1% back on... wow! 2% on my homemade lasagna. 3% back on [ friends ] road trip!!!!!!!!!!!! [ male announcer ] get 1-2-3 percent cash back. apply online or at a bank of america near you. ♪ on day one of his presidency, mitt romney is promising to reduce deficits, take the chinese government to task, put an end to job killing regulations, repeal the national health care law, move forward on the keystone oil pipeline, and cut taxes. no word about extending recess or putting soda in the water fountains though there's always day two. it's thursday, may 24th, and this is "now." joining me today, msnbc contributor and "washington post" columnist, the legendary

e.j. dionne is here. he's author of "our divided political heart." the best book on political hearts on the newsstands. "new york daily news" columnist essie cup. nick of "the new york times." and sam stein. of the "huffington post." mitt romney is getting down to specifics on what he plans to do as president. sort of. politico posted an e-mail circulating among top romney donors in new york and connecticut, praising his focus on the so-called three es. employment, energy, and education. romney released a new tv ad called day one, part two, focusing on what he would do on his first day as president and said yesterday unemployment would drop to 6% in the first four years. this morning, romney outlined three ways he would create jobs. >> start off by saying let's stop something that's hurting small business from creating swr jobs, that's obama care, get rid

of that. number two, have an energy strategy that takes advantage of our natural gas and oil and cole as well as our renewables. the low cost fuels will mean jobs come back here, even manufacturing jobs that left here and finally get a handle on the deficit so if people understand that they invest in america their dollars are going to be worth something in the future. >> e.j., you are the elder statesman here. in the best way. emphasis statesman, not elder. alliant. the answers that mitt romney, vague specifics, shall we call them. obama care, fossil fuels which is to say oil reducing the deficit. are those going to create jobs? is this a plan? is this a plan we've been waiting for from team romney. >> no, at least i don't think it's much of a plan but it is what he's for. you know, a promise i'm going to cut unemployment to 6%, two things about that. one, no matter who's elected, i bet you unemployment is at 6% in four years and, in fact, i was

talking a few weeks back to somebody in the obama administration who does economics who said, one of the terrible things about losing this election is we'll be upon a pretty good trajectory eventually and i hate to see other guys get credit for it. the other thing about a promise like that, if it doesn't happen, he's going to be accountable for it four years from now. if it works, he'll be president and he doesn't care. you might as well throw out that 6% because it sounds a lot better than 8%. >> i believe the cbo has put out numbers saying we're supposed to be about 5.9% by 2016. so this is not -- in terms of -- nick, in terms of being a risk averse candidate, this is very much lock step with where romney has been, although, you know, every time you throw in a term, regardless of what the glide path is, it can be dangerous. we know the president has received a lion's share of criticism for saying the unemployment rate would not tgo above 8%. >> it's a very dangerous bet to place in general to say the unemployment rate will be here

when you as president don't have that much control over it. i think what we're really seeing here is general election mitt. these are three things he wants to talk about. think of all the months and months on campaign trail they spent talking about contraception, you know, immigration, things that are sensitive. things are it's going to be harder for him to get into a general election posture. i think we're seeing here is like the reset button, the shaking of the etch a sketch. >> sam, the day one and day one part one, day one, part two, first of all, i don't know how -- mitt romney is working clearly a 36-hour day if he's going to get that all on day one, paraphrasing your friend, john warden of the "huffington post." it's ridiculous to think any president is going renegotiate our position with the chinese, come up with common sense health care solutions on the first day. these are vagaries. the fact he's putting them out there makes him open to further digging. >> you lay out a platform, say i'm going to achieve it

instantaneously almost. i think part of what has hindered obama many in respects he had lofty expectations he applied in his campaign, one of them to get over the partisan bickering. you can't achieve that in the white house. mitt romney is going to be a president like that if he's elected. e.j.'s right. he's staying in the vagaries because he want s to talk abou these three things. grant him health care -- the deficit thing -- his plan would explode the deficit by most nonpartisan estimations. i do think at some point, i hope at some point he actually has to answer that specific question, which is, why are you assuming your plan to reduce the deficit will work when everyone else assumes it won't? eventually he will have to address this. >> he's going to have to get into some kind of specifics. you have skepticism on it.

>> employment, energy, education, that's not a plan, it's a campaign strategy. i think it's a very effective one. choosing these three things actually i think is really, really smart. employment, that's obligatory. energy, that's the red meat. i mean, obama's got a pretty, i think, vulnerable energy policy for republicans and romney to go after. then education is sort of the humanizing component of this campaign strategy. and it has the benefit of ill l illiteration. this is actually a smart three pronged approach for romney to focus on over the next few weeks. >> although it's worth noting on the education piece, he was speaking to the latino coalition in a bid to shore up votes where he's cratering in the polls and doesn't talk about the one thing that's near and dear to the latino community in the states which is the immigration question and sort of goes on to an education speech that basically undermines no child left behind which was a major piece of bush era legislation,

e.j. i mean, he basically wants to take $26 billion given to needy school districts and give it to students to choose from schools which many folks think would undermine or prevent schools from -- >> he's not trying to win the latino vote. he's trying to salvage enough so he can barely win the election and he's been down so low that you could -- some may go for vouchers or something like that. you can build it up. education is a clever issue for republicans to use, for just the reasons you said. on the one hand, it humanizes him, shows compassion. on the other hand it's an issue where you can actually two to the right and satisfy your right wing constituency by attacking teachers union, by calling for vouchers, by saying this big bureaucracy is not educating our kids so you can kind of get a twofer out of it. no one was smarter about it than george w. bush but he actually, like it or not, no child left behind was actually a very serious proposal that put some real, you know, testing and

standards into the schools. and now the republicans seem to want to abandon only the most interesting parts of the bush legacy. you know? >> the, you know, education, right? barack obama is probably the first democratic president to seriously tick off the teachers unions on big issues. this is not an issue where he is a traditional democrat, right? they've embraced race to the top, accountability, charters, right? he's in some sense legitimateized that for all democrats in the country. it struck me as kind of an interesting point of comparison for these two candidates. >> it's like when romney says obama's beholden to the teacher's unions. go to the teacher unions and they'll be like, oh, my -- >> but obama will never get to romney's right on the teacher's unions, and that's what romney is counting on because in the end -- >> he took a particular glee during the course of the '08

campaign and afterwards in pissing them off, make a point of making an example he was not a doctrine or liberal by saying i have problems with the teachers unions and they need to organize, and by in large they've taken his orders -- >> isn't it a testament how far the ball has moved right? mitt romney was saying i'm going to shudder the department of education or drastically reduce its side. there are very strongly worded prescriptions as far as what we need to do as far as education in this country especially coming from certain corners on the right. i didn't get to the swing state polling. ohio, florida, virginia, president obama is holding a narrow lead. it's important to note that the lead has gone down. he had 12% lead in march in ohio, 8% lead in january in florida, a 70% lead in march in virginia. but he is still ahead, leading by four to six points in those states ahead of mitt romney. an interesting thing going into november. and actually even june. >> perhaps. >> we have mass unemployment,

like, of course it's even -- >> a lot of this was naturally the gap was going to narrow once we had a real nominee, the gap was going to close. >> nbc did the poll so i would never close the poll. yesterday quinnipiac had obama down big in florida. these polls are so far out, we have to just calm down. >> they're snap shots. >> let's not obsess over every single moment -- except if it's an nbc poll. >> we were talking earlier and i want to put it on the record so we can two back to it if we're right and people can burn the cds or whatever the stuff is that if we're wrong. it's possible president obama could lose the popular vote and win the electoral college which would be the revenge for 2000 for the democrats although not at all good for the country to have a split result. sam and i were -- we had come to this conclusion independently. romney is going to win some of

those states by margins but obama could win almost all of the swing states by relatively narrow margins. they'll only show this again if we're right. >> if youindpeptly coming to the conclusion, you must be -- coming up, the family tree, we'll look at growing up willard. yoo-hoo. hello. it's water from the drinking fountain at the mall. [ male announcer ] great tasting tap water can come from any faucet anywhere. the brita bottle with the filter inside.

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governor romney, he's saying, well, my 25 years in private sector gives me a special understanding of how our economy works. well, if that's true, why is he pedalling the same bad ideas that brought our economy to the brink of collapse in. >> he doesn't understand how the free economy works. he's never had a job in the free economy, neither has vice president biden. they spent their lives as either community organizers or members of the political class. >> the general election narrative appears to be in rewind, going back to the '80s and '90s when president obama was a community organizer and mitt romney a ceo. michael scherer is a white house correspondent for "time" magazine which features a piece about the presumptive gop nominee called raising romney and also joining the panel, politico's ben white. too much talent for just one hour. michael, i want to go to you

first. before we get to the fascinating, fascinating article on romney, i want to get your thoughts on this idea that we're basically relitigating battles that are quite old at this point which is to say we're now hearing the old chestnut of community organizer being trotted out and to be fair the bain stuff, private equity stuff, is stuff being used in the 1994 senate race. >> all campaigns are the same campaign. right. i think that's right. you're probably still going to get more of this critique from the romney camp of obama's early biography than you did in wait. i thought the reverend wright stuff is a distraction. you're not going to have the explicit mention of reverend wright. it's been in the playbook to contrast romney's 1980s spent in the private sector, making money, making jobs, losing some jobs with what barack obama was doing. and so i think you're going to have a lot of that. yeah, all these campaigns are very much the same. you know, you have -- wouone ofe

interesting dynamics right now is you have the obama campaign running against their 2008 campaign. the romney campaign messaging right now, which is i'm going to turn around the economy, you're not happy with where the country is, change is on the way, is very similar. they have a different candidate, but similar to what david axelrod ran on in 2008. >> you're seeing the word change bantied about. an ace reporter, nicholas, has in today's "time" which discussing the dangerous dance between president and wall street, vis-a-vis this private equity stuff. nick, you say mr. obama may be testing a bond first formed by bill clinton who persuaded much of his party's elite democrats could be populist and friendly to wall street. at stake are not only the political and policy relationship democrats have nurtured over the decades with

the financial services industry but the millions of dollars in campaign cash that come with it. how iffy are things now with your reporting and conversations? >> that there's always going to be a core of people on wall street who are democrat first and financiers second. always be a core of republicans on wall street who are republicans first. there is this middle ground and includes a lot of the big institutions, investment banks that split their money back and forth. it's really the fight for the middle and the enthusiasm. you know, if you're a bundler at a hedge fund or a firm, you have to go to your colleagues and ask them for money. if they all think the president hates wall street it's harder to make that asked. those affect fund-raising. >> ben, we've been talking about wall street's relationship with obama for a long time. in nick's article he points out sort of the day the president is sort of excoriating -- i wouldn't say -- i don't think he uses the word vulture capitalism but maneuvers of bain capital,

he's at a fund-raiser and it's just #awkward. >> yeah, that's basically a nutshell of obama's relationship with wall street. try to race money from them one minute, bash them publicly the next. that's the reason he lost the wide middle ground of democrats on wall street. he's never going to get that back. they despise him. it's not going to be a return of the 2008 campaign where he out-raised john mccain on wall street. he's going to have score support, there's hedge funders and private equity guys with obama. they get irritated when he shows up in their apartments, i'm going to say one thing publicly, i have to bash you in public but i still want the money. >> he doesn't necessarily, but his aides do, jim messina, comes to new york, meets with these guys, tells them, we have to talk about this stuff. some of it we believe, he's not saying we're saying stuff we don't believe. people are angry at you for a reason, we're going to talk about that. there are pieces of our platform that would be helpful to you and we're keeping the pitchforks at

bay. things would be a lot worse if we had allowed a tougher reform. the point is right, he's not going to raise as much money from wall street. he has no real political choice but make the case wall street did a lot of things that damaged the economy and upset people. wall street is unpopular in the polls for good reason. you have to go out in public and say i'm going to change things, it's not going to be more of the same. >> michael, you're a white house denison. talk about wall street's ruffled feathers. these guys have gotten a pretty good deal on wall street. is there any sense -- i'm sure there is from the white house -- defensive posture. ben said it could be way, way worse. >> what happened here was a botched rollout. when the obama campaign released the bain ad the messaging from chicago is this is not about private equity, this is about mitt romney and this one company and how he did private equity. that was lost for weeks. look at steve radnor's op-ped in "the new york times" yesterday. that got at what the chicago campaign was trying to get at all along, there is nothing

wrong with private equity. let's look, though, at what romney did in private equity and whether that prepares him to be president. it's a different narrative. they rolled out this, you know, vampire gst steel, you know, dark foreboding ad. >> the way you say vampire dark foreboding is actually quite pleasant, but continue, michael. sorry to cut you off zb. >> they tried to go hard, didn't want to go out with nuance in the beginning which was a smart strategy. now they're paying for it. that relationship has been tortured for a while and going to continue to be tortured. the president is going to have to continue to move for populist. he's been doing it for a while. ben's right. wall street is never going to really come around to that -- >> the reason wall street guys have such thin skin, i mean, the way it could have been. think about how it could have been. could have nationalized the banks, hauled people to court, put them in jail, they could have done a number of things. >> nationalize the banks. >> exactly.

and now we have record profits on wall street and these people are doing very well. and, you know, yes, obama's a politician, he has bad rhetoric toward wall street. give me a break. come on. >> and i would -- they don't like it. >> they're supposed to be these powerful people. >> we have to go to break, but when we come back, we are going to keep michael scherer in that seat in washington, d.c., and going to talk about the fascinating and intriguing linore romney and mitt romney growing up, that's next. [ kate ] many women may not be properly absorbing the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption.

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political ideology or a political side of the spectrum that she can't analyze the situation and vote in it and work in it completely candidly. >> that is a young mitt romney in 1970 speaking during his mother lenore's bid for senate. michael, you are still with us in washington. i want to go to you first as a representative as "time" magazine. in the story "raising romney" the author says, whereas her husband, speaking of lenore, her husband lelished a good fight, she side stepped confrontation, looking to placate critics by moving to common ground. mitt displayed much of the same temperament as he grew up. george romney seemed like a bull in the china shop in certain points of the story and probably learned at his mother's knee in terms of political swagger and ability to avoid conflict. >> yeah, one of the things that bart and elizabeth, the reporter who worked on this story, found

was that, you know, we think of george romney as the role model for mitt. that's absolutely true. george romney's picture is on mitt's bus. i mean, he's always looked to george. but it was lenore romney's campaign that mitt really saw up close. he was in paris during his father's failed presidential bid, when he talked about getting brainwashed. he took a leave of absence, the whole summer from college, and campaigned in 83 counties through michigan with lenore and it was a painful experience, not just for lenore, but the entire family. lenore was pushed into the race by her husband, who was stuck in washington at a job he didn't want, working for richard nixon at that point. he found not only was her own party not backing her, she had a fight a pretty brutal primary battle, but then as he tried to put forward this moderate face she found there really wasn't a place for her in the state or in the party. the lessons of campaigning and viciousness of campaigning and

the limits of what you can do campaigns, the sort of cynicism that mitt romney i think know embodies or has embodied in his approach to politics, a lot of that comes from lenore. >> they talk about how devastating the loss was and the family really sort of circled the wagons and had to reassess what their friends were. essie, we were talking about this during the break. you seemed to draw to much from family histories -- >> we should want to know more about our political candidates. the amateur psychology around romney's upbringing and what it makes him today i find specious and weird. i don't find him to be cynical. i find him to be an incredible optimist who keeps campaigning, losing, campaigning, losing. if he were really burned -- i'm not trying to be funny -- if he were really that burned -- i'm quoting the article -- by

watching his parents lose these electi election, i wouldn't think he would be this optimistic and enthusiastic. he's actually kind of -- >> michael's talking about the cynicism of changing -- >> i think there's a difference between tenaciousness and optimism. there's no one doubting that romney not only learned you can lose from his parents and continues to fight that, but that he's willing to keep fighting even when the odds are tough. he deserves a lot of credit for that. when i say cynicism, i mean going to michigan during the primary and saying the auto yun r ones are terrible, i was against the bailout and going three weeks later saying i should take rhett from the auto bailout. it's the kind of maneuvering mitt learned. he doesn't approach politics from a very principled, you know, i'm going to just talk from my gut way. i don't think anybody argues that. >> his political style, you might be right there. i don't know what it real will

says if anything about his personality. i don't like all these -- >> i just want to drop some amateur specious -- >> that's what the show is. >> i'm going to drop some knowledge. doesn't it seem he would be effective, though, having gone through these experiences seeing his dad have that horrific, you know, verbal gaffe then his mom's campaign. >> talking about the vietnam war and getting brainwashed. >> that it would be ingrained in you, you need to be, if you're going to get into politics incredibly cautious and guarded and not say anything that would be used against you. >> why would you keep running? >> you keep running as a way to reclaim the fame but also because you think in respects, it's partially entitled, that your family was part of this process, you think you can do it better than anyone else, that he succeeded in business before he did this, this is the natural successi succession. my point is he's a guarded individual. we rarely get to see him unzipped as his wife said. that probably has a lot to do with the fact he was a front row

witness to these two -- >> redemption story. that's positive. that's optimistic. >> essie, i will say, we have to engage in specious armchair psychology. >> who else will? >> exactly. mitt romney won't make himself available. even in jody cantor's rather complimentary "the new york times" story about his religion, no one from the romney camp made the candidate available. >> this is a guy who won't talk in-depth about the one thing that most defines him which is his faith. that's kind of fascinating. i think it contributes to the sense maybe we don't really know who he really is. >> pulling away the veil of secrecy one page at a time, "time" magazine and michael scherer, its engreatest ambassador. thank you, sir, for its time. coming up, the eurozone confronts its debt crisis. closer to home, jay carney calls bs. on what? answer's next on "now."

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new reports out today indicate greece's debt crisis may be taking a toll on the rest of europe. the powerful german economy is showing signs of weakness and in the uk the double-dip recession is worse than originally thought. the impact of the converging crises could damage the u.s. economy as president obama heads into november. ben, it is bad out there. what, i mean, what -- and obviously no one can look into a crystal ball, but in terms of the future of the eurozone, it really sounds like greece may leave. there seems to be plans being made among the eurozone countries for a greek exit. >> there are contingency plans made in the europe nations. why didn't they make these sooner are repaired for a eventuality that greece could step out? greece, small economy, side of rhode island, on paper, shouldn't be a big deal. they had no idea how it would exit the eurozone and how to replace the euro with its own

currency. the problem is investor panic, see greece come out of the euro, pull money out of banks. we exposure to european banks in the united states. we don it would be a dent to gdp, be a real problem. greece comes out of the euro, banks start to fail, italy and spain's economies go into the -- and defaults all over the place, as the election is ramping up, hits our economy, hurts obama and he loses. biggest risk to president obama now is a european economy and greek exit from the eurozone. >> not just president obama but the u.s. economy which is really at the root. >> right. >> we talk about push and pull between germany and france. that's been exacerbating -- i wouldn't say exacerbating 37 francois hollande is taking a different stance than angela merkel. francois hollande is going for a different plan. >> he wants to get the european countries together to issue debt to back everybody up. it's like saying you had a

friend who was proflogate and had a lot of credit card debt. >> i'm sort of like greece. >> angela merkel doesn't want to do it because she has a -- she's proud of the country with a decent economy and little debt. they don't want to be in the position of backing up greece and spain and italy. where does it end for germany? you know, you have a huge mass of political cross currents now. greek elections coming up. are they going to elect a leftist government? they may do that. if they do, they'll say bye-bye to the euro and forget austerity. and that brings into question the entire eurozone. you have france saying we want more economic growth policy, some other nations in europe saying we want that. germany saying we don't. there's no agreement. there's no plan going forward. >> you are painting a very specifically apocalyptic -- >> i better call my broker right now. >> get out of everything. >> isn't it cheaper for merkel and the germans to bail out greece than take a potential economic hit? >> it might be.

that's an argument made to her she's so far rebuffed essentially i think because she's too worried about the domestic political ramifications of being seen to be someone who's willing to bail pout greece. >> she can't immediately capitulate. perhaps it's part of a 12-step process. >> perhaps. that's the thought. so far it hasn't happened. she's been very firm. >> we're talking about debacles and apocalyptic situations. jay carney calling bs, listen to what he said aboard an air force one press gaggle yesterday. >> don't buy into the bs you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration. i think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness. >> i think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness, nick. we know that we are not at the precipice yet but we are ramping

up for another gigantic, fiery debate over spending and revenue raisers. harry reid in politico yesterday talking about the twigger, sequestration. he says, i'm not going to back off the sequestration, that's the law we passed, to now see the republicans scrambling to do away with cuts to defense. i will not accept that. my people in the state of nevada and the country have had enough of whacking all the programs. >> obviously for the president, too, for everybody, it's gone off a cliff, right? mitt romney is going to be asked, going to have to stand for or against everything the congressional republicans are going to do. speaking of wall street, one area in which wall street is very freaked out about republicans in congress is this. right? is this walking off the cliff. so to the extent that's an important guise for mitt romney, they're going to be watching very closely if he's the kind of

guy they can trust, do the right thing. >> doesn't that also put him in a uniquely sort of agile position to be able to attack gop and establishment republi n republicans if he doesn't like what hay do and sort of look like an outsider? >> he's never taken that tact. >> he's never done it. >> he could. i think you're right, the issues whether the debt ceiling, the automatic spending cuts and the fiscal cliff that's all coming in the lame duck, he'll be around for all of this and people will be putting a microphone in front of his face every time these -- >> the question is, what happens -- >> -- these issues come up. >> we're dealing with a reality before november. he's not president yet for this theoretical purpose and confronted with boehner saying, we're not going to pass an extension of the debt ceiling without huge amounts of cuts. what does he say? i agree with you. there's a chance, an opportunity there to have him above the fray. he also suffers from this inherent skepticism within republican circles that he's never really been one of them. the first time he steps out and

chastises republican leadership in the house there's going to be a fair number of republican conservative voices in the media specifically say, i told you so. you sort of saw that when sean hannity slapped him on the wrist for putting jeremiah wright off as a campaign issue. sean hannity was like, he's not using -- >> i would argue, sam, even if he is elected president he's going to have to continue to prove his conservative bona fides -- >> if he gets elected president he's going to be given a lot of rope and a lot of leeway to do what he wants with the tax cu cut,s, the sequestration. he's going to have a lot of cachet and capital to spend. >> depending on the makeup of the house. >> he has said, very quickly, he prefer congress wait until he's in house to do anything. >> surprisingly. i would not like to deal with these issues until i'm actually at 1600 pennsylvania avenue sfwlmplg. after the break, did the

white house or cia visit too much information with hollywood? we'll examine president obama's relationship with tinseltown, next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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classified information to filmmakers kathryn bigelow and mark bold working on a movie about the killing of osama bid laden. did the white house cross the line? joining the panel now, a contributor, a correspondent to buzz feed and rolling stone, michael hastings. michael, great to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> we know from the transcripts of these meetings undersecretary of defense michael viggers told big low they could meet with a commander involved in the raid giving them access to folks the public don't have access to. they responded fabulous. that's dynamite. >> you have these transcripts, a defense department official basically seeming star struck by the hollywood players. kathryn bigelow, director of the great "point break" as well as the "hurt locker." >> i'm glad you have the order of preference. >> the priority -- but this very serious issue is that the obama administration has engaged in a

selective campaign. when there's top secret information they want to put out that makes them look good, they're more than happy to roll out the red carpet. when it's the more nefarious, embarrassing information, they put the stone wall up of bureaucracy. if it was cy hurst saying i want to do a bin laden story, he would not have had that kind of meeting. >> do you think that's fair? the response from the pentagon has been the identity of a planner, not a member of s.e.a.l. team 6 was provided, for additional information. most of this stuff, they were going to get access to the vault room, an empty room. there's nothing really there. just so they can get a feel for it. is it much adieu about nothing if. >> the administration can control what information they want to release to whoever they want to release it. i think it's also kind of lame, too, to be honest with you. giving it to a hollywood producer for the purposes of packaging it in some sort of glorified theater is like -- it just strikes me as like a little bit too cute.

it would be nice, we were talking about this off set, this administration has been tough on journalists. they've cracked on leakers. they've been tougher in more respects than bush i believe. for them to turn around and do this is hypocritical. >> invoked something like six times in the past -- just in this term under obama. i think that's a really excellent point. i think essentially what obama and the administration wanted here was a campaign ad. frankly hollywood already does plenty of campaign ads without, you know, getting the collusion here. but i think it puts the campaign in a fairly bad light. >> well, the original -- >> or the white house. >> exactly. the original release date was, like, october 2012. right? >> yeah, it was. >> and then they've now -- now the studio sort of caving to the sort of public outcry has moved it to a couple months later in december. >> is it worth noting -- >> if you had seen a s.e.a.l. operator leak details of the operation to a reporter from

"the new york times," i'd have to imagine we'd be seeing a prosecution, not e-mails -- >> if this happened under bush it would not go away. >> if bush had done this with 9/11 and brought in a hollywood producer, conservative filmmaker, say i want to talk to you about where i was the morning of -- i just think there would have been a popular outcry. if you're going to be consistent, apply those standards to obama as with ell. >> we're talking about the relationship between hollywood and the white house. donations from wall street are not come in. depending on your metrics. the lion's share is going to the gop or republican candidates and superpacs. we know the president is hosting a fund-raiser with sarah jessica parker, had a fund raiser with george clooney. the white house made a calculation whatever they suffer in terms of messaging they will reap in terms of campaign cash. that's obviously where their -- or public support for their actions. >> i would say that they did this to get campaign cash. >> no, no, i'm separating the

two. in terms of the relationship -- the co-easiness with hollywood. it feels there's a -- they understand. >> democrats and hollywood, it's like oil and republicans. it's just a reliable source of campaign money. they'll always exist. it will always be. but you are right. in this campaign environment with certain industries like wall street giving less, the campaign is looking for more from others. that includes hollywood, includes silicon valley, a huge source for them, a perspective source, and gay money, their bundlers. >> michael hastinghastings, tha for coming on. we didn't get into a lot of "point break." >> if it's like "point break," i'm buying three tickets.

>> anyway, coming up, facebook fiasco. we'll take a look at the latest zuck-up next in "what now." ounc] how do you trade? with scottrader streaming quotes, any way you want. fully customize it for your trading process -- from thought to trade, on every screen. and all in real time. which makes it just like having your own trading floor, right at your fingertips. [ rodger ] at scottrade, seven dollar trades are just the start. try our easy-to-use scottrader streaming quotes. it's another reason more investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. yoo-hoo. hello. it's water from the drinking fountain at the mall. [ male announcer ] great tasting tap water can come from any faucet anywhere. the brita bottle with the filter inside. and then treats day after day... gwho gets heartburnater can come from any faucet anywhere.

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and a growing number of lower emissions planes... which still makes for a pretty enchanted tale. ♪ la la la [ man ] whoops, forgot one... [ male announcer ] sustainable solutions. fedex. solutions that matter. not much of a honeymoon for newlywed facebook ceo mark zuckerberg. latest reports says facebook is thinking about leaving the nasdaq for the new york stock exchange. this is a big deal, leaving one for the other, among other things. >> it's a giant stock to leave nasdaq. it would be a terrible blow to has tanasda nasdaq. they were proud to have this on their exchange. if it goes to the nyse, it's bad for nasdaq. the loser is facebook. who knows if it's worth $32

where it is now. who knows if it's going to make money. nobody clicks on the ads. >> sam, what about the people who bought facebook. >> i'm an owner of facebook stock. a very small, small, small amount. i disagree with everything he says. i encourage everyone to buy facebook stock. it's been a horrific experience, truth be told. i hate it. i can't believe i did it. i'm almost humiliated. i'm going to share it on national tv. >> part of the healing process. you were certainly part of a moment. if that's what the goal was, you were part of a moment. >> i'll look at it that way. >> look at it that way. thanks again to ben, s.e., nick and sam. i'll see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 p.m. when i'm joined by steve kornacki, alicia, and ben smith. @now with alex. andrea mitchell reports is next.

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mitchell reports" the battle heats up in the battleground states. new polls show president obama narrowing edging out mitt romney in virginia, ohio, and florida but still shy of reaching the magic 50% threshold. after declaring education the civil rights issue of our era, mitt romney visits a charter school in west philadelphia's inner city. just outside, protesters led by philadelphia's democratic mayor attack romney's massachusetts record. >> if you're going to talk about education, it'd be nice if you had an education record. it'd be nice if you had an education platform, it'd be nice if you seemed to know something about education. you can go wherever you want to go. it's the beauty of the united states of america. but the guy's got no record to run on. did facebook give insiders preferential treatment? the latest on calls for an investigation and why nasdaq is scrambling. iran nuclear talks could deadlock. does that make a military strike more likely? why is pakistan punishing