donald trump remains a thorn in the romney campaign's side. >> any regrets by the campaign of spending the day that you clench the nomination with donald trump. >> governor romney has made it clear they disagree on issues. governor romney says he believes the president was born in the united states. he said it repeatedly. he says he thinks the issue is closed. >> let's bring in this morning's power panel. democratic strategist and radio talk show host. it's great to have the three of you here. this was supposed to be mitt romney's big moment. this is what he has been primarying for around the country to reach 1,144 delegates to seal this nomination. the background singer turns out to be to the lead singer of

donald trump. how does romney dump trump gracefully? >> i would say yesterday the romney campaign did get traction on some of their messages. in fact, some of the questions directed at the white house press secretary yesterday were about equating bain, mitt romney's firm as well as the administration's investments into the one that failed. and some of the messages are getting traction but yes trump did overshadow it somewhat. the other thing i would point out is the romney campaign has not been strong enough in their language yet to make this go away. said that mitt romney believes that the president was born in the united states but could make that stronger by saying that mitt romney knows the president was born in the united states. until they get very strong on that it is not going to completely go away.

>> does mitt romney's team need to come out and disavow donald trump who promotes this conspiracy theory? >> thomas, all of these politician s from obama to othes can have their achilles heel. there are people who believe what many people believe is nonsense. he happens to be someone who is very influential and very successful at business. he supported mitt romney. there was a time he thought he would have to run. mitt romney has done enough to disavow the things that trump has said that he disagrees with. if trump wants to support him he should welcome that support like any politicians. the voters are mature enough to separate mr. trump who has been trumping his card for ages. romney knew what he was getting

when he decided to do this event with trump. why do you think trump is different? >> do you think democrats are in danger of overplaying their hand in this? >> i think democrats have been very clear when people on our side have said things that are obnoxious. when you think the archie bunker hour is over here comes donald trump spitting in the punch bowl as mitt romney crosses the finish line. while we give mitt romney a pass on the hair cutting bullying incident when he was in high school there is a theme of him not standing up to bullies. he did not stand up to rush limbaugh. he did not stand up to ted nugent when we know the kind of language ted nugent referred to

the president with and has not stood up to donald trump. armstrong is wrong. for him to say i believe that the president was born in the united states he needs a much stronger statement. he needs to say i disavow this and i disavow his tactics. if he can't stand up for what is right for the republican party and in terms of basic decency how will he stand up for the united states? >> and newt gingrich has spoken up on the birther conversation. >> far be it for me to suggest to the donald what he should do. he's a loose entrepreneur. he has made his fame by being who he is. governor romney is not distracted. the republican party is not distracted. we believe that this is an american born job killing president. >> there is newt's way to disavow all of this but letting it play out kind of laughing at

it. mitt romney released his birth certificate on tuesday. does the timing of this release add more fuel to the fire or are they getting it out of the way while trump is holding the political bull horn? >> i think more than anything it's just saying here he is. here is the republican nominee and it just establishes that so that he doesn't have those problems on his own, not that he would. this was mitt romney's day yesterday. they are reintroducing him. >> his dad went through the birther controversy being born in mexico when he was running for president. it is ironnic that this is going on now. we heard from governor romney on this taped interview on fox. >> there will be people and you know this already who will look at you as a successful rich guy.

>> like fdr and john f kennedy. there is not a nation that divides people. we don't say this person won the lottery and they can't understand me. >> is he trying to prevent wealth from isolating him? is this the constant that is going to play to the kwekivity question? >> i don't think anybody begrudges his success. i think people question whether he has been effective at doing what he says he does which is creating jobs. i think people question whether he is able to relate to the average man on the street. while he is talking about birthers and while talking about his wealth he is not talking about what he is going to do for the country. the three things he is out there on is taxes. two is energy. obama's licensed 42 new rigs were all-time high for energy production. and education where he wants to go to vouchers but wants to under fund and cut funding.

there is very little there when it comes to what romney wants to do for this country in terms of principle reasons for running. that is why this vacuum gets filled up with silliness. his personal issues and the birther nonsense. >> when we talk about wealth there have been lots of questions and requests to get tax records yet we got the birth certificate on the day he is trying to disavow the birther movement. we did get an insight into ann romney. >> he is the hardest working person i have met besides his father who was a crazy man. >> crazy good? >> crazy good. crazy unbelievable good. >> so saved there by her

interviewer. does this under score how hard it is to get away from interviews without potential political damage? >> you say the political damage but let me remind you that even though mitt romney may not be the sterling candidate that people want in terms of being teleogenic and forceful and saying what he means. the best thing that happened to mitt romney is even though he is the nominee he is in a dead heat with president obama. as i have said before this is really not about mitt romney because president obama were doing the jobs and the promises he made with his hope and courage speech he gave when running for president mitt romney would not be so relevant. the election is obama's to lose. the reason they are tied is because many americans are

dissatisfied with the president's handling of the economy and jobs. while we may point out the weaknesses of mitt romney he does not have it to lose. it is president obama. we go into a presidential election. >> as the incumbent. our power panel for today. thank you to all three of you. now that mitt romney has clinched the delegates needed to seal the nomination what is on the checklist. peter alexander joins me to talk about the calendar. it is official. what is next? >> a good question. a lot of the conversation today is about what happened in vegas last night with donald trump. the campaign would tell you there are priorities right now. we will put some on the screen. one of the priorities right now is what beth myers is doing which is vetting price presidential possibilities.

most significantly perhaps is fundraising. that is why the romney campaign has made it clear though they didn't want trump to get out of hand in the way he did physically calling in to pretty much every cable channel, they do realize the value in fundraising suggesting that outside republican groups supporting mitt romney hope to raise as much as $1 million to spend on the campaign. today romney has a day that may be viewed as quiet. he will be raising money in northern california, the optics of it not as good. he will be with the ceo of hewlett-packard, that is, of course, meg witman who acknowledged that the company would be laying off roughly 27,000 employees. he wants to be a job creator and with a company getting rid of jobs right now. on top of that another priority is avoiding gaps which may be one in the same with focusing on

the message. that is why the issue exists with conversations like the one we had about donald trump yesterday. this campaign wants to be talking about the president. they want the issue to be the incumbent and not themselves or lack of courage for standing up to others as past guests were referring. yesterday the campaign and one of the super pacs put out ads attacking president obama for wasting taxpayer money referring specifically to companies. and, of course, recently or not too long ago went bankrupt. that is what they want us to focus on. they realize the real priority is to raise money so in october they can try to get the message out. >> great to see you this morning. a bad situation in syria getting worse. the un human rights council to

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joining in u.s. in an act of unified outrage over a weekend massacre in syria. the top human rights body will hold a special session on friday to address the deaths. russia and china have voiced opposition to military action. >> we do not believe that militarization to the situation

in syria is the right course of action. we believe it would lead to greater chaos. >> joining me now is correspondent mick. what type of military intervention could we see? >> you know that's really a tough one. it's impossible to say today what kind of military actions would be needed. because what would the conditions be on the ground at the time? what would the president be asking of the military? would it be assisting humanitarian relief or war. unlike libya where you have france and british clamoring to invade libya. you are not hearing any of that from our allies in the persian gulf region or middle east or europe. it is just not on the table. a few months ago when the white

house asks for an assessment. if we were to launch a military operation what would it look like? the chairman of the chief of staff said there are no good military options in syria right now. so the president stopped short of asking for any military planning or military options. again, it's just not on the table for now. >> mick, thanks so much. we want to bring in ambassador mark ensburg and current advisor. right out of the gate what do you think in your estimation would be the tipping point to get something done with what is going on in syria so there are no more innocent lives lost. >> thomas, it is not going to be military boots on the ground. i think the administration has clearly ruled it out. i wrote a long piece today that lays out a nine-point program to

turn the screws further against the syrian government by the united states. that includes kwablack listing companies that are air lifting from russia. as long as russia continues to provide arms to the syrian government the killings are going to continue and shaming the russians out of doing so while they claim to be supporting the peace plan should be our diplomacy effort right now. >> mitt romney has criticized the president for not taking a leadership role in syria. >> the world looks to america to lead. and we have been sitting in the back burner hoping things would become arrangeled in a way that was attractive to the world. what is happening in syria is unacceptable. i think they continue with a posture of leading from behind.

>> the white house did expel syrian diplomats. is it fair to say the obama administration is headitasitant take a leadership role? >> you are not going to get me to agree with mitt romney on his foreign policy. it has been pulling back when the turks and arab league wanted to take a more active role because the administration feared it would be pulled into a turkish arab league. the bottom line is the administration should give the green light to the turks and arab league to proceed. if americans are reluctant to do so so be it. sitting from the sidelines and sending shots at the president alone isn't going to solve the problem. >> we look at libya as an example. we intervened there. how is this different in. >> there was a much more organized opposition in libya. there wasn't the fear that libya

would explode across the whole region the whole it is possibly in syria. and number three, it's one thing when you had a u.n. security council resolution. you just don't have that. again, thomas, we really could be doing more to provide covert legal assistance to the syrian army at this point. >> nice to see you this morning. thanks for your insights. the president honors some of the country's biggest names with the medal of freedom. in doing so he offended some in poland. he was once declared the 29th richest man on earth. mark zuckerberg falls off the list of top 40 richest men on earth. first the olympic torch arrived today. a precursor to modern day

olympics. 59 days until the opening ceremony. going for the gold is misi franklin, the high school junior who holds the world record for her back stroke. admits to turning away more than $200,000 in prize money to remain eligible for college. you can catch the action on the networks of nbc. this country was built by working people. the economy needs manufacturing. machines, tools, people making stuff. companies have to invest in making things. infrastructure, construction, production. we need it now more than ever. chevron's putting more than $8 billion dollars back in the u.s. economy this year. in pipes, cement, steel, jobs, energy. we need to get the wheels turning. i'm proud of that. making real things... for real. ...that make a real difference. ♪ for real. ...that make a real difference. let's play indoors this weekend.

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this company's stock just dropped like a bad penny. two weeks after they declared him the 29th richest person on earth he is off the top 40 billionaire index list. facebook share value fell below $30. despite minor relief some wonder if the honeymoon is over for

zuckerberg. here with insight is dan acerman. this was highly touted, this coming out party for the social networking juggernaut that is facebook. >> people think maybe they priced the stock too high initially. you never want the big pop. if your stock goes up too much that means you under priced it. >> the big story mark zuckerberg off the top 40 list. he is not hurting. he made his money. >> facebook sold their stock at 38. if he holds on to what he has left if it comes back he is fine again. >> how do analysts look at this? i'm sure people were thinking this was the greatest thing since sliced bread wants people to turn around and let it level out. >> you have to take a long-term

view of this. facebook was adamant they don't want people to be one day turn around investors. they are trying to be a long term business. you can't make everybody happy right away. >> is there negative sentiment that is going to be thrown at the company because of this? that there was so much hype around it and now it is having a glorious face plant? in the week or two before the ipo i started to hear a lot of negative comments from people. is facebook just a fad or a real company? >> we will continue to watch. it's certainly interesting to see where it is falling on the market place. thanks so much. and still ahead for everybody mitt romney reaches the magic number of 1,144. right now he is looking at a

bigger number. $1 billion and that is how much republicans plan to spend to help him win this election. plus shootings have spiked in chicago as gangs engage in a four-day killing spree over the holiday weekend. can facebook help with this? a quick reminder retiring senator kay bailey hutchison joins live next hour on "now" talking about the senate runoff to replace her. nt to a small high school. the teacher that comes to mind for me is my high school math teacher, dr. gilmore. i mean he could teach. he was there for us, even if we needed him in college. you could call him, you had his phone number. he was just focused on making sure we were gonna be successful. he would never give up on any of us. yeah, you -- you know, everything can cost upwards of...[ whistles ]

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the charcoal went out already? [ sighs ] forget it. [ male announcer ] there's more barbeque time in every bag of kingsford charcoal. kingsford. slow down and grill. welcome back. it's time to talk about money. more money than any political campaign has seen. mitt romney has got more than just a crowd of delegates behind him. politico is supporting the super pacs plan to spend a billion dollars before election day. john mccain raised about 370 million in '08. president obama impressed the nation with what seemed like an

unbeatable $750 million. $1 billion gop superpac projections. where is all that cash coming from? >> there are a handful of big donors who have donated to the super pacs. and some other grass roots folks, as well. really after the citizens united ruling we have seen lots of money being put into those groups. so far crunched the numbers and half of the money spent so far in presidenti aia aial election come from outside groups. >> looking at the numbers. the super pacs -- can the president's own campaign make up the huge big difference? that's a wide gap. >> that is what the obama campaign is hoping.

they knew they were going to get spent by outside groups. they were hoping priorities could make up the difference. they are hoping to get more money with the president's backi backing. so far the president's campaign is going to have to ramp it up more probably than they thought they would. it is tough with this economy. you are not seeing as much money going into the campaign as we may have thought. >> planned parenthood action fund launching this ad against mitt romney. i want to show everybody. take a look. >> when mitt romney says -- >> planned parenthood we will get rid of that. >> romney is saying he will deny women the birth control and cancer screenings they depend on. >> will we see more outside democratic groups upping the ante with the ads supporting the president coming out like that?

>> i don't think you will see any outside groups able to raise the kind of money that you have seen from the other side. i think you will probably see groups. you saw priorities have teamed up with the league of conservation voters. you will see much more of it on the conservative side of the aisle. it is fascinating but so far just 11 states, you mentioned where the ads are running, 11 states are where any ads have been run at all. we looked at the top ten hottest markets and virginia and north carolina being swept with ads right now. >> great to see you this morning. to keep track of the latest movements on the political front download the nbc politics app on your iphone or ipad. t that download is free. here is a look at stories topping the news. ravi who secretly taped a sexual encounter between tyler clemente

and another man before he killed himself. on tuesday for the first time in two months since clemente jumped to his death ravi issued an apology. he said i accept responsibility for and regret my thoughtless and childest choices. to another courtroom. day eight underway in the corruption trial of john edwards. if the jurors need to they will work an extra 30 minutes today and tomorrow to leave early friday to honor family commitments like high school graduations. edwards is accused of hiding his pregnant mistress during his 2008 white house run. julian assange can be ext

extradited. the court gave lawyers two weeks to contest the ruling. extradition has been put on hold. more than 1100 firefighters are battling a wildfire in new mexico. the trouble started when two separate fires sparked by lightning strikes merged into one giant blaze. the wildfire is 5,000 acres from breaking the record. chicago leaders are vowing a boots on the ground community effort. ten were killed. 43 wounded over the memorial day weekend alone. the city's mayor says the violence cuts right to the city's core. >> you cannot find comfort that it didn't happen in your neighborhood because it happened in your city. you cannot find comfort because

it was not in my block. it happened in your city. >> joining me now is robert tracy, chief of crime control strategies for the chicago police department. there is a big story to be discussed about what took place over the weekend in chicago. as we look at a broader analysis there have been more murders this year in chicago than the same time last year. some are looking at the heat to blame putting more people on the street. what do you blame for this recent outbreak of violence that we saw just over this weekend alone? >> historically on memorial day weekend we have a lot of violence. there is no excuse for having that. we have put in place a gang violence reduction strategy plan. we have taken a look at crime and the recent spike in murders. we have noticed that the gangs have been flintering and

fracturing and younger members of gangs have been vying for power. it is doubling the violence. we are reducing shootings but murders have been going up. we reduce shootings and concentrate on those murders will start going down. we are confident with the new plan we are rolling out and integrated technology we will get the violence down. >> the mayor there who is the former chief of staff to the president has said that the police have been more reactive to the spike in crime as opposed to being proactive. why in your estimation has the department not been able to get on the other side of this? >> i think what we got to do is we went into a deeper intelligence with the beat offices and gang offices and detectives. we have to get a handle on this. the new factions that are coming out, they are harder to control. the hierarchy of the gangs are not able to control them.

because of this we had a change the way we do policing and the way we react to it. what we are doing is there are many components from social services to getting ahead with the technology and the hands to the beat officer to help prevent the first shooting and then help prevent retaliatory shootings after that. >> when you talk about changing ways your department is launching a new initiative to target gang members and using twitter and facebook. how do you think the department will be able to implement this program successfully? >> one component of the social media is facebook. what we are finding was driving some of the violence is that is how they communicate and rival gangs communicating and facebook is one of them. we can actually take a look at it and predict where we might have the violence and where we might have to look at schools and get the intelligence in the

the hands of the police officers on the beat, the supervisors, the district commanders. >> thanks for your time this morning. i appreciate it. legendary folk musician doc watson is being remembered today for his country mountain sound and unforgettable picking on the guitar. the blind 89-year-old grammy winner died. watson earned a lifetime achievement award at the grammys and got the national medal of the arts from president clinton in 1997. ! where ? where ? it's getting away ! where is it ? it's gone. we'll find it. any day can be an adventure. that's why we got a subaru.

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rules. >> that was president obama a few minutes ago talking about the export import back reauthorization act which he is about to sign. the president says this will help businesses. it is not going to cost a dime for the taxpayer. the obama reelection team has zeroed in on the romney private sector. the campaign could start shining a brighter light as romney's record as massachusetts governor. michael is a special correspondent to news week. it is good to see you. let's start with the numbers. we look at the state of massachusetts. it was 47th out of 50 states in job creation during romney's tenure and net gain comes to 40,700 jobs created. he needed that to show real growth during his time.

is this the elephant in the room for mitt romney? >> he never talks about being governor of massachusetts. the main reason is the health care bill, his only single accomplishment which he is trying to run a million miles away from. i think this is a close second. it is true that in his first year massachusetts lost a lot of jobs. there was a recession in 2001. obviously it was nothing like 2008. they lost jobs in the first year, gained a few back in the second year and a little in the third year. it wasn't until last year as governor that there was job growth at all. in his tenure massachusetts did finish 47th ahead of ohio and michigan and katrina ravaged louisiana. >> does this mean the romney has to be on defense instead of

offense. >> i don't think there is much in his record to play offense with. so he will have to go on defense. of course, he will return fire and say you want to talk about job growth and job losses under me as chief executive and the president as chief executive let's have that conversation. >> is it mainly because of health care reform? >> i think health care reform is the main thing. i think the obama people want to highlight that to some extent because they want to remind conservative voters that romney did this thing very much like obama care. back to jobs the debate is going to be really how much can be pinned on obama. how much on the early job losses. if you look at the month by month numbers they were devastating. 600,000 lost nearly every month. how much of that can be pinned on obama is going to be one of the big questions i think that

they will be debating. >> and you can read about that article online and grab the latest issue of news week now. god bless amercia. this new app lets users post photos of themselves. there was a typo. a romney spokesman says everybody one makes mistakes. the daily show's john stewart asked questions about the vice president. >> is it hard to raise a kid around biden? i would assume that if it is like joe, language. or like he's like the uncle that comes over like you brought them guns, that kind of thing.

>> no. he's a great vice president. he's a great friend. my kids hang around him. president obama awarded the highest civilian honor at the white house. president obama also had an unfortunate moment while honoring polish war hero. >> resistance fighters told him jews were being murdered on a massive scale and smuggled him into the war sought ghetto to see for himself. >> what he meant to say was a german death camp. the white house says the president misspoke but the polish foreign minister is demanding an apology. [ male announcer ] this is lois.

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when you got the news, what was your immediate reaction? that you were going to be let go and with 0 not be able to participate because of your sexuality? >> i was devastated. we were devastated. the parents are devastated. it's unfair. >> that was a clip from an emotional interview we did last month with jennifer trrrell rausted as leader of her son's scout troop because scout policy bans gays. today her supporters are present a petition of over 280,000 names at the scout's annual meeting in orlando, florida. among those presenting the list is eagle scott zach walls. zach is a student at the university of iowa who became a national figure when he spoke movingly before iowa lawmakers about being raised by his two moms. >> not once have i ever been confronted by an individual who realized in"ly that i was raised by a gay couple. do you know why?

because the sexual orientation of my parents has has zero effect on the content of my character. >> in addition to being an activist zach walls is author of this book "my two moms, lessons of love, strength and what makes a family." he joins me now from orlando. i know you are landing in this petition today on behalf of jennifer trrrell. how do you think it's going to make a difference when it comes to the scouts and their beliefs? >> it the 275,000 plus signatures including thousands of signatures from scouts and scout leaders both current and former. this is a question as to what extent this will lend support to those people already on the inside. this isn't necessarily public knowledge but the act is, there is tremendous support within the boy scout movement already to change this policy and bring it up to date in the 21st century. our hope as an organization,

this isn't us trying to ambush is the boy scouts is at all but trying to lend cree dense to those inside wanting change. >> scouting values the freedom of everyone to express their opinion and teaches its members to treat everyone with courtesy and respect at all times. the bda welcomes all who share its beliefs but does not criticize those who wish to follow a different path. does a statement like that fly in the face of how jennifer was treated by the bsa in the. >> two things immediately come to mind. first, of course, what, we're seeing here, you also have to be careful too, because there is a very kind of clever positioning on their part trying to position homosexuality as self-expression when it's part of who you are as a person, it's an identity, not a choice. we have to be careful of that phrase. second, it kind of says a lot about the way we're approaching th

this. as an eagle scout, i think it is important to be respectful and courteous and acknowledge the freedom of self-expression when it comes to this issue. there's no doubt in anybody's mind that the boy scouts as an organization has the right to engage in this kind of discriminatory behavior. however, as to whether or not that is the right course of action is another quell all together. it's very clear, given their own standards, treat others how you want to be treated, be respectful, if this is not in line with their own principles. >> jennifer told us the rules on the scouts have been subjective at best. your moms were actively involved in the scouts with you. why wasn't that an issue for them and you back then? >> so what happened is in jennifer's case was that she was forced to resign by people she had never even met. this was a decision made at an executive level by people who didn't have face, didn't have a story, didn't have a people to put to this actually instance. however, in my own case, my moms were very engaged, very up front and it was never an issue

because there was this level of face to face familiarity. this is something we've seen repeated over and over. as soon as you have gay leaders come into contact in a direct personal and meaningful way, we can move past a lot of these myths and misconceptions about what it means to be a gay person and address this fundamental concern that the boy scouts of america has which is this notion that somehow being gay is immoral or inconsistent with scouting values when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. >> we'll see how it plays out. zach wahls. don't go anywhere. "now with alex wagner" is coming up for you next right here. >> hey, thomas. he's the rominee after finally hitting the magic 1144, mitt romney takes his victory lap in a private cat chateau. we have questions. plus, the big texas reveal. tea party ain't over yet. a runoff is set in the battle for senator kay bailey hutchison's seat.

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