>> yeah? no. i'm just curious as to -- i don't get it, but i thought this was fascinating otherwise. cory booker -- >> hmm. >> make as good hostage video. >> oh, it's a hostage video. and robin gibbs, of course, remembering him. >> yes. >> and it's "morning joe." stick around for chuck. can you schedule an end to a war? president obama and foreign leader hammering out a timeline attempting to do just that, but are the plans real progress or paper promises? road tests in the streets. chicago-style? chicago police brace for more clashes after at least 45 people were arrested this weekend. many downtown businesses are closed. and all eyes on chicago this morning. it was newark's mayor, cory booker, making news this weekend. he's taken to youtube to attempt

to walk back on comments he made criticizing team obama on "meet the press." good morning from chicago. it's monday, may 21, 2012. special edition of "the daily rundown." always good to be on the road. my first reads of the morning. start with why we're here in chicago. for the culmination of summit pa loose s lose palooza, if you will. foreign policy issues, don't eclipse the president's domestic message. voters don't want to hear about that. they want to hear about domestic stuff. they still want to talk about the economy when they can. here at nato today, president obama's mission is clear, though, formalizing that pledge to end the war in afghanistan by the end of 2014 promising to keep afghanistan secure in the long term. sitting down with afghan

president hamid karzai. >> we are working with the afghans over the next several years to achieve a complete transition to afghan lead for afghan security. >> afghanistan indeed, mr. president, as you very accurately put it, is looking forward to an end to this war. >> the transition to a lead role for afghan security forces is scheduled to happen now by the summer of 2013. now, obama and karzai must now convince nato allies that continuing their commitment through the transition and after 2014 will pay off. nato secretary-general rasmus argued it's all worth it, even in these tough economic times. >> we will not walk away. once transition is completed nato will lead a new mission to train, advise and support the

afghan security forces. i'm optimistic about reaching the overall goal of fining iran $4 billion u.s. dollar as year. >> now, republican criticism of the president's afghanistan plan has been relatively muted. mitt romney welcomed the president to chicago with a critical piece in the "chicago tribune" but the critique was not about afghanistan. he saved criticism for proposed defense cuts and the even differences on missile defense. "with the united states on a path to a hollow military" he writes, "we are hardly in a position to exercise leadership in persuading allies to spend more on security. the irresponsible defense cuts are clearing the way for our partners to do even less." still what is remarkable about the policy and afghanistan, republicans are giving the president plenty of room. they don't want to argue any other side to this argument about keeping troops there longer.

this is a war that is not longer popular with the men public. the other summit with the european economy on the brain, the summit with the most domestic impact may have happened earlier this weekend when the leaders of the world's wealthiest economies met at camp david. the same debate about growth or austerity, spending or cuts will go farthest to spur economic recovery in the long term is being fought out in europe as well and the white house is happy with that they believe is a more unified message on their message from the western km economies after this weekend. >> as all the leaders here today agreed, growth and jobs must be our top priority. a stable, growing european economy is in everybody's best interests. >> translation -- growth is code for government stimulus, and european leaders seem open to more government spending, a shift from previous meetings dominated by the message the path to recovery is reduce government debt through strict

austerity measures. german chancellor angela merkel found hers increasingly isolated as other nations are experiencing a political backlash after tough cuts. the most tangible thing out of the summit, by the way, a joint statement on global oil markets, which without aides insist is not about gas prices, but, instead, a warning to iran that the leaders are prepared to go to the iea if disruptions to the oil supply continue. "we are monitoring the situation closely and stand ready to call upon the international energy agency to take appropriate action to ensure that the market is fully and timely supplied." translation -- the next round of p-5 plus 1 talks beginning wednesday in baghdad. think about that. baghdad holding talks like this. the white house says this is intended as a warning to iran its oil exports aren't necessary, even with oil trading at $100 a barrel. so if nothing happens here, iran doesn't move, the sanctions kick in, these oil reserves are gerting released, because the

intention they argue is to do a double barrel on iran. lower oil prices by the barrel. they say also hurts iran, not just the export issue. now, finally a week after the obama campaign launched its assault on mitt romney's career at bain capital, this morning the campaign is out with another attack. this time focusing on ampad. a paper company bain acquired in the 1992 that had to go bankrupt eight years later. a look at the obama attack. >> i really feel in my heart people need to know what mitt romney did to me in 1994. >> it makes me sick. i sit there and watch mitt romney tell the american people about how he creates all these jobs. >> you can tell by the way he acts, the way he talks. he's doesn't care anything about the middle class or the lower class people. >> but, of course, some attacks aren't sitting well even with

the president's supporters. cory booker did not favors for team obama with these comments on "meet the press" sunday. >> i'm not about to indict private equity. we're getting to a ridiculous point in america. look at the totality's bain capital's record. they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses, and this, to me, i'm very uncomfortable. this kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. it's nauseating to the american public. enough is enough. >> well, those comments took off on twitter and booker was clearly feeling public pressure. not just from twitter followers but democrats. first tried to fight back. defended his comments saying i'll always prioritize my nation over my party. not serving the citizens my city. then said i'll clarify my

comments on mtw. yes, obama must be re-elected, and after hearing supporters of the president, not just twitter follower, booker suddenly decided to have to take to youtube to clarify trying to walk a line between standing by what he said and more credence to the attacks on bain. the section of booker's nearly four-minute video that the obama campaign has called attention to. >> let me be clear. mitt romney has made his business record a centerpiece of his campaign. he's talked about himself as a job creator, and, therefore, it is reasonable and in fact i encourage it for the obama campaign to examine that record. in fact, i believe that mitt romney in many ways is not being completely honest with his role and his record, and even while a business person. >> if you watch the whole video, it's much more couched.

that portion, the most critical there. for all the criticism and attacks bain get in the corridor, remember this, populism often plays fwhel peoria, illinois, green bay, wisconsin. bain has a history of hurting mitt romney in this political career. back to the '94 senate bid when the ampad story actually aired. for romney to get to 274 electoral votes he's got to the win somewhere in the industrial midwest. by the obama campaign isn't going to stop with bain even if criticized in the salons of new york and washington. over the last hour nato members arriving at mccormick place, a little south of where i am fon the final day of the summit. on the city's west side chicago's police brace for more protests. nbc's, my partner, kristen walker live for me at mccormick place and john yang live at the police station on the city's north side. start with you, the business of the day is formalizing some

agreements. what more are we going to expect? >> reporter: absolutely. hi, chuck. the big news today, leaders will announce they are essentially turning over combat command to afghan security forces in 2013 with the aim of drawing down and withdrawing all troops, all 130,000 of them, by 2014. the obama administration really emphasizing the fact that they are bringing this unpopular war to an end, but the members on the ground are also making it very clear, look, this mission remains difficult and dangerous, and combat operations are not necessarily going to come to a close in 2013. so a little bit of mixed messaging going on right now, but today is all about ironing out the fine details of how this transition is actually going to take place, particularly the funding of it, chuck. that's one of the most important things. it's estimated it will cost about $4 billion every year over the next ten years to fund the afghan security forces. united states is prepared to paper most of that, but they are looking for about $1.3 billion

from other nations. they had secured some of the monetary commitments coming into this summit. they were looking for more commitments over these two days, and senior administration officials tell me that european nations, other nations, have been open to that, despite the fact europe is, of course, in the midst of a financial crisis, although they haven't given us specifics yet. we're hoping to get some specifics a little later on today. remember, chuck, one of the big challenges. we learned france will withdraw its troops at the end of this year. >> right. and we're going to hear kristen welker, thanks very much. and hear a lot of pledging and promises and stuff, but we're not going to know for years whether those checks actually clear. go to nbc's john yang outside a chicago police station. dozens of protesters being held. how bad do they think things will get today, john? >> reporter: well, today's the big test close to where you are, chuck. the boeing headquarters. right here headquarters of the

chicago police, there were at least 45 people arrested yesterday during protests, and they're slowly being released this morning in twos and threes, getting a heroes welcome from the protesters who have maintainened and overnight vigil here. many of these people marched here from the, nine miles from mccormick place to spend the night to the support their colleagues inside. as they come out, the people that have been arrested are giving the chicago police and understandably mixed review. >> aside from the officer who arrested me, who treated me with absolute disregard and did not treat me with any sort of dignity or respect, all of the other officers were kind and warm and friendly. >> now, this all happened at, near the mccormick place, at the end of a march yesterday. the march ended at around 5:00 local time, and as these

speeches ended, most of the marchers, about 2,000, did leave peacefully, but a hard core group remained. some pushing towards mccormick place that led to confrontations with police. there were baton swinging by the police. the police say four of their officers were injured and hospitals say they treated seven protesters. chuck? >> all right, john yang covering the protest part of this. john, thanks very much. people should know, the protesters haven't been able to disrupt the summit, but pretty vupti ivdisruptive to the city chicago. and oldest african-american civil rights group now supporting gay marriage. talking to the reverend jesse jackson on that plus a whole bunch of other stuff in the news from the reverend wright issue to these protests right here which he was involved in. have we seen of last of any of these? still to come, budget

brinksmanship. a summer sequel, and a look ahead at the president's schedule. a lot about nato. he goes straight from here to joplin, missouri, tonight to give the commencements. a very tough commencement for folks in joplin, missouri, on nearly the one-year anniversary of those horrible tornadoes that destroyed joplin high school down there. the president will speak at that commencement tonight. you're watching "the daily rundown" right here on msnbc. chicago. [ male announcer ] this was how my day began. a little bird told me about a band... ♪ an old man shared some fish stories... ♪ oooh, my turn. ♪ she was in paris, but we talked for hours... everyone else buzzed about the band. there's a wireless mind inside all of us.

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the planet is in peril. the u.s. empire is on -- on death walk with the rest of the

human race. we're trying to change the way things are. >> i believe there's a lot of issues that are superseding the issue of, you know, national security and, you know, wars and creating wars and mobilizing military. >> so much money that's going into the whole nato position. more money, more focus needs to be put into the issues such as gay rights, women's rights, human rights. >> that was the theme among many protesters gang nethered. among those that spoke in grant park, jesse jackson. president of the rainbow coalition. gm to see you in your hometown. >> welcome to the midwest. >> thank you. thank you, sir. the protests, what people have seen picturewise they don't know actually what was said at the protests. tell us the intention. you were upset. you felt your protest got

eclipsed by some of the anarchists? >> always sabotage the message. dr. king focused on the message that most coincide. an abiding theme on expensive wars. a plan for reconstruction, and the message about violence here at home. for example, we lost about 1,700 soldiers in iraq in ten years. 5,300 killed in chicago. in the top cities, 55,000 in the last ten years. that's a real deal. folks on protest a 12-year-old child killed here and injuries in gunfire this week. that's a big piece. the sense that the iraq war, lost about 6,000 lives. about $1 trillion tos 3ds trillion today. what do it dom tod today? $2 billion a week in

afghanistan, closing schools, real substantive stuff here that got lost. >> isn't there a moral -- this argument how to divide resources, isn't there a moral case for the united states to have to not abandon afghanistan financially and try to help? i mean, one could argue that one of the reasons why al qaeda grew essentially in afghanistan is the united states didn't help that country rebuild itself in 1989? >> but if it's alliance, we should have not crossed the battle line. france is pulling out this year. >> because the same message you're preaching. he got elected off of. >> on that message. and the same guys are saying, we need growth and austerity what we call cutbacks here. these are legitimate debates. my point is that non-violence, not because we're scared, because we're wise. violence tends to sabotage the message that then you look at all the newspapers about the confrontation, and the violence, and the nurse is saying, health

care, not -- not warfare. closing hospitals in cities around the country. the reverends saying we went to war on the concern about national interests and came about oil. i think that so much good stuff of substance got lost in that. >> what's happened in some of the participants. talk about a bunch of thing. naacp came out for gay marriage, historic, over the weekend. there has been this conventional wisdom that particularly among older african-americans, that the president's position on gay marriage is going to hurt him. does the naacp, sort of backing up the president on this, help convince the older african-american might be a little more religious, struggling with this issue, to ignore that part? >> the law is not a matter of faith. it's a matter of law. we live in our faith, whatever that may be, we live under the

law. on the equality under the law you cannot be sdrim in ative based upon your race or gender or sexual preference. so in some times, the cull mtur may be behind the law. it's leaf legal to have race discrimination. took ten years to get a public bill and the right to vote in front of the culture. sometimes the culture lags. equality under the law cannot be avoided. >> are you comfortable with the fact the president said i'm going to leave it up to the states? >> well, if you say we support the right to vote and leave it to the states, you won't get the right to vote. that's what it's about. overcoming civil rights for a more perfect union. he took a bold step. >> but did it in a culture. not talked about under federal law? >> it has to be. ultimately one must have 50

different laws and rules. another stepsome to be taken. >> i want to talk about the idea of republicans wanting to introduce reverend wright. a lot of coverage about reverend right, that he himself is angry about president barack obama. have you talked to him recently and it is that the case? >> it pains me to -- i've seen this before. i remember when kicking the youth out of houses, called and aids kind of leprosy, remember being in isolation committing suicide he had a gay ministry. wheb when mad dog was considered a terrorist and south africa a public u.s. policy, he was on the front line. his ministry has ban most profound one. that's why people like a young barack obama and go to that

church because such a well minister and a ministered church. s to see this is a source of pain. reminds me of dr. king became, on the communist, kicked out of his own convention. with an attempt to use dr. king as an object of degradation was a erereal -- >> do you think president obama should defend reverend wright more? >> try to distance himself. >> politically we know what he's doing. but do you think reverend wright may be speak out and letting people know he's not happy? >> i suppose so, but i do not note of their relationship but i know it's a source of pain for me to see him use as an object's degradation and manipulation using the media as if he was an enemy of state. it's not fair and it's not true. >> jesse jackson, got to leave it there and check in with you. an interesting statistic, level of statistics on homicide rates.

>> 1,700 in afghan in ten years. >> the next time i have you on. >> 55,000 in the country. >> reverend jesse jackson, good to see you. >> thank you, chuck. what's in store this week on wall street? market rundown is next. first, today's trivia question -- which two countries most recently became members of nato? full members. the answer @chucktodd on "the daily rundown." more coming up on "the daily rundown." stay with us. [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues

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got to catch up. >> hey, got to go where the action is. hey, tell me this. i take it the markets, after last week's free fall, come back today? >> looks like that. at least at this point. although, chuck, i have to tell you, we saw more green ar rows earlier than now. the dow indicated it will open up by 30 points or so when the market opens. good news. part because of what we heard from the g-8, all the governments say they're looking for more growth and not as worried about inflation. that means they'll do more to try and spurp the economy and push it on. thapts t that's the good news. bad news, things happening with facebook. hoopla about stock closed just above the $38 michelle offiniti price. will open sharply lower. the early indication. stock down at$36.30. we'll see what happened when the market opens.

a huge concern. the ipo would open below the initial offer of $38. that has a lot of people in the markets spooked now. the opening bell is a minute away. we'll find out what happens then, chuck. >> thank you, becky. that's not the moneyhoneymoon g mr. zuckerberg hoped for. taking a deep dive. winding down the war in afghanistan. plus, this again? arizona secretary of state wants the state of hawaii to verify the president's citizenship before he puts the president's name on the ballot. we're not making this up. you're watching a special edition of "the daily rundown," live from chicago, and some day someone will explain to meep t math of "25 to 6 or 4." ♪ i can do anything

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but that label can lead to prejudice and discrimination,

and we don't want to go there. so let's try to see people for who they really are. you can help create a more united states. the more you know.

well, call it the long good-bye. today nato members are grappling with a plan to leave afghanistan and complete the most significant combat operation in its 62-year history. today we're doing a deep dive into nato's afghan mission. it began in 2001 as an effort to the secure the capital of kabul but was expanded two years later ultimately leading to operations across country. currently, nearly 130,000 troops from 50 nations, 5-0, are serving the afghan war zone. but for the most part, when we say nato forces, we usually mean the united states. 90,000 of the troops serving under the nato-led security force are from the united states. the next largest contributors are britain with 9,500 troops. germany, 4,700 troops and italy, 4,000 and nearly 3,300 from france. at the 2010 summit in lisbon, an exit plan getting all nato forces out of afghanistan by the

end of 2014. since then, anti-war sentiment in the united states and europe has been rising. evidenced by the french president hollande's pledge to bring his troops home this year. adding a new benchmark to the transition. >> by the end of 2013, we expect the afghan forces to be taking the lead for security right across the country as they step forward our focus will shift from combat to support, but we will remain combat-ready. >> let's be realistic. the elephant in the room here actually is pakistan pap key partner in keeping's troop it's combat ready. zardari flew to the united states in hopes for a meeting with president obama, refused after talks to reopen a piece of ply crossing, and he met with secretary clinton and expressed the blockade. no word of a breakthrough there. the blockade was put in place last november after a nato strike killed two dozen

pakistani soldiers and is forcing the u.s. and nato to use ultimate routes to get fuel and food into afghanistan. a symbol between the rising tensions between pakistan and the united states. while nato discusses how to proceed in afghanistan, the fact is, if pakistan doesn't get on board, more time, more money, and possibly more lives. with me now, senator jeanne shaheen, conducting bilateral meetings herself at summit here in chicago and joins me. senator shaheen, nice to see you. >> nice to be here. >> nicer temperature. >> cooler and overcast. all this focus on afghanistan. a year ago our relationship, the united states' relationship with the karzai government was not good. now, it's pretty good there. the relationship with pakistan is a mess and there's an argument to be made the whole reason we've doubled down on protecting afghanistan is because of concerns about pakistan. where are we with the pakistani relationship? >> it's in pakistan's interests

ultimately to be cooperative in this effort and we're continuing to negotiate on rehoopens suppl lines. cost is a concern. we want to do it in an affordable way and still in the interests of the pakistani, but this is a very important country that's critical to the future stability in afghanistan, and it's a nuclear armed country. so it's important for us to keep these lines of communication open. >> what's the bigger national security risk? al qaeda getting a safe haven in afghanistan or an unstable pakistan with nuclear weapons? >> well -- >> i know. a tough choice to make, but is it an unstable pakistan, isn't that worse? >> i think that's why we're working so hard to try and improve relations with pakistan. and they are critical to what happened in afghanistan. because we have some of the terrorist networks that are working over the border in pakistan and so it's very important for us to be able to have everybody working together

as we look at how we return stability to afghanistan. >> you know, in the history of war, i've never seen a schedule to end one and yet we're trying to schedule an end to one. that sort of tells you, by trying to schedule an end it means there's no real victory. just an attempt not to lose. is that a fair way to describe it? >> listen, we scheduled it into our troop commitment in iraq, and i think we've seen relative stability since then. certainly not a return to it violence that existed earlier and i think we learned from that, that it's important for expectations to be the same on all sides. that the afghans understand that we are going to have troops out by 2014. so they need to take over security for their country. they're already doing that. by 2013, about three quarters of the country will have been turned over to the afghan troops to help maintain security and they have stepped up. i was there last august with

carl levin, the chair of the senate armed services committee, and we were impressed with the extent to which the afghans have taken over in certain parts of the country. now, there's still a lot more work to be done. there's still a lot of work to be done to address corruption and the governance side and the development side in afghanistan, but we are seeing some improvement in the troops' ability to maintain security there. >> is karzai the president of afghanistan or the president of kabul? >> well, as we have all learned, afghanistan has a history of not supporting a strong central government, and that hasn't changed. but i think one of the things that i saw when we were there in august was some of the local policing efforts, which were really making a difference, and we heard from local afghans that they were impressed with and felt like they could get help from those local -- >> is that only in kabul or -- >> no, no. that was actually over along the

pakistani border. >> how hard when you look at the costs and part of this nato conference is, frankly, it's not officially a donor conference, but it's a, try to convince the frances of the world, holnd sla saying, can you at least write a check? the hard part, getting kacongre to go along. >> one of the things being talked about at the nato summit that's very important to us is how we do a better job of coordinating and cooperating with resources. what's called burden sharing. they reached some agreements on that yesterday that i think are important. i met yesterday with the -- >> do you think the checks will clear? more than pledges? seriously, you ales hear of the pledges and then -- >> well, i met with the foreign minister of lithuania yesterday and one of the things he talked about is this air policing mission that they have in the baltic states, sharing resources

as part of the nato effort, and he talk and the success in deterring the russians from getting into their airspace, and so i think we have some successes we can point to, and, again, the fact that we have 60 countries, over 60 countries here in support of the nato effort, i think is significant. it shows just how important nato continues to be. >> senator jeanne shaheen from new hampshire. thanks for coming here in chicago and folks will be traveling later, she did a long, op-ed, if will you for "forbes" policy magazine. i'll tweet it out. next here in the windy city, from budget to benchers. does anyone else feel like they woke up back in 2011 this morning? first, white house soup of the day. come on, guys. either that or they know we're not there and are just serving leftover tomato soup -- i mean gazpacho. here's at the nato summit in

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but that doesn't mean our job is done. we're still committed to seeing this through. our president obama spercht the weekend working with world leaders on unified messages for greece and afghanistan. the fight over how to fix the debt back into the spotlight on the sunday shows. take a listen. >> if we really are serious about getting the american people back to work, removing the clouds of uncertainty are important. >> we're looking at an increase in the debt limit. why do we want to wait and rush this through at the end of the year after the election? >> my response to what the speaker said is, here we go again. we all know we have to reduce the deficit. we have to do it in a balanced way. the speaker wants to go over the edge. >> i want to bring in the monday panel. it's got a chicago flare to it. carol maureen, and political editor for our friends here at

wmaq, chicago tribune reporter rick pierson and laura washington, also a columnist with "the chicago sun-times." good morning. >> good to be here. >> i want to talk quickly about the protests and how mayor emanuel handled things. >> masterful job we've been living with a fear -- we've been a target because of that history, and i think it police department and police chief did an incredible job. kept things calm. >> carol, relief that the g-8 wasn't here? >> yeah, relief the g-8 wasn't here. emanuel if at all surprised by the white house, also was deeply encouraged by the possibility that he would limit his exposure to protests and problems. >> i felt that was a public complaint in a private thank goodness they moved it to camp david. >> talk about the campaign. we're in chicago. sure, we can talk about nato,

but the campaign. they want to get back to domestic issues. this fight about the budget, how do you watch it playing out on the campaign trail here in the midwest? i've always thought there'salities disconnect frankly between the debates in washington and where it is in iowa, wisconsin, and ohio, for instance? >> when you look at states in the midwest, illinois being a prime example, you know, when you look at the budget constraints the state of illinois is under, right now looking at cutting $2.7 billion out of medicaid services to the poor. you take that as an example, you magnify out this whole debt debate going on in washington, you have boehner raising this issue. look what's coming at the end of the year. who's going to be president? you've got paul ryan yesterday on "meet the press" saying, you know, no indication there's any plans for compromise. i think people just in general are still trying to make up their mind who can lead on the economic issue? but it's got to be more than just cuts. >> lauren, interesting. one side of lake michigan and

wisconsin, all cuts. this side of illinois and michigan, more tax increases. the public not happy in either place. >> absolutely. tax increases happened quite some time ago and the public is irate in illinois particularly because they haven't seen results. talking about more cuts. people wondering, what happened to that tax money? there never seems to be any solution to the problem. >> carol what do you make of how this bain issue plays -- again a wall street criticism. i feel i saw it in 2000. al gore went populist. a whole bunch of democratic elites criticized him for doing that, for being too anti-wall street. things like that, but it worked for him politically. this rhetoric works here in the middle of the country. doesn't it? >> it does, but there's a real danger, because as the daly family is fond of saying, we've seen this movie before. a certainly level of fatigue with the same, old fight. you have jamie dimon of jpmorgan chase not creating anymore love

for bankers right now, i think there's a real feeling on the ground that something has to be done to produce jobs, that there's got to be, besides austerity, some investment in equity. so cory booker, in a way, ends up speaking a little bit, i think, for some people on the ground. >> rick, seems mayors in general, and i've seen this a little bit in the rhetoric out of mayor booker, they walk this line, they want to be -- democratic mayors want to be with labor, the base of the party but ins with the business community? >> here's illinois totally democraten creak dominated, yet the largest fights that face democratic mayor governor pat quinn are issues about labor. storing pension costs, unfunded liabilities. you're seari inseeing this labo cracking going on but politically it does play to the middle. it plays to both sides here. >> stick around.

trivia, we asked, talking about this crazy stuff in arizona, but trivia, we asked, which two countries joined nato most recently and when? croatia and this country. ♪ albania albania, albania ♪ >> albania and croatia are the countries that joined the alliance most recently. they became official prebs on april 1st, 2009. we'll be right back. you're watching "the daily rundown." aspirin is just old school. people have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. but they haven't experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 92% of people who tried it said they would buy it again. what's different?

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let's bring back our panel. laura, i'll start with you. secretary of state of arizona made a big deal last friday of saying that he was going to

get -- he needed to get certification from the state of hawaii that they have the president's birth certificate before they put the president's name on the ballot. this is all, he claims, a constituent that was doing this. but this is an elected official in the state of arizona. >> absolutely. >> it only -- i don't get it. >> well, some republicans would have liked to have used the jeremiah wright club against him and they got blown away on that one last week. so this is another attempt for them to try to discredit the president -- it revs up their base. the conservatives, the folks out there really want to believe this. >> but does it? carol, doesn't this turn off swing voters? i know the romney campaign, the last thing they want is surrogates for them talking about birtherism. >> it does alienate swing voters. and right now, women and independents, you can't say it more often than that. it's an old game. barack obama is a u.s. citizen

and he's a christian and let's get it over with. >> a lot of them -- don't we think hillary clinton would have found this out -- that's always been one of the -- mike huckabee used that one saying, don't you think that would have -- why does everybody believe that this is somehow not settled? >> i just can't believe there are that many voters that are still part of this birther movement. but i wouldn't be surprised given super pacs and the way they're controlling messages, there's probably somebody out there that are going to run a birther ad. >> the last thing they want -- romney's campaign is supposed to be so disciplined. why do these things keep popping up? via surrogates. >> and why doesn't he tap it down? >> the fact is, when the super pac ricketts thing came up, there was enough tapdown for

them to all pull back on it. >> but even that fumbled. >> shameless plugs? >> i have a column this morning about the other chicago that you're not going to see if your in mccormick place and nato. >> "chicago tribune," people out on the street all night long. at our website, chicagotribune,.com. >> and carol? >> back to "the chicago sun times," i have a column about the nurses. they weren't all violent. some were disciplined, organized, had a complete message. there's a bigger story there. >> mine is to the red foxes in the hudson valley and marist, thanks for having me. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." msnbc will have all-day coverage of the nato meeting including the president's news conference this afternoon. see you tomorrow. coming up next, chris jansing and company, bye-bye.

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