1%ers. mitt romney gathering big donors and possible running mates for a weekend retreat. verdict watch. the jury deliberating without knowing what nbc news first reported yesterday. sandusky's own adopted son was prepared to testify that he, too, was a victim of his father's abuse. and eliza doolittle got the fashion part right. despite a minor slip of the tongue. >> come on, move your bloomin' -- >> this year, the ascot fashion police are cracking down on modern day infractions, hats that look more like lady gaga. good day. i'm andrea mitchell. in our daily fix, a day after mitt romney made his case to hispanic leaders in florida, the president is speaking this hour, later this hour, to the same group. during his campaign for the white house four years ago, mr. obama promised the same group that he would pursue comprehensive immigration reform from his very first day in

office. >> reform that finally brings the 12 million people who are here illegally out of the shadows, requiring them to take steps to become legal citizens, putting them on a pathway to citizenship. that has to be one of our priorities and i say it now and i will say it after i'm president. >> a lot of gray hairs later and a lot of fights with congress later, "washington post" chief correspondent and author of "the take." dan, the issue is of course enthusiasm levels, turnout, whether he can -- the president can run up the score. there's a real question as to how enthusiastic they will be. he will clearly get a better reception today than governor romney did, given the concerns that hispanics have had since the primary debates over mitt

romney's immigration approach. >> well, there's no question that he'll get a better reception and he'll get a lot more votes in the fall. you're right about the issue of enthusiasm. i think the obama campaign has always believed that they had to do more and i think that what we saw a week ago in the decision about stopping sending young people back was an indication of their concern about this, and in many ways, a way to put governor romney in a box. the obama campaign's calculation is this. they believe they will continue to get at least what they got four years ago which was around 65% of the latino vote, and they think that the latino share of the electorate will be a little larger than it was last time simply because of population growth. if they fall below that, if governor romney is able to chip into that in any significant way and edge his vote up beyond 35% to 38% or 40%, the president's got a real problem.

we're talking about an election that could be won at the margins and these margins in the latino community are very, very important. >> let's talk about mitt romney's speech. he was more specific and certainly gentler in his tone on immigration than he had been earlier in the campaign, but this is the key sentence, where to those who say would he on day one cancel the president's short-term fix until he gets this long-term reform. this is what he had to say yesterday. >> some people have asked if i will let stand the president's executive order. the answer is that i will put in place my own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the president's temporary measure. as president, i won't settle for stopgap measures. >> but then when asked and a number of us called the campaign and have all been reporting for the last 24 hours, what specifically would he do with the short-term fix until if he were successful and two presidents have not been, president obama and president

bush, successful in battling congress over this, until he has comprehensive reform, what would he do and we have not been able to get an answer. is that just creative ambiguity? >> it's deliberate. he doesn't want to answer that question. he's made it clear for the last week every time he's been pressed on the question of would you repeal the president's move or would you not, he's ducked with the same answer he used. i think it's obvious why. if he says he would repeal it, then he's got a problem with the latino community, at least a portion of it, but if he softens in any significant way, he's moving away from the policies that he talked about when he was fighting for the nomination. so he is in a box on this and it's very clear that they are going to try to avoid answering this question but it does beg the issue of what he would actually be able to get done. if the president has not been able to get comprehensive legislation through in his first

four years, what are the prospects that governor romney would do any better than that and what would be the specific policies that would make it more likely that he would have success on that. he doesn't want to answer that question. he wants to go after what portion of the latino vote he can get by talking about economic issues and by talking about the president having failed to do what the president had promised to do four years ago. >> and dan, the "washington post" lead story today on bain capital is focusing on the charge that bain capital's companies over those years did a lot of outsourcing overseas. now, the romney campaign pushing back on that, saying that that is a basic misunderstanding of how investment works, how companies work, how the economy works. have you been able to dig into this? i know the obama camp had a conference call at 11:30 pushing this bain story again. >> i have not dug into the details of it. tom hamburger, our reporter, did a fine, thorough job on that story. it is an issue that will continue to kind of dog governor

romney. it hurt him in his first campaign against teddy kennedy in 1994 in terms of layoffs and the kinds of things that had happened under bain. the obama campaign is going to push hard on this issue and governor romney is going to have to deal with this from here until november. there's no question about it. there are aspects of his record in business that he can point to that are successful and other aspects of that record that are going to be held up to scrutiny and question. >> thank you very much for starting us off today with the daily fix. with both campaigns focusing on how to win the latino voters and a decision on the president's health care law expected from the supreme court any day, a lot at stake. which campaign has the upper hand? former governor of vermont howard dean, former chairman of the democratic national committee. thanks very much, howard. good to see you. >> thanks for having me on. >> good to see you and let's talk about these developments. first the immigration debate.

mitt romney had a more nuanced approach yesterday in front of the group in florida. the president's about to speak there today. we'll carry that live as well. where do we stand on the hispanic vote and whether the president can get those voters to the polls? >> the presidents going to do fine. that's the question, can he get them to the polls. when i was in san francisco in 1984 and walter mondale gave his famous acceptance speech saying reagan, we'll both have to raise taxes, reagan just won't tell you and i just did. i had the sinking feeling in my heart that that was the end of the campaign. i think when i saw mitt romney in that republican debate say i will veto the dream act if it gets to my desk, i had the same feeling. of course, since i'm a democrat it wasn't a sinking feeling. this is a lost cause for him. there are latinos who won't forget this. to attack the dream act in such unambiguous terms and you know that will be all over television in october, is something that 90% of latino voters support. so this is all about getting

latinos to the polls. romney is -- i would be shocked if he got 35%. i think he's probably going to get 30% at the most. i think this is a huge problem for romney and he didn't do himself any favors yesterday by dancing around. he got very little applause yesterday in that speech. i think the president's just got to keep the heat up. i thought this was a brilliant move last week. there's no downside to it because the people who don't like immigrants are going to vote against him anyway. >> let me show you what marco rubio had to say yesterday because he clearly sees the downside in the short-term approach. >> when the president does this in an election year, five months from the election without including anyone in the conversations about how to do it, after viciously, some people on the left condemning the concept, the very concept or similar concept that he's now implemented by executive order, it sets us back -- >> so that is the point, that he has not done comprehensive reform. i think the counterpoint to that is that there were republicans in the senate, past supporters of immigration reform, who

ducked out on the issue two years ago. >> this is why this was such a great thing for obama to do. congress is at 9% approval rating. marco rubio's speaking from a point of view oh, poor congress, they didn't consult us. that's exactly what the american people want. they don't want to consult these guys. they're at 9% of the polls because they haven't done their job. now along comes a president who wants to be strong and decisive and he does something like this. i don't see how the republicans are going to get anything out of this attempt. i think on this issue, they're in real trouble and i frankly think this puts romney's election into huge doubt. >> we've got the health care ruling still pending next week. it will either be monday or perhaps wednesday or thursday, if the term goes that long. you were quoted as saying in a take back america conference, campaign for america's future, i don't give a damn about the individual mandate, i think it was a foolish thing to do anyway but then i hope it does get thrown out. i don't know if that was out of context. i guess you were responding -- >> no. it was absolutely right. >> okay. the question -- >> absolutely right.

>> -- if it is thrown out, do you think that will energize the left and reengage the question of a single payer system which is what you as a doctor and former candidate originally proposed? >> the bill will be a better bill without the individual mandate. it was a mistake to put it in there. it's not necessary. the only people who like it are insurance companies and academics. the reason i know this, 20 years ago we had much tougher insurance reform than the congress passed and the president signed and 20 years later, our insurance markets are fine without any individual mandate and we have guaranteed issue. so this wasn't necessary and it was too bad it was there because 70% of the people don't like it. however, the reason i think it's good for it to get thrown out is because it will help the president. this bill is a bill that most people actually like the contents of. insures people under 26, insures people who can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions, closes the doughnut hole for medicare recipients. this is a bill that people like. they hate the individual mandate. if you take the individual mandate out according to the most recent poll i saw, people want this bill to pass. so i think the supreme court

would do us all a favor, the republicans will jump up and down and crow about it but then people will be able to focus on what's really in this bill and most people will like what's in this bill. >> dr. howard dean, thank you very much. good to see you. up next, pulitzer prize winning journalist david mareness. what he found out about the president. and the president's speech to latino voters in orlando this hour. this sunday on "meet the press" darrell issa and bill richardson as well as marco rubio joining david gregory to talk about the showdown over the fast and furious controversy. ♪ the one and only, cheerios [ male announcer ] considering all your mouth goes through, do you really think brushing is enough to keep it clean? while brushing misses germs in 75% of your mouth,

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the author of the definitive

book on bill clinton has now taken on barack obama. this time, david mareness has circled the globe, journeying 40,000 miles from kansas to kenya to indonesia and honolulu to find the forces that shaped the character of the 44th president of the united states. joining me now is david mareness. great to see you again. congratulations. you won the pulitzer for the clinton book and you've done so much, but this could have been even a bigger challenge, not just the miles traveled but all of the different competing forces that shaped this man who is our president. >> that's what drew me to the book in the first place. my obsession with why people are the way they are and to study the geography, the sociology, the history, the competing forces, the contradictions that made barack obama. >> in fact, when you went into his background, tell me about your interview with the president when you sat down and the interview stretched on far longer than it had been scheduled to, and you actually

told him things about his family history that he didn't know. >> well, you can imagine if someone went back and studied your own, my own history of my family, you would find things that we didn't know. so in this case, it had to do largely with two grandfathers, his kenyan grandfather who in barack's memoir he says was imprisoned by the british for six months during the rebellion against colonialism. when i went to kenya and interviewed six or seven people very close to the grandfather, they all said that did not happen. when i told the president that, he said david, you're probably right. he was passing along the mythology of the family. similarly, his step grandfather in indonesia in the mythology of the family was killed fighting the dutch in another anti-colonial movement and in fact, i discovered that that grandfather, step grandfather, died falling off an ott oman while changing the drapes in his

living room. in that case, the president said you're probably right, i didn't get to check that one. >> of course, these were all things which were also in his book and when we talk about barack obama, a lot of the lift to his career actually came from his first autobiography. >> i consider his biography very insightful in terms of the inner workings of how he was trying to figure himself out, but it was not rigorous factual history. my job as i've tried to explain it is not to, you know, i'm not a vetter of his memoir. what i'm trying to find is the truth, where that turns out to be fact-checking his memoir, fine. that's not the point of the book. the point of the book is to find the historical accuracy. so there are many places in his book where for literary purposes and sometimes for substantive reasons, he made composite characters, fooled around with

the chronology. in one case, one of his characters who he portrays as a young black woman is in fact taken from one of his white classmates and also from michelle, his future wife, who he hadn't even met when he created this character. >> what about the issue of race and how it shapes his own sense of identity, so critical to him and to his journey finally becoming a community organizer in chicago. >> i look at his life, he grew up a biracial kid in hawaii where there were very few african americans, then took this journey from los angeles to new york to near harlem and finally in chicago, he found himself embraced in the black community on the south side, and as he was making that journey, you could see him struggling internally, trying to figure that out and how he could sort of personally find a comfort level in the african-american community while on a larger sense politically be open to

everything, which he is as well as a biracial person. >> do you find answers and i've just begun reading it, it's just come out, but do you find answers to what some say is his sort of isolation or kind of the veil over him where he doesn't let outsiders in which affects his political, his ability politically in washington, some would say. >> it sure does. i compare it with bill clinton, the other person i have written about, who had such a preternatural need for people to be around him and was terrific at it, and developed this survival mechanism built around his transactional politics and relationships with people. barack obama never really had that. in the hawaii of his youth, the native hawaiian motto was cool head, just be cool, you don't have to push yourself on other people. because of his biracial composition, he learned how to negotiate in different worlds. he always had the sensibility of an outsider.

part of that came from his mother, an anthropologist, that notion of being a participant observer. part of it came from his own sensibility, thinking of himself as a writer and we writers also have that observer rather than participant sensibility. all of that helps explain what some people see as a coolness or a veil, which one of his girlfriends in my book described the veil behind barack obama. >> what about a sense of abandonment, if any, given his relationship with his mother and how she really did leave her children and then moved around so much and then of course died way too young. >> he starts with the abandonment of a father he never knew. in his own memoir he says his father left for harvard when he was 2. in fact, his parents were never really together. and his mother, who was only 18 when he was born, sort of grew up, they grew up at the same time in many ways and she was finding herself and becoming an anthropologist in indonesia, and he was back in honolulu going through his adolescence and

teenaged years without her. so yes, there was abandonment might be too strong of a word but a sense of constantly leaving and being left, which gave him that need to find family, which he finally found with michelle. >> well, it's an extraordinary piece of work. i am so excited to be reading this. you cannot say enough for the work that you do and the biographer and writer that you are. great to see you. thanks for sharing with us. tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of title nine, the amendment which opened the door for the equal treatment of girls and women in sports and eventually other aspects of public education. there have been a lot of celebrations this week but this caught our eye. a face-off among cabinet secretaries in wnba and women's college stars in the interior department gym. despite his former pro ball status, education secretary arnie duncan seemed to hang back, let the others shine. among the standout was health and human services secretary,

kathleen sebelius showing she's got game on defense. the real administration mvp was u.n. ambassador susan rice. she may be vertically challenged, but check out these ups. according to my sources, rice has leaped to front-runner status, bypassing john kerry as the most likely contender to replace hillary clinton as secretary of state, if there is to be a second term. see if you can match that, lebron. we'll be right back. telephone rings ♪ hello... ♪ what the... what the... what the... ♪ are you seein' this? ♪ ♪ uh-huh... uh-huh... uh-huh... ♪ ♪ it kinda makes me miss the days when we ♪ ♪ used to rock the microphone ♪ back when our credit score couldn't get us a micro-loan ♪ ♪ so light it up! ♪ even better than we did before ♪ ♪ yeah prep yourself america we're back for more ♪ ♪ our look is slacker chic and our sound is hardcore ♪ ♪ and we're here to drop a rhyme about free-credit-score ♪ ♪ i'm singing free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ dot-com narrator: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com.

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mitt romney accused the president of taking latino vote es for granted, and promised to address immigration in a civil but resolute manner if elected. still, some say he did not answer directly how he would handle more than the 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the united states. mercedes is a surrogate for the romney campaign and served as a spokesperson for spanish language media for president george w. bush. very nice to see you. thank you so much. wanted to ask about mitt

romney's speech. the criticism is that he was not specific, that he still has not answered what would he do to the short-term fix if elected until he gets comprehensive reform which we know has stymied two presidents, president bush and president obama. >> right. well, i think that governor romney is looking at what is the long-term solution. i think rightfully so, he wants to be working with congress and he's very effective, we saw when he was governor of massachusetts, of working across the aisle with both parties. we know that the immigration policy issue is a very complex one that requires a very complex solution. this requires the support of both parties. what we don't appreciate on the hispanic voter side is that for president obama, the his panic voter has been an afterthought and he has taken them for granted. he spoke three and a half years ago, made all these promises, waited almost three and a half years later to come back to them with nothing. he presented his idea of his own stopgap measure but it's really not presenting the long-term

solution that i think hispanics really want to look for. >> what would he do if stymied the way george w. bush and president obama have been and cannot get congress to approve a long-term solution? >> i think what we have seen, and we saw this with senator marco rubio, who was incredibly effective in terms of starting to reach out, he spoke with representative gutierrez at the time about this dream act that he -- piece of legislation, and there was really in good faith, there was really an effort in congress to start getting this going, but under president obama, he had two and a half years with large majorities of democrats, he did say he was going to get it done in his first year. i think that the latino community was incredibly disappointed when he had done nothing and then now, five months, right before the election, decide let me just throw this out here, let me throw them a bone to see if they can chew on and somewhat get energized. >> mercedes, it was republicans, lindsey graham, john mccain,

heroes to many in the latino community for trying to do this under george w. bush, who said two years ago that they couldn't, because of the rise of the tea party. there were a lot of other political reasons in the midterm elections, they were challenged. they backed down from it. >> well, talking about the rise of even the 2010 election where we saw these conservative hispanics really being elected and we're seeing more of them, and i think when you do look at senator marco rubio and working alongside with governor romney as president, i think they would have a much better chance of working with both parties to get this done. >> mercedes, very frankly, just to clarify, i was at a meeting, breakfast meeting at bloomberg last wednesday with marco rubio, a week ago wednesday, when he was still talking about introducing his dream act legislation, dream act light, some called it, and he said he had not had a single conversation with mitt romney about it. it seemed as though he could not get volume from the romney campaign and when the president

moved, he is no longer going to introduce the legislation because he doesn't see a viable alternative. >> there is no viable alternative when the president comes out and just takes whatever senator rubio does and lays it out there in terms of an executive order. but we know that with effective presidents, they are able to work on difficult legislations together with both parties. we saw this with the education reform with president bush and senator ted kennedy. we saw this with president clinton and speaker newt gingrich with welfare reform. it's been unfortunate that president obama has been unable to accomplish that and work with both parties. that's what it takes to be an effective leader, bring both parties together, sit them down, try to make this work. not just a last minute effort from the president obama to try to win over the latino vote where he basically has considered them to be basically an afterthought. >> mercedes, thank you very much. thanks for joining us today from the romney campaign. president obama is expected to take the stage in orlando just minutes from now. stay with us for live coverage

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topping the headlines on "andrea mitchell reports" breaking news out of philadelphia. a jury has now reached a verdict in a groundbreaking priest abuse trial. monsignor william lynn is the first u.s. church official charged for allegedly helping an archdiocese cover up abuse claims. he faces about 20 years in prison if convicted. the verdict is expected at 2:00 eastern. we will of course bring you live reports. the jury in jerry sandusky's sex abuse trial is back in court today. yesterday, the jury asked to listen again to testimony from two witnesses who appeared during the trial. jurors took notes as attorneys read transcripts of the key testimony from mike mcqueary and a family friend of mcqueary's. it is the second day of deliberations for them. stocks appear to be rebounding today after moody's decision to downgrade 15 of the world's largest banks and financial institutions late thursday. the list includes bank of

america, citigroup, goldman sachs and jpmorgan chase among others. afghan officials say taliban militants have killed at least 18 people in an attack at a lakeside hotel north of kabul. the insurgents reportedly killed the hotel security guards, then stormed inside, taking aim at guests who were eating. afghan security forces battled with the taliban attackers for 12 hours, eventually killing all of them to the praise of nato officials. tens of thousands of people are back in tahrir square for the fourth day in a row, supporting muslim brotherhood candidate mohammed morsi, protesting against what they see as a military power grab and demanding the release of sunday's election results. joining me now is nbc's chief foreign correspondent who is in cairo. what is the status now? we are seeing a challenged election, protesters. what are you hearing from the ground? >> this country is incredibly polarized right now. it's hard to remember a time when this country has really been this divided between

supporters of ahmed shafiq, mubarak's last prime minister. a lot of people here want shafiq to win this election or come out, be declared the winner and see the army step in and clear tahrir square and restore law and order, something with an iron fist. obviously, the other side of this country doesn't want to see that happen at all. they think that the muslim brotherhood legitimately won and that mohammed morsi won by 52% roughly. now, we are still waiting for the election results to be announced and rumors have been swirling all day and that has been a consistent problem in this country. if you remember just a few days ago, president mubarak was declared dead, then declared suddenly miraculously better. we are hearing a lot of similar kind of rumors about how this election result is going to turn out, with reports saying definitively that it's going to be morsi, other reports saying definitively that it's going to be shafiq. we frankly don't know. we don't even know when the

exact -- the actual results are going to be announced. most likely it's going to be sunday, although there is some speculation that it could be tomorrow. but the most definitive information that we at nbc have is that it's still supposed to be sunday. >> we should point out hillary clinton and other officials here are talking to the military and saying that they believe it probably was morsi and they are determined to at least exert whatever influence they have which is $1.3 billion in aid that is on hold for whoever is the winner. i wanted to ask you about a turkish fighter jet apparently downed according to turkish officials by syrian officials. this would be the first time the syrian regime has shot down a fighter jet, if it proves to be true. what do you know about that? >> there is also that if it proves to be true. throughout the day, turkish media have been reporting that yes, this fighter jet was shot down, that the syrians have apologized profusely for

shooting this down, that it crashed in the mediterranean inside syrian waters and that the pilots were recovered. just a short while ago, the turkish prime minister, however, gave a press conference and tried to avoid all questions on the subject and said that he doesn't really know if the plane crashed or was shot down, and he is meeting currently with his security council and said that after he is briefed by the air force chief, the security officials in turkey will make definitive statements. so early reports that it was shot down, but then the turkish prime minister refusing to confirm that explicitly. >> oh, boy. richard engel, you've got your hands full over there, as does the world. thank you very much. >> it's complicated today. the face of poverty here at home in america is changing. according to the latest government data, families lost nearly 40% of their net worth in recent years. it is the largest, hardest generational change and it hits the middle class hardest.

last fall, dateline nbc began following three middle class families as they confronted poverty for the first time. here is part of lester holt's interview with one of those families. >> looking at the unemployment check here and looking at the bills here, and this check doesn't add up to these bills. he's got to find a job. >> needing every penny for rent, joyce puts on a brave face and heads to the sister carmen food pantry. >> i can make banana bread. that's not too bad for my kids. >> to make the experience more dignified for its clients, sister carmen designed the space to mimic a supermarket but there is only so much the center can do. >> there's no mistaking this for safeway. it's a food bank. >> exactly. it's a food bank. i'm thrilled and blessed to have sister carmen. but i hate coming back here. i hate it. i want to be able -- i want to

pick what i want to eat. i want to feed my kids what my kids will eat and not have to worry about okay, but this is all we've got. >> each time you come here, you're praying it's the last? >> yes. i don't want to have to come back yet i know in two weeks i'll be here again. >> christmas is only days away as joyce wraps the presents that sister carmen donated to her kids, she struggles to keep up the facade that everything is okay. >> i'm trying to stay above water. i'm trying not to drown and not to sink. >> joyce doesn't realize it yet, but a storm is coming. >> lester holt joins me now. that is heartbreaking. it's a story being told all across america. >> it is, and it's only coming to light now. the financial crisis started in 2008 but the people we're profiling in this story are middle class so when they lost their jobs, in this case the husband and wife lose their job, they had some savings. they had the three months or

more in the bank so they got by. then they relied on family. now you're starting to see this wave, they've reached the end of their rope and now growing to food banks, now applying for medicaid and using food stamps. at the same time, they're experiencing this sense of shame like what am i doing at a food bank and what are my neighbors going to think. we did this story around boulder, colorado, upper middle class neighborhoods where people aren't poor. at least nobody thinks anyone's poor. they think they're the only one. we find out this is happening around the country. >> when you look at this, we always read the monthly jobs data and long term unemployment which is so persistent and of course, we know in minority communities it's so much higher. but the fact is that people have been out of work for longer in this recession and post-recession than in comparable periods. >> and they didn't think they would be one of those people. everyone of course was afraid for their job at the outset of this, and even when these

individuals we profiled lost their jobs, they thought well, got a master's degree, i'm in good sthhape, i'll find another job. you go to the first interview, get a no, and go to the second one, and after awhile reality sets in and you start looking at the money coming in and the money going out and it's not adding up. these are folks that have had to make fundamental changes in their life. many of them have had counseling, the sister carmen we talked about, they basically sit them down and say you don't understand, you're poor now, you can't afford that cable package anymore, you need to downgrade your internet, stop going out to dinner, all these things they were used to. suddenly they're living in a middle class neighborhood but they don't have a middle class lifestyle anymore. >> it also gets to the point of the savings rate, the fact that most people in america have not saved money for these kinds of eventualities. >> or have been saving based on an outdated model, three months. with long term unemployment that just doesn't get it. that's the true cold reality. >> lester holt, dateline is 8:00

tonight? >> this will air sunday. >> this is sunday. >> this particular program airs sunday. >> i have to get it right. >> i never stop working. >> i was going to say that. you're doing "nightly news" tonight, then "dateline." saturday -- >> i have to pick up your dry cleaning. there's that. >> never ask you to do that. sunday morning and then dateline and sunday nightly. a man for all seasons. >> i'm going to barricade myself for the weekend. >> this is a heartbreaking story. >> i hope people watch. i think folks will find something in this to relate to, either they are there or realize how close a lot of us are. >> great to see you. >> nice to have you in new york. in today's politico briefing, how far will the fast and furious showdown go? a long-simmering fight between attorney general eric holder and house republicans is now boiling over to an all-out war between the top house republican and the president.

speaker john boehner accusing the white house of a cover-up. >> the decision to invoke executive privilege is an admission the white house officials were involved in decisions that misled >> joining me now is politico's greg sherman. the speaker and the president tried to avoid this, didn't they? they really didn't want this to escalate this far. this is not what either party needs right now going into the campaign. >> that's right. speaker boehner took a year to get to this point. he had -- his staff had briefings from darrell issa's staff over the course of 18 months. they were very concerned about being seen as disrupting an investigation into a death. that's something they wanted to avoid. that was a big problem for them. eventually, speaker boehner's lawyers got comfortable with where darrell issa was. it took a very long time. they were very skeptical. boehner asked to get issa in his office and they talked one-on-one, whittled down their request to a certain subset of

documents and went forward with this contempt vote. but it pits john boehner and barack obama against each other and you mentioned the election dynamic but another important thing to keep in mind is at the end of the year in september, december, november, the tax rates are all expiring. as we know, as we talk about all the time, there's a huge fiscal cliff at the end of the year and that relationship between boehner and the obama administration, if obama wins a second term, is going to be key. that's something they also -- he's a very big chess board as they like to say. a lot of pieces that can move. >> when we -- we are awaiting the president, he's about to speak in orlando so if i interrupt you, you will understand why. he's actually at the podium. here is the president's speech following by 24 hours, just about, mitt romney's speech to the same latino group in orlando, florida. >> it is wonderful to see a lot of good friends from all across the country. it is nice to be at disneyworld.

this is now the second time i've come to disneyworld without my daughters. they are not happy with me. i want to thank secretary solis for the introduction and for her hard work. she is one of the best labor secretaries we have ever had and she is thinking about you each and every day. i want to thank sylvia and arturo for their outstanding leadership. arturo, happy early birthday. i will not sing, don't worry. welcome to the other side of the hill. and it is especially good to have ambassador marie carmen aponte here with us. we are very proud of her.

when the senate refused to confirm her, i sent her to el salvador anyway, because i knew she was going to do an outstanding job, and she has. and i'm glad to see the senate finally confirmed her last week. so she's now official. last but not least, i want to thank all of you. it's always nice to get out of washington. it's nice to get a little florida sunshine. but it's especially nice to see folks who have devoted themselves to serving their communities and their country, who dedicated themselves to making people's lives just a little bit better each and every day at every level. school board, state legislatures, county boards. you guys are where the rubber hits the road, and i've had a chance to see many of you in

your local communities and hear the stories of all your efforts and all your hopes and all your dreams and also, some of your frustrations and the hardships that are taking place. you know, yesterday your featured speaker came here and said that the election in november isn't about two people, it's not about being a republican or a democrat or an independent. it is about the future of america and while we've got a lot of differences, he and i, on this point, i could not agree more. this is about america's future. the defining issue of our time is whether we carry forward the promise that has drawn generations of immigrants to our shores from every corner of the globe, sometimes at great risk, men and women drawn by the promise that no matter who you

are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what your last name, this is a place where you can make it if you try. this is a place where you can make it if you try. and whether our ancestors arrived on the mayflower or were brought here on slave ships, whether they signed in at ellis island or they crossed the rio grande, their diversity has not only enriched this country, it helped build the greatest economic engine the world has ever known. hungry people, striving people, dreamers, risk takers. people don't come here looking for handouts. we are a nation of strivers and climbers and entrepreneurs, the hardest working people on earth.

and nobody personifies these american values, these american traits, more than the latino community. that's the essence of who you are. all we ask for is that hard work pays off, that responsibility is rewarded. so that if these men and women put in enough effort, they can find a good job. own their own home, send their kids to college, let their kids dream even bigger. put away a little bit for retirement. not go bankrupt when you get sick. i ran for this office because for more than a decade that dream had been slipping away from too many americans.

before i even took office, the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes pushed it even further from reach. from reach. particularly for a lot of latino communities which had already faced higher unemployment and higher poverty rates. so the question is not whether we need to do better. of course the economy isn't where it needs to be. of course, there are still too many who struggle. we've got so much more work to do, but the question is, how do we make the economy grow faster? how do we create more jobs? how do we create more opportunity? the question is, what vision are we going to stand up for? who are we going to fight for? that's what we have to decide right now.

that's what this election is about. who are we fighting for? what vision of america do we believe in? if america is about anything, it's about passing on even greater opportunity to our children. it's about education. that's why i expanded pell fwrants which will give an additional 150,000 children in the latino community a chance to go to college. [ applause ] that's why i've invested to our community colleges which are a gateway to a good job for so many hispanic americans, americans of every strive. that's why schools in almost every state, some in the toughest neighborhoods around have raised their standards

about teaching and learning by expanding creativity and improving curriculums and focusing more on kids who are hardest to reach so we give every child a fighting chance. that's part of the vision of america we believe in. in this country if we want to believe people should take the risk on a new idea you should have the chance to succeed and you shouldn't have to have wealthy parents in order to be successful. latino-owned businesses have been the fastest growing small businesses and we've cut their taxes 18 times. we've expanded new loans and new credit so they can grow and they can hire. that's the vision we believe in. in america we believe you shouldn't go broke because you get sick. hard working people out there. sometimes two jobs, three jobs, still don't have health insurance.

if you did have health insurance, insurance companies were able to discriminate against certain patients. that was wrong. it was wrong to let insurance companies just jack up premiums for no reason and they have millions of working americans uninsured. with the latino community having the highest rate of uninsured of any community in the country. after a century of trying, we finally passed reform that will make health care affordable and available for every american. that was the right thing to do. that was the right thing to do. that was the right thing to do. [ applause ] now we're not done yet.

we've got more to do. we need to put more good teachers in our classrooms. we need to get colleges and universities to bring down the cost of tuition to make it more affordable for more young people. we need to invest in new research and innovation, especially new sources of energy and high tech manufacturing. we need to put people back to work, rebuilding our roads and our highways and our runways, construction jobs can have a huge ripple effect in communities all across the country and nobody knows it better than state and local officials. you know the difference it makes. and with the housing bubble bursting, we've got tens of thousands of construction workers just ready and eager to get to work. we need to get families in hard hit housing markets like florida

and nevada the chance to refinance and save $3,000 a year on their mortgage that's good for those families, it's good for the housing market. it's good for the surrounding community. there is no reason why congress hasn't already done it. instead of just talking a big game about job creators, we should get small business owners a tax break for hiring more workers. or for paying higher wages. instead of rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas we should take that money and use it to cover moving expenses for companies who are bringing jobs back to america. on almost every issue of concern to your community, to every community, what's holding us back isn't a lack of big ideas. it's not a lack of technical solutions. by now, just about every policy

and proposal has been laid out on the table. what's holding us back is the stalema stalemate. a stalemate in washington between two fundamentally different views of which direction we should go. the republicans who run congress, the man at the top of their ticket, they don't agree with any of proposals i just talked about. they believe the best way to grow the economy is from the top down. so they want to roll back regulations and give insurance companies and credit card companies and mortgage lenders even more power to do as they please. they want to spend $5 trillion on new tax cuts including a 25% tax cut for every millionaire in the country, and they want to pay for it by raising middle class taxes and gutting middle class priorities like education and training and health care and

medical research. and that's it. that's it. that's their economic plan. when they tell you they can do better, that's their idea of doing better. when they tell you they know how to fix the economy, that's exactly how they plan to do it. i think they're wrong. i think they're wrong. you know, in this country prosperity has never come from the top down. it comes from a strong and growing middle class. and creating ladders of opportunity for all those who are striving to get into the middle class. it comes from successful, thriving, small businesses that over time grow into medium sized and then large businesses. we don't need more top down economics. what we need is a better plan for education and training and energy independence, innovation,

and infrastructure that can rebuild america. what we need is a tax code that encourages companies to create jobs and manufacturing here in the united states and, yes, asks the wealthiest americans to help pay down the deficit. that's what's needed. and what's also needed is immigration reform that finally lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and as a nation of immigrants and continues the american story of renewal and energy and dynamism that's made us who we are. [ applause ] i mean, think about it. you and i both know one of america's greatest strengths has always been our ability to track talent and hard working people who believe in this country, who

want to help make it stronger. that's what keeps us young. that's what keeps us dynamic and energized. that's what makes us who we are. but our current immigration system doesn't reflect those values. it allows the best and brightest to study here but then tells them to leave, start companies somewhere else. it punishes immigrants and businesses who play by the rules and fails to address the fact that there are too many who don't. it separates families and it denies innocent young people the chance to earn an education or serve in the uniform of the country they love. now, once again, the problem is not the lack of technical solutions. we know what the solutions are to this challenge. just six years ago an unlikely