to change the subject. >> what does it say about a president whose record is so poor that all he can do in his campaign is attack me? i think it's finally time for us to talk about his record, the kind of failure he's had in being able to create jobs. >> and you may have heard that romney has also demanded that president obama apologize for the attacks. >> first of all, you're not going to apologize. >> no, we won't be apologizing. sometimes these games are played during political campaigns. understand what the issue is here. mr. romney claims that he's mr. fix it for the economy because of his business experience, and so i think voters entirely legitimately want to know, well, what exactly was that business experience. >> i want to bring in nbc latino contributor and fellow at the university of texas victoria soto and former newt gingrich spokesman rick tiler. good morning to both of you. >> goo todd morning. >> mitt romney didn't say

anything in this interview and to be fair they didn't ask about the timing of when he was at baines. "the new york times" headline reads, and this is really where a lot of us are getting caught in this, in tracing romney's role at bain, a convoluted time line. is that part of the problem, victoria, for mitt romney? maybe there is no straightforward answer? >> what's so interesting to me is this partisan role reversal we've seen where it's the democrats on the attack and the republicans not really know wag to do. this is a page out of the rove playbook. you attack your opponent on what they think is their strongest suit. they're coming after them, much like we saw with john kerry in 2004 in going after his military service. the question here is what is the romney campaign going to do? do they answer? do they keep hoping it goes away? we're seeing that he wants it to go away, but the democrats won't let him. >> it is interesting to hear how they've been sort of trying to ex pla inthis time line. let me play you a couple clips. >> mitt's names were on the documents as the chief executive and sole owner of the company,

and it took several years for us to sort out how to put the management team in place. and we had a very complicated set of negotiations that took us about two years to unwind. during that time a management committee ran the firm, and we could hardly even get mitt to come back to negotiate the terms ever his departure. >> even when he was on leave, does he stand by business decisions that were made by the firm he created? >> he actually retired retroactively at that point because he ended up not going to back to the firm after his time in salt lake city, so he was actually retired from bain. >> rick, this has twitter going crazy, and more than a few republican and democratic analysts. what does it mean to retroactively retire? is this the right line of argument from the republicans? >> well, mitt romney has got to find a way to get out of this. this has consumed two days last week. it donl nat dominated the news and here we are -- >> why didn't he put it to rest

when he was running in the primary? >> he should have put it to rest in 2008 when he ran originally. there's clearly a problem with the tax returns or he would release ten years of tax returns. he's only released one year of tax returns. that's a problem. but look what the obama campaign -- by the way, there's a new house memo out today which is delusional or deceptive, i hope it's deceptive. if it's delusional, they believe it, that there's parity between obama and romney at this point and that's good news. you have the worst economy since the great recession. $15 trillion in debt, record deficits, unemployment stuck at 8.2% and yet we're arguing over bain. this is a pretty good idea by the obama campaign to keep this going because as long as we're not talking about it, we're not talking about the real issue which tacitly obama admits is the economy. he's saying romney thinks he can fix the economy. well, he's admitting there it's broken and he's the one in charge of it, yet we're talking about romney and bain, not obama

and the economy. >> i'm not sure that's a correct interpretation. who can do more moving forward. the obama administration has argued it's moving in the right direction. >> this is the longest recovery in world history. this is reckless by the president and his economic policies have kept this going. he's had three wasted years by his own admission. he should be thrown out. >> we were starting from a very bad place. let's rewind and go back to 2008 where we were. we were on the brink of financial collapse. the president came in with a very, very difficult situation, and he stabilized it and we see incremental growth, but the issue about bain is that it's an issue because he didn't address it and because it's within the tax -- >> and because he says his experience as a businessman is how he will move us forward, so it's all interrelated. let me play for you the latest obama ad which attacks mitt romney. ♪ oh beautiful for spacious skies ♪

♪ for amber waves of grain ♪ for purple mountains majesty ♪ above the fruited plain >> effective, rick? >> you know, when i saw that ad i was frankly disgusted. not because of mitt romney's poor singing but the fact that mitt romney is and does have the courage to stand up and sing a patriotic song and this obama administration is somehow mocking the fact that he has the courage to stand up and sing a patriotic sing. i don't see obama singing any patriotic songs. the idea it's cool to mock somebody because -- >> that's ridiculous. >> that's not their point. >> that's my opinion about it. maybe many americans share it, maybe they don't, but i certainly did. >> i think it was an excellent ad because of the emotional cues it was placing. it was juxtaposing that american patriotic feeling with the closing down of those factories, we should be looking at the americanness of having jobs and having economic security, and i just think it was genius how

they juxtaposed that emotional feeling. >> no, there's an overlay of mocking. >> let's talk about the outsourcing. >> there's a mocking of patriotism here. >> he was juxtaposing patriotism. you may interpret it as such -- >> i don't think so. >> beauty is in the eye of the beholder. >> the outsourcing record ha become incredibly controversial. both sides claim that the fact checkers say they are right. so what are the facts? let me bring in glen kessler, the fact check for "the washington post" whose column got 5,000 comments. >> it broke the counter. >> this all started with an obama for america video. let me play that. >> i left that business in 1999. i left bain in 1999, so that's, what, 13 years ago.

>> back in 2001 bain capital filed a document with the s.e.c. that shows romney as the ceo and president of bain capital. >> okay. so you fact checked this. in short, stop me if i'm wrong, you came to the conclusion that there isn't enough evidence that he was actively managing bain and its investments during this period, but i guess the question is, is there still a lot out there that we don't know? >> well, that's to be discovered. i mean, what i try to do is i have to assess these claims on an individual basis, and sometimes the obama campaign has said -- done things about bain that come reasonably accurate and i have judged it that way accordingly, but in this case this dividing line, if you can say that romney was actively running the company post-1999, there are all sorts of suspect or bad deals or outsourcing that you can pin on his tenure. and in the past, you know, i

have looked at '99, i haven't given romney any credit for jobs created after '99. i have tried to keep the obama campaign on a straight and narrow vis-a-vis their ads because if i start to get fuzzy about it, then, you know, if i say, well, this is okay, there's no evidence, the obama campaign can say this, i know the very next day the romney campaign will come by and say, well, you gave them -- let them say this with no evidence, now we can say this with no evidence. i have to look for the evidence. >> to the point that both of our guests are making, which is that he should have gotten in front of this, let's talk about the key pieces of the puzzle that could actually help to put this to rest. one, it seems to me "the new york times" was reporting this morning that the romney campaign has declined to say if he atinded aatind -- attended any meetings or had any contact during that time frame. >> the best evidence we have is the report by the massachusetts election commission which

detailed all the trips he made back to massachusetts when he was in utah. it mentioned he came back for board meetings of staples, which was originally a bain investment but not at the time. he came back for thanksgiving, for a wedding. it doesn't say he came back for bain meetings. but on the other hand, you know, who knows. he might have, you know, shown up in a way that isn't apparent yet, but like i said, we haven't seen evidence. i need to see evidence that says he attended a bain board meeting. >> well, i wonder if part of the evidence is in these tax returns that have become so controversial and you write that romney's state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a bain executive in 2001 and 2002. now, this is separate from investment earnings, right? >> well, actually that's been reported incorrectly. 2001 the state filing says he was a former executive. 2002 it says he was an

executive. >> yeah, so what's up with that? >> well, you know, no one has been able to explain it. it could be a clerical error. it seems odd to say he retired in 2001 and was back on salary in 2002. the romney campaign says that money, that $100,000 is retirement pay, first filing was correct. they don't have an explanation as to why it says executive in the later filing. >> and it's listed under salary. glen kessler, you have an enviable and unenviable job. we love following it all. come back again soon when you get some new stuff. thank you so much. >> you're welcome. >> let me go back to this, rick. i think this is key. if you look at the state filings, and it says he was an executive and it says this under salary, $100,000. they're calling it a retire am b but it says salary. it sounds like either he got $100,000 for a no-show job or those forms were filed incorrectly.

>> it's a problem to explain. most voters don't understand how you can claim that you were not a part of a company and still get paid -- >> most americans don't make anywhere near $100,000. >> they don't get paid when they say they don't work for a company. it's hard to explain how you got paid. i brought these documents to light back in january of this year, six months ago, about the s.e.c. filings, and there was a chance to explain it all then. that wasn't explained. and it's getting increasingly difficult. now they say take a leave of absence suggests he went back. i think they need to get this all out there, and they need to get everything out as quickly as possible, take the hit for a few days, but it doesn't occur to me that anything illegal is taking place. it's just all a distraction because it's a big question mark. >> yeah, and if it's not illegal, what are the optics of it given, you know, the battle over the rich -- >> at least he could return to the core question, which is this question and who has the best plan for the economy and that's where we need to get to. i think romney can win that debate if he can get beyond this

one. >> we have said mitt romney was on fox this morning. he was asked about tax returns. let me play that. >> john mccain ran for president and released two years of tax returns. john kerry ran for president-his wife, who has hundreds of millions of dollars, she never released her tax returns. the obama people keep wanting more and more and more. more things to pick through, more things for their opposition research to try to make a mountain out of and to distort and be dishonest about. >> so victoria, to romney's point, why should i give stuff to opposition research? >> two wrongs don't make a right. just because others haven't released their -- >> he mentioned john kerry but then went to his wife. john kerry released five years of tax returns. gee can't seek cover under that, and we live in an age of transparency. people flock to politifact. he needs to live in this new age

of transparency. he can't walk away from it. just release them. everything will be clear. there might be a little bit of a hubbub at first, but he can get past this, and we know that this is an issue, not just for democrats, but for republicans, and we saw that during the primary as we saw with his competitors. >> victoria, the obama administration can't with any credibility talk about transparency. they haven't released documents about fast and furious. they have an attorney general that -- >> we are talking about campaigns versus administration. >> we're out of time, rick, but i want to ask you this question. what do you think the chances are that between now and, say, the convention mitt romney says here are my tax returns or here is a couple years, here is five years? is it going to happen? >> i think there's a good chance it will happen but i think ultimately the voters will decide whether this is much ado about nothing and decide whether we should get back to talking about the economy and who can fix it. that's really the issue. >> rick, good to have you on the program. victoria wonderful to have you in the studio.

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right now president obama is aboard air force one heading for the critical battleground state of ohio. he's got two campaign events in cincinnati where he'll once again highlight the bailout of the auto industry and hammer mitt romney's tax proposals. nbc news deputy political editor domenico is here. good morning. >> same to you, chris. >> so let's talk a little bit about the ohio obama campaign strategy.

>> well, you know, it's really important for the president to start talking more about manufacturing, the auto supply chain. we'll hear him talk today probably a little bit about mitt romney's plan and he'll charge that mitt romney -- his plan would lead to more outsourcing and jobs in china, and that's why we've seen all these bain advertisements in places like ohio and in the industrial midwest, really key for the president to pick off one of these states, and ohio really key. remember, no republican, no republican has ever won the presidency without winning ohio. >> up next, florida. the president has two campaign stops, thursday, friday. the latest poll there shows a virtual dead heat. 46 for obama, 45 romney. tell me about florida. >> well, of course, florida with its 29 electoral votes always see. we know that this is always close. it's going to be close again. the president is going to make a real big push there. of course, it's a big tv state where you have to advertise because it's so big. there are so many expensive

markets. so we're going to see the president on air there. a couple points to look at. the improved economy in florida kind of a double-edged sword. there's a republican governor who has tried to claim the economy has gotten better. i think most would lean to saying mitt romney is the favorite and he has to win florida. it's hard to see mitt romney's path to the presidency without winning the sunshine state. you also look at something like this voting rights issue, governor scott got a little bit of a victory over the weekend when the department of homeland security allowed them to be able to see the citizenship database they have there. >> we're used to seeing ohio and florida being these key states over the last several elections, but let's talk about the virginia. the president was there last week. he won virginia in 2008. he was the first democratic presidential candidate to do that since '64, and really has a very slim lead in the polls there now. how important is virginia shaping up to be? >> virginia is huge. it's one of those pure toss-up

states. as you noted, the president has a slim lead. i think that's surprising for a lot of people who are used to virginia being a pretty conservative state since 1964, like you mentioned, no democrat had won it. but some things going on in virginia that are different than, let's say, your father's virginia or your grandfather's virginia. there are a lot of changing demographics. the census showed more diversity, more urban population. all those things are things that help the president, including a slight uptick in the latino population. you also have an unemployment rate in the state that's just 5.6%. way under the national average. of course, the republican governor tries to take credit for that, but one big component of that, federal jobs. and that matters because when you think about the role of government as a key question in this election, whether or not the government should do more or do less, in virginia, especially northern virginia, key counties, a lot of federal workers, and they want the government to help save their jobs. >> on the other end of the

spectrum, unemployment in nevada. unemployment the highest in the nation, 11.6%. foreclosure fell to number two after 62 months in the top spot. how does obama win a state like nevada? >> well, one word, latinos. that's what this whole ball game comes down to. more than 1 in 4, 27% of nevadians are latino. they show they're in favor of the president by huge margins. the key for the president is going to be turning them out to vote and that's because their intensity in our poll way under a lot of other groups. he's hoping that his announcement on immigration policy will fire them up and get them to the polls. >> domenico, thank you. and florida a&m university just announced that the school's president is stepping down today after submitting a resignation letter last week. james ammons reached an agreement with the governing board to leave today. that's three months earlier than planned. he's been under fire in the wake of the hazing death of a marching band member.

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to politics now where oprah is sitting down with mitt and ann romney. the queen of talk interviewed the couple friday for a piece that will be published eed "o" magazine. on the other side the president and the first lady talked about their relationship with charlie rose this weekend. >> i am happily surprised at how i think this experience has strengthened rather than diminished our marriage. i rely on her even more now than i did back then, and i do think that part of the great thing about our marriage is we have complete trust and honesty and that keeps the relationship fresh. >> i think you are who you are, and i don't think you change in this place. i think this place magnifies the good parts and the bad parts of you. >> the buzz that condoleezza rice is at the top of the mitt

romney's vp list is getting a lot of attention and some rave reviews. >> oh, yeah. i love condi. i think she's fantastic. she's somebody that's absolutely worthy of consideration. >> she's very qualified, she's excellent, she's tested. >> and jan brewer's super pac just scored a touchdown. they got a $5,000 donation from the arizona cardinals football team. this is the first time an nfl team has made a contribution to a federal super pac. former new york congressman anthony weiner might be looking to make a comeback. the new york sometimes reports he's got $4.5 million in a campaign account he has to use by next year. friends and former staffers say he wants to jump back into politics. if you read only one thing this morning, my must-read is about a growing controversy in san francisco. there's a pilot program to help panhandlers living in the city who are in funded housing. they want them to give up begging so they will get $50 and $75 a week, but they have to

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whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect. there's word this morning that the romney campaign is launching a new line of attack accusing the president of political cronyism at the expense of middle class workers. they kicked it all off with a new web video. ♪ i'm so in love with you >> i'm joined now by washington bureau chief for "usa today" suzanne page and editor in chief of the national journal's hotline reid wilson. mitt romney has obviously not

been able to put this whole bain issue to rest. susan, is this his way of trying to change the subject? >> we're going to have a campaign of the singing candidates? we have two ads in one day, one with mitt romney singing requesting america the beautiful" and now barack obama singing al green. it's new. i have covered nine campaigns and never seen this before. obviously, an attempt to change the subject from what he did at bain and when he left bain and also the issue of is he going to release more tax returns. i think that's what we're seeing today from the romney camp. >> and he was asked this morning about this new strategy of attack. here is the message on political cronyism. >> this is a tough time for the people of america, but if you're a campaign contributor to barack obama, your business may stand to make -- get billions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from the government. i think it's wrong. i think it stinks to high heaven. >> of course, the obama campaign, reid, immediately says romney played favorites while

governor by steering tax breaks to some companies over others. how is this working as a line of attack to you think? >> of course, this is what sort of the benefits of being in office. you back people for political office because eventually they're going to do some business with you. you'll be able to compete with business for government contracts, et cetera. but, you know, of course, it leads to good fodder for attack ads like this. i think it's a smart move by romney's campaign. i really like that ad, by the way. i think it's one of the better web videos we have seen in the cycle and as susan mentioned, i think obama's ad with mitt romney singing is a pretty good one, too. a clever way to break through the clutter at a moment when we're really talking about these sort of small ball issues that aren't going to move a lot of votes come november. >> and yet it was enough to concern a lot of the republican governors at this weekend's national governor's association conference. an awful lot of those republicans, susan, were urging romney to wage a more aggressive campaign against the president. is this it?

>> i think there is a feeling that he needs to be on the attacks opposed to playing defense. he's definitely been playing defense the last couple days. the obama team has very effectively got him forcing him to answer questions about releasing tax returns and other questions of transparency. that's not the winning position for a candidate. you need to be talking about -- you need to be on your turf talking about your issues, and i actually think the strongest turf for the romney campaign isn't this crony capitalism concern, it's the economy for most americans. it's jobs. it's concern about the cost of health care. those are the issues that we know are at the top of the mind of voters, but it seems to me they're having a little trouble getting back on track. >> well, part of it is that, you know, even republicans now are calling for romney to release more of his tax returns. let me play you a little bit of sound. >> the best thing to do is just get everything out in the open, and just say, hey, i have nothing to hide, and i'm going to release my tax returns.

>> if something is going to come out, get it out in a hurry. i do not know why, given that mr. romney knew the day that mccain lost in 2008, that he was going to run for president again, that he didn't get all of this out. >> he should release the tax returns tomorrow. it's crazy. you have to release six, eight, ten years of backs tax returns. >> reid, do you think the growing president bush from the right will become too loud for him to ignore? >> i think it's sort of a no-win situation for romney. if he doesn't release the returns, president obama's campaign will going after him calling him the most secretive candidate since nixon. fe does release the records, he has a lot of money in various accounts that the democrats have already made light of. there's going to be a lot more of that in five or ten or 15 years of tax returns. so this is a real tough poe sig for them. i'm not entirely certain how they get out of it. >> which is worse, susan? is it clear? >> it's not clear.

i guess you have to know what's in the tax returns to know which is worse. i think the history on this is once you have an issue like this, there's a drum beat, a drip, drip, drip, and that you end up releasing them sooner or later. you end up making some kind of gesture that shows there's nothing in there so horrible that you couldn't release it, but that's a calculation the romney people are going to have to make. if they release it, i predict is release on a friday afternoon at about 5:00 in the afternoon. >> preferably a holiday, right? >> yes, exactly. >> susan page, reid wilson, good to see both of you. thank you. less than half haan hour fr now potentially explosive information is set to be released in the george zimmerman case. he's charged in the shooting death of trayvon martin. janet shamlian has the latest live from sanford, florida. >> reporter: good morning. we're going to be getting a look at some of the evidence that mark o'mara tried to keep sealed that on friday judge lester

decided could be unsealed. and as you said, it's coming at 11:00 eastern time. it's going to be uploaded or released online by the seminole county court. we're expecting to see about 140-plus jailhouse calls between george zimmerman and family and friends, and those reportedly will shed some light on his state of mind. also, a statement from a woman being described as witness number nine that mark o'mara had tried to quarterbash or keep se. in a previously released statement by this witness, this witness number nine had said that she believes george zimmerman is prejudiced, that he does not like blacks. and it's believed that the statement that's going to come out today could further harm zimmerman in the court of public opinion. but again, on friday the judge said that could come out, and we'll see it in about 30 minutes. one more note, chris, also on friday mark o'mara filed for this judge to recuse himself saying that based on the july 5th bond order, the defense believes that george zimmerman

can't get a fair trial from this judge. the state has said that it objects to that motion, but ultimately it will be up to the judge himself whether to recuse himself or to stay on this case. we'll keep on these release of documents today, chris, and get back to you. >> we'll look for that in less than half an hour from now. thank you so much, janet. in other news the search is resuming for two iowa girls missing since friday. bicycle belonging to elizabeth collins and her cousin lyric cook-morrissey were found near a lake but no sign of the girls. officials have been interviewed family, friends, and registered sex offenders. get ready for another heat wave. the temperatures won't be as high, but the humidity will be higher, and so it's going to feel more uncomfortable. the forecast calls for 100 today in minneapolis, mid to upper 90s from the central plains to the east coast. overseas secretary of state hillary clinton is in israel meeting with israeli president

shimon peres. the two discussed talks with the palestinians along with the importance of peace in both egypt and syria. >> it is a chance to advance our shared goals of security, stability, peace, and democracy along with prosperity for the millions of people in this region who have yet to see a better future. >> afterwards secretary clinton held a brief photo-op with the palestinian prime minister before their meeting. opposition fighters are clashing with syrian government forces for a second day in the capital of damascus. this is some of the heaviest fighting since the uprising against president bashar al assad's regime began in march of last year. u.n. special envoy kofi annan is headed to moscow to discuss the crisis with russian leaders. oh, boy. the days of tax free shopping on

the internet could be coming to an end. mandy drury is here with what's moving your money. online giant amazon is at the center. >> it's got a really political angle to this as well, chris. conservative governors have been joining their democratic counterparts to make deals with amazon.com to collect state sales tax. now, this is all really picked up steam since new jersey governor chris christie recently reached an agreement under which amazon would collect sales taxes on his state's online purchases in exchange for located distribution facilities there. nice little deal. let's remember the bottom line here, the online sales tax really does help state budgets in crisis, and in one number pegs potential state revenue here at $23 billion. however, this move towards taxing online sales, it has brought implications for us as online shopping is obviously going to become more expensive for consumers and brick and mortar retailers won't have the price disadvantage they do have

now compared with online sellers. >> let's talk about a new study out today. shows more college students are living at home, of course. tuition is higher, sluggish economy. how many are we talking about here? >> 51% now, chris. >> 51% of college students live at home? >> more than half now according to the study of students are living at home compared with 43% back in 2010. now, that does not only include middle and lower income families. in fact, chris, this year 47% of students from high income families, which the study says is those making more than $100,000 are living at home. that's nearly double the 24% who did just two years ago. if we just want to give a bit of background here, the average tuition at a four-year public university climbed 15% from 2008 to 2010. obviously, there's lots of proposals out there to try to help this problem. nothing which so far is helping. and families are really finding some more cost-saving measures such as shifting toward lower

cost colleges and apparently according to the survey this year 29% of students are attending two-year community colleges versus 21% back in 2010. this is really a sign of the times. >> a whole new world. cnbc's mandy drury. thank you. do you hate your commute? you have a right to if you live in one of these places. gps company tomtom has released its report of cities with the worst traffic across the u.s. and canada. okay, ready? number five, tampa, florida. seattle, number four. miami, again in florida. the runner up for most congested, vancouver, despite a pretty small population relatively speaking. and confirming it's car obsession, los angeles came in at number one. l.a. drivers with a 30-minute come mut lose an average of 92 hours a year to traffic. let me tell you, having lived in l.a., there's no such thing as a 30-minute commute. [ male announ] when a major hospital wanted to provide better employee benefits while balancing the company's bottom line, their very first word was... [ to the tune of "lullaby and good night" ] ♪ af-lac

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the fight over voter i.d. laws has take an new turn because the federal government is now giving access to florida to a key database. the state wants to use it to help remove noncitizens from voter registration lists. richard lui is here. >> good morning. a department of home security database could help republican efforts to remove noncitizens from voter registration lists. the database lists those who are here legally but are not citizens. it uses more than 100 million records from various sources to help government agencies decide who can receive benefits. the way it works, give an i.d. to an agency. they go to that website, look up the database, and they know citizenship status within seconds. now, florida wants this information so it can provide proof of noncitizenship. the letter allowing florida to use this database is clear to say driver's licenses are not sufficient enough to prove one is not a citizen. an alien number, which the

database does have, that is sufficient. now, before they got access, florida's target list was large. it had over 180,000 on it. it was then revised to 2600 according to "the orlando sentin sentinel" and 107 people were found to be fraudulent on that list. that's small compared to pennsylvania estimates. a state report showed that over 9% or 758,000 of all registered voters in that state cannot satisfy the state's photo i.d. law. numbers like that may be overstated though says nate silver from "the new york tim " times." he says voter i.d. laws could cause a decrease of 2% or 3% based on registered voter turnout. the groups it may affect the most, silver is saying the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, not specific ethnic groups. contributing to that costs for that proof, driver's licenses up to $100. democrats say it will hurt them more and history says it will according to "the new york times." chris a 1% gain in 2008 voter

turnout led to a 0.4% increase in president obama's margin of victory. >> so in some of these states that are going to be very, very tight that right now are a tossup it could be a difference. let's talk more specifically with judith brown dianis with a nonpartisan civil rights organization. >> thanks for having me. >> it is interesting when you talk about a state like, say, pennsylvania where 9% of registered voters don't have a photo i.d., but there are a lot of reasons for that. some people don't drive, for example, right? >> that's right. if you live in a major city, you really don't need i.d. you get on the train and the bus every day. but when you look at it, the state says, oh, about 91% have i.d., but that other percentage is about 760,000 people, and what's important to understand is why it makes a difference. actually obama won the state of pennsylvania by 650,000. so we're talking about people

who have been registered to vote, who have voted in the past, and now can't vote like our 93-year-old plaintiff, miss applewhite, who is african-american woman, who doesn't have i.d., and she's been voting since the 1960s, since when black folks could, as she says. and now she will not be able to vote in this election. >> let's talk about this ruling over the weekend. this is the one in florida, the government releasing this database of noncitizen residents to the state. what impact do you think that will have? >> well, you know, if i were to come here from mars, i would not know the history of florida and it's bad lists. here we go again with florida trying to put together a flawed list. they did it in 2000. they did it in 2004, making people who are actually registered to vote find that their names were not on the rolls and they're doing it again. so we're really concerned about the fact that florida has this continued history of trying to scrub its lists right before an

election and to disinfranchise people for partisan gain. >> republicans would say you're comparing apples and oranges, that, in fact, this is a database of legal residents. they have registered. that it's accurate, and it could provide, in fact, accurate information about who is eligible and not eligible to vote and what's wrong with that? your answer to them? >> part of the problem is that florida seems to get the process wrong all the time, and they always come up with a flawed list. in 2000 secretary of state katherine harris took a list that was actually accurate and did a bad process, and so it's garbage in, garbage out. we're really concerned that at the end of the day, democracy is going to lose and that american citizens are going to lose their right to vote, which is the most important right that you have as a citizen. >> we have a list of all the states that are at various stages of stricter voter i.d. laws. the texas law is in a federal court now.

south carolina has been blocked by the justice department. do you think it's going to be easier for states to do exactly what florida did and then sort of make this their way of getting around some of these challenges? >> well, we are worried about a snowball effect. at the end of the day we have to put this in context. all of these states that have taken up these laws that are going to make it harder to register and harder to vote are states that are really doing this for partisan gain, and at the end of the day we should have a country that makes it easier to vote, easier to register so that we get more turnout and more participation, but these states are really stacking the deck so that they can win, that the republican party really has been engaged in this kind of process for decades, and now we're seeing it coming and it's coming with a vengeance, and americans really should be vigilant about our right to vote. >> judith browne dianis, good to see you. >> thanks for having me. we are on veepstakes watch

as we wait for governor romney to choose his running mate. today's tweet of the day comes from former rnc online communications director liz maier. if romney really wants to change the subject from bain, he should nominate sarah palin as vp like today. eat good fats. avoid bad. don't go over 2000... 1200 calories a day. carbs are bad. carbs are good. the story keeps changing. so i'm not listening... to anyone but myself. i know better nutrition when i see it: great grains. great grains cereal starts whole and stays whole. see the seam? more processed flakes look nothing like natural grains. you can't argue with nutrition you can see. great grains. search great grains and see for yourself. for multi grain flakes that are an excellent source of fiber try great grains banana nut crunch and cranberry almond crunch.

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the boss unplugged. athletes arrived, and toe wrestling? even bruce springsteen and paul mccartney have to observe curfew when playing in hyde park. they had already played past the 10:30 p.m. noise curfew when their microphones were cut. steve van zandt tweeted when i'm jamming with mccartney don't unplug me. among the 237,000 people headed to london for the

olympics, athletes started arriving today and the olympic village officially opens. they're not olympic athletes but a group of daredevils put on quite a show at some of london's landmarks. check out their performance off the millennium bridge. and just north of london, athletes put their best foot forward. this is the, yes, world toe wrestling championship. kind of like arm wrestling although they lock toes instead of hands. i think we should say inspections do take place before play begins. that wraps up this hour of "jansing & co." i'm chris jansing. thomas roberts is up next. >> hi, chris. good morning, everybody. the agenda next hour, just minutes away now from breaking details in the shooting death of trayvon more tin. what witness number nine had to say about zimmerman and racial bias. straining to explain bain. the romney and obama campaigns on the offensive this morning with new singing ads, literally singing, but is this line of attack hitting the right note

with the swing state voters. and why joe paterno's family is being accused of cashing in on the sexual abuse scandal that's blurring the legacy of the late great penn state coach. the details on that and much more coming up next. on a wednesday. at 2 am. get that great taste anytime with kingsford match light charcoal. that's a good thing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they help save you up to thousands in out-of-pocket costs. call today to request a free decision guide. with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients... plus, there are no networks,

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breaking right now on msnbc, more evidence in the trayvon martin shooting case to be released any second, including jail phone calls and a statement from witness number nine, who claims that george zimmerman does not like black people. our team in florida is shifting through the document release right now and we're going to break it all down in a live report in just a few minutes. hi, everybody. it's great to have you with me today. i'm thomas roberts. topping the agenda this morning, the bickering over bain as the president hits a critical battleground state. mitt romney responds to calls from members of his own party and mounts a defense against team obama's repeated attacks on his record at bain. >> they're dishonest, misdirected, and i think the american people recognize that kind of