watching at home today, very excited. she is a great example. >> firm handshake too. >> that whole team is cool. abby wambach, alex morgan, good role models for young women. >> and kept their shirt on after they won. >> we appreciate that. maybe just i do. >> we all do. >> willie f it's way too early what time is it? >> it's fine. >> brian sullivan is wearing a tube top tomorrow. >> wow. look forward to that. see you tomorrow. stick around. it's just been 120 hours since paul ryan was announced and in that time, team romney has gone from side-stepping medicare talk to tackling it head on. mitt romney and paul ryan talking up medicare at apparently every opportunity. will they manage to defuse what seemed to be ryan's biggest liability. other most mentioned word in washington right now, biden. senator john mccain joins rudy

giuliani and sarah palin and many on the right taking cheap shots saying the vice president should go. president obama, though, defends his man, calling him outstanding. we'll tell you where he did it. tens of thousands of young, undocumented immigrants line up for the right to work without fear of deportation. but in arizona, it's another story. good morning from washington. it's thursday, august 16th, 2012. this is "the daily rundown." i'm chuck todd. a little tribute, see if many of you figure it out throughout the show. it's day six of paul ryan on the republican ticket and day six of a political fight now dominated by one issue, medicare. breaking up a day of fund-raising with local television interviews, mitt romney tried out new language last night to describe his version of the ryan plan. >> the question is what will happen for those that are under 55 and paul ryan and i put forward a plan which says we're going to give those people something more like medicare

advantage or traditional medicare if they like and let them choose which they have and higher income folks will get more financial support in choosing their plan -- excuse me higher income folks get less financial support, lower income people get more help. >> apart from the slip of the tongue complications for romney as he tries to square the differences between ryan's plan and his own. for the last 24 hours, romney has hammered the white house with this new attack line. >> what the president is doing is cutting $716 billion from medicare and the trust fund of current seniors. i think as they understand that they're going to find the president's plan to use medicare to finance obama care is a pretty surprising and unfortunate development. >> the obama campaign fired back reminding voters ryan's budget assumes the same slower growth of medicare spending that the president's does, quote, today mitt romney forced paul ryan to attack his own budget. congressman ryan knows that the

$716 billion in medicare savings that he included in two of his own budgets do not cut a single guaranteed medicare benefit. this fight is over medicare advantage, which is no the a separate insurance -- not a separate insurance program it's a supplemental insurance program to the base of medicare. on the stump in iowa, the president then took the argument further. >> they want to turn medicare into a voucher program. my plans already extended medicare by nearly a decade. their plan ends medicare as we know it. my plan reduces the costs of medicare by cracking down on fraud and waste and subsidies to insurance companies. their plan makes seniors pay more so they can give another tax cut to millionaires and billionaires. >> now we don't know about the seniors paying more and it's not aimed at seniors now or anybody 55 or older. now the central premise of the

romney campaign has been the economy. but what are we all talking about today, tomorrow and probably throughout the weekend? medicare. consider the last time the romney camp and the rnc had a coordinated attack on the president's stewardship of the economy. you have to go back to the you didn't build that campaign. that was before romney's trip to europe began three weeks ago. a full lifetime in this campaign. last night ryan was stumping at his alma mater ohio's miami university. >> hey. did my professor say good things about me? it is really good to be back here on campus. >> now ryan said the medicare debate is one he and romney want to be having. >> the president, i'm told, is talking about medicare today. we want this debate. we need this debate and we will win this debate. >> and the debate has changed. we are talking about medicare,

not the economy. so far ryan has not produced much of a bounce for romney, at least according to gallup. before the ryan pick was announced it had romney and obama nearly dead even, 46%, 45%. those numbers virtually the same, 47%, 45% after the announcement. one of the only national polls that's had romney up. we've had that gap lup debate before on this show. but what you do want to do is compare apples to apples and in the gap lup situation that's what we're doing. medicare is foot it the democ-- fight democrats wanted to have. the committee is previewing the line of attack we'll see all over the country through election day. the first independent expenditure ad of the campaign and hits a congressman in michigan on medicare. >> on medicare, congressman

benishek's gone fishing and he has a whopper. >> privatizing social security and medicare is the only way of phasing out of the medicare and the social security plan. he voted to essentially end medicare forcing seniors to pay over $6,000 more a year. congressman benishek is fishing in troubled waters. >> the entire party will be running on that message. a coordinated message out of the democrats is something rare during the obama administration. it happened in 2006 and 2008 when democrats ran against bush, republicans said a coordinated message in 2010 on medicare and the president and health care. it is something to keep an eye on and that is what concerns some republicans advisers privately, that you now have a coordinated democratic message that all democratic ad campaigns regardless of whether they're for the president or house and senate candidates r all going to be caulking about the same -- talking about the same thing, medicare. how problematic was vice

president's chains comment for the obama campaign? enough that the president decided he had to respond to it and get this, with interviews with "people" magazine and "entertainment tonight." >> we don't spend a lot of time worrying about the chatter. the country is not as divided or obsessed with gaffes or some stray remark as washington is. >> you heard it was phrased that way, what was your reaction? >> what joe biden was talking about, again, is an example of a substantive argument, a substantive issue the american people should be concerned about and his phrasing is a distraction from what is at stake. >> calling it a distraction but standing by his man a day after the 2012 race got pretty nasty, the president was back on the campaign trail and you saw her sitting next to him with the most popular person who will be speaking at his convention, the first lady, and she was there to

testify to his character. >> we all know who my husband is, don't we? and we all know what he stands for. >> the romney campaign continues to ratchet up its rhetoric about the president, accusing him and his campaign of engaging in, quote, division and anger and hate. it's all about trying to bruise his brand and narrow that likability gap. releasing a statement this morning comparing the obama of '08 to the obama four years later that's what the romney campaign is. in the interview with "entertainment tonight" the president responded to romney's claim he is running a campaign of division and anger and hate. >> i don't think you or anybody who's been watching me campaign would suggest that in any way, you know, we have, you know, tried to divide the country. governor romney, i think, has had very sharp critiques of me and my policies and that's how it should be. that's the nature of the

democracy. i've got sharp disagreements with him in terms of where he will take the country. >> is there any way we can change that, where we can have a campaign where there's not so much of the mud slinging? >> you know, the truth is, you know, i've got to tell you there's not a lot of mud slinging going on. the debates that we're having are big debates. >> interesting there. president saying not a mud slinging going on. by the way, the obama campaign is fund-raising on those romney comments this morning. quote, while mitt romney diagnosis the president with everything from anger to desperation to being intellectually exhausted we're building the best -- their words here -- grass roots program this country has ever seen. wondering if someone didn't fully edit that e-mail release there. we'll see. paul ryan's campaign push across the country continues with a second straight day stumping in ohio. he will be speaking in canto this hour. ron mot is in the buckeye state

ahead of this rally. so, paul ryan, you've been following, watching him, have you already seen him get more comfortable on the trail? how is he doing as sort of a grass roots politician, if you will? >> hey there, chuck. good morning. expect maybe a little more energetic crowd here today than last night at his alma mater at miami university. granted we were outside and seemed like a lot of the applause dissipated into the thin air last nightp we're in a gymnasium at walsh university and the topic today does not have a whole lot of built in applause lines. he's going to talk about trade as part of that five-point romney trade for a stronger america, what the campaign tells us paul ryan is going to talk about today. we don't expect he'll hover on that topic all that long. the trend has been for him to hit on that and step back and go to the broader issues that campaign wants to put forward today. one of the things he will talk about in ohio is jobs. ohio may decide this election by itself. take a look at the numbers of unemployment here in ohio today.

7.2% across the state that is lower than the national average and 7.3% here in the canton area specifically. going forward, the obama campaign may have something there to argue in their favor. the bureau of labor statistics says that the state average of unemployment here has gone down every month this year and so they may want to go ahead and push that. what the romney/ryan campaign is going to say is that look, nationwide, unemployment has hovered above 8% for 42 straight months because of president obama's policies. policies they say have failed. we got a pretty good crowd filing in here and hopefully already it sounds more energetic than it did last night. yesterday was flat. >> i will be curious if we hear two words out of paul ryan's mouth today, auto bailout. ron mot in ohio traveling with the ryan campaign, thank you, sir. as with you told you it's been getting toxic out there this week. the campaign entering a new faze and it's not even -- phase and it's not even labor day. swing state of mine,

battleground voters tell us what they think about paul ryan's personality, economic outlook and why president obama should be more like george w. bush. we'll explain. first, look ahead at the it's schedule. he's back at the white house today. and mitt romney's schedule more interviews with local affiliates for mitt romney. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec® at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours. zyrtec®. love the air.

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over the next three months the other side will spend more money than we have ever seen on ads telling you one thing, that the economy is not so good and it's obama's fault. >> his campaign strategy is to

smash america apart and try to cobble together 51% of the pieces. if an american president wins that way, we would all lose. >> the president may claim there isn't much mud slinging interesting way he put it, but the most in the last 48 hours of this presidential campaign sure seem ugly to a lot of us. expect the animosity between the campaigns to get worse. joining me is jonathan martin for politico, fresh off the campaign trail with vice president biden. we'll get to this. interesting way they try to press manage him. and msnbc contributor and "washington post" reporter mr. fix hillself, chris, author of the book "the gospel according to the fix." >> yes. >> one of the things about the last five days and it was -- the three of us got together friday morning. >> yeah. >> and then later that evening we found out about paul ryan and one of the things we were debating about paul ryan it was going to take us off the topic

of the economy and that's exactly what's happened. we haven't talked about the economy. i would argue in a coordinated way from the romney campaign since before the london -- >> you're totally right. what's so fascinating is the push back you get up when we bring it to the romney people we're playing offense -- >> it's built in. >> and may be playing offense but the economy still hasn't gotten increasingly or measurably better and we now have five days in which we haven't talked at all about it and people say, five days, whatever no one is paying attention, only 82 or 81 days nis election so five days is not insignificant. >> let me back up the romney assertion jonathan, it's baked in and helps them. listen to this focus group in wisconsin peter heart did with women undecided women voters and they were asked to talk about the economy villa the weather. >> right. >> here's what they said.

>> rain. >> odd. >> tsunami. >> tides. >> overcast. >> earthquake. >> cloudy and overcast. >> thunder clouds rolling in. >> overcast with threatening storms. >> stormy. >> stormy. >> that's -- >> health storm. >> seriously. >> tsunami to cloudy and overcast. >> almost like old testament like. it's brutal. look, the romney folks can read polls and the fact is, president obama's numbers on the economy are terrible. you listen to that focus group, his numbers on the economy are terrible. >> ten of those people were obama voters by the way. >> he's still winning national polls in swing states. romney polls reading those polls seeing that apparent cont contradiction come to the conclusion of saying that obama isn't working on the economy ain't cutting it. we got to do something else. i think that's why you've seen the move to talking about welfare, this move to try to sort of dirty president obama's hands and say this is a sort of

a hope amonger who fell off the ladder if you will. the move to put ryan on the the ticket where you're trying to elevate this discussion to something beyond a pure ref ren double on the economy. all this combined is from the romney campaign. the campaign strategy for the last six months was not effective. people don't like the state of the economy but they still don't like this president. >> it's a concession that it gets them close, right, not like he's behind by 15 points, doesn't get him over the top. >> but not enough. >> you were writing about the -- and a lot has been writing about the strategy behind sort of going after the obama branding unlikability and it is no longer an attempt to boost romney up. it is about bringing the president down. >> look, we talk about this all the time on and off camera which is that it is remarkable that given where the economy is, given what we just saw on that focus group, that barack obama has huge leads on who is more honest and trust worthy, more likable over mitt romney. mitt romney is not someone i think that is going to tell in

the next 80 days to the american public. he's going to sell his likability and people love him. he doesn't have to necessarily. you just have to make barack obama -- puncture, jonathan mentioned this, puncture the hope and change. don't agree with his policies but a good guy that tries -- >> they want that gone. >> or you can't win. >> good anger is sghoon same focus group of people who knew him they all said he addses likability to romney's ticket. you were out with vice president biden, day after the chains. >> yes. >> you made a couple of fascinating observations but the biggest one has to do with sort of this, ridiculous management of him that his aides do to keep him away from the media. explain. >> i think part of the reason their frustration among our colleagues from this campaign, every campaign the leash is pulled tighter and tighter on the press corps and the restrictions and management only

increases. >> they edited the pool report, is that right? >> so if you think on the biden front, you know, hustling the press away from some of the events that happens occasionally, evesdropping on reporter conversation with voters at event it's a bit more rare. what i think unheard of, though, chuck, is when we as reporters go to off records or off the schedule stops that biden makes and compose a summary we call them pool reports for our colleagues. >> because we can't all get in there. >> we share them. >> an agreement we make. >> a product of the press and for the press, right. >> has nothing to do with -- >> whatsoever. the biden aides are trying to edit what's in there before -- while it's being drafted and then after you send it to them, reviewing it and going through there looking for potential land mines. >> and the only reason it gets sent through them, and we have to change this system -- this is an outrage they do this -- the only reason we send it to them the fastest distribution. >> they are a distribution --

>> all of their spokes person. >> it's our product. >> for us by us. it's remarkable. >> it's a reflection of how much the biden staff is determined to sort of police him and really save him from himself. >> the irony, though, you said, his best moment on the campaign trail was at this -- that you saw was at this virginia tech memorial stop. >> right. >> they were going to keep the press away from. >> we were there and asking him what he's thinking about being there, lost a child himself, tries to answer the question, his own staff has to shoe us away, speak over his staff to talk about his emotions being there at tech at the memorial to the shooting there. >> anyway, read the whole piece, jonathan martin, with a report on what life is like for biden on the campaign trail. thank you both. >> thank you. >> up next, developing news out of afghanistan. a military helicopter crashed this morning. some u.s. soldiers lives were lost. the latest. plus senate shakeup, are democrats making progress in

indiana? shocking poll i saw this morning. and dreams dashed. arizona governor jan brewer sparks a new immigration controversy. today's trivia question, we've got a photo challenge for you. tell us what this is? if you need another look, check it out on our facebook page. but tell us what it is and there's a name to it. tweet me the answer, first correct answer will get a follow thursday from us. alan and aaron and erin are drivtsing force behind strikes, family busins known for its mat za. they say the key to their success is not changing how their product is made. they bake and back them the same way it's been done for nearly a century. for more watch your business sunday morning at 7:30 on msnbc. ♪ [ acoustic guitar: upbeat ]

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simply mechanical problems. three afghan soldiers and afghan interpreter were also killed in the crash bringing the total number of dead to 11. few other things on our radar this morning, wikileaks founder has found a new home. arizona's governor doubles down on immigration and some new polls that caught our eye. first up, ecuador has granted wikileaks founder julian assange asylum saying the country has a tradition of protecting those who are vulnerable. the founder sought refuge at the ecoadorean embassy two months ago after facing ek tradition to sweden. republican congressman cliff stearns conceded victory to newcomer and tea party backed candidate ted yowho. congressman's life for me, stern is a 12-term congressman that lost that to a veterinarian who has never held elected office. hundreds of young undocumented immigrants lined up in chicago on wednesday to try to apply for the new deferred action program -- look at those

lines -- in arizona jan brewer signed an executive order that denies state issued driver's licenses and i.d. cards to anyone who applies for deferred action. arizona's laws prohibits undocumented immigrations from receiving state funded public benefits such as i.d. cards. and i want to share a series of new polls that showed up in my inbox this morning that i think provides some interesting potential findings. new poll in indiana shows the tea party backed candidate nominee richard mourdock facing a tougher election than many thought. the poll has the democratic challenger joe donnelly with a two-point edge. this is from a democratic campaign pollster but one of the better ones out there. franklin and marshall poll in pennsylvania shows president obama leading mitt romney by six points in pennsylvania. remember that republicans haven't won there since 1988 when george bush senior beat michael dukakis. support for independent candidate an gus king has

dropped by ten points in maine. poll shows king's one-time 28-point lead over republican be summers down to 18 points, still a significant lead but he's under 50, not the sure bet everybody thought he was. we'll see. more of my candid conversations with retiring senators. today, we're staying in the state of maine. olympia snowe on the end of what she calls the sensible center. the changes in her party and whether she would ever become a democrat. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. [ female announcer ] how do you define your moment? the blissful pause just before that rich sweetness touches your lips. the delightful discovery, the mid-sweetening realization that you have the house all to yourself. well, almost. the sweet reward, making a delicious choice that's also a smart choice. splenda no-calorie sweetener. with the original sugar-like taste you love and trust. splenda makes the moment yours.

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all week bringing you our exit interviews with departing senators. today the spotlight on a lawmaker we don't see a lot anymore, the northeast republican. maine senator olympia snowe surprised leaders with her decision to leave washington. she has served the pine tree state from the capitol since

1979, built a reputation for working across party lines to get things done. we started our conversation on the inability to find middle ground on capitol hill anymore. >> we've lost the center, you know, over the years. that has eroded. both sides really have to meet at some point in order to get things done for the benefit of the country. >> so it's fair to say, you know, sure, you'd like to spend more time with your family, sure you would like to do these things but if this in your mind were more functional you would probably run again. >> correct. knowing what i know right now, and realizing it's not going to change dramatically tloefat lea the short term, i wouldn't be able to d the things i think are so important for the country. >> i've had some people long-time observers say the house has turned -- the senate has turned into the house and they don't say that as a compliment. they say it as a -- is that a

fair characterization? >> well, you know, i didn't used to think so. i do now. >> if you were in another state do you think you would have ended up a democrat? what makes you a republican and why do you stay republican? >> because of my traditional beliefs as a republican. >> which are? >> thats is being fiscally responsible, limited government, individual opportunity, and freedom. i happen to believe that i represent a traditional republican. i have not changed as a republican. >> you think the republican party has changed some. >> i think the republican party has changed. it hasn't expressed i think the views of, you know, being inclusive. >> ever think about changing party this is. >> no. people ask me that -- >> how many times did democratic senators come to you? >> quite a few. >> if an gus king as an independent, i know you're supporting the republican nominee, if he comes to the senate, elected as an independent, can he come here and not caucus with either

party? >> i -- you know, i would say it's very difficult. >> you don't think it can be done? >> no, i don't. nothing wrong with having independents. we've had them before. we have them now. >> right. >> obviously. >> you think they have to pick a side? >> i absolutely do. you don't have to be an independent to be independent. i can speak to that question. i am independent as a republican because people expect me from the state of maine to be independent. >> it's possible there will be fewer women in the united states senate in 2013 than there are today. how are we at this position where the numbers could possibly go down not up. >> it is surprising, actually. given the fact that there are certainly more women running for public office than ever before. you're raising a family and have to decide whether or not you can orchestrate that and run for office and if this works for them. i encourage young women to think about their futures at some point when it works. it's important to have more women voices in the political

process. it's healthy for our country being more representative of our country frankly. when i ran for office and when i decided to run for the senate, i didn't think about the fact that i was a woman. i just knew that i could do it and i wanted to do it. and i think that it's going to have to be that way when you want to change whatever is happening in their world. >> you've served in congress under six presidents. president george hw. bush ends up having a vacation home in your home state. was that a blessing and a curse? >> no. it was truly a blessing. and my husband -- >> ended up seeing him all the time. it's great. i loved them. they're fabulous people. it's interesting when my husband became governor it couldn't be better advertising for the state of maine than to have president bush on the water. >> was it a tourism boost? >> absolutely. >> yep. the numbers shot up. >> president clinton? >> i happen to know president clinton when he was governor because my husband was governor and they sat next to each other

in the order in which the states entered the unit. >> and that's how i met hillary. i got to know her through the [ inaudible ] association. when she and i were sworn in as 2000 as senators, ran for the first time and i was running for re-election, my husband saw then president clinton, now we're the spouses. >> and president obama? i mean obviously you spent a lot of personal time which him during health care. how is the relationship now? >> well, i haven't seen him. he was very gracious. he called me after i made my announcement in february that i made the decision not to run for re-election. >> how did he lose senator snowe on health care? >> i wouldn't say he lost me. it was on the issues. and you know, things didn't change. i think it's a distinction between being a republican and democrat, how far do you go on

the question. this was all government. and i -- that was my real concern. >> when you hear this talk of repeal from the republicans running for senate, what do you say to that? >> i don't disagree with that repeal but i would like to have another option. >> maine is not a swing state and it was when i first started covering politics. there was a time all of new england was republican. it was a rock solid red region. >> i know. >> what's your advice to the party. >> returning to our basic traditions and principles and speaking to those issues that matter to people and are relevant in their daily lives. the economy and jobs and how our programs will better serve the interests of the average family. i think when we were talking about so many of the social policy issues -- because frankly even when we were in the majority we spent more time concentrating on those issues than talking about what we should have been doing about the future. >> do you see that as a missed opportunity?

>> yes, i did. >> the conversation republicans are having, what about the debt, you would say hey, we were just in the majority we could have? >> i do. i tried. back in january of 2001, i, you know, serve on the budget committee for eight years in the senate and two years in the house, and at that time chairman greenspan was proposing a trigger with projected surpluses that were accumulating so i thought that was a superb idea. thinking i would get strong republican support. wrong. and i was shocked. >> are you done with politics? q. will you ever run again? >> well, i won't say never. you never know any moment, but i'm going to contribute my voice in other ways. >> do you serve in a presidential cabinet? >> would i serve in a cabinet? probably not, no. but i would certainly want to contribute my voice, you know,

to solving the problems of this country and i want to make sure americans understand one thing, that it doesn't have to be this way and we can solve our problems. america has always been a can do country and we can do it and we know what we have to do. we just have people who are willing to do it. >> senator snowe, thanks a lot. >> thank you. >> remember the entire interview unedited is available on our facebook page, check it out. all of them are there. so far, couple more coming up throughout the week. the talk on the trail is all about medicare and that's where we're going to start with our package coming up next. first, white house soup of the day, president back, staff is back, they'll be dining out a little bit on white chicken chile. don't forget always follow the show on facebook. the home of all of our exit interviews with the retiring senators. a lot of them from the legislative center interestingly enough. we'll let you decide whether that's a coincidence or not. you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc. well, i had all the classic symptoms...

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my choice for the vice presidency is senator dan quayle of indiana. >> daily flashback, this day in 1988 when vice president george h.w. bush picked dan quayle as his running mate calling quayle quote a man of the future. he became the first baby boomer ever on a major presidential party ticket. a great story former reagan white house chief of staff alerting reagan they're picking the senator from indiana and reagan said, lugar, oh, okay. all right. the obama and romney campaigns are both touting their respective policies as the answer to social security's future and spreading misinformation on medicare. my thursday panel, al fan so who led the u.s. office of citizenship during the bush

administration, yak jackie, covers politics for "usa today" and he makes his home at "the chicago tribune ". >> yes, sir. >> jackie, i want to go back to this focus that here we are and it's been three weeks since there's been a coordinated messaging from the romney campaign on the economy. here we are five days in on ryan and talking about medicare. >> yep. i think -- i don't know how they couldn't have predicted that. the ryan budget has been -- i mean in the house, that's all anyone talked about. hitting candidates on. i think, you know, that could be a problem for them down the line. i mean, they don't want to talk about this medicare thing and they have to explain it once they need to put out something substantive to, you know, to stop all the speculation about what their plan is. >> what's interesting, clarence, they decided they rhetorically have to talk about medicare. romney himself changed a question that was about another topic in this interview and went pack to medicare. >> right. >> they're having this debate we're conflating medicare and medicare advantage which i --

medicare advantage is not medicare. just has the name medicare in front of it. supplemental insurance that where sometimes it's about gym memberships, things like that. they clearly have decided they can't hide. >> worse than that, as far as conflation goes, romney's portraying obama's slowing of the growth in medicare by $700 billion as robbing medicare to pay for obama care. which is a twist around and also when they -- something that is included in the ryan plan as well. >> right. >> so all of this first of all, so complicated that it loses the average voter, but word of mouth is going to say they want to tamper with medicare and that's a negative. >> concernp arepens is the fact that the -- republicans is the fact that the democratic ticket will be running on the same issue. you thought this was going to be a conversation about the economy as a conservative a month ago. >> let me say something interesting. this past week we've been talking about the romney plan, the specifi that romney has put toward forward, the ryan

plan. not talking about what the obama plan, what obama would do to reform entitlements or get the economy moving again. so this is very interesting. i think we see an alternative of a republican ticket that has substance. it's being attacked but because they're providing specific proposals. on medicare i would say they cannot allow the obama campaign to set the narrative of medicare and they have to be very clear saying what -- that they're actually trying to reform medicare to save medicare. this doesn't apply to seniors, for people 55 or under, and i would disagree. i think they do take -- obama care does take money from medicare to pay for services. it takes money away from service providers. >> if you repeal obama care you then end up with medicare's -- i mean because of the reforms that were done, the cbo rated it as extending the life of medicare by another eight years. if you repeal it you get rid of

that, do they have to provide this alternative now? >> well, i mean, i think they propose a series of cuts but i think to argue that by putting back in over $700 billion into medicare that that's somehow advances the date of insolvency of medicare is not true. >> jackie, an interview in "fortune" magazine where romney did get some specifics on some things we hadn't heard before on places he would cut. still not talking about the tax code itself, but he talks about ending subsidies for amtrak, pbs, national endowment of the arts, puts states in charge of medicare, housing vouchers and food stamps, block grant all of that, and cut the government work force by 10%, federal government by 10% and then reduce waste in the military, though, he does call for expanding the defense budget. any of these things troublesome for him or helpful to him?

>> he did say a little bit of this during the primary. i mean because there was a line something about my grandkids love big bird, but we don't want to borrow from china to do that. this has been out there a little bit. but again, i don't think any of this will stay pore the tax cuts. this isn't enough to cut. >> block granting medicaid, that is still -- that is something -- many ways the states do operate it already. how much more of it would it go? >> yeah. >> it's going to hurt him politically is when people find out how much medicaid pays to keep our elderly grandparents in nursing homes for long-term care. they think medicare is just for poor people, but it's -- it hits the middle class and romney needs to get this out there now. >> this is what makes this -- all we're having -- you bring it up about middle class entitlements. not entitlements for the poor or rich here, the middle class entitlements. trivia time when we come back, talk about immigration.

we gave you a photo challenge today. we asked you to tell us what things is. the answer olympia. the record-setting snow woman named for senator olympia snowe when built in western maine in 2008. olympia snow. it became the world's largest snow, i guess, woman. her eyelashes were made of trees, her eyes from painted tire. if you have a question you want to be on the show, e-mail it to me.

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>> thousands of undocumented immigrants are still lining up in states across the country filing for work permits because

of a temporary reprieve to deportation. it's going to give president obama a boost among latino groups. alfonso, i've got to ask you about governor january brewer's executive order yesterday. was that necessary? >> it wasn't. that's a type of a rhetoric and narrative we don't want to hear at this time. however, going back to obama's decision, which is not an executive decision, which is not an order, i think latinos can see through this. they see it as a political ploy. obama promised immigration reform. he could have gotten the dream act done in the first year. it gives them a permit but not legal status.

and it's only temporary. >> wait a minute. he tried to get the dream act when he had a democratic senate and it got blocked. >> when? >> i understand that. but he tried to do it at the end. it ended up being he couldn't even find a handful of -- >> but to be fair, harry reid told republicans, it's an up or down vote. you cannot introduce amendments. it was assigned for republicans to vote against it. look, even ryan who actually has a great record, he has co-sponsored immigration bills that provide act jobs, voted during the lame duck in the house. it was a political ploy. they are using this for political purposes. i think latino voters can see through that. >> i think he's right. there's a political aspect to this. you can't deny that they haven't delivered for the hispanic community. he's delivered something now. seeing all of those people lined

up on the streets t. shows why the obama campaign feels like the latino support is going to be higher than ever. >> look at this rally in miami that romney had. he didn't mention any key issues, latino issues, nothing. i don't think there's anything there on the other side yet. >> this is the problem, there's been one part of party that rhetorically turns off a lot of -- >> the one thing i noticed about local coverage in d. krrk of this issue, it was pointed out that if mitt romney wins, this order could be rescinded, which it was code for saying, vote for obama. >> shameless plugs. fast. i'm running out of time. >> we're running ads in nevada on masking deportation. >> we'll take a look at the ad. >> where is it? >> youtube. >> a great medicare guide today. read it. >> how you grabbed the last

delta member to become -- run for vice president. >> well, how about that, alvin barclay. that's it for this edition of "the daily rundown." we'll see you here tomorrow. bye-bye. in your car. now count the number of buttons on your tablet. isn't it time the automobile advanced? introducing cue in the all-new cadillac xts. the simplicity of a tablet has come to your car. ♪ the all-new cadillac xts has arrived. and it's bringing the future forward. ♪ [music plays] ♪ [music plays]