's day boycott. the radical call from a model mother and activist christy turlington burns. and he brought the wild things to life for children of all ages. >> and when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars. >> we all remember the legendary author and illustrator, who died today at age of 83. good day. i'm ann andrea mitchell live in washington. richard lugar could become the seventh senator in three decades to lose his party's nomination

for re-election. this could be lugar's last stand. it is somewhat of a self-inflicted wound. how much is tea party, and how much is lugar really losing connection with indiana, for instance, his address? >> yeah, andrea. you've hit it right on the head. i think it's facile but overly simplistic to say this is the tea party rising up being an establishment figure. there's an element here, but it's bigger than that. as you mentioned, dick lugar struggled with the fact he had residency issues. did he actually have an address in indiana? never a great thing when you're running. he also had to defend lots of votes in a republican primary. not ideal. things like voting for t.a.r.p. some of his votes on judges. just yesterday, he was out on the campaign trail defending earmarks. when you think earmarks are a good or bad thing the government does, they're not popular among the average voter at this point.

so i think in some ways, dick lugar, it is a little bit self-inflicted because i know that people sat down with him and said 16 months ago this is going to be a tough race. you need to do this, this, and this in order to win it. i think he ultimately decided he wasn't comfortable changing kind of the core of who he had been in the senate. admirable, but likely to cause him to lose tonight. >> and lose to the state treasurer, richard mourdock, who is not just a tea party candidate. he's also a well-known hoosier figure. >> right. he's a state-wide elected official, number one. the thing that i will say is dick lugar may have underestimated richard mourdock a little bit. there's some reason for that. look, richard mourdock has ran and lost five previous elections prior to his winning state treasurer in 2006. he's lost three separate runs for congress. so this is not someone, if you look at resume versus resume, that you would think would beat dick lugar, but we're talk abin

about a small party republican primary. not to mention lugar's residency issues and past votes are really hurting him. >> thanks so much, chris. see you later. moments from now, president obama is going to be speaking on the economy at a high-tech facility in albany, new york. the president is going to call on congress to pass job credits and mortgage relief. today's rollout has been overshadowed by the gay marriage debate and by president obama's campaign isn't the only one off message. chuck todd is with us as well as dan walls, "the washington post" chief correspondent and author of "the take." thanks to both of you. this was supposed to be the rollout of the campaign. you were with him in ohio at ohio state on saturday. but we've seen all of this overshadowed, first by joe biden on "meet the press" speaking about gay marriage, and the

inability of the white house, and stephanie cutter here yesterday from the campaign, to figure out the talking points. my take on this, chuck, is that they're not really comfortable. a lot of the spokespeople are not that comfortable with his position. >> andrea, find me another issue where you can be definitively against a ban on something but not yet for it. okay. >> that's the question you asked jay carney yesterday. >> that's how they are doing -- that's how they're wording this north carolina thing. there's an argument that the north carolina constitutional amendment, that is likely to pass, is going to go further than just simply talking about marriage, but it's going to make it difficult for unmarried heterosexual couples and partners in order to do -- >> and this is the amendment on the ballot today. >> on the ballot. >> dan, we're talking about n north carolina. is that why the president is so reluctant to say what a lot of his supporters -- how many?

>> quite a sizable percentage are gay. >> big contributors. >> now, we all look at north carolina as, you know, the reason. i think it's broader than that. i think this has been a very difficult issue for the president to finally come and state clearly where he stands. every signal he's given is that at some point he's going to come out in favor of same-sex marriage. why he's on willing to do it before an election, i think we all probably know the reason. why stir that up? but what the vice president did on sunday has clearly put them in a very difficult position. nobody has a very good explanation, as jay carney showed yesterday. i don't know that there's a simple way out of this. >> what's worse in american politics today than being seen as waffling? it is perhaps -- >> it's their best talking point, potentially, against romney. >> so here you have basically what feels like, well, i'm against it but not for it. you know, that sounds very

familiar to a familiar 2004 refrain that bush used all the time on john kerry. let's remember, this is not a small thing when a sitting american president sort of gets into a major cultural sort of shift in the american psyche. so i think there is a lot of politics involved here, but also realizing it becomes a larger deal. you start a conversation for a couple of weeks, perhaps, on this issue. maybe they're not comfortable starting that conversation. >> we all remember bill clinton in 1992. throughout the campaign talked about "don't ask, don't tell." it caused a ripple through the whole nomination process and the election. right after he becomes president, electees ask a question. >> i asked that question. it was on veteran's day, november 11th, in little rock. >> it blew. >> something about putting a presidential imprint on these giant cultural issues. >> it blew up partly because

colin powell and others were not willing to let him get away with it once he was president elect. the other thing we should note is in audacity of hope, he struggled with this there. as a christian and elected official, he worried that at some point in history he would ask himself whether he had missed a moment on a civil rights issue. so he was already struggling with a very difficult, complex question for him coming from his environment, coming from his background. it was clearly not something he was comfortable with. quickly, rick santorum. i mean, you were probably asleep last night because you get up early for your show. >> i do go to sleep early. >> you may not have seen the e-mail. the 13th photograph of an e-mail where he begrudgingly endorses mitt romney and has time to do the jay leno show today. >> i got the link last night. i was awake. went through it. >> you have to read it closely.

>> i went through it. i went through it again. i went through it a third time and finally found in the 13th photograph the endorsement. >> after he pointed out they had conversations about whether there would be conservatives in the romney organization, which is explicitly saying romney is not concerned. >> i don't understand how the romney campaign has managed this unifying issue. you can't tell me there aren' aren'aren't ways -- they've done weird things. i don't understand bringing michele bachmann to virginia to do a public endorsement. this is one of the three most important swing markets in the country, and you bring somebody who's a conservative icon there. that didn't make sense. how they've managed this entire process -- and i think part of it is there's a lot of bitterness with some rivals when it comes to the romney campaign. it's clear some people haven't gotten over it, which you can understand, because they felt the personal brunt. >> although it makes newt gingrich's endorsement look like a full-throated thing.

>> it's the only thing that could make him look more graceful. we'll have to leave it there. thank you very much. great to see you. meanwhile, fbi analysts are picking apart an explosive device seized after the cia disrupted an al qaeda plot to bring down a u.s. passenger plane. >> the united states engages in a number of operations to go after al qaeda and their militant allies, their terrorist allies, who would try to attack the united states. >> the plot itself indicates that these terrorists keep trying. they keep trying to devise more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people, and it's a reminder as to why we have to remain vigilant at home and abroad.

>> michael leiter knows a lot about being vigilant. he served as director of the national counterterrorism center and is an nbc terror analyst. michael, this last 24 hours sort of trying to go through the sourcing and you've been in the middle of this kind of operation, so you know exactly what's going on. pete williams and a lot of our sources now reporting that the bomber himself, the reason why he's no longer a threat, is he was never a threat because he was a u.s. asset. he brought the bomb out and is now, of course, outside of washington being examined by fbi analysts. but we had actually infiltrated al qaeda. >> well, this is something we've been trying to do for a long time. the reason that these issues remain so sensitive, of course, is key operatives, key insiders, are people who we want to continue to use. even though we had a success here, that doesn't mean that al

qaeda in the arabian peninsula is not trying to launch another attack. these methods of how we're collecting intelligence are really the crown jewels in terms of disrupting these plots. >> what can we learn from the bomb itself? we're told that the bomber, the master bomber, this may have been someone he trained. it may have been he himself, but he was upgrading the underwear bomb, working on something more advanced than the cartridge bombs that were put on those cargo planes going to philadelphia back in 2010. so what can we learn from looking at this plastic and figuring out how to guard against it? is the tsa going to have to redesign it's whole procedure? >> this bomb maker has been a target for several years because he's been so innovative. the underwear bomber, the cartridge bomb plot, which was really well-disguised on cargo jets. they're going to be looking at the components of this bomb, the

main charge, the detonator, the ignitor to know how effectively they might or might not get through airport screening. what i would stress is airport screening is one piece of this. no level of screening is going to be perfect. penetrating the organizations, screening travelers, screening visas. the last line of defense, trying to keep people off planes that might be carrying explosives or weapons of some sort. >> they were very eager to give credit to yemen. probably other intelligence agencies, such as the saudis. we know who has been targeted by this bomber in the past, including the saudi intelligence chief, the spy chief. at the same time, american counterterrorism has really stepped up quite a notch in our ability to go after al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. >> we have. really, this is very much a team sport. clearly, the united states, but

yem yemen, saudi arabia. remember those cargo planes were flying through europe. everyone is working on this in a very focused way. >> but we don't know what we don't know. >> we don't, but that's exactly why you need this team effort. you're never exactly sure where the next lead is going to come from. you get lots and lots of noise in the system. what the system did so brilliantly was find that one piece and followed it to its conclusion. what you end up with is not just a disruption but also the weapon that they will probably try to use again in the future. >> michael leiter, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> coming up next, sore loser. why you need have missed rick santorum's big endorsement. plus, forget the cards, forget the flowers. christy turlington on her mother's day boycott. this is andrea mitchell reports only on msnbc. ♪ [ ping! ] [ ping! ping! ] that's why i use new tampax radiant.

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mitt romney didn't challenge that woman who accused president obama of treason at a town hall meeting yesterday. his traveling press corps wouldn't let him get away with it. >> is there a reason you didn't say anything? >> keep your head up. >> i'm sorry? >> is there a reason you didn't correct her or say you wouldn't? >> i answered the question. >> okay. but you don't agree with her answer? >> i don't correct all the answ questions that get asked to me. i obviously don't agree. >> what comes to mind is that moment for years ago when john mccain challenged a questioner at a town hall meeting who was questioning president obama's birthright, et cetera. this was a moment where he could have shown some backbone, no? >> i really sympathize with

governor romney. you're always -- or every now and then, confronted by some nut case saying some insane thing. the best thing to do is ignore them and hope they shut up and go away. i think that's basically what governor romney did. he made it very clear he didn't agree with this. >> only when he was pressed on the rope line. >> why give more attention to a nutty comment? that's what it seems the interviewers -- well, the governor wanted them to do. elevate and draw more attention to this lunatic comment. >> now, what about the 11:30 e-mail? you had to read 13 photographs in to try to figure out there was, in fact, a rick santorum endorsement. that doesn't sound as though it's guaranteed to get rick santorum prime time at the convention. >> i read it last night. i barely made it to the photogra

paragraph. it's sort of almost after the fact in this sense. the polls now show that over 90% of republicans are already behind governor romney. he has united the party. it's nice that senator santorum is on board. i think he's hurt himself. senator santorum has hurt himself by doing it in such a tepid way. we'd rather have him than not. >> how does he have time to go on jay leno today, fly across the country and do the "tonight show" rather than showing up somewhere with mitt romney on the trail? >> i've known him a long, long time. i think he's making a mistake in the way he's handling things. we're just as well off having him on board as not. >> are you comfortable with where the republican party is on this whole issue of gay marriage? >> i think it's a difficult issue for republicans. i think it's going to be a difficult issue for the democrats and republicans going through the next campaign. i was sorry to see mr. grinnell leave the campaign. i know of him, and he was a competent spokesman for foreign policy positions. would have sent a signal of

tolerance, which i think the romney campaign kpleclearly wan to send. it's a tough issue. it divides americans right down the middle. we're going to have to vote on it in my state of minnesota this fall. it's going to be on the ballot. i know lots of people agonizing over it. >> rick was not even permitted to get on conference calls during one of the very busiest foreign policy weeks. he was a spokesman without a portfolio. >> i think that's probably true, but i don't think anyone wanted him to leave. >> okay. thank you so very much. and coming up next, what would mother's day be without mothers? the global health initiative called every mother counts, calling on moms everywhere to disappear this sunday, no phone calls, no e-mails, no gifts. the idea is to bring attention to the void left when a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. it's the cause of death for nearly 360,000 women each and every year.

>> my absence -- >> will show everyone just how much a mother is missed when she is gone. >> and get families across the country talking about this issue. >> so that next year there will be more mothers and families. >> who can celebrate mother's day together. >> so join me. >> and me. >> and me. >> for no mother's day. >> christy turlington burns is a former model and activist who founded the organization every mother counts. we've talking about this before, you and i. thank you so much for being with us. what an interesting idea. i know a lot of moms would welcome the idea. i know this sounds, you know, sort of like it's heresy, but welcome the idea of saving the money and time and effort that goes into mother's day flowers and gifts and cards and putting it into something this important. >> well, you know, it's been interesting. i believe that too. i think this is an opportunity on an issue that involves mothers. we have moms at the center of our minds and hearts during this

week. but there is something like $18 billion spent on mothers on mother's day alone in the united states. that money certainly could be redirected to reducing maternal deaths and improving maternal health around the world. what we're trying to do is get people to stop for a moment and consider how many lives are lost each day, and mother's day in particular, and to try to generate some of that positive energy and love toward the mother towards every mother. >> your organization has put forward some of the mortality rates, maternal mortality ratings, which are astounding. in ireland, one in 47,600 mothers. in the united states, 1 in 4800. we're talking about extraordinarily high rates of maternal mortality. >> they really are. 99% of these deaths are happening in the developing world. but they do happen mere in the u.s. as well. 50% of those deaths are

preventable too. what's incredible about this issue is not only that it's underreported, is that there's so many of these deaths that are preventable. that's the part i'm hoping to get people to wake up to and realize that there is some place for their voice or their lack of voice on that day to show that we do have solidarity with other women around the world. >> i know you've talked about this publicly. you said that one of the things that inspired you was problems in your own pregnancy. can you speak to that as a mom? >> sure. i didn't have problems in my pregnancy, but after i delivered my first child eight years ago, i had a complication that was managed really efficiently in a birthing center within a hospital in new york city. i learned afterwards when trying to understand why that happened to me that the same complication was the leading cause of maternal mortality around the world. i felt like i had to know more. it wasn't enough to me that i had the care i needed or the access i needed. it was a matter of how many

millions of women don't have access to that care. i believe that's a right that every pregnant woman should have, access to quality maternity care. >> you've traveled around the world. you've traveled to africa. you've been if haiti. talk to me about what the obstacles are in some of these developing countries. >> i would say one of the biggest barriers is really transport. getting women to care when they need it at the right time. only 15% of all pregnancies can have a complication, so there's a lot of not knowing who that might be. we can sort of gauge some women that have pre-existing conditions like diabetes or, you know, chronic illnesses. for so many others, there's no way to know. it's really important that wherever they deliver, that they're somehow linked to emergency obstetric care in the event they should need it. sometimes distance -- you know, you could drive hours in haiti or the united states for that matter. we have several hospitals closing down in this country. in a state like new york, there

are a lot of women who are two and three hours away from a hospital. that's life or death if you were to have a post partum hemorrhage. that's something we need to be aware of. >> so much of the data, which are startling and upsetting, are that african-american women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than caucasian women. is that because of the hospitals in their neighborhoods? is that because of lack of prenatal care? is it a combination? >> it's a combination. certainly looking at the data, there are a lot of factors. but it doesn't always necessarily have a correlation to socioeconomic background or access to services per se. it's almost the way that women are treated once they do have care. there's also some genetic things that we don't really understand because we're not studying them closely enough. latino women are two times as likely as caucasian women to die in pregnancy. we just don't know enough. we know the data is presenting these disparities, but we don't know why. another focus is to entourage

more research to we can understand why that is. >> well, christy turlington burns, happy mother's day to you and to all of our mothers. also, we are very mindful of the information that you've brought to us. we thank you for your activism. >> thank you, andrea. thank you so much. >> and now we go to albany, new york. president obama is about to speak. he's just been introduced. >> -- to make it easier for companies to grow and to hire, to create platforms of success for them. everything from giving more people the chance to get the right training and education to supporting new research projects in science and technology. in fact, there was a substantial investment made here. i was talking to governor about the investment his father made here to help get this center started. there are things we can do to make sure that if you're willing to work hard and meet your

responsibilities, you can find a job, own a home, maybe start a business, and most importantly give your kids a chance to do even better than you did. that's something we believe has to be available to everybody, no matter where you come from, no matter what you look like. we can make a difference. at this make or break moment for america's middle class, there's no excuse for inaction. there's no excuse for dragging our feet, none. over the last few years, there are certain steps i've been able to take on my own to help spur the kind of innovation we're seeing here. and also to help the overall economy grow. so we announced a new policy several months back that will help families refinance their mortgages, save up to thousands of dollars a year. we sped up loans and competitive

grants for new projects all across the country so thousands of construction workers can get back on the job. we simplified the student loan process to help roughly 5.8 million students like the students here save money on repayments. [ applause ] so these are some steps that the administration's been able to take on its own. but the truth is, the only way we can accelerate the job creation that takes place on a scale that is needed is bold action from congress. because of the recovery act, because of all the work we've done, we've created over 4 million jobs over the last two years. we've created hundreds of thousands of jobs each month over the last several months. so we're making progress, but everybody knows we need to do more.

and in order to do that, we're going to need some more action from congress. democrats and republicans have to come together. and they've shown they can do it. i mean, they did some important work. they passed tax cuts for workers, approved trade deals to open up new markets for american products. we reformed our patent system to make it easier for innovative ideas to come to market. those are all good things. but the size of the challenges we face requires us to do more. so back last september, i sent congress a jobs bill. it included all sorts of policies that we knew would help grow our economy and put more americans back to work. that wasn't just my opinion. that wasn't just the opinion of democrats. it was the opinion of independent, nonpartisan experts, economists who do this for a living and analysts on wall street who evaluate what's going to really make the economy

grow. the one big piece that we were able to get done was make sure that we didn't see payroll tax go up and people get $40 taken out of their paychecks each time. but most of it didn't get done in congress. just about every time we put these policies up for a vote, the republicans in congress got together and said no. they said no to putting hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job repairing our roads, bridges, and transit systems. no to a new tax cut for businesses that hire new workers. no to putting more teachers back in our classrooms. more cops back on the beat. more firefighters back to work. and this is at a time when we know one of the biggest rags on our economy has been layoffs by state and local governments. that's true all across the country. it's worth noting, by the way -- this is just a little aside -- after there was a recession

under ronald reagan, government employment went way up. it went up after the recessions under the first george bush and the second george bush. so each time there was a recession with a republican president, we compensated by making sure that government didn't see a drastic reduction in employment. the only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me. so i make that point -- [ applause ] i make that point just so you don't buy into this whole bloated government argument that you're hearing. frankly, if congress had said yes to helping states put teachers back to work and put the economy before our politics, then tens of thousands of more teachers in new york would have a job right now. that is a fact. that would mean not only lower

unemployment rate, but also more customers for businesses. now, i know this is an election year. but it's not an excuse for inaction. six months is plenty of time for democrats and republicans to get together and do the right thing, taking steps that will spur additional job creation right now. just saying no to ideas that we know will help our economy isn't an option. there's too much at stake. we've all got to pull in the same direction. so even if republicans are still saying no to some of the bigger proposals we made in the jobs act, there are some additional ideas that could help people get to work right now and that they haven't said no to yet. so i'm hoping they say yes. and they're simple ideas. they're the kinds of things that in the past have been supported by democrats and republicans. these are traditionally ideas

that have had bipartisan support. they won't have as big of an impact as rebuilding our infrastructure and hiring back teachers, but together all of these ideas will do two things. they'll grow the economy faster and create more jobs. today i'm anounouncing a handy little to-do list we've put together for congress. you can see it for yourself at whitehouse.gov. it's about size of a post-it note. every congress member should have time to read it. they can glance at it every so often. hopefully we'll just be checking off the list, just like when michelle gives me a little. i check it off. each of the ideas on this list will help accelerate our economy and put people back to work. not in november, not in next year, but right now. all right. so i'm going to go through the list. first, congress needs to help the millions of americans who have worked hard, made their mortgage payments on time, but still have been unable to refinance their mortgages with

these historically low rates. this would make a huge difference for the economy. [ applause ] families could save thousands of dollars, and that means they've got more money in their pocket, which means they can either build their equity back up on their homes or they go out and use that money to do things like helping their kids finance a college education. so congress should give those responsible homeowners a chance to refinance at a lower rate. we estimate they'd save at least $3,000 a year. so that's on our to-do list. it's not complicated. second, if congress fails to act soon, clean energy companies will see their taxes go up, and they could be forced to lay off employees. in fact, we're already hearing from folks who produce wind turbines and solar panels and a lot of this green energy that,

you know, they're getting worried because there's uncertainty out there. congress hasn't renewed some of the tax breaks that are so important to this industry. and since i know that the other side in congress have promised they'll never raise tax as long as they'll live, this is a good time to keep that promise for businesses that are putting americans to work and helping break our dependence on foreign oil. [ applause ] so we should extend these tax credits. that's on the to-do list. that's number two. number three, congress should help small business owners by giving them a tax break for hiring more workers and paying them higher wages. we believe small businesses are the engine of economic growth in this country. we should not hold them to a situation where they may end up having to pay higher taxes just

by hiring more workers. we should make it easier for them to succeed. so that's on our to-do list. that's number three. number four, congress should help our veterans returning from iraq and afghanistan find a good job once they come home. [ applause ] our men and women in uniform have served this country with such honor and distinction. a lot of them come from upstate new york. now it's our turn to serve them. so we should create a veteran's job corps that helps them find work as cops and firefighters, employees in our national parks. that's on our to-do list. then the last item, the fifth item, which bears especially on what's going on here -- the last

item is something that will help a lot of you in particular. you know better than anybody that technology has advanced by leaps and bounds over the last few decades. that's a great thing. businesses are more productive. consumers are getting better products for less. but technology has also made a lot of jobs obsolete. factories where people once thought they'd retire suddenly left town. jobs that provided a decent living got shipped overseas. the results have been a lot of pain for a lot of communities and a lot of families. there is a silver lining to all this though. after years of undercutting the competition, now it's getting more expensive to do business in places like china. wages are going up. shipping costs are going up. meanwhile, american workers are getting more and more efficient. companies located here are becoming more and more competitive. so for a lot of businesses, it's now starting to make sense to

bring jobs back home. and here --. p [ applause ] here in the tri-city area, you have companies like ibm and global foundries that could have decided to pack up and move elsewhere, but they chose to stay in upstate new york because it made more sense to build here and to hire here. you had more to offer. got some of the best workers in the world. you gotten a outstanding university. now i want what's happening in albany to happen all across the country. places like cleveland, pittsburgh, and raleigh. [ applause ] i want to create more opportunities for hard working americans to start making things again and selling them all over the world, stamped with those

proud words "made in america." that's the goal. [ applause ] the good news is, we're already starting to see it happen. american manufacturers are creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. that's good for you, but it's also good for the businesses that supply the materials you use. it's good for the construction workers who build the facilities you work in. it's good for communities where people are buying more houses and spending more money at restaurants and stores. everybody benefits when manufacturing is going strong. so you've heard about outsourcing. today more and more companies are insourcing. one recent study found that half of america's largest companies are thinking of moving their manufacturing operations from china back to the united states of america. that's good news. [ applause ]

because even when we can't make things cheaper than other countries because of their wage rates, we can always make them better. that's who we are. that's what america's all about. [ applause ] so this brings me back to our to-do list. what we need to do now is to make it easier for more companies to do the right thing. one place to start is our tax code. at the moment, companies get tax breaks for moving factories, jobs, and profits overseas. they can actually end up saving on their tax bill when they make the move. meanwhile, companies that choose to stay here are getting hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. that doesn't make sense. politicians from both parties have been talking about changing it for years, so i've put forward my own plan to make it right in the long term. but in the short term, before we've completely reworked the

tax code, before we've done a full-blown tax reform, at the very least what we can do right away is stop rewarding companies who ship jobs overseas and use that money to cover moving expenses for companies that are moving jobs back here to america. so we're putting that on congress's to-do list. [ applause ] this is something simple to do. we shouldn't wait. we should get it done. right now. so that's the fifth item. that's all on our to-do list. i'm not trying to overload congress here. so over the next few weeks, i'm going to be talking about this to-do list when i'm on the road. i'm going to be talking about all the things that congress can do right now to boost our economy and accelerate even more job growth. of course, it's not enough just to give them the list. we've also got to get them to

start crossing things off the list. that's where all of you come in. i'm going to need you to pick up the phone, write an e-mail, tweet, remind your member of congress we can't afford to wait until november to get things done. tell them now's the time to help more americans save money on their mortgages, time for us to invest more in clean energy and small businesses. it's time for us to help more veterans find work. and it's time to make it easier for companies to bring jobs back to america. it's the right thing to do. now, i'm cheating a little bit. i said that was my to-do list. there's one other thing they've got to do. before they do anything else, congress needs to keep student loan rates from doubling for students who are here and all across the country. [ applause ]

that has to happen by january 1st or rates on stafford loans double. these young people are nodding their heads. they don't like this. they've heard about it. and we need to pass a transportation bill that guarantees almost a million construction workers can stay on the job. so the good news is both parties say they want to make this happen. we've done this before. so congress just needs to work out the details. don't let politics get in the way. get this done before july 1st. those bills should be passed right now. so i'm cheating a little bit. there are actually seven items on the to-do list. but two of them are old business. folks have already said they want to get them done. albany, we've got a long way to go if we're going to make sure everybody who wants a job can find one and every family can feel that sense of security that

was the essence of america's middle class experience. but we can't just go back to the way things used to be. we've got to move forward to an economy where everybody gets a fair shot, everybody's doing their fair share, everybody plays by the same set of rules. that's what you guys are doing here in albany. you're investing in your future. you're not going backwards. you're going forward. with your help, i know we can get there because here in america, we don't give up. we keep moving. we look out for one another. we pull each other up. that's who we are. if we work together with common purpose, i've got no doubt we can keep moving this country fwar forward and remind the world why the united states is the greatest nation on earth. thank you so much, everybody. god bless america. >> president obama wrapping up his speech, putting out his to-do list for congress even as congress in the shape of the senate once again rejected an initiative. this one, student loans.

joining me now is senior white house reporter glen thrush. they were eight votings shy, i think, of the 60 they needed to move ahead with debate on student loans. again, a disagreement as to how to pay for the extension of student loans at the lower rate. this is just another indication of how far the two parties are, especially on capitol hill. >> yeah, he could have added, you know, 20 more items to the to-do list and still had as much hope of getting any of these passed. ultimately, andrea, as you're aware, some accommodation will be made with regard to the student loan thing, but not before we go through the usual, you know, nonsense. >> glen, just to wrap it up, he's up there in new york. he's doing a lot of campaigning. but the whole campaign, as we were talking about with chuck todd earlier today, the campaign rollout this week has certainly been overwhelmed, overshadowed, if you will, by some of the missteps on the gay marriage issue, by vice president who was

out there today, also speaking about how he speaks his own mind. >> yeah, it's been a really rough week. even the rollout, andrea, of the speech was received very well and enthusiastically. there were a lot of empty seats in ohio. i remember being out there in november of 2010 when there were 30,000 people. the enthusiasm is clearly an issue. i think we saw an illustration with both the biden and arny duncan comments as to why the enthusiasm is down. this is not a president who can speak so forcefully and authoritatively about what he believes in these days. he's made a lot of accommodations. i think this will be a continuesed theme and problem for the president. that is his base, particularly young people, holding him accountable for the things he hasn't done and the promises he hasn't kept. >> glen thrush, thanks so much for the briefing today. meanwhile, indiana senator dick lugar is on the wrong side of polling going against richard mourdock. nb c's kelly o'donnell is following the primary live in

indianapolis and joins me live. hey, kelly. you've spoken to both the senator and the challenger. this is really a case where dick lugar, one of the lions of the senate, goes all the way back to 1976, really is challenged by the sense at home that he failed to take care of home base. >> reporter: there are a few issues, andrea, that really stand out. what i've been struck by is even people who tell us they will not vote for lugar often have very nice things to say about him. you don't hear that very often when an incumbent is so vulnerable. they believe that at age 80 and having served six terms in the u.s. senate, that's 36 years, that they believe he has been there too long. according to critics, some say he hasn't done enough to really stay in touch with voters here in indiana. part of what they cite is the fact he didn't keep a home here in indiana. really resides in the washington suburbs. he disputes that. when i sat down in an interview with him, he said that charge doesn't make sense to him.

he believes he's very much connected. here's his reaction. >> i've been perfectly connected all the way along. it's a ridiculous charge. how could anyone be more hoosier? i have a farm out here i continue to work with my sons. i'm in touch every week with everybody in the state. usually on the ground with visits. with our staff trying to meet almost every challenge of an individual hoosier or group. >> kelly, you also interviewed the governor, mitch daniels, who decided not to run for president. this is what he had to say about the possibility of losing dick lugar. >> i think we lose -- it's the nation loses. a reservoir of judgment, knowledge about the world. yeah, indiana would miss him, but i think the nation would too. >> kelly, let me just say, as someone who's covered foreign policy for decades and who first met dick lugar when he was the mayor of indianapolis and campaigning and giving a speech,

was the launch of one of the big cities programs, an urban program with richard nixon in 1972 at independence hall. the very idea that he would be thrown out by his own party is pretty stunning. responsible for so many things that have kept the country safe. >> reporter: and that may, in fact, be why it is putting lugar in this kind of uncomfortable political position because he is considered an expert on issues that deal with nuclear non-proliferation. he does have real stature on foreign relations. that is different than what voters in indiana are thinking about when it comes though those we have talked to who are supporting his opponent. certainly those we talked to who will cast a ballot for lugar today point out that indianapolis background as a very popular mayor. they talk about here's a guy who's a scholar and has

intellect. primary campaigns can be tough in indiana, but there's a reputation here for people being nice. that's what stands out. they're showing respect for for lugar when polling suggests and a lot of the hearing on the ground suggests he could be in trouble. what is stunning, he won by huge margins time and time again. hasn't had a primary challenger, someone from his own party until gerald ford was in office all those years ago. it is an unusual place for dick lugar to be. friends are concerned, supporters are concerned. we'll see what the voters do today. it is one race really to watch. >> that's why you're there. kelly o'donnell on the spot. thanks so much. and maurice sendack who forever changed the way we think of children's literature has died at the age of 83 after complications from suffering a stroke. there were very few happy endings in his stories. his children were permitted to behave badly, even be obnoxious, they explored the dark side of their emotional life.

his illustrations were wildly evocative, often frightening. in his world, in his most famous book, where the wild things are, later made into a movie. a boy who is sent to bed without dinner for misbehaving goes on a wild imaginative journey through a land of monsters. it was published in 1963. it became one of the ten best selling children's books of all time. he said he never intended to write children's books at all. >> i don't write for children. >> you don't? >> no. i write and somebody says that's for children. i didn't set out to make children happy or make life better for them or easier for them. >> whether he intended it or not, the book has, of course, inspired the imaginations of a generation of children and later their children. it is read and beloved by millions including the president who called it one of his favorite books. >> it's the wild rumpus!

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which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours? msnbc contributor and managing editor, chris cillizza joins us. i think it is late night with rick santorum after staying up all night just to see that e-mail. now we have to stay up and watch him with leno. >> he was snuggling into my bed at 11:00 when i saw that e-mail of him endorsing mitt romney. but yes, remember in june 2011, rick santorum said in the debate, he didn't watch either leno or letterman. i wonder if that will come up tonight. >> i bet it does. that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports."

>> great to see you. coming up in our next hour -- >> do you believe that a majority of our popular vote should get to decide the right of the minority? that's a dangerous precedent. >> he is the reverend who is fighting north carolina's amendment to ban same sex marriage that is being voted on right now in that key swing state. plus, stay quiet or speak up. mitt romney chose to stay quiet when a woman at his town hall accused the president of treason. we'll have the latest fallout. plus, in the dark of the night. rick santorum endorsed mitt romney. 24 hours later, he is not planning to meet with mr. romney. oh, no, no. he is going on to see jay leno. s plays a key role throughout our entire lives. ♪ one a day women's 50+ is a complete multivitamin, designed for many of women's health concerns as we age.

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