[ male announcer ] for fruits, veggies and natural green tea energy... new v8 v-fusion plus energy. could've had a v8. captions paid for by nbc-universal television new v8 v-fusion plus energy. this morning, the campaign debate over who's got the skills to turn the economy around. that's what the fight about bain capital is about. the fight is not going away. cory booker made a big headline here last week by calling foul on anti-bain ad against romney. >> this kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. it's nauseating to the american public. enough is enough. the president is not shying away arguing that private equity firms like bain is about making money, not jobs. >> there may be value for that kind of experience, but it's not in the white house. >> and so this morning the debate over bain, the economy and where things stand in the race. with us, former presidential

s candidate newt gingrich who will appear together with governor romney next week and maryland's democratic governor, chair of the democratic governors association martin o'malley. gingrich and o'malley square off. then as we kick off a hot summer of campaigning, the state of the race and the key question, will either candidate be able to pull away. with us, mayor of los angeles, antonio villaraigosa. former head of hewlett-packard, carly fiorina. "new york times" columnist david brooks and from "the washington post," and author of "our divided political heart," e.j. dionne. finally this morning, a special conversation with maria shriver and michael lewis about the advice they have for college graduates during this commencement season. >> class of 2012, you are dismissed!

from nbc news in washington "meet the press" with david gregory." candidate, you were here about a candyear ago declaring your ut a candidacy. where are you in this race? are you unequivocally behind governor romney and do you think he can win? >> oh, sure, given this level of unemployment and this level of deficits it's very likely he will win and you'll see it pull away in september and october. >> what have you learned about mitt romney? >> he's tough. much tougher than i thought. hehe'p hehe's prepare he's

takes to win. he's a very good organizer, in the end he can organize at a scale that can match obama, i couldn't. i think he's a good study. i think he really worked hard at understanding when i beat him in south carolina, what he had to do to come back in florida, and so i have substantial respect for his ability as a leader to do the things he has to do to get the jobs done. >> you heard me frame this. who's got the skills? p i fei feel like this bain a test over who can really tur this economy around. the president defended himself and the attack on bain even though cory booker cried foul about it. this is what he said and then i'll have you respond. >> if your main argument for how to grow the economy is i knew how to make a lot of money for investors, then you're missing what this job is about. it doesn't -- it doesn't mean you weren't good at private equity, but that's not what my job is as president.

my job is to take into account, everybody, not just some. >> will he come across as anti-business with this line of attack? >> no, i don't believe that. in fact, i agree with speaker gingrich during his campaign when he had to address that claim that romney initially made that oh, he created hundreds of thousands of jobs, a claim he eventually backed off of under the speaker's questioning and pressing. there are two things that romney has to recommend himself for the high office of president and one is his experience with bain capital where his job was to return profits as quickly as possible to a very narrow few rather than to create long-term jobs for the many. the second one though, which you don't hear him talking about at all is his experience in the public sector when he was governor of massachusetts. >> i want to get to that in just a moment, but speaker, respond to this. you called his time at bain once exploitation on the campaign

trail. >> sure. i think obama has the bigger problem. he has the worst record of any president since the great depression. second, bureaucratic investment has been a disaster. we had one solar company that went belly up for $2.1 billion and we have solyndra at $185 million. obama has no model of effective job creation as compared to private capital and this is why it will fall flat on his face, plus i was very careful, i didn't go after private equity. you heard the president just now. he's going after all private equity in a way which explains why you had senator warner and the governor of massachusetts who is one of his closest allies, senator feinstien and cory booker on this show. there were 15 or 20 democrats who say this is an inaccurate and wrong approach for the president to be taking. >> if the chief qualification is i'm mitt romney, i worked in private enterprise and therefore that experience is what makes me a job creator when that's not at

the core of private equity, that's their not chief function. >> let me go a step further, because we'll get to his private record. when romney left governor in massachusetts, there was 4.47% unemployment. whether obama wants to fight on governor romney's record or he wants us to fight on private sector romney's record, obama is deciding to pick a fight. this a little bit like the reverse of james carville in '92. obama picking a fight on the economy is probably the worst possible strategy for his campaign. >> i would like to disagree with that. we've driven unemployment down to three year lows. home foreclosures are lower than they were when president obama took office. we have put together the american people with effective leadership 26 months in a row of private sector job growth. that record will be contrasted sharply to what mitt romney did as governor which was in a relatively strong state, in a better time of our economy to

have that state ranked 47th out of 50 in job creation. >> the unemployment rate in massachusetts came down under his stewardship. >> the unemployment rate came down in a lot the states. they were different times. right now, our national level has been driven down the lowest in three years. it could be driven down further, with more job creation if we would get beyond this sort of tea party obstructionism that anyone would try to prevent this modern economy go. >> what is the warning, though, from the president's campaign and surrogates about what romney policy would mean for job creation? on a national level? >> what is the warning? i think what you see and i think part of the armchair critics are missing is what with romney did, mr. romney, not governor romney, what he did at bain capital was to drive up debt by the companies that bain took over in order to return huge dividends to a small little group of

investors and then walk away -- >> you have the president's job counsel with private equity folks on there and you yourself, you have the department of business and economic department headed up by someone by private equity. you seem to recognize the experience the private equity. >> absolutely. it's a part of it. but what the president of the united states, what the leader of the whole economy must be concerned about, is not the short-term return of profits to the few, but a long-term economy that creates jobs for the many. >> let's start down that road. why has unemployment come down? unemployment's come down? because participation in the workforce is at the lowest point it's been in three decades. people are retiring early because they can't find a job. people have given up looking. if you look at the gallup surveys, the number of those who are underemployed and quit looking is 19%. this is a disastrous administration, and candidly if you want to get into a fight

over debt in an administration which raised the national debt from 37% of the economy to 47% of the economy in three and a half years. this is why obama will have a hard time this fall. he can't fight over jobs because he isn't creating them. he can't fight over debt, and he has policies that people find unacceptable and romney has a straightforward case. can you afford four more years of barack obama? can you afford four more years of this economy? and can you afford four more years of this kind of debt? or do you want somebody who razz as governor did in fact, as david pointed out, the unemployment rate under romney came down. the fact that he was able to balance the budget as he had to under the law of massachusetts, and he does know a great deal more about job creation than barack obama. >> two things on the record, with regard to debt, governor romney drove up for the people of massachusetts, the largest per capita debt of any state in the union. that's a fact.

when it comes to what little bit of job creation was happening in massachusetts, it was happening in the private sect at six times the rate that it was happening in the private sector. his record whether it was at bain capital, and whether it was as governor of massachusetts, it was not a record of reducing debt and not a record of increasing private job creation, having the 47th out of 50 sites in terms of worst job creations in the country. >> except if you look over time, most of the companies did well and most of them paid off the debt. if you look at staples, for example, it was enormous. they paid off all the debt i think. i think the problem the president's got you're a normal america, look at the price of gasoline and the foreclosure rate which is coming down in part because so many houses have been foreclosed. you look at the unemployment numbers, and you say to yourself, why would i believe barack obama would be any better in the second term? and that's why i think romney has a very strong case to say, it's time to try a different approach.

>> during the campaign you said, you know what? governor romney ought to have a press conference and lay out what his experience was at bain. do you think he ought to do that still? >> i think people looked at it and i can just tell you this is why i don't understand the obama campaign strategy here. bain has an issue that doesn't work because people looked at it in balance and you can pick a couple of companies that lost. you can pick a couple of companies that succeeded and as the governor of massachusetts said last week, it is a good company and a good track record. it's a good citizen of massachusetts. >> you said this is a character issue for romney, ultimately. his time in business and what he did. >> if you look at what happened, he had the press conferences -- >> is it a character issue to you and to the president? >> i think it's more of a qualification issue. there's nothing that governor romney did either in the private sector that created jobs or in the public sector that distinguished himself as a job creator. there's a tremendous amount of balance that's required to be president of the united states especially to bring our country back from the disastrous aftereffects from the bush

recession and the bush job losses and the huge amount of our deficit, 55% of which was caused by policies, tax cuts that benefited the wealthiest of americans rather than investing in a better future and the better economy with greater opportunities that our kid said deserved. >> just one point. at this stage in 1984, no one on the reagan team was talking about the carter recession because they were talking about the reagan recovery. they were talking about the job creation under reagan. they were talking about the success of reagan. this is an administration that went from yes, we can to why we couldn't. and george w. bush is the why we couldn't apparently. the fact is that this president has been president for three and a half years. he had a chance to fix it. it ain't fixed and the country knows it's not fixed on gasoline, it's not fixed on the economy and it's not fixed on the deficit and romney has a better shot at doing a better job than barack obama. >> i have two questions, one for you, speaker and governor romney.

if you cannot close the gap, what's the opportunity for him to actually prevail in the fall? you ran to the left of him on the immigration question. he gave a speech this week and didn't even talk about immigration. how big of a problem is this for him? >> he has to address it and also again you have barack obama failed on immigration reform even when he had a democratic council and democratic senate. he's not in a good position to say he'll fix it, because he failed to fix it when he controlled the house and senate. second, he went out and talked to the hispanic chamber of commerce. if you talk to them they'll tell you, the number one issue is jobs. the number two issue is the price of gasoline, the number three issue is housing and the number four issue is education where romney spent the whole week on education and offered a very bold alternative to help poor children, particularly black and latino and white poor children have choices other than being trapped in a failing school. the question is if you campaign on those issues, if latinos conclude that mitt romney is

more likely that my family will have a job, he is more likely to bring down the price of gasoline, more likely to have my child have an effective education, does that overcome whatever the democratic attack is, and i think he'll get the same percentage that george w. bush did, which was in the 40s. >> that's a bold prediction given where they've been. >> it will take a lot of effort and a lot of campaigning. >> ron brownstein talks about what's the message? what's the job creation goal and the big idea for the second term? this is what he writes today. today, frets one senior democrat close to the white house, voters don't have a sense of what obama would do to make them a more compelling and specific plan to improve their lives than he has offered so far. what is that plan? >> well, the plan is that in order to create jobs, a modern economy does require modern investments. speaker gingrich describes

himself as a pro-growth republican. i describe myself as a pro-growth democrat. we know what we need to do is to create jobs. the how you do that is to innovate, invest in education, invest in infrastructure. >> so government has to spend more money on infrastructure in the country. that's one idea. >> to a degree. you can't do less. how much less do you want for our country? how much less education would be good for our economy? how many fewer bridges can we keep in good repair? is that good for our economy? certainly not. >> so obama's second term, government spends more because it has to. >> no. the bottom line here, david, is job creation. last year, president obama because of his leadership in america, we created more jobs as a country last year than we created in all eight years of george w. bush. what mitt romney is offering is an alternative to take us back. back to the days of debt, back to the days of job losses and

record home foreclosures. and when people are given a choice, particularly new americans about an expanding view of america with more jobs and more opportunity or a return to the days of george w. bush, they are going to choose to move forward. >> speaking of which, they want to run the campaign in the way of 2004 which is to contrast romney and obama, rather than making it a referendum. >> they have to do that because they can't live in the record, but look, let's talk about spending more. the president said he was shocked to discover shovel-ready jobs weren't shovel-ready. romney represents private investment. romney made an education proposal this week that would actually improve the education of poor americans and improve the education of american with disabilities while lowering the cost. new york city, if your child goes to a catholic school, it costs 2/3 as much as the public school and they are dramatically more likely to graduate and go to college. and the same thing with charter schools across the country. and this is a fight not over

more or less, it's a fight or better or worse. and the president has to defend public brock rateses that in many -- bureaucracies that in many cases are worse. >> before you go, you two were chosen for a reason. as much as you love your job and i know you love being governor about the great state of maryland, there's a lot of buzz about you running for president. what advice would you give to governor o'malley? >> raise a lot of money. you have to be prepared. and you'll spend two or three years on the road. mark warner is a great guy to talk about it with. >> are you disappointed about the process? >> no, this has been a brutal, tough process at least since 1800 and it hasn't gotten less brutal and probably shouldn't. if you're not tough enough to campaign for the presidency, you're not tough enough to be

the president. so i have no regrets. it's a wonderful, amazing experience. calista says she learned two big things. people are overwhelmingly nice even if they don't agree with you and money matters. those are her two lessons. >> would you like to be selected to be on the ticket with romney? >> i think that's highly implausible. i have learned the hard way not to ever say no. but i find that as implausible as you find it. >> governor, are you likely to run in 2016? would you wait to see what biden and/or secretary clinton do? >> i haven't thought that far. i'm focused on doing what i'm doing now, which is doing everything in my power to help elect democratic governors like tom barrett in wisconsin where the polls have greatly narrowed. in wisconsin, it's an interesting choice. tom barrett, who has been a mayor, brought people together to solve problems, versus scott walker, 50th of 50 states in job creation, and the only sitting governor with an active criminal defense fund. so this is going to be an exciting race. >> another side to that story which we'll talk about on our roundtable as well.

i'll leave it there. thank you both very much. >> thank you. coming up, our political roundtable. and some of the new polls shows a very tight race. we'll go inside the battlegrounds with the focus on ohio. the mayor of los angeles is here. former chairman and ceo of hewlett-packard carlie if i rona. and david brooks. also, advice for the class of 2012 from maria shriver and best-selling author michael lewis. stay tuned for that. "meet the press" is brought to you by the boeing company. d. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, that means taking a close look at you tdd# 1-800-345-2550 as well as your portfolio. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 we ask the right questions, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 then we actually listen to the answers tdd# 1-800-345-2550 before giving you practical ideas you can act on. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck online, on the phone, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 or come in and pull up a chair.

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one of the things we wantete one of the things we want to do between now and election day is go inside the battlegrounds and really focus on the states that will decide the election in the fall. today, ohio. and i want to take you inside ohio as we look at some of the particulars of a state that was so crucial in 2008 will be again. you have the unemployment rate at 7.4%, below the national average. that's important. look at the '08 results it was obama's 52 to mccain's 57. most visited state by the candidates back in 2008. that's likely to also be the case this go around as well. i was in cleveland this past week. there's something of a renaissance going on there economically and that bears importance for this part of the state, typically democratic and it's really where the obama team will focus. what will be the big message? it will be auto bailout with which the manufacturing base will play out there. the romney team knows that. they understand they'll be up against headwind there and their focus will be in the south, cincinnati and this area, a lot

of social conservatives there and they'll have to turn out that vote in order to offset what's going on here. a lot to talk about moving forward including how things stand in the battleground states. look at our latest polling released this week. the maris poll, it's the president's 48 to romney's 42% and they're both below 50 and there's a lot of volatility left and more for the candidates to do there. more on the battlegrounds as we continue. let's bring in our roundtable now. here with us "washington post" columnist" and author of "our divided heart" e.j. dionne and the former chair of hewlett-packard carly fiorina is also with us and the democratic mayor of los angeles antonio villaraigosa. welcome to all of you. the mayor spearheading the return of the great los angeles dodgers as they're off to a great season under terrific new ownership. but the washington nationals are as well, so my divided heart. my divided sports heart. welcome to all of you here. i want to start, david brooks, where i ended with the governor and speaker.

look what we've had so far. we've had the war on women debate and hilary rosen's comments. we've had now this battle over bain. what is fair game in terms of what people ought to be focused on? >> i think it's fair especially if you don't have agenda. we've got deep structural problems. i haven't seen either candidate talk about this. if you ask the american people, does either candidate have a big plan for the future? 36% obama, 31% romney and that's pretty bad. i question the obama decision to go after it to start negative. they decide to focus a negative way and it seems to me self-destructive. people to the -- genuinely like obama, and they admire him and they are starting negative and going extremely tough and extremely hard. and running ads are that inaccurate. there were a couple of inaccuracies about bain saying that the company was successful until bain took it over. that's false. they said that romney threw

people out on the street. romney was gone by then. they said they were loading up debt and dumping them. these companies have no higher default rates than anything else. i think it damages his personal reputation. >> ej? >> first of all, when george bush began his 2004 campaign against john kerry he began the attacks in february and march, so i don't see -- i didn't see any republicans saying the president should never attack his opponents. and secondly, the argument over bain is part of the substantive argument over the future of american capitalism. first, if romney was saying his role as job creator at bain was the prime reason for him to be president, even rush limbaugh has now said no, private equity companies are not about creating jobs. i think they have made that point. but if you go back in the history, it's one of the things i talk about in my book, we have been arguing over the nature of capitalism from the beginning whether it's hamilton and clay,

talking about manufacturing, and hamilton and jackson, the debate on the bank of the united states, or woodrow wilson who warned of the time when the power of finance could be greater than that of government. we're trying to decide what kind of capitalism we want in america. and i think the debate about bain raises legitimate issues over how you should do capitalism in a way that benefits everybody. >> i just don't know that voters, carly, are thinking about the great debate of capitalism. if you're the obama team, what you're saying is this guy, running against me, is a financier. remember what brought on the recession? it was the financiers on wall street. they are the ones that did it. he doesn't get you, middle class voters. that seems to be what they are after here. >> well, i find the attack surprising from many perspectives. first of all, capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any economic system in the history of the world. secondly, let us stipulate that the goal is to lift as many

people out of poverty. the way you do that, with a job. third, successful companies create jobs. failing companies destroy jobs. i think president obama is indicating what many of us have suspected for some time. he actually doesn't understand how the economy works. bain capital, like many businesses, invested in small start-ups with the goal to make them successful. jobs were created. finally, i find this attack so strange. this was a man, barack obama, who went to the american people and said i am a community organizer. i am an untenured law professor. i am a junior senator who has not completed a single term. i am qualified to be president, but mitt romney, the governor of a major state with 25 years of experience in the private sector is not qualified to be president? i find it a very surprising argument, and i don't think it's going to work. >> mayor? >> well, look, romney's made bain and his experience at bain. he's claimed as the central plank of his campaign.

he said he was a job creator and all the fact check areers have said he didn't create the 100,000 jobs he said he did. he did create a lot of debt and laid off people and made money. he's very good at making money and the question is he good as creating jobs? he put that front and center and the campaign responded to it. it's not an issue of private equity. nobody is questioning the role of private equity. i actually worked in private equity for a couple of years about 10 years ago. what we're questioning is, is he a job creator? no. he wasn't as governor of massachusetts. is he someone who addresses the debt? you heard martin o'malley say that he was -- had the highest per capita debt of any -- when he left massachusetts of any governor in the state. he -- he gave his successor a billion dollars in debt. so the fact is that he put his

record front and center, and we responded to it. >> a lot of this will circle back to the state of the campaign. as we head off into the summer of campaigning, let me show a head to head first, which as it did in ohio, you're still under 50% and the president has a slight edge at 47 to 43, but if you look at the advantage that the president now has, to me it goes to the point of how he's trying to identify and cast governor romney among hispanics, younger voters, westerners, independents, all advantage to the president. and also on that list, seniors, suburban women, and overall in the battle ground states. >> the democrats have huge demographic advantages, which will get bigger over the years. the president has big personal advantages. a couple of disadvantages. one is europe. europe will end up the big story if greece falls out of the euro and disaster for any incumbents. so that's one of them, and then i think the tenor of the campaign will change.

what will happen is that it's going to become the new orleans saints. and what i mean by that is normal competition will turn to bounty hunting and both people in both campaigns will get their juices flowing and they'll take meaner and meaner shots and that will suppress turnout and that will, i think hurt the president more because his favorability ratings are so much higher. >> it does beg a broader question. carly, you have been in the bigger arena. you ran for senate. and here's the cover of "the week" magazine. the targets of bigotry. will billionaires run super pac attacks on race and religion. is this what it takes to get elected at this stage of the game? >> well, i do think that all of us look at the state of the campaign today, the end of may and believe that it will be both very close and particularly nasty, sadly. i think it is a sad comment when

the political argument gets reduced to questioning other people's motives, and frankly, i think president obama has been more guilty of this than anyone else. president obama and vice president biden are continually questioning people's motives, their heart and character. they don't get you. they don't care. it would be so much better, i think, for the american people if political debate was argued on the facts and the merits, not questioning someone's character and motivation. >> well, do you have romney attacking the president for going on an apology tour and not really championing american exceptionalism. so there's a motive question there too. >> there are a whole series of things that governor romney said about obama that is simply not true, the apology tour is one of them. and i think one of the great dangers in this campaign is how the citizens united decision not only changed the law, but also gave a kind of social green light to all of these super pacs. and the super pac ads are

particularly dangerous, because if i attack you with my campaign money, i am accountable for that attack, and you can say that's outrageous, it's untrue. when these nameless groups, committees for good government, put on an ad and say outrageous things, the candidate can sit back and say that's not me. that's someone else and those super pacs will put out hundreds of millions of dollars of ads. i think you're right. i think the president goes in with structural advantages. the difference this time than last time is the president vastly outspent john mccain in the last election. and i think this time from with all of that super pac money coming in from the right, i think it be a real challenge for the president. >> i want to put up romney's advantages as we look at our own polling. among men, suburbanites, midwesterners, married women, and high-interest voters a slight edge there, but latinos are a huge problem for the republican party right now and our oversampling of latino voters with telemundo, obama has a 61% to 27% advantage.

is there anything that changes that advantage? for instance if marco rubio were to be on the ticket, do you think there's any potential for changing that dynamic? >> some potential, not much. vice presidential candidates don't usually give you a big bump. maybe in that state. david said something with respect to president obama's support among ethnics and other demographic groups, and i think it has everything to do with the fact that the republican party has gone so far to the right. we saw that in the election on women taking this to the 1950s and talking about contraception and on the issue of immigration, talking about the south deportation of 11 million people. i don't know a country in the world that has ever south deported 11 million people. when he said the dream act was a handout. that's out of the mainstream of what most people think.

when he failed to stand up and say anything when cain talked about electrifying the border fence. so i think that's a big reason why. it's the policies of the extreme part of their party. but i didn't see -- and i don't think any of us saw governor romney really challenge some of those extreme policies. >> i agree with him here with the republicans and the republicans are completely aware of this. karl rove is trying to do this, and marco rubio is trying and trying very successfully. and i think that will hurt the republicans long-term. maybe not this time historically. when you look historically when you are re-electing an incumbent, there are two things we know. first, it's a referendum, there are rarely choices and the referendum on the record of the last four years and not the personality of the candidates and so that, when you take that basic structure of reelect races that does hurt obama and then the final thing is when you ask people are you better off than you were four years ago.

35% say yes. and that's pretty bad. >> let me go around the table on a few other items that i wanted to get to quickly. and first occupy, the wisconsin recall election, the milwaukee mayor, tom barrett, taking on scott walker who took on the unions and created huge drama. and you now have a re-election. and, david, i heard you talk about this race as something that will be important for the fall. >> one of the familiarity issues in -- i think it's sort of a test case nationally. >> the next item up here has to do with trump. donald trump was sticking by some of these questions about

whether president obama is really an american citizen. how much damage, ej, getting so close to the flame if you're governor romney, seeking an endorsement and an ally that a lot of people have never quite understood. >> i think if governor romney doesn't put out some very, very clear statement that he distances himself from this birther stuff, i don't know why he is hanging around with donald trump. but the governor romney has not distanced himself from the right wing on anything. he hasn't taken a step back from this new extremism in the republican party. one of the things -- i talk about it in my book is how conservatism used to be a balance between sort of individual concerns and community concerns. conservatives believed there was a role for government. right now, as you're seeing in the scott walker recall, i agree, it's very significant, but i think it's significant in a different way from david. i think a lot of people in wisconsin are saying, wait a minute. we liked consensual politics in wisconsin where a conservative governor like tommy tomp concacaf never did the kinds of

things like this conservative governor is doing. so i think that mitt romney has to step back from this at some point and he hasn't done it yet. >> final item here, the question of colin powell, general powell. will he endorse in this race. it came up in the context of russia and romney, one of his folks says that russia was the biggest strategic threat to the united states. colin powell was on "morning joe" this week on msnbc and had this reaction. >> when governor romney not too long ago said, you know, the russian federation is our number one threat, well, come on, think. it isn't the case. and i don't know whether mitt really feels that or whether -- >> or someone told him to say it. what? >> i don't know. you ask him. >> so are you -- >> it's been catching a lot of heck from these -- the more regular gop foreign affairs community. we are kind of taken aback by it. >> carly, quickly, is foreign affairs going to be a target of opportunity for republicans

against this president? >> well, certainly foreign affairs is on the minds of average americans. especially at memorial day, when we think about the sacrifices of so many men and women in uniform and their families. i think colin powell, a good friend of mine, is an independent man and he'll make up his mind when he decides to. however, i think what governor romney probably intended was it is true that we have the most unsettled relationship with russia right now. and we have a leader of russia whose motivations are to put it kindly unclear, who has a very clear history. >> all right. we're going to leave it there. thank you all very much. we'll take another break here. when we come back, a special conversation about this commencement season and some advice for the class of 2012. joining me, two of the season's most celebrated commencement speakers, maria shriver and best-selling author michael lewis, right after this short break.

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>> and finally, whereve and finally, wherever you go in life, however fast you're going, remember this. whenever you are in doubt, pause, take a moment, look at all of your options, check your intention, have a conversation with your heart, and then always take the high road. >> sage advice from maria shriver as the class of 2012 graduates and prepares to enter such an uncertain world, i

wanted to reach out to two celebrated voices in our culture and two highly sought-after commencement speakers. you just heard from maria shrivers who addressed the university of southern california annenberg school of communications and journalism. also joining me, best-selling author of so many books, including "money ball," "boomerrang," and one of my personal favorites, michael lewis. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having us. >> maria, let's pick up on that piece of the commencement address that you gave. the power of pause. what was the advice that you thought was so important for graduates to hear, including someone in the audience who was extra special? >> my daughter was in that graduating class. i think we're in a rush, all of us to go out, and to be first in every business we're in a rush and i wanted to tell these young people, they're going out to uncertain times and they know that far better than most of us

and it's okay to pause, and it's okay not to know the answer, that question everybody is asking them, what are you going to do? what's your job? how much are you making? and the concept of pausing throughout life is a very powerful concept, i think. and there's so much outward communication,i wanted to talk about the benefit of communicating inwardly with yourself throughout your life. and you have to pause to do that. >> it's interesting, michael, because there is so much emphasis on the individual graduate as he or she goes off into the world and not enough emphasis on the idea of becoming part of a team and a sense of shared purpose, which i think resonates with a lot of young people. >> i think that's true. i think maria's point is very well taken. i think -- you know, i've actually only done a few of these commencement speeches. and each time i do them, i wonder a bit whether anyone's

listening. and i do kind of -- i'm a little skeptical about the power of words on these ears. i think back, and i'm actually giving a talk i supposedly heard 30 years ago when i graduated from princeton and not only do i not remember the talk or the speaker, i don't remember the event even happening, and i'm thinking of what i'm telling these people and it's quite possible that i will be the only one who remembers what i said, no matter what i say. but it's -- you know, when you sit and you kind of think, what do you tell people to make a difference in their lives as they are going out into the world, i think this sort of business of backing away from the pressures, from not accepting that you have to do anything right when you walk out the doors of the university, and sort of leaving yourself open to some weird risks at that stage of your life, is a pretty good message, because it is sort of the point in your life when you're 21, 22 years old, when

you're most likely to take youthful risks. as you get older, you take fewer and fewer of them. so i'll probably take that as my theme, but i doubt anybody is going to pay close attention. >> well, i don't know. maria, have i only done a few of them, and i what strikes me time and time again is a get up there and i think i'm not that much older than these graduates. and then i realize, a, yes, i am. b, i have more in common with their parents than i do them. and then i get very emotional because i think about my own kids. and that what seems to overtake me. >> well, when they play the pomp and circumstance, you get very emotional. and i actually almost burst into tears in the speech because i talked about being in awe at my first child graduating from college. but i think that there are a lot of people our age who are speaking to these young people who have something very much in common. there are millions of people who are having to start over again. in their lives, who are having

to reimagine their lives, who are having to take incredible risks, who are having to do things they never imagined. so i think we're all kind of in this together in many ways, depending on our age. you know, there are so many women who are finding themselves in the position of being breadwinners, caretakers, nurturers, and upon droing out of jobs -- dropping out of jobs, reinvent themselves. i think as a nation we are having to redefine what we're doing, and we're all having to step back and say, i might have to take a risk i never imagined. so i look for common ground with these young graduates. they may are younger, but i think we are all kind of starting out on a path in many ways that has no kind of clear direction to it. and that's scary and exciting. >> you know, it is scary and exciting. michael, the other thing is it feeds into the point you made about risk. and it's something that you talked about as a commencement speaker at drew university in 2010. everybody says, you know, do what you love. this was your advice.

>> the challenge for you, i think, today is to find what you love and do it before you figure out how much that love is going to cost you. >> what did you mean by that? >> yes. you know, it is -- it's -- it's something that i -- you get dragged into these things because you're supposed to provide some sort of role model for them, i think. and in a funny way, i think these speeches are misconceived. i think they probably benefit more from negative examples. if they had, say, if princeton would bring back in white collar criminals oreg some disgraced politicians to explain don't do what i do. that might have more effect. but i got brought up to sort of explain how i got to where i am, doing this thing that i like to

do. and i tell them, look, there was a moment in my life where i was not much older than you where the price to do what i wanted to do seemed very, very high. the financial price. and if i was not 25 years old, i would not have gone and done it because i didn't really figure out how high the price was at that time. 10 years later, i never would have made the decision i made to do what i wanted to do because it would have seemed like it cost too much. and so i -- you know, i sort of insistently said to them, look, this is the moment where you can pay that price because you don't really know what it is. so go for it. you know, this is your -- maybe your one shot when you come out of here. so don't blow it by jumping at money, by doing the things that everybody thinks you should do because it seems successful. figure out where your heart is and try to go with that. >> maria, i want to come back

and perhaps end on this point of the inner journey that you talked about off the top. and there was one commencement speaker back in 1994 who i think is pretty near and dear to your heart, and that is your late father, sergeant shriver. and this is what he said in part. he said, i am a man of consequence, the sergeant shriver known everywhere as maria shriver's father. he went on, the first thing i've learned is this. it's not what you get out of life that counts. it's what you give. and what is given to you from the heart. and at another part he said, i have one small word of advice because it's going to be tough, break your mirrors. yes, indeed, shatter the glass. in our society that is so self absorbed, look less at yourself and more at each other. learn more about the face of your neighbor and less about your own. >> i think that's very valuable advice. and it can be given by somebody like my father who was a very deeply religious, deeply spiritual man. but i find more and more people that i talk to are redefining

what success means in their lives. and they are going within to ask those questions. michael talked about changing course in his career. you can only do that, i think, if you step back and really have a conversation with yourself about what makes you happy, how you define success. and for -- and be courageous enough to say, maybe i don't define it in the way that's going to get me on the cover of "people" magazine or on the cover of "time" magazine, but it works for me. and that might be in serving people, taking care of your family, having time to coach a little league game. and so i think people are in the process of redefining what success means. and i think that's a really great thing. and i think you can only do that if you break the mirror, pause, step back, take a beat, and talk to your heart. >> michael lewis, whether you think the kids are listening or not, i'm sure as a dad you get up there and you are thinking about these big thoughts and thinking about your own kids at the same time.

>> you know, mainly i'm hoping that if i give the princeton commencement speech, princeton will feel obliged to admit them. [ laughter ] >> exactly. which is -- >> no, won't happen. >> thank you both. great to have you both. i appreciate it. >> thank you, thank you. >> thank you. and before we go, a programming note. we're going to re-air on msnbc today at 2:00 p.m. and again tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon. again, that's on msnbc tomorrow. also, check out my interview with ashley judd on our website. it's our press pass this week. that is all for today. we'll be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." and as we leave you this memorial day weekend, we honor and remember all of the men and women who have given their lives to this nation. god bless our troops and their families. [ mechanical humming ]

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