>> and the choices they make. whatever they are. >> with that test pattern tie. >> it's way too early, but the return of chuck todd and "the daily rundown." >> don't touch that dial. we may look back on this week as the five days that define the election. supreme decisions on health care and immigration. capital battles on loans and jobs and a contempt vote on the attorney general. the issues are hanging in the balance. what a week. they thought may was bad, but june has been worse for the president if you look at the dwindling job growth and european chaos. we talk about wisconsin and investigation, leaks, gas. why isn't he taking that much of a hit in the polls? the big story is despite it all, the state of the race hasn't changed. the critical overseas elected

the head of the muslim brotherhood. a country divide and what the change means for the u.s., israel and the muslim world. it's monday, june 25th, 2012. with the new look, tweet me what you think about it and what changes you would like to see. my first read of the morning. the supreme court will rule on the president's signature legislative achievement, the health care law, putting an exclamation point on a tumultuous month for the white house. that could come an hour from now on the last official day of the term or thursday. the additional day the court added to its decision schedule. up in the state for the white house, a court ruling on arizona's immigration law. d-day for the student low rates that will expire june 30th if not extended by congress. and it's the last opportunity to

make a deal on a highway bill. that might create a couple of jobs. house republicans promised a contempt vote for eric holder. it's the suspension that has both scrambling. there three possible outcomes. everything is upheld or struck down or something in between. they emptied their health care notebooks with the strategy and using phrases like brave face and obama braces for a ruling for which is a ruling that the court strike down at least some of the law. a few days after oral argument, how he would respond if the bill is overturned. >> ultimately i am confident that the supreme court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a

democratically elected congress. >> the president tempered that language, it's clear that judicial activism will be the white house argument if the law is struck down, particularly if the decision is 5-4. if the law is overturned, it will be hard for the president to explain it away. they will have politics on his side, but he will offend 25% of his presidency on something the nation's highest court determines unconstitutional. if it's upheld, the winning side will feel energized. republican leaders are wary of going too far. if the court strikes down all or part of the president's health care law, there will be no spiking of the ball. okay, so he said. then the outcome nobody is expecting, the one virtually every legal scholar predicted when the challenges were first

announced. that would throw the republican base for a loop and probably mean that the romney has to talk about health care more because his base would demand it. >> i know the supreme court is about to make a decision with regards to obama care. i have here in my pocket what they are going to say. actually i don't know what they are going to do, but regardless of what they do, it's going to be up to the next president to repeal and replace obama care or replace obama care. i intend to do both. >> then the possibility of the mandate struck down and the rest of the law is upheld. it looks more and more like a legislative nightmare. how do you cover the cost of treating people who don't have insurance if younger people are allowed to dropout of the system, the president is arguing the public is too tired to relitigate these battles. >> we're don't need to refight the battle we just had over health care reform.

>> for the president wins this legal fight, is it the pivot that sells the law to the public for the first time? if it is struck down, how does the president joke about it at the white house dinner in april? >> in my first time we passed health care reform. in my second term, i guess i will pass it again. >> anyway, it's anybody's guess. careful of the predictions. the political nightmare for everybody involved is 5-4. nobody will feel like they got a fair hearing on that. more than 700 top fund-raisers for mitt romney gathered in park city, utah. two days of campaign strategy and policy issue and an opportunity for donors to rub shoulders with every republican in the running to be mitt romney's number two.

>> it's a rally, if you will, of his best supporters and a briefing on the issues. >> meyers who is running the process was there with every republican thought to be under consideration to be the partner on the ticket. look at that list of folks. among the highlights of the day was a lunchtime speech by someone who took herself off the short list. the former secretary of state received not one, but two standing ovations. one described it as exhilarating. they defended the business record saying according to the "wall street journal," barack obama does not understand the narrative of america. the narrative of america is not i am doing poorly because you are doing well. maybe most strike was the attendance of the super pac men. karl rove was there and charlie was spotted in the hotel lobby. they confirmed he was in the lobby and said he was not officially attending and his

wife was a member of the romney team. they were asked about whether the coziness between the campaign and the super pacs is at all improper. >> it is indeed proper because the line between the campaigns and these independent groups is that you can't coordinate about the expenditure of money. you can talk all day about issues, policy, general things like that. >> by the way, here's an interesting question for you. imagine if the obama campaign held something like this and all of its big bundlers and donors. a lot of whom would be more famous. perhaps athletes and stuff. i wonder what the coverage would have looked like. this has been a rough month for the president. whether it is may's weak jobs report or republicans using subpoena power and the fast and furious this week, everything that happened in the month of

june, there is remarkable stability in the race. nothing like taking a few days off to see that. a lot of chatter and little change. romney is raising money and the campaign is on message, but he has been the subject of a pretty sustained media assault from the obama campaign going on all month. maybe it's part demographics and strategy and maybe it's part obama campaign spending, but the bottom line is we have a nearly dead even race. where the race was in april and where the race was in may. with all this, it's where the race is right now. speaking of presidential campaigns, there was a big overseas. egypt has their first new president in more than 30 years. muslim brotherhood candidate was declared the winner after days of delays. nbc is live for us in cairo with more. i know that president obama did something interesting. he didn't just call the winner,

but he also called the loser. tell me more. >> reporter: he did. the white house confirmed and so did the u.s. embassy that president obama did speak to the losing candidate and encouraged him to continue playing a role in egypt's politics going forward, perhaps trying to unify the country in some capacity. that is going to be a measure that many people here will not be happy about. it is perhaps customary, but many egyptians have expressed the u.s. meddling in affairs. no doubt by some people that is how that will be interpreted. >> now obviously the next big step in this process is who is really running the country? is it going to be this new president or is it going to be this sort of military tribunal? i don't know what else to call

it. is it going to be this entity of the military? >> no doubt that the short answer to that is it's going to be a hybrid of both. the question is which powers will be in whose hands. the leading council, the supreme council said they will return certain powers. among those important powers are the oversight of the national budget. the ability to appoint senior officers and declare war and more importantly now that the parliament has been resolved, the ability to legislate. that leaves the president with very little powers. the critics and the cynics have been saying this transition has been botched and the incoming president is not going to have substantial powers and that the military has put on a civilian face to their own rule. a lot of people remain skeptical about this transition as it is led by the military. >> how different is this from the uncertainty that we have about who runs pakistan?

>> in so many ways, it is very different. egypt historically struggled with military rules that predominantly are secular. you now you have power that will cut deep into the issue of identities. there a lot of issues about women's rights. all of these are not coming to the surface. this would be a big burden for this country to have to deal with. because of the geopolitical significance, egypt is a linchpin in the region. the peace treaty has been a cornerstone and the suez canal with so much of the world's oil to go through. all of that gives egypt much more significance in this stage. >> in cairo, thank you as always. up next, capital crunch time. health care and holder are looping large on the hill. plus style versus substance. romney's supporters are worried something is missing. then fast and furious.

the contempo against eric holder got more political. the most powerful gun lobbying group will be watching the vote very closely. first a look ahead at the president's schedule. he doesn't leave until he is clear totally and knows what's coming out of the supreme court and then he is off to a campaign trip. a mix of both policy and campaign stuff in new england. you are watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ female announcer ] fashion or food, it's all about taste. and the chefs at lean cuisine are loving tangy lemon, peppery poblano, sweet butternut. we're roasting, and grilling to create must-have meals with no preservatives. lean cuisine. be culinary chic.

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well, today may be the day

the supreme court rules on president obama's health care reform and decides whether or not a huge chunk of it and a huge chunk of it in the legislative record gets wiped out. marcia blackburn of tennessee, thanks for coming on set. >> good to be with you. >> let me start with the biggest what if. if some. >>s get struck down with, the whole law or the mandate itself, we know what the plan is. you said regardless of what the courts do, we know that. give me some good of what the replace looks like. i hear the repeal talking point. what does the replace look like? what does that mean? >> you know one thing to bear in mind, we have already voted to repeal obama care. we are ready to move forward. replace is going to see us focus on a few things. number one, increasing choice and options. decreasing cost and mandates

would be number two. number three would be simplifying the system for patients and providers. number four is restoring the cuts that were made to medicare and number five, make health care tax-free. >> all of that is good, but the sticking point with preexisting conditions. you wipe out the idea so an insurance company doesn't have to take you or keep that? >> there ways to do older children staying on parents's health care plans and preexisting conditions. allow those provisions to move forward. >> how do you do it without the cost? without insurance companies escalating the cost. the point was to prevent that. >> moving preexistings back to funds that are run by the state. you can do that. it would work more like a worker's comp plan would work. there plans for doing that and

having those with preexisting conditions, but have them handle them. >> you won't have much choice. what you are describing is sort of this catastrophic pool. people won't have many choices. >> let's let the market work on that. we have got plans that have been out there, ways and means had plans on that. good work on the issues. kevin brady also. there plans in place. when it am cans to lowering the cost, my legislation which is cross the state line of health insurance. a lot of individuals to buy what's going to suit their needs. there great ideas out there. we have worked on these and brought these forward. what you are going to see is what people want us to do. start over with a clean slate and work on health care

transformation so that you have something patient-centered and move away. >> what you are describing, we haven't solved the biggest problem. what do you do with people with preexisting conditions that don't have good choices for insurance. >> i would disagree with that. if you are lowering the cost, if you are allowing more people to get into the market place. >> how do you know you are lowering the cost? >> you look at the competition and what happened with other insurances. >> you will create a competition where you have one catastrophic pool, one insurance company that will get stuck with the expense. >> i disagree. >> you will have private insurance. how do you prevent should that? >> by moving it back to the state so you have a race. you are describing people say you have to race to the bottom. i disagree. you incentivize a race to

quality. what we want is for the market place to lead and for patients to be able to have that choice. in choosing their doctor and in choosing what they are going to have as their insurance. then focusing on getting the cost of delivery down. we have two components of this. the health insurance side and the health care delivery side. what we need to be doing is lowering the cost on both of those fronts. if we go back and focus on health care transformation and look at the components that are there that we tried to work on for years and move forward the ideas and opening up the insurance market and focusing on tort reform and getting rid of ipad and working on the preventive service task forces and bringing that under and into a better platform, i think we have ways to do that. >> sounds just as complicated as

the initial thing going through. >> it is complicated. >> you will deal with this return general on eric holder. what is the scandal here? when constituents come up and say this sounds like one of the washington chatters. what's the scandal in your mind that is behind fast and furious? >> we have an american citizen. border patrol who lost his life. when my constituents talk about this, and they do, they are looking at how could the federal government have allowed these guns to walk? chuck, this is one of the trusting integrity issues. what they want to know is, tell us what happened. >> don't we know what happened? we do know what happened. that's what i don't understand. >> they don't know who said to do this. who signed off on it. exactly what was the change of

command and what all happened with it. they want to know exactly what happened. it's like with solyndra. we hear about that with the doe loans. tell us what happened. >> do you think it's proper that to me there has been a lot. this is not news to a lot of people. the fact that they make this vote and they will score it to me just sort of underscores that this is a political fight and not a serious legislative disagreement. should they be scoring this? >> what people are looking at is, what happened and they want to know what happened. there a lot of votes that get score and don't get scored. i wasn't aware that the nra was scoring this vote. >> do you wish they weren't? >> that's a periphery issue. i think that what the american people are saying is, we want to know that we can trust those who

are put in place to protect our government. my constituents, they want to know that the individuals that are in those places are making the decisions that are going to protect america and american citizens. >> we will leave it there. the republican from tennessee, thanks for coming in. next, down to the wire on the hill as we told you. congress has less than a week to act before the student loan rates double. everybody is on the same page, wanting the same out come, but betting on the vetting. a peek into mitt romney's search for a vice president. first today's trivia question, the 27th amendment is the most recent amendment to the constitution. when was it originally proposed? tweet me the answer. the answer and more is coming up on "the daily rundown."

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it's the start of the week. here are other stories we are watching this morning. the student loan interest rates set to double unless congress takes action to stop it. that's all the fury on capitol hill. the interest rate would rise from 3.4% to 6.8% on july 1st. both sides want to keep them at the lower rate. they can't agree on how to pay for it. 7 million students would have to pay more if congress doesn't act. the expectation is there will be some sort of last minute compromise. turkey called for nato to meet after one of its military jets was shot down by syrian air fighters this weekend. turkey's foreign minsters said the jet was down after they

mistakenly entered the airspace. >> slumped with rain as tropical storm debby battered florida over the weekend. inches of rain in tampa where they gathered to nominate their candidate. it hovers over the gulf of mexico where it could remain for several days, gather strength and keep pouring water all over the southeast. >> jeopardy host alex trebeck suffered a mild heart attack. the 71-year-old is expected to fully recover and be back on set when the game show resumes production in july. he hosted jeopardy for 28 years. welcome to the jungle primary. two veteran democrats are facing off for the second time in the same race. confused? you are not the only one. part of california's electoral

experiment. we will talk to one of the democrats trying to hang on to his seat in this new way of voting. the new supreme court decision, a ruling on arizona's controversial law could come down any minute as well. you are watching t"the daily rundown" only on msnbc. tell it wears on them. narrator: he's fought to pull us out of economic crisis for three years. and he still is. president obama's plan keeps taxes down for the middle class, invests in education and asks the wealthy to pay their fair share. mitt romney and his billionaire allies can spend milions to distort the president's words. but they're not interested in rebuilding the middle class. he is. i'm barack obama and i so we have ongoing webinars and interactive learning, plus, in-branch seminars at over 500 locations, where our dedicated support teams help you know more

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>> sell is experimenting with a new election system nicknamed a jungle primary and allows the top two votegetters to advance no matter what party they are in. the state ended up with seven races in which two members of the same party finished and two. they square off in 4 1/2 months. six of the seven feature democrats with democrats. vermin sherman, round two. bread sherman and the new 30th

district, 42-32. sherman appears to have the edge. he has more voters from his old district and more in the primary. he heads into november with $3 million in the bank. he has been trying to harvest star power. >> betty, if you want a friend in washington, know what you do? >> get a dog. that's what i'm told. >> what are else? >> reelect howard berman. >> that approach department help him get the top slot and he is promising to run a harder hitting campaign. this after ads like this from congressman sherman appeared to take its toll. >> berman took 163 trips all over the world paid for by tax and special interest. >> berman charged taxpayers

$186,000 to lease a car. sherman didn't. >> 44 years of experience and between them, fighting for politics. we have seen a preview of one of the most expensive and perhaps chaining for junkies and perhaps nasty races all year. it helps if berman and sherman rhyme. that makes it easier. brad sherman and one half of berm an sherman, the epic battle of southern california. what do you think of this new primary system and if you win you love it, if you lose, you hate it. >> it's good for governing and bad for elections and bad for politicians. i won in june and i would assume have that be decisive, but we have the expense of doing it

again months from now. i like the idea that this decision which will determine who represents the west san fernando valley for decades to come will be made by over 300,000 voters voting in november. it would have been made by maybe 70 or 80,000 people voting in the democratic primary in june. every kind of voter, democrat, republican, independent, and even those who vote only in november ought to be part of this important decision. >> what's your appeal to republican voters? what do you say to the -- this is a district they think will have about a third of the voters be republican at end of the day. somewhere between 28 and 35% depending on the turn out. what do you say to them? >> first i say the same thing i say to everyone in the san fernando valley. the accessibility and the fact that i have done 160 town halls and everyone knows how to reach

me. if you have a problem with the federal government, my staff and i personally will work to solve that problem. that goes over very well, particularly with republicans who may look at the two of us on or voting records and not find all that much they like. the second thing i say is that i led the fight against the $700 billion bailout in washington, d.c. the bailout of wall street. we stopped it the first time and forced major changes in the program that saved this country well over $400 billion. that appealed to everyone in the district, particularly republicans. >> one of the things berman has on you is seniority and you are trying to make that a negative in terms of been in washington a long time. seniority matters more so in the house than the senate. you know this as now you have been a member of minority and majority. to have any influence at all, you need seniority.

what do you say to the voter who is aware of how congress's power works and you will get rid of berman's seniority that will have ill effects. does it not? >> on the other hand, a decade from now, i will have a lot of seniority. if howard were to retire, we would have a freshman. you can't have someone with 90 years seniority in the house. at some point i district needs to elect somebody new or with already 16 years of seniority. seniority matters most as you know, chuck, on the committee that you serve. doesn't matter how long you have been in the house. the question is, are you the ranking member or the chairman? as it turns out, i am the most senior democrat, a member of congress on the foreign affairs committee. there is a delegate from american samoa who has seniority, but the seniority

matters on the committee and on that committee, i am the most senior member. >> let me ask you one of the chief critiques that has been coming from the campaign. that's this simple fact. howard berman passed 18 bills and you have passed three. why have you only been involved -- how do you explain the fact that you have only passed three laws? you started and authored since 1997. >> well, i'm a workforce, not a show horse. i never go into a meeting saying my name has to be first on the list. with a last name that starts with s, i'm used to not being first on the list. i cosponsored and worked to pass 140 bills that are now law. the second is that counting the number of times your name goes first on the bill, if that's the criteria, howard should have resigned in 2006 because from

1995 to 2006, the 12-year period, he passed zero bills where where his name went first. it's an absurd criteria. sometimes your name goes first and often you are one of a team of people passing a bill. if you go to brad sherman.com, you can see the list of 140 bills i cosponsored that are laws today. >> okay, bread sherman, i have to leave it there. berm an sherman, sherman sherman. we will be interchangeable about it. the panel will be here next to kickoff the week. we are talking about the decisions expected from the supreme court this week, possibly today. we are looking about the vetting list for vp. we have a new vet and a programming note. the new show, the cycle premiers today at 3:00 eastern. martin bashir is in his new time

slot at 4:00 and we will follow the rest of your favorite primetime lineup. much more on the daily run down. first, the white house soup of the day is a soup i had a lot in the last week. gazpacho. you can always follow the show on facebook and let us know what you think. some of the new look things. a little twitter. let us know on facebook. you are watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. we'll be right back. ♪ spread a little love today ♪ ♪ spread a little love my way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ [ female announcer ] fresh milk and real cream makes philadelphia and the moment a little richer.

makes philadelphia and the moment if you made a list of countries from around the world... ...with the best math scores. ...the united states would be on that list. in 25th place. let's raise academic standards across the nation. let's get back to the head of the class. let's solve this. the court struck down the line item veto that congress gave the president as a way of attempting to cut pork barrel spending. >> this day in 1998 when by a 6-3 vote, they ruled the line item veto was unconstitutional, making plipt the first and only

u.s. president to have had the power to cross out items out of a budget law for about a year. speaking of the supreme court, it's not just health care, the court could hand down a ruling on arizona's controversial immigration law. they drew sit simple for provisions including giving police officers authority to check the immigration status of people they stopped. former rnc chairman and political analyst with the author of the take. the chief correspondent. welcome all. immigration i think we have a preview of what the republican response will be on whatever is handed down from marco rubio on "meet the press" yesterday. >> arizona has an all out border problem that is not just about immigration, but security. frustrated with inaction from the federal level inacted with the ball. >> he was making the argument

that this was dealing with an arizona problem. this should not apply to other states. >> this law became a national debate. the former governor of massachusetts mr. romney suggested and there was dispute about this. which part of the law should be. >> they only took issue with that. >> it's part of the national debate about what you do about the immigration problem. >> can your party handle three more days? is there a good day when that's the story of the day? >> not with the narrative they have written. marco rubio had the clearer voice, but that is stifled in terms of getting ahead of the narrative with his version of the dream act. you saw them pedalling and trying to threat the needle. you have to look to jeb bush and

marco and others. the demographics work after that. >> you almost wonder if they plan the conference before arizona. they couldn't have planned for what the president did a week before. here is both president obama and mitt romney laying out how they are going to talk about immigration. >> in a speech, he said that when he makes a promise to you, he will keep it. he promised to veto the dream act and we should take him at his word. >> unfortunately despite his promises, president obama has failed to address immigration reform. >> there it is in a nut shell. you saw what the obama campaign would say and all he said was

hey, he had four years to do something and he didn't. >> the president just did something a couple weekings ago. the republicans have this enormous long-term problem and the romney team knows it. you saw the backing off of the primary season, but not much that romney can say at this point. then the president does something and where are the voters going to be this fall? i think they have their work cut out for them. something they can't solve. >> i think the president would be happy to talk about immigration. >> over and over. >> it's the last thing he wants to talk about. whenever he talks to latino voters, he will talk about economics. >> the obama team will make sure this issue stays in. >> it's clear that they are rooting for the supreme court. >> health care and have it be bundled together. you bundle them together.

very quickly, under the radar, besides the emptying of notebooks, going back and forth and all of it is moot if it gets upheld. there was a ton of bean respecting. clear the ork bama campaign lost the debate inside. washington and new york, the bane debate, however the campaign keeps using it and they wouldn't because they are trying to prove it. it seems to work. >> it works and that has been the broader argument. they would like to have the ecochamber supporting the officials. they are pitching beyond the belt. how important are articles like this? you can visualize that in about a month or sore. you can see the headlines are coming. >> absolutely. >> i think they are doing everything they can to encourage

more of that. the senior obama team. >> they are flat. >> they were all in washington last week doing a back ground briefing for 40 and one of the points was we think there ought could be more scrutiny of bean. testifies kind of a popular cry from them. >> has the romney campaign comforted themselves too much? they don't like the attacks? they don't seem to be trying to fix the larger issue. how does he prevent the campaign from making him look like one of the bombs from office space. >> the romney team, bane is the central argument of his cant dasy. look at my private sector experience. this qualifies me to fix a country in turmoil. the fact that they don't have a response to the bean attacks. >> other than saying look at the democra democrats.

that doesn't fly in ohio. the headlines will be outsortsed jobs and -- >> the auto industry is is doin well there. we wonder why tim pawlenty is the front-runner? >> he says he doesn't run, apparently. >> that's the right answer. >> we ask the 27th amendment is the most recent amendment to the constitution. which was it originally proposed? the answer is september 25, 1789. this prevents lawing affecting congressional salary from taking effect until the next session of congress. that's why you don't amend the constitution very often, do you? we'll be right back. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you!

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the speculation and second-guessing over mitt romney

ace vice presidential list and some tom top contenders attended retreat this weekend. one thing we did learn officially it seems national review listed paul ryan was asked it to turn over papers. i don't think we're surprised. they really hit it off during the wisconsin primary and dpot their geek on. >> we have to be very careful here. what is vetting? is vetting going on behind the scenes and public research records and stuff. >> you hand off tax returns, i think that's the definition? if you hand over papers that were private. >> you know, that's the motivations for, you know, folks being asked to hand over papers and people agreeing to hand over papers. we don't know who is considered orntd. >> it seems that the romney campaign is trying to use -- they use this as a way of

getting some positive attention, which is why i think they had to do the think what i thought was the most remarkable thing while i was gone, which was have the candidate himself have to say, no, no, no we're really vetting marco rubio. >> that was on the heels, remember, of the whole announcement of the president on immigration. they needed to cover a little bit there. i think the two serious contenders are pawlenty and not marco -- portman. those two guys are really where the play is right now. >> i'll let you get the last word in here on this. >> i have no idea. >> the conventional wisdom is anybody we mention won't be it. >> i listen to michael, but there's so little we know about these things. we have a general idea who is in the mix, but as to exactly how far along they were and exactly who -- >> the timing. >> the other thing is the timing. >> and what that personal feeling is -- >> right before the olympics you

get that olympic intervention. >> interesting. you think before the olympics? >> before the olympics. >> i think it's late. >> i say after the olympics. liz. >> who knows really. >> shameless plugs. >> i've got to promote purple nation solutions, a new venture with lenny davis. we launched it last week and very excited about it. >> all right. >> i have to promote the wedding. morgan and steve got married this weekend. another friend. >> here in the wedding season. >> what do we have? >> five more days of june weddings. >> my colleague has written a new book the rise of marco rubio. >> it's competing against the other book the that's out. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." tomorrow the on the show we will tease out new poll numbers later in the week. coming up, chris jansing, we

will await what's happening at the supreme court. four minutes and counting. tick, tick. bye-bye.