internship on the "today" show. >> fantastic. >> so -- >> congratulations. >> thank you so much. that is great. >> congratulations. >> nice. >> fantastic. mark, if it's way too early what time it is? >> it's exactly "morning joe" time. but now stay tuned for "the daily rundown" with chuck todd in washington. >> all right. ladies and gentlemen, congratulations. the new polling this morning. we go local. the three most pivotal battlegrounds in the last three elections, ohio, virginia and florida. the president is mr. 48%. right on the nice edge, and why the romney folks are fine that they're behind -- for now. plus, speaking out. mitt romney addressing hispan s hispanics, but raises few latino-specific issues. president obama speaks to the air force academy graduates and focuses on his own successes. what each speech yesterday tells us a little bit about their respective campaigns. plus, what's in a number? mitt romney promises that his policy would knock down unemployment by 6% in his first

term. democrats aren't impressed showing numbers that say we'll get there anyway. it's thursday, may 24, 2012. i'm chuck todd. we've given you a ton of numbers. the presidency will be decided by a dozen battleground states. today, new nbc maris polls in three of perhaps the most important. florida, virginia and ohio. the president leads in all three but in each below 50% and romney narrowed the imagine since we pommed all these of these states earlier. down from an eight didn't point lead? january. down in virginia from a double-digit freed march and in ohio the president is up by six points. 48-42. led romney by 12 until our march ohio number. look at numbers, call it

unlikely voter number, not at likely voters yet, a imagine of error game. obama has a two-point lead in florida. three-point lead in virginia. four-point lead in ohio. notice the president's number doesn't move. sits in 48% in all three. approval rating in these states. flori florida, 48% approve. same in january. virginia, 49% up from 49% in ohio in march. down slightly in virginia in a poll that gave him a whopping 17-point lead at that time. now, striking in all these polls combined with our new nbc news/"wall street journal" results, consistency. bottom line, is 48% a good or bad thing? 48% is the nice edge when it comes to an incumbent running for re-election. not close enough to follow over the 50% finish line but close enough it doesn't take much either. a number to follow in the months ahead. if the president's numbers are moving towards 46%, 47%,

regardless whether he's ahead of romney or not, that's trouble for him. holds at 48%, everyone turn of his machine has to work perfectly. where bush was in '04 and creeps to 49% 50% lots of margin for area in various things. moving on to a block of voters who could decide the election and could certainly move the map. mitt romney spoke to a latino group at a summit near washington but didn't want to seem to speak to a latino audience specifically. didn't mention immigration or mark rubio's act, though rubio spoke to the group afterwards. instead, used it to roll out his education plan. >> here we are in the most prosperous nation on our earth but millions of our kids are getting a third-world education and america's minority children suffer the most. this is the civil rights issue of our era. >> make no mistake, latinos care

about education. this is not to say he wasn't speaking to latinos directly, but he's got a lot of catching up to do on a lot of things when it comes to hispanic voters. our new nbc news/"wall street journal" tell le moonld emoonlu not confident among latinos. a 49-45 split there. that optimism is helping the president, but the romney campaign believes it needs one message rooted in the economy to speak to everyone, including lati latinos. romney's marco rubio said as much on fox. >> i'm not shump the message the republican party should have for americans with hispanic descent is any different than the rest of america. >> the big difference between the two campaigns tactically.

this morning romney is releasing a second general election ad which also has a spanish language component. simply a translation, we'll play you that later this hour. again, it's just a translation. obama's campaign by comparison has not just created ads specifically for latino vote ads targeted by market mentionen local addresses like this one on education featuring an obama volunteer from fort lauderdale. [ speaking in foreign language ] >> so you see, it's a fascinating tactical difference. but the romney campaign continues to believe if they win the large ef argument, everything else will follow with that. finally a commencement speech at a military academy, rare opportunity for presidential candidates and president obama made the most of it. his remarks to the graduates were less about advice to cadets

and much more about, let me tell you be my national security record. >> for the first time in your lives, thanks to air force personnel who did their part, osama bin laden is no longer a threat to our country. we've put al qaeda on the path to defeat, for a decade we have labored under the dark cloud of war. now we can see a light, the light of a new day, on the horizon. >> on the trail in colorado and california, the president delivered tough talk at campaign events on romney and the economy saying he can't connect to people. >> there was a woman in iowa who shared her story as a financial -- and he gave her an answer right out of an economic textbook. he said productivity equals our income. and -- and the notion was that somehow the reason people can't pay their bills is because they're not working hard enough.

those of us who spend time in the real world nope thknow that problem isn't that american people are productive fluff. you' enough. you've been workingingi harder ever. >> i'm afraid he doesn't understand what the word productivity means. this is quite a revelation, if you have the president of the united states that doesn't understand that productivity is a measure of output per person in the nation as a whole, and is driven by such things as the level of automation in the society. it's not -- not just a measure of how hard people are working. >> interesting. a lot of economic speak in there, automation, things like that. anyway, later in the day in california, the president hounded romney again. >> governor romney -- yeah, he's saying, well, yeah, my 25 years in private sector gives me a special understanding of how our economy works.

well, if that's true, why is he peddling the same bad ideas that brought our economy to the brink of collapse? >> well, romney defended that as well. defended his time at bain in another interview. here's what he said. >> with regards to bain capital -- >> thank you. >> they just put a report out about their record. the bain capital guys did. they noted they made about 350 investments since the beginning of the firm and of those investments, 80% of them grew their revenues. so i'm -- i'm pretty confident that the overall record of the enterprise i helped begin is one that's pretty solid. >> all right. let's go deeper into our new nbc news marist polls to key battleground states. director of the institute for public opinion joins me now from the hudson valley. mr. mayoringhoff good morning. >> good morning, mr. todd, or should i say dr. todd. >> fair enough. i want to talk about, done the

head-to-heads. let's get to right track, wrong track in all three states. i'm going to post numbers here. fla, virginia, ohio. the only place where even over 40% said we're on the right track is ohio. not surprisingly, that's the state of the three the president had the largest lead. >> yeah. this is all about when you're the incumbent and a challenger, and you know, romney wants to make it a referendum on the presidency, and president obama's first term in office, and clearly obama wants to make this a choice. that's why the numbers look like they are, that's what the strategies are. interesting, as we look in the whole picture, you know, obama's not in such bad shape that romney can just make this an anybody but obama election and hope to win. he's got to make his case, too. he's trying to do that now, as you just showed. >> well, it's interesting. another question we asked, similar to one we asked in the nbc/"wall street journal" poll, la to do, is the worst behind us, more problems, or the worst ahead of us, if you will. look at this.

behind us, everybody said, or 50% believe the worst is behind us. what stands out to me, if you look at it, you sort of want to say which state of these three is probably the most vulnerable for the president of his leads? clearly it's florida. florida seems to be the least optimistic of those three. >> yeah. that's the one that's probably on the edge the most for president obama's re-election chances. ultimately. in all of these states, you identify, in the high 40s. what his approval rating is. high 40s. he's getting as he did in the nbc/"wall street journal" poll pretty much what his approval rating is again. a referendum among the incumbent. if it's that, this thing is about as close as it can get. >> lee, we did running mate tests. seemed to me, two seemed to make a difference, moved it more than a point, if you will. jeb bush in florida made it basically a tied race. probably if you just went by excellent to good voters. 47-45 but probably even closer if you did your likely voter

model which we're not doing yet and bob mcdowell from virginia as well. >> no big bounces. this races is going to be fought at the edge. a point here, a point there. they seem to have a slight impact at the margins. that's something to be watched. no big bounces from any of these folks in portman and ohio, obviously the talk of it the last few weeks doesn't change the equation in ohio for romney, either. so maybe it's about, you know, v.p. picks not doing harm. obviously mentioned often throughout our history, and maybe that's the case right now. it may come down, again, to just obama/romney for the crown. >> and finally i want to go to the favorable ratings that both candidates -- mitt romney, i want to focus on mitt romney. president's over 50% or better. personal favorable, florida, virginia, ohio. of these three states, romney upside-down like in the

nbc/"wall street journal" poll in virginia and ohio more have unfavorable impression than favorable. numbers in florida. 457-43 positive that it's moving -- again, sort of more proof that florida here of the three is probably romney's best shot right now. >> exactly. and i think this is the measure of likability and the president does better on that than he does in terms of his approval rating. romney ultimately, if he's really going to put this obama first term at risk, he's got to be a little more convincing. seems to be the case in florida, not in the other swing states. right now talking about 60 electoral votes in these three states combined. this is potentially make or break land for the next election. >> all right. let me make you get into the weeds here a little built, because explain, a lot of people will look at our party i.d. splits in these three polls versus other polls out there with party i.d. splits. why don't pollsters wait by party identification?

>> simply put, that does move. no number is a fixed number. for example, in florida, in 2004, there was a net republican advantage in terms of the exit polls. in '08, a net democratic advantage. so right now we looked at registered voters in theses reg five-point edge. later down the line we'll look at likely voters. that may show a narrowing gap, which probably would have had we looked at that at this point. likely voters tend to edge republican a little more. i thinks that the kind of dynamic we're looking at. in terms of polling, you need a number to weight to, and party i.d. does move along a little bit so you don't have a fixed number in any of these states. >> polling 101. lee, thank you, sir. see you next week. colorado, nevada and iowa. >> my pleasure. up next, promises, promises. mitt romney says he can bring the unemployment rate down to 6%, but is that a promise that

is as bold as it sounds? joining me next, previous and -- m and michael isikoff is digging in. first a look at the president's schedule. he's headed to iowa today. he's got an official event. hitting congress a little bit, but then he's got a campaign event. not a fund-raiser, but a campaign event, at the iowa state fairgrounds. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ woman ] for the london olympic games, our town had a "brilliant" idea. support team usa and show our olympic spirit right in our own backyard. so we combined our citi thankyou points to make it happen. tom chipped in 10,000 points.

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mitt romney is slaying the president for failing to bring unemployment under 8%. on wednesday he set his own target. >> i can tell you over a period of four years the policies that we put in place would get the unemployment rate down to 6% perhaps a little lower. >> reince priebus joins me now. okay. four years to -- good morning. four years to get to the 6%. that's about what all the estimates say if all the policies stay where they are, as they are right now. that's the estimates that get us there. what's -- that's not much of a bold prediction. is it not? >> well, i think the main point here, though, chuck, is that we've got to do better than where we're at today. and certainly we have to do better than what barack obama promise md he would do by the end of this first term. face it. we can try to poke homes here and there, but the reality is

that this president promised by the first quarter of 2012 under 6% unemployment, if we spent the trillion dollars, which we did spend, a few years ago. face it. and i would listen intent lip to the previous segment, the fact is, people in this country know that we're not going in the right direction. we know this president didn't fulfill his promises and i think what mitt romney is saying we've got to do a whole lot better than where we are today and he's going to help bring about that change. >> it's interesting, though. watching his tv ads, not a lot of detail. i understand this is the romney campaign mantra. they believe you're going to -- you just said it yourself. that you're going to make this a referendum on the president, but don't you owe the public some specifics on this? up know, he talked about on day one he's going to stand up to china. well, how is he going to do that? what is he going to do on day one? on day one, repeal certain regulations. well, which ones? does he owe specifics? should we expect them in the weeks ahead? >> well, first of all, chuck, i

think that you're going to see more and more of that rolling out, but i think this is pretty specific. number one, sign an executive order ending as much of obama care that you can and then also make sure that you take the first steps in making the -- the pipeline, the keystone pipeline come to fruition. you're going to eliminate as many of the regulations that are hampering businesses as much as you can, as the president, and then work with congress to make that happen. that's specific, but i would also encourage the listeners to go to mitt romney poirn com and go to the issues section on that website you'd be surprised how much of that is all laid out in specifics. i mean, whatever the subject may be. it could be regulation, energy, immigration. it's all there. >> taxes. the big one, though, is taxes. he doesn't talk about whose taxes -- when he talks about tax reform he speaks about it in generalityies, and he has left out which, he says some deductions eliminated but

doesn't say which deduction. well, that's the game. you know? that's the -- that's why we can't get in agreement in congress, because there's no agreement on this. and so -- >> first of all -- >> politically i get why he doesn't want to say it, but why not get specific? >> chuck, wait a second. i think you're making some assumptions here, and i know you know your stuff, but he talks about a 20% tax cut across the board for every single american in our country. that's number one, but number two, look what the president's talking about. he's talking about letting the bush tax cuts expire, which is going to increase taxes on those people that are paying 10% to 15%. raising taxes on the people that are hurting out there. he hasn't done a thing about business taxes in this country that are hurting small businesses to hire people. what about the debt and the deficit? the big issues like jobs? i mean, the fact of the matter is, the people that are hurting in this country, if they work hard are having a hard time living the american dream, and

that's what this election is going to be all about. and this president hasn't fulfilled the promises that he made to the american people, and that's what it's about. i mean, listen, this is about whether or not people in this country want another four years of this misery or not. so, you know, we're the change agents. we're the agents of change and this president -- >> something you said. go back to something you said. mitt romney said 20% tax cut across the board, has he said that? he also said, some deductions. he has hinted some taxes will go up for some people but won't say who or how? >> well, listen, i think it's been pretty clear if you look at some of the tax proposals we've put forward, especially paul ryan's budget, we've been very clear many of the loopholes, find the specifics in that budget, we're not opposed to closing some of these loopholes that both republicans and democrats have come together on. but it's this president who after the debt commission, after the super committee, after one cr after the next is refusing to

come to the table. while we're in favor of closing some loopholes we're also in favor of reducing taxes on everyone, and especially on small businesses so we can get the half a trillion dollars that's sitting offsthor hore to into the country to get better jobs for all americans. >> when it comes to who left the table first, everyone has their own interpretation on that. that's what the campaign's about. something about politics. north carolina in particular. at the rnc you are bullish on north carolina, and sometimes rick riley taunts the obama campaign about north carolina and enjoys it. i've noecticed mitt romney is advertising in four states and one is north carolina. do you believe it's a swing state or not? seems mitt romney's campaign does believe it is. >> sure. i think north carolina is a swing state. we have to do our job there. opened up victory centers in

north carolina. we're going to work hard there, work across the board. it's naturally a red state. i think '08 was an anomaly in north carolina but doesn't mean we don't have to roll up our sleeves, do our work and do a turnout program on absentee ballots and get our job done there, whether it's the economy and other issues that hamper the president in north carolina, we're going to do pretty well. >> reince priebus, thanks for coming on. are we in for another summer of wild swings on wall street? congress getting involved in the facebook fiasco. the market rundown is next. first, today's trivia question -- who once held three different cabinet positions in the same year? the answer is coming up on "the daily rundown." we'll be right back.

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just minutes away from the opening bell. time for the market rundown. cnbc's becky quick is here. not trying to draw you into a politics discussion here but last week jpmorgan. jp dimon, yeah. some day might call it that. jpmorgan and creating distrust with wall street. this week the facebook fiasco. i'm wondering if a lot of americans are sitting out there going, boy, this wall street business. what's going on? >> yeah. i think you hit the nail on the head. chuck, this has been incredibly awful couple of weeks. of course, it comes after the financial crisis, which scared a lot of people out as they saw the stock market clams collapse, concern it's a what's happening in the banks and around the country. this is not got for the retail investor sitting at home. you look at this, is this playing field level or not? and the answer from what they've seen lately certainly seems to be, no. there are a lot of questions about facebook, because the big

question now is, what facebook told certain analysts with the underwriting firms that underwrite their ipo, what those firms told their big investors versus their small retail investors, and it is not good at all. things like this. things like the flash crash make people think that they can't get a fair shake on wall street and that's been something that the street's been battling. this perception for some time. it's meant the retail investors is not putting his or her money into stocks, and that's been evident with the volume numbers we've seen on the new york stock exchange. again, it's a huge issue. it's something that the street is hoping that it can fight that perception, but it's not good, and it's something that-of-that's going to be with us quite a while. >> what do we got today? what's coming? >> today? >> yeah. what's the market going to do. >> looks like we'll open up slightly. it's been really weird. a lot of back and forth, but at this point probably open by 20, 25 points in about 30 seconds. >> all right. becky quick.

thank you. >> uh-huh. thanks. coming up next, buying power. we're taking a deep dive. a bunch of the billionaires are back and wrote a bunch of checks in the last month. michael isikoff is all over it. plus, campaign clue. did mitt romney put his running mate front-runner in his new tv ad? we'll show you. and caught on camera, wait until you hear a robotic response from a congressman who recently questioned president obama's citizenship. this will complain why certain states out west are moving the way they're moving. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. we'll be right back. ♪ 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. so, where to next? ♪

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lifted, john kleinheinz. and bob perry's danation given close to $4 million to the romney campaign. and chairman and ceo of continental resources gave nearly $1 million. hamm calls itself america's oil champion is chair of romney's policy energy group. more on that in a minute. not the only big donors. rocco of the hospital chain select medical contributed a quarter million dollars. so did stephen zide. a member of bain capital. 18 billionaires contributed to restore our future, and that's just one of the pro-romney super pacs. american crossroads from harold simmons. his million dollar donation

raised his total contributions to american crossroads to $6 million. the only individual donor to give more in this election cycle is sheldon adelson who bank rolled the gingrich superpac almost single handedly. by comparesing, the usa action isn't seeing near the same financial support. top two donors in april, labor unions. air traffic controllers and plumbers and pipe fitters. top individual contribution came from joseph kiani of a medical tech company. the big money donors aren't contributing to the president's superpac. at least not yet. more than 30 individuals who have donated a million dollars or more to souts gro far. two of them, amy goldman and comedian bill maher, who made contributions more than two months ago. joining me now, nbc news investigative correspondent michael isikoff. you've been doing more than just going through the reports.

all reports come in on the 20th of every month. we get these superpac donors and find out who it is. this is on one side of the side, the disclosure side. you're doing dot connecting. >> right. >> walk me through that. >> the one i thought was the most note-worthy. >> disclosing. >> that harold hamm you mentioned. here's what we know. on march 1st, romney goes to fargo, north dakota and announces that harold hamm a company, owns oil shale in north dakota. >> the fracking, big sort of north dakota oil boom going on. >> profiled in "businessweek" under the title, has moon who bought north dakota because he owns much of the shell formation. in effect the top adviser for the romney campaign, and he's an outspoken critic of president

obama's energy policy, big promoter of gas and oil production, no surprise there. then we see with -- a month later, from this new superpac filing, he gives $985,000, nearly a million -- >> to romney and -- >> what day was it he gave the money? >> april 3rd. >> 34 days later, writes a check for $1 million. >> exactly. now, look, we've seen these big mega donors. the dangers, you've outlined them, on both sides, five or six that have given although far below where the romney superpac is, you know, what's the reason we pay attention to this, do these guys who give this big money, do they have special access? are they influencinfluencing. >> we don't know. >> harold hamm explicitly named at the top romney adviser on energy.

explicitly d lly given a role i shaping policy. that seems to be a step beyond? we've been. >> you went to the campaign and what do they say? >> restore our future, independent. we don't comment on contributions to that. now, look, we've seen the blurring of the lines so far on this, and, you know, when priorities usa, when the obama campaign wanted to signal big donors, should give priorities usa, it's the campaign that makes the announcement. if that wasn't a sign of the blurring between the superpac and the campaign, what is? this one is another example of that. a guy who's got an explicit role in the campaign and is a big mega donor. also a fund-raiser for romney in oklahoma city in may. so one more -- >> sort of -- >> how do you distinguish? between the campaign and the superpac? >> the law claims there's a difference. a distinction without a difference. >> right. >> open secrets. a little analysis of theonors.

the graphic. the romney campaign it is a who's who of the finance world. goldman sachs, prit waterhouse, bank of america, jpmorgan chase, morgan stanley. not a surprise. >> romney's superpac, more than half come from the private equity hedge fund. a subject of controversy now because of bain capital. >> it is. look at the obama campaign top donors. decidedly tech. more of a tech field. microsoft, university of california, one of our parent companies, comcast corporation. university of california. now, that just shows what that is, open secrets does, all the people that work at a place that list their employer. >> right. >> and they coddle them together. >> let's not forget the hollywood money as well. big george clooney fund-raiser. the biggest, jeffrey katzenberg.

dreamworks. $2 million. >> really is a west coast/east coast thing. right? the east coast money is with romney. the west coast money is with obama. >> and with hamm, the energy money. let's not forget. a lot of that energy money. by the way, one interesting wrinkle on the rundown you gave, that $750,000 for bob perry, asked for a refund. still given $3 million to the romney superpac for unexplained reasons, of course the superpac won't comment. asked for his money back, on this last one. you know, go figure. i don't know. he's still obviously one of the big mega donors to the republicans and romney campaign, you know. >> you're going to dig, mike and get it. michael isikoff, thank you for walking us through this. next what did our new battleground poll show about romney's rough road 270, plus the surprise cameo in a new campaign ad and a congressman's attempts to back track on

birther comments. the political panel will be here next. a lot to talk about. first, white house soup of the day. white chicken chili. the president's not there. we'll see who's eating it. don't forget, always follow the show on facebook. poke us, like us, do more to us on facebook than you're doing to the stock itself. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. that joke, what does it get too old? get old? soon? we'll be right back. (female announcer) most life insurance companies

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domenico, it's our map. for ohio and virginia, more important as a sweep for romney than obama. explain. >> they are. a narrow path for romney if he doesn't get those states because of what's happening in the west. look at colorado, nevada, new mexico. obama's favored in new mexico. >> people have to remember this. new mexico has basically fallen off the battleground map, all these states will bush '04 states. >> and looks like it's trending a little more democratic. nevada, highest unemployment and still for whatever reason it's still a toss-up. >> tracy, are you surprised here we are talking about a scenario where the president either wins florida or ohio and two possible passes with our without, one that includes virginia and one

that doesn't? >> funny, because these polls came out this morning and i actually have just been in ohio and florida in the past four, five days talking with independent voters, and not for the campaign but for other issue-related reasons. what everyone's talking about down there, in both of those states, florida yesterday and ohio a few days before that, and this pervasive sense of these independent voters they're not ready to make their decisions yet, and the job sentiments purveyed everything. they purveyed understanding of the biography of mitt romney. they purveyed the understanding of the record of barack obama, and i think that's the undercurrent of what these polls are shoer iwing. that everyone in the battlegrounds states will look at this their their own, personal, neighborhood economic level. >> funny you say that. the romney campaign believes they need one message and they're going to talk to all voters the same way. the obama campaign believes in

this segmentation, if you will, of, we showed you the one hispanic ad raunning in the miai market. i'm working for obama. let me tell you about obama's record where hispanics are concerned. >> how much obama talk answer the women's vote and women's events, got a women's strategy, african-americans -- >> goes right down the line. putting together -- >> the polls also struck me, you see how many voters feel like, one, the economy's getting better. particularly ohio and virginia. basically john kasich saying the economy's getting better, contrary to romney's message and two of three voters in the poll said they believe the economy's bad because obama inhampted a bad economy. a good message to believe that. >> tracy what is moving ohio? one of these things that stunned me. a year ago we thought it would creep off the battleground for the president. instead, he seems to be showing

more strength there. is it all auto industry? >> a lot auto industry. remember when we talk alto industry we're talking about the totality of that supply chain. >> supply chain. right. >> that's a big point to keep in mind, ohio and the way that affects major regions. >> we've found out who the front-runner is for the vice presidency as far as mitt romney is concerned. second tv ad, let me show it one more time. seep if you caught who it is. here's his ad. >> day one -- president romney announces deficit reductions ending the obama era of big government. helping secure our kids' futures. president romney stands up to china on trade and demands they play by the rules. president romney begins repealing job-killing regulations. >> all right. now let me show you this screen shot domenico. who is this guy? what's going on there? >> i think two shots. >> how about that? >> two shots. >> that is tim paw lenglenty.

the wan everyone thought -- not that minnesota would be on the map. it's more this issue, our polls tell the story, too. have veeps don't make that much of a positive difference. the first rule is, do not harm. right? and there is some, you know, difficulty with someone like tied to the administration, marco rubio not vetted his entire career. look at paul ryan, who's lightning rod budget could be an issue. he's looking for somebody who's vanilla, from the midwest, has that blue collar roots, you know -- >> funny. that's what strikes me about pawlenty. he can go to iowa. the president would like to hit romney, he's not been in -- paw lengthie can't be accused. >> right. and a notable record. noticed in florida talking to

independent voters about, for example, rubio. you get a lot of blank stares. >> don't know yet. >> no idea. >> that's where he works. >> and did not inspire all the people -- >> true. a sort of -- >> and tell you, the last think he wants to be a trivia we asked who once held three cabinet posts in the same year? the answer elliott richardson. he was the secretary of health, education and welfare, q, the beginning of 1973. president nixon selected him to be secretary of defense. four months later, nick son nominated him to be the attorney general a position he held until october of that year, as we told you yesterday, he resigned abruptly after refusing to fire special prosecutor archibald cox on a saturday night. you're watching the daily run down on msnbc, we'll talk colorado.

i don't know whether barack

obama was born in the united states or not. but i do know this, that in his heart he's not an american. he's just not an american. >> that is republican congressman mike coughman of colorado. let's bring back the panel, i'm highlighting this because first of all he tried to do an apology and here is his apology on what he said on that but i want to talk about it in the broader context of what is going on in colorado. here is coffman's walk back. >> do you feel voters are owed a better explanation that i misspoke? >> i think that -- as i stand by my statement, that i misspoke and i apologize. >> who are you apologizing to? >> i stand by my statement i missspoke. >> to is telling you not to

talk? >> i stand by my statement that i wrote, that you have, and i misspoke and i apologize. >> okay, colorado is a state that has you talk to a lot of republicans, more and more pessimistic about their chances there than you would believe. i have a feeling a state you get the sense -- i had perry, people tell me because the colorado republicans that have been offered up have just not been in sync. what was that? >> what was that? the arizona secretary of state asking for the birth of certificate. why is this issue coming out. >> bizarre pandering to a conspiratorial base. >> also going to vote for republican x or mitt romney, bad politics. also this is going to hurt in a state where latino vote is growing, minority vote is growing. people from california coming there, this is not going to be helpful with the kind of swing

voters they need, colorado is a critical state for him. >> ten years ago there was a governor, billow we owens, this future of the republican party, he got caught in a scandal, that party has gone downhill ever since. they put up bad candidate after bad candidate, ken buck, we can go on and on. >> a state that again, if mitt romney can't compete in the state like colorado, that makes his path really narrow and this issue with hispanics, he goes and talks yesterday to latinos on education, you look at talking about education and the economy, isn't going to be enough, probably to just win over his -- >> tracy, the first shamless plug. >> memorial day weekend coming up to do list, honor our servicemen, buy something made in america. >> my mother-in-law is retiring, congratulations to her.

>> i'll be the only one shameless, those were very nice things, the week ahead, tomorrow and everyone is wondering what will andrew gross be wearing? >> the week ahead, that's it for this edition of the daily run down, we'll investigate why everyone is always hating on d.c., coming up next, chris jansing and hard ball tonight, matthews, gingrich, "hardball" have a great day, goodbye. , our town had a "brilliant" idea. support team usa and show our olympic spirit right in our own backyard. so we combined our citi thankyou points to make it happen. tom chipped in 10,000 points. karen kicked in 20,000. and by pooling more thankyou points from folks all over town, we were able to watch team usa... [ cheering ] in true london fashion. [ male announcer ] now citi thankyou visa card holders can combine the thankyou points they've earned and get even greater rewards. ♪

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