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you can use your citi thankyou points to travel whenever you want. visit citi.com/thankyoucards to apply. i'm toure. welcome to march. right now, this is what we call the 11th hour. the big white house meeting right as the big ax of 2013 drops. who came up with that title? clearly someone brilliant. i'm s.e. cupp. a picture speaks a thousand words but a single piece of paper can speak volumes. we'll get in to the president's big statement on same-sex marriage. >> the big ax to the -- >> what? >> debates the voting rights act. the future of the landmark legislation, you will hear it firsthand. >> i'm krystal ball. the politics and the devil. the last exorcism is bringing you a "cycle" first. be very scared. >> i am.

my friends, the sequester countdown is over. >> oh my. >> i love it when we get to blow things up. >> what happened? >> i feel like pug master flex right now. but this time we're only following washington's lead. they chose to self destruct. we have seen this sort of dysfunctional budget fight come down to the wire like a buzzer beater, mike mac gyver sweats over the bomb but this time we're more like "snl" macgruver who always gets blown up. there's no government shutdown or workers told to stay home on monday. no downgrade of the national credit rating. no elderly americans not getting the social security checks. what did happen today is that the white house meeting of party power players, congressional leaders came to 1600 pennsylvania avenue this morning to lick their wounds and set the

stage for the next budget fight that will have immediate effects. >> let's make it clear that the president got his tax hikes on january 1st. it's a discussion about revenue in my view is over. it's about taking on the spending problem here in washington. the house is going to move a continuing resolution next week to fund the government past march 27th. and i'm hopeful that we won't have to deal with the threat of a government shutdown while we're dealing with the sequester at the same time. >> the longer the cuts remain in place, the greater the damage to our economy. slow grind that will intensify with each passing day. i'm prepared to take on the problem where it exists. on entitlements. and do some things that my own party really doesn't like. if it's part of a broader package of sensible deficit

reduction. the only thing we have seen from republicans so far in terms of proposals is to replace this set of arbitrary cuts with even worse arbitrary cuts. >> the markets close in an hour. near record highs this week and right now not showing any signs of armageddon. >> huh. >> we might just survive what krystal called end times. good news for humanity, of course. but not for the white house and clocked thousands of miles warning against brutal meat cleaver destruction that will eviscerate hundreds of thousands of jobs. as our friends at politico point out, that might make the democrats' case against future cuts even harder. but when pockets of the country do start feeling the pain, polls say it's the gop who they'll hold accountable. starting with kristin welker at the white house. we heard duelling pressers after the meeting and neither sounded any bit optimistic. >> reporter: well, not at all, toure. in fact, it seems like the

meeting really more of a photo-op than everything else. as you point out, instead of real progress being reported, there was just more bluster today. both sides digging in. house speaker boehner digging in on the point of taxes saying republicans won't accept anything that includes new tax revenues. president obama digging in on the same point saying any deal has to include new tax revenues so they're as stuck as they have always been. the fact holding this meeting today, the same day that the sequester technically takes effect really says it all. they can't do anything at this point. it's really too little, too late. so moving forward, of course, they'll try to deal with this. president obama signaled what his strategy will be today during that press conference and said that he believes that bubble sentiment will ultimately cause republicans to give in to move the goal post to come over to his plan or at least closer to his plan and what he would like to see but the problem with that strategy, toure, is a lot

of furloughs don't actually take effect for about a month so it's not clear that there's going to be a lot of public sentiment and anger. that's a big question mark in all of this moving forward. so the big question is, how does this all get resolved? likely gets resolved at the end of march. that is when congress, the white house will have to deal with the continuing resolution which, of course, is the government funding bill. they will have to renew that so they'll likely also deal with the sequester. at that point in time, there's a larger issue, the cycle that washington is stuck in. the cycling of the self-manufactured crises. president obama talked about it today and didn't really give a clear response how to work the way out of this and given they come up every few months, by the way, the debt ceiling comes up this summer and hard to see how they work out of the rut and president obama mapped out an ambitious second term agenda. in terms of taking on guns,

immigration. there's also a question mark about how he gets some of those larger goals passed when washington is constantly stuck in this cycle. toure? >> indeed, indeed. i love you used the cycle in your answer. very nicely done, kristen. >> three times. >> extra points for that. >> we'll have you back. you're a keeper. >> reporter: i'm glad you noticed. >> nbc's kristen welker, thank you. >> thank you. back today with us, favorite emcee, michael crowly at "time" and turns 90 this week. >> wow. >> congrats to you and your colleagues. >> you look great for 90. >> you guys do -- >> 90 years young. >> don't look a day over 35. there's an interesting tweet this morning. president and congress need marriage counseling and if the president and congress are daddy and daddy or daddy and mommy then america's the rest of the kids and we're not ma mad about sequester deal. so how did we get here? do they need marriage counseling?

what is going on, michael? >> well, you know, that's an interesting metaphor but i think a big key to understanding what's happening here is, you know, if you imagine that the democrats are daddy and mommy, it's like mommy has a sister and arguing with the sister whether to stay in the marriage and can't decide. in other words, you know, the republican party itself is divided. we have a problem here with divided government between the two parties and i think boehner and maybe mcconnell -- an impulse to do that deal and raise revenues and within the republican party, you have an extremely strong faction, strong enough to threaten boehner's speakership saying absolutely not. hold the lines. no more revenues. we're cutting government. you know, this actually is not such a bad thing. i think the idea that it's just, you know, if only boehner and obama could come to terms misses the idea of another thing

happening within the republican party where the republican party is somewhat paralyzed internally and so that's jamming up the whole system. there's more to it than that but hearing a metaphor like that, it's important to remember the other dynamic. there's a three dimensional chess going on there. >> your metaphor is a plural marriage, isn't it? >> a what now? >> a plural marriage. >> yeah. >> what now? >> there's a polygamy metaphor i won't touch. yeah, sure. >> smart. >> to look at the division between -- in the republican caucus and the house in particular is essential and i think boxed boehner in to a corner where he can't do another deal with obama. it's interesting to hear the language. saying no more -- i think might have been mcconnell that said this but the leadership saying no more back room deals and cutting stuff under the table. they're paying attention to the base and that's what's going on here. >> well, yeah. he's pinned in here, michael, i think boehner is. the talking point for the house

republicans is we passed two sequester replacement bills so that should be the starting point for the discussion but they were passed in the last congress. conventional wisdom in d.c. had the bills presented to this congress, with a reduced republican jaert and a few more republicans sensitive, they would not pass the house and with that in mind, with the conservative faction that holds sway over boehner and the defense hawks, also with a few republican members mindful of general election concerns, you have a promise of boehner today the house will pass a continuing resolution next week. do you think he can find the votes to pass only with republican votes and continuing resolution and what do you think it might look like? >> well, look. i think you raise an excellent question. there are all the different factions and the defense hawks is most interesting to me. i think what we have seen from the process is that the republican party has articulated its priorities and really interesting and revealing way which is, you know, the national security conservatives are

losing out to the economic, low tax budget cutting conservatives. you have some senators, for instance, mccain and graham said they're open to closing tax loopholes if it means sparing the pentagon of the cuts and really kind of getting rolled over on that. making the case half heartedly knowing that's not where the center of gravity is in the party. can boehner hold them together and pass another bill? i just don't know. i think it's too unpredictable. i think to some degree this whole thing is driven by polling. so, do the numbers move when we're in sort of sequester land in the coming days and people are saying, well, we didn't fall off a cliff, not taking five hours longer to fly somewhere than i thought and easier for republicans to hold their ground? maybe. i mean, i think that everybody's in a wait and see pattern right now. >> right. the president articulated the views earlier today. let's take a listen. >> i do know that there are republicans in congress who privately at least say that they

would rather close tax loopholes than let the cuts go through. i know that there are democrats who'd rather do smart entitlement reform than let these cuts go through so there's a caucus of common sense up on capitol hill. it's just it's a silent group right now. and my view is that ultimate ly common sense prevails. >> is there really a caucus of common sense on capitol hill right now, michael? >> yeah. you know, i think that it's -- it just doesn't work that way right now. that everyone is being polled by their own political demands and, you know, there is not like some caucus of people to say, common sense, i'm going to break with the talking points of my party. i think particularly on the right. i think that there are -- i think what obama was describing is republicans who are not members of essentially what we kind of think of loosely as the tea party right.

those guys are just not willing to pick that fight right now and boehner in particular. i keep coming back to this. really key thing to remember is that boehner i think would be in real danger of losing the speakership if he cut the kind of deal the president is talking about and always remember that mitch mcconnell keeping an eye on what's happening in kentucky with an election coming up so i think it's fanciful thinking. i'm sorry you didn't talk about obama talked about the jedi mind meld. >> that's a good one. i mentioned the decision to release illegal immigrants before the sequester happened and you had arne duncan getting four pinnochios on his claim that teachers had already gotten pink slips because of the sequest sequester. do you think there's a negative backlash effect against the president or democrats for this sort of political grand standing on the sequester. >> yeah. that was definitely on duncan's part seemed careless, sloppy.

you know, i have no reason to think he was dishonest but shouldn't have said it if he wasn't sure it had to do with the sequester and the issue the white house is wrestling with. the president's tone today seemed to be saying, well yeah, we won't fall a cliff. not the end of the world. this is a dumb thing but it's not going to turn our lives upside down. markedly different tone than the sunday shows the last week and i think that they haven't been entirely consistent in the message and may confuse people and the big risk for them here is that, again, as i said a minute ago and alluding to it, the sequester unfolds and people don't notice the big hit in the daily lives, maybe people say, geez, there really is a lot of fat in government and we can be making cuts like this and republicans kind of have a point. that's the nightmare case for democrats. you know, but it really does sound like there's real pain and people will start to notice this

before too long and not going to happen right away. psychology of how people experience again is going to drive the process. it's unpredictable and possible that the white house overhipd it a little bit. >> thank you very much. >> thanks, guys. pleasure. up next, survive the sequester and get set for government shutdown. sounds like surviving a car crash to find a boulder racing towards your head but at least you have "the cycle."

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all right. so we have hit the deadline triggering automatic cuts and

everyone from the white house and pentagon and the white house is warning us. maybe we need a new word. disaster-ofy. >> nice. >> oh! >> kind of smoosh. >> it is a smoosh. >> oh problem. >> that's why it works. i don't know -- >> anti-smooshing. >> i don't know what that is. the cuts fazed in and they're reversible so perhaps our focus should be on the next disasterofy of a government shutdown and could happen without a deal reached by march 27th. so let's talk about that. and when i think continuing resolution i think, what does s.e. cupp think of this? >> oh my. >> america wants to know. >> i want to start with today and the press conference and the sort of theater of today with the meetings that didn't actually do anything and then the boehner comments and then the president. who came out clearly agitated. he is not a happy camper today. he was really feisty with roertds. he was like, ah. what? what do you want me to say? what do you want me to do?

i think he's clearly agitated that this campaign of hysteria did not stop the sequester. used to the campaigns being effective an winning the campaigns and i think he didn't really want to be here. at this moment. with the sequester happening talking about the cr, how to strategize a government shutdown or against a government shutdown. not a happy guy and it's rare that we see -- i'm not -- i'm not gloating. >> nothing to gloat about. >> this is a loser for everyone. it's just rare to see a strategy that was clearly implemented from the white house not really pan out the way he wanted it. usually does. >> surely didn't pan out the way he wanted to. i know we watched the press conference. i could hear it in your office. i didn't take him as agitated. >> really? he was psyched today. great day. >> he's not psyched but i did all that i could. i bargained in good faith and with a group of people that do

not bargain in good faith. i think i have more persuasive power but i have done all that i could do. ultimately, this kind of reminds me what happens in the tarantino movies and the mexican standoffs and people pointing guns and willing to pull the guns and works great in the western but this is no way to govern. over and over the deadline crises after deadline crises and a group of people not willing to bargain in good faith and would rather inflict pain on the country or obama rather than actually get a deal done and makes me wonder why do you go to d.c.. i think obama spoke to that in the presser. >> we are not here for ourselves. we're not here for our parties. we are not here to advance our electoral prospects. we're here for american families who have been getting battered pretty good over the last four years. >> hmm. true story. >> that's why you go to

congress, right? >> absolutely right. go to serve for the people, for the family's. >> that's right. >> looking down the road, people haven't really focused on the sequester. they haven't understood what it is. it's not a real impact. that is going to start to change next week. people are going to start getting furlough notices, a lot of cuts will be felt april 1. i think that changes the dynamic some but -- there's an argument that the democrats can then force or threaten a government shutdown over the continuing resolution. i don't see that as being a particularly great point of leverage. democrats have this sort of moral authority with regard to these false faux crises where it's been the republicans pushing the country to the brink over the debt ceiling and over shutdowns. this time i think the optics would be that the republicans passed a continuing resolution and the democrats are demanding something or else they'll shut the government down. i don't know that democrats can even hold their own caucus

together to do that. they don't have the same sort of kamikazi discipline that republicans can. i don't know that that's going to work out either. >> i take issue with that because i don't see why that has to be framed as the white house and democrats are threatening a shutdown because the dynamic would be the same essentially that we had with the last high-profile government shutdown in 1995, a confrontation of bill clinton and the congress and continuing resolution and the republicans controlling the house and then the senate in 1995 and the burden on them first to pass a bill, a continuing resolution bill. to pass it to keep the government open and funded. they plan to pass in the next week. can republicans actually pass something given the intraconference die namics that crowly was talking about? second question, if they can pass something, what will it be? chances are overwhelming, draconian. it will not involve the compromise of obama, revenue

component. just strict spending cut this is' very, very easy for obama to draw the same line on i would say that bill clinton drew in 1995. i would sooner shut down the government as bad as that is than sign a bill this disastrous to hurt this many people and the polls showed that country's on clinton's side heading in to that. national parks close and took three or four days for republicans to fold. i don't know how it will play out. >> the big question is how much people feel the pain. how much are they really impacted and feel frightened by the cuts. >> open question on the sequester but the government shutdown we have examples to look back. >> there was an opportunity to choose his own cuts and didn't say no thanks. >> lots of strings. >> i'll veto that. >> the point of the sequester, of course, put in place originally, the reason democrats agreed for revenue and spending addressed. the republicans said only spending and not touch defense -- >> we gave them -- >> that's a hell of an opportunity there.

anyway, our facebook fans are asking when if ever will we see congress compromise on anything. or is compromise such a dirty word it's a thing of the past? norman grimes says it's a game of chicken, who will flinch first? jim engle said boehner needs to blink and get over it. his party, the party of no lost, ugh. loser. that's his words. if you haven't liked us on facebook yet, please do. straight ahead, developing news of the supreme court. new audio recordings of the marriage rights act. we'll play the tapes after this. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy.

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developing now, this afternoon, for the first time we're getting hear what happened inside the supreme court on wednesday during those passioned arguments over the voting rights

act. one of the most controversial moments came when justice scalia referring to the act like this. >> very likely it's to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. it's been written about. whenever a society adopts a racial entitlement, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. >> justice sotomayor took issue with that and pressed the attorney about what he thought about that. >> i think that the right to vote is a racial entitlement in section 5? >> no. section 15th amendment protects the right of all to vote. >> i asked a different question. do you think section 5 was voted for because it was a racial entitlement? >> well, congress -- >> do you think there was no basis to -- >> free action -- >> i wonder if she got an answer to that question. >> split on the court represents

a fairly predictable divide. roberts, scalia, alito and thomas gave no indication to uphold section 5 while the others indicated support for the constitutionality and breyer skeptical. kennedy is the decider and judged to be skeptical of section 5's constitutionality which is why court watchers expect it to be knocked down. to cuss this, victoria maria soto, a fellow at the center of politics at the lbj school of public policy at the university of texas. welcome back, victoria. >> thank you. >> so, in 2008, shelby redistricted to keep the one black official they had out of office. we have continuing attempts across the south and other regions to discriminate in election law via voter i.d., and redistricting and moving to a

world and an america of a majority of black, brown and asian people. i feel very clearly that we still need the voting rights act. do you think that we still need the voting rights act? >> the short answer is we still need it. the longer answer is that congress needs to roll up its sleeves and get the hands dirty because a lot of the issue with the section 5 of the voting rights act is that folks feel that the criteria which determines what districts are covered or not covered are outdated. the last time those were updated was about 12, 13 years ago, and section 4 is what would determine that. in 2009, justice roberts pointed a finger and strongly recommended that congress update those criteria. surprise, surprise. they haven't. so in terms of do we still need the protections? yes. but i do think there is room to determine where can we tweak to update those criteria to reflect

what our country looks like 15 years after the fact. >> victoria, there's another exchange of chief justice roberts and general counsel. i'd like to play that and get your opinion. >> general, is it the government's submission that the citizens in the south are more racist than in the north. >> it is not and i don't know the answer to that, your honor, but i think it's reasonable -- >> it is not and you don't know the answer to it? >> it's not our submission. >> victoria, is there any validity to the concern in your mind that stigmatizing entire states as discriminatory or racist is unfair, counter productive, maybe economically imprudent, frankly, un-american? >> that's the argument that shelby county and other covered districts put forward. there's a stain on us. it's the scarlet letter. what we see from research looking at different social scientific surveys is seeing

racial discrepancies in covered jurisdictions. for example, in terms of negative an tip thinks, we see that in the south. in terms of more restrictive voting practices, we tend to see the more restrictive practices in covered jurisdictions. for example, having to have more documents to vote or being more restrictive in terms of not allowing people who had prior felony convictions the ability to vote so there are some tangible measurements there but at the same time you question, well, the larger issue of getting people to the polls is pretty much equal across the board so that's the sticking point with the covered versus not covered jurisdictions. >> i would love to see section 5 extended to all the country, the entire nation so that that right to vote is really protected everywhere. it's something telling me that would be hard to accomplish. but as toure was pointing out, court watchers expect section 5

probably or possibly struck down. if that happens, given how much attention we did pay in this past election to attempts to restrict the right to vote to make it hard for people to vote, do you think there's enough of an outcry in the country to take on bigger national protections of voting? >> krystal, i share your opinion in wanting a section 5 for everybody. i really doubt that states are going to want to give up that power to the federal government. but i do think that in looking forward, if the section 5 of the vra is struck down, you're going to see a push for more normalization of voting procedures across the country. right now, a quilt. it's a hodgepodge of voting practices, not state to state but locality to locality. my hope is also that more technology is going to be brought in to equalize this process even further. >> victoria, i have a question that's broader, not so much about the case or section 5 but about the voting rights act and its impact on politics and

elections. we talked about this on the show the other day. the provision of the act that mandates a minority majority district resulted in a much more diverse congress when it went in to effect after the 1990 sen sen us. little less than four dozen black mebs right now but the house is feeder system in politics for gubernatorial and senate elections but candidates where we found have been stigmatized with the candidate selection process for those raiss because state party leaders see them as representing districts out of the step with the state, too liberal, this sort of thing. do you see a way around it where the voting rights act in a way radically expanded the power of african-americans and hispanics and capped the career growth of congressmen. do you see a way around that at all? >> it's so complex and the issue with section 5 is issues of

redistricting and mechanisms of voting. separate those two apart and i think that what we see is at the electoral level, a lot of hyper partisanship and the fact congress can't get along is partly because of the minority majority districts. what's that happy medium? what's the medium that allows minorities to get elected, to help them to have a consensus of majorities of color and also not to alienate minority voters and set them apart? that is the question and that is something that i think is going to keep dogging us even if section 5 of the voting rights act is struck down. finding out how we come to it. >> all right. victoria, hey, are you having a boy or girl? >> a girl. >> yeah! congrats. >> congratulations. thank you very much. good luck with this. >> thank you. the civil rights act of our time, marriage equality. how the white house is getting involved in the fight over proposition 8 but as we head to

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no two people have the same financial goals. pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. buried under the big ax of 2013 this week is some very significant battles. just today, a staggering 212 members of congress, 40% of the body, officially expressed their support for the repeal of the defensive marriage act. together they filed a friend of the court brief with the supreme court which is taking up the constitutionality of doma's definition that marriage is only between a man and a woman. the signatories are all democrats of both chambers including senate majority leader

reid and house minority leader nancy pelosi. this kms on the heels of an announcement from the white house. president obama will file a similar brief urging the high court to reject california's controversial prop 8, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. this essentially equates to a white house endorsement of constitutional marriage equality. let's back spin on it. >> when the supreme court asks, do you think that the california law which doesn't provide any rational for discriminating against same-sex couples other than just the notion they're same-sex couples, i answered that question honestly and the answer is no. >> news, indeed. let's back spin on it. toure? >> proposition 8 is an example of why we shouldn't put civil rights issues on the ballot. pretty much in every way it is wrong. this is why we shouldn't have liberty elected by another

people. they decide to give it, and then decide to take it away. liberty shouldn't do that. and partly because same-sex marriage doesn't affect straight marriages. it doesn't have any impact on society, social scientists are clear kids raised in gay or straight homes come out the same. equally well adjusted and the constitution doesn't allow for laws affecting one group of people. we have this segregation that's about to fall. >> it's a quandary because this is the issue that gay marriage supporters in new jersey are facing. chris christie said he supports a rev remember dumb and democrats think it will pass this year and happened in maine last year. supporters say on principle we don't think it should be happening. but we have the votes so let's

do it. 212 democrats that signed the brief, shows you first of all how rapidly the politics changed. you would not have 212 democrats signing on to it. biden shoots off the mouth and then obama changes the position and then democratic party position and then see this. what's interesting is this week also a brief that republicans signed on proposition 8 supporting -- overturning proposition 8. two republican members of congress signed on to that. richard hanna is one of them. he's from new york. in new york, they passed gay marriage two years ago because four republican state senators went along with it. three of them lost their jobs because of that primaries. so the question to me, already conservatives threatening to challenge him in a primary over this. this is how the republican party has to get over this. they have to come out and survive primaries or not face primaries. let's see what happens. >> yeah, as a signatory, i completely agree and can't

underestimate the significance of this moment, especially for conservatives with this cpac stuff, the go proud stuff, the log cabin republican stuff, the amicus brief. that is opportunity and a window that might close for republicans and for me, you know, what i'm saying is there's always been for me, two natural appeals for conservatism and gay rights coexisting comfortably. one is privacy of limited government angle where i don't want government in my private life anymore than you do. that's natural to me and then the idea to encourage marriage, marriage is a stabilizing force, good for society. that it's better economically. it's empowering. if i'm relying on you, my spouse, i'm relying less on the state. good things that conservatives should sort of cozy up to. >> i'd add one to the list is that equality is good for business and in fact in addition to the amicus briefs filed by the president and congressional democrats, a group of 200 companies large and small, you can see the list there including

marriott and mitt romney serves on the board of, filed a brief saying that the defense of marriage act hurt their business, undermining the ability to compete. it said it forces us to treat one class of our lawfully married employees differently than another when the success depends on the morale of all employees. that's another case to make to conservatives and in virginia we saw some republican business leaders criticizing republican gubernatorial candidate for being too extreme on the issues and painting virginia as a nondiverse, not business friendly state so i think that's another sea change is corporations getting on board with this movement. >> yeah. all right. up next, no pope and a new exorcism movie coming out. why some believe it's a particularly dangerous time for the church on a demonic level. i command thee to stay tuned. av.

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god the father commits you. >> aah! >> god the son commands you. >> aah! >> even 40 years later that's a haunting vision and call it a coincidence, divine intervention or something else but "the exorcism" is out today. >> whoa. >> less than 24 hours after the pope officially resigned. >> weird. >> coincidence? no. >> some believe right now with no pope in place the church is especially vulnerable to a great evil slipping in. in the guest spot today is dr. pena, associate professor who probably sizes in folklore and philosophy. thank you for joining e my. >> my pleasure. >> thank you. let me get this out for the viewers and some of us here at the table. how do i avoid being possessed by the devil? that's number one.

>> well, the easy answer is you have to keep on the straight and narrow which is usually the worst thing to keep because, you know, we are in a world that's full of contradiction. but if you want to avoid the devil, you have to avoid all the things that can lead you to him. >> how do i find out -- how can i tell, for example, say my colleague steve, how can i tell if he's being possessed or maybe just having a really bad day? >> well -- >> what are the telltale signs? >> well, there are kind of signs from subtle to extreme. but usually the idea of the -- the demonic possession is manife manifested, first thing a avoidance of sacred things for obvious reasons. and then there are other physical manifestations. extraordinary force. blasphemy.

all kind of anti-social and anti-faith behavior. and usually that is -- >> steve is very a "t." >> professor, i got to say i'm not buying this exorcism or possession stuff at all. it's interesting for movies, but for real like this is real people really get possessed by the devil? are we talking about sort of misunderstanding mental i will snns. >> you know, we're talking about religion and when we talk about religion, it's very hard to really quantify because we're talking about faith. and that is something that you cannot put under the microskoco. my role is not to say if it's true or not, but the thing is many people do believe that there are evil spirits. many people also believe there are good spirits. and if the religion or the religious practice assumes that

there are all niece negative spirits, then it is obvious sooner or later they will try to interfere in human affairs, and after all, if you look at the gospels, you know, one of jesus' duties was to expel demons as well. so it's just ingrained in christianity to believe that demons can possess people. >> and professor, how closely do the firsthand accounts of people who think they have witnessed an exorcism, witnessed demonic possession, how closely do those accounts match with the sort of exorcism movies? >> very close. you know, there's so many accounts since the beginning of recorded history. i mean, it's not a phenomena that only affects christianity. there are many -- in many religious the idea of possession is very common both good and

bad. so, you know, there are these ideas that at person that is possessed by a spirit usually enters the realm of supernatural feats and supernatural force and supernatural knowledge. so, yes, these movies are usually drawing from that tradition. >> okay. interesting stuff. professor, thank you so much for joining us. >> my pleasure. thank you for having me. >> up next, the crazy thing that happened in times square this week and why toure says this flash mob shows times have changed. [ male announcer ] i've seen incredible things. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away.

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something kind of extraordinary happened on sunday about 1:00 p.m., 200 people walked into times square in new york and fell to the ground as if shot dead. people drew seahawk around their bodies and then wrote the names of victims from newtown. they were broadway dancers and their dramatic coordinated silent protest brought a chill over times square like newtown has brought a chill over america. this time is different. this tragedy has hung in the american consciousness longer and stronger and has inspired people to speak out because they understand guns are a part of a public health epidemic and they know that this time is different. the media coverage has lasted. the public attention has lingered and the political will on the left is not dissipating. in illinois debbie halvorson a pro gun rights congresswoman lost to robin kelly because

halvorson's status as an nra darling proved deadly. >> you sent a message that was heard around our state and across the nation. a message that tells the nra that their days of holding our country hostage are coming to be a end. >> we are inching towards substantive change that could help save lives. universalizing background checks and criminalizing straw purchases and strengthening thea tf will help staunch the flow of guns into criminals' hands and weakening the nra's ability to fearmonger about bad guys with guns in order to motivate good guys to buy guns that social zeins proves are highly unlikely to ever face down a criminal and are far more likely to shoot a family member or a friend. year after year the national crime victimization survey shows firearm self-defense is rare. the social science data is clear, guns in the home increase the likelihood of death for the people who live there. we don't want to take away all the guns, but we need a safer society and we can get