this spring, dig in and save. that's nice. post it. already did. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. keep you yard your own with your choice lawn insect controls, just $8.88. this sunday, the president under pressure as he faces a growing debate about how safe we are at home from terror and confronts the political reality of a second term agenda in gridlock. as new details emerge about the boston bomb plot, the administration orders a review about whether the government should have, could have stopped the tsarnaev brothers before they allegedly struck. >> one of the dangers we now face are self-radicalized individuals who are already here in the united states. >> this morning a debate about the debate of your homeland security in a new age of terror. with us, former new york city mayor and u.s. attorney rudy giuliani. republican congressman from

arkansas and veteran of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, tom cotton. plus, forler democratic congresswoman and ranking member on the house intelligence committee, now president and ceo of the wilson center, jane harman. chairman of the senate judiciary committee, democrat pat leahy of vermont. then president obama at 100 days into his second term. is he a lame duck? >> rumors a little exaggerated at this point. >> jobs. immigration. health care. syria. the ongoing fights over social issues like abortion and gay rights in america all taking center stage this week. inside and analysis from our special political round table this morning. from nbc news in washington, the world's longest running television program, this is "meet the press" with david gregory.

>> good sunday morning. we want to start with developing stories on a couple different fronts. breaking news this morning out of syria where overnight israeli air strikes hit targets in syria for the second time in recent days. news of the first strike coming late friday evening. the president was traveling in latin america. reacting to all this escalation yesterday in an interview with telemundo. >> what i have said in the past, i continue to believe this, the israelis justifiably have to guard against the advancement of weaponry against hezbollah. hezbollah has repeatedly said that they would be willing to attack as far as tel-aviv. so the israelis have to be vigilant and they have to be concerned. and we will continue to coordinate with israel. >> continue to coordinate with israel. andrea mitchell is here. a very important line, isn't it, andrea? here you have the president who's issued a red line to syria

saying if they move or use chemical weapons it would change his calculus about some kind of intervention. what does it mean? >> first it means many people within the white house believe the president was mistaken in issuing that red line. but now the israelis have taken this over. they've taken this on. this actually takes the heat off of the president. the administration is clearly supporting this. a coordinating, perhaps, intelligence from the u.s. certainly a green light. no caution light here at all. first of all, second of all, the arab leaders are likely to be supportive as well. we know that the assad regime's only partners now are basically russia and iran. this comes just as secretary kerry is going to moscow to meet with putin. this does complicate his mission to try to get russia to somehow soften its continuing support of assad. >> the conversation i was having last night on twitter in preparation for the program this morning, does this put more pressure or less pressure on president obama to act on syria? whether that means mobilizing an

international coalition of some kind or somehow backing up this red line which as you suggest the times is reporting this morning is almost treated as a gaffe, it seems, from anonymous advisers in the white house quoted in the story. >> the administration was moving in that direction in any case. a more active role. there's going to be arming of carefully moderated, you know, rebel groups that the cia believes are not the most radical. that's a very dangerous game. but they are moving in that direction. secondly, there is now some more indication of a no fly zone, some kind of buffer. the fact is there has been a big division in the arab world. the turks are arming the more radical groups. the uae, saudis and jordan are supporting the more moderate groups. so the arab world is also divided. israel is doing this now and doing it because assad is so weakened that hezbollah and iran are now saying that we can call

the game here. forcing assad's hand. the assad regime has had pretty much a quiet day detente. >> andrea mitchell with the latest. you'll be following this, andrea, thank you very much. this is senator leahy, congressman cotton. two members of congress. senator, do you think the administration is getting closer to providing lethal aid to the opposition in syria? >> i do, and i think that andrea's analysis is -- is very correct. i can remind the israelis were using weapons that had been supplied by the united states. some of our f-16s and others. they, of course, have enormous prowess with those weapons. highly trained. but very sophisticated weapons. i think the fact that they're able to go in there shows that, perhaps, the russian supply and

air defense systems are not as good as were said. our problem in who to supply is that some of these groups are strong islamists, al qaeda and others. we've seen in libya and egypt and elsewhere the islamists tend to get the upper hand if they get in there. we have given hundreds of millions of dollars in refugee aid. we've given anti-aircraft equipment to turkey. and the idea of getting weapons in, if we know the right people to get them, my guess is we'll give them to them. >> congressman, what would you like to see the president do at this point? >> well, i hope that senator leahy is correct that we are moving closer towards arming the reform minded, pro-western rebels. this is something that should have been done in months ago. something secretary of state hillary clinton, secretary of defense leon panetta, martin dempsey, david petraeus all proposed last year according to "wall street journal" reporting and the president refused to do. right now you have a front affiliated with al qaeda on the ground providing the best

figtders, providing the most weapons, providing the most humanitarian assistance radicalizing some elements of the opposition. we have to arm the opposition. i think we also need to move towards imposing a no fly zone. bashar al assad cannot continue to use helicopter gun ships against civilians. and so the refugees he's creating aren't establishing allies like jordan. >> before i move on to another topic the reporting this morning is striking. it underscores why this issue of the red line is so difficult for the president. because the u.s. does not want a true presence in syria. >> well, the u.s. doesn't want boots on the ground. i think there's no chance we will have boots on the ground. i have been for some time for arming the opposition we trust. this is very complicated. andrea hinted at this, too. hezbollah is shiia. and this -- this crescent that supports action is sunni. let's understand. this isn't just the bashar group, his sect, against the rest of the world.

this is now a real full blown civil war. and the missiles that were intercepted are not dumb scuds. they're smarter fattah three missiles that have range from southern lebanon to hit tel-aviv. this is a big, escalated problem. i wish we had acted sooner. >> i would just say boots on the ground now is not the question. the question now is imposing a no fly zone, using aircraft and using naval gunfire. as senator leahy said the israeli strikes over the last 48 hours have indicated those russian air defense systems are not as robust as they're sometimes reported to be. we can stop bashar al assad from killing his own people. we can stop some of the worst violence in syria if we use aircraft -- >> i want to move on. i want to bring mayor giuliani in here. i want to widen this out a little bit. i think there's the broader topic we're broaching here about national security, about our own personal freedoms in america coming out of the boston bombing is in part ongoing concern about terrorism. graphic this week in the "wall street journal" about that

growing al qaeda threat even a couple years now after osama bin laden is killed. looking to north africa in the persian gulf states. we either have al qaeda with a safe haven or, indeed, more activity. at least, too, what happened last 9/11 in benghazi and the ongoing questions about what the united states knew about, what the administration knew, did they do enough to stop it. now now hearings coming up. new details being reported on, mr. mayor. is there something here that somehow gets to why we're more vulnerable now and whether the administration has done enough in your estimation? >> well, i don't know. that has to be investigated. i think it would be wise if the administration would kind of ratchet up its focus on this. because i think that since the capture of bin laden there's been a kind of sense that al qaeda's on the run. the threat is less. the threat isn't less. the threat is actually more diverse now and maybe even more complex. you can detect through the benghazi defense which, of course, did come about during the election, and even during

some of this boston bombing thing, there's sort of a tendency to underplay what is, in fact, i think a growing and pretty dangerous and to some extent a different kind of threat than what we were facing, you know, three or four years ago. so whether they didn't catch it fast enough, whether this is a product of, you know, leading from behind like i think happened in syria where a lot of action could have been taken a year ago that may have precluded this, but the president kind of prefers to watch these things play out before he makes a decision. i think they'd be well advised to get a lot more proactive now. because things are really heating up. >> senator leahy, is there a there there when it comes to benghazi? are there questions that have to be answered that reflect on how vulnerable we are and what we're doing about it? >> there are questions should be asked. i know a terror committee that handles the safe providence budget.

we've been in extra money, a great deal of extra money for -- let me finish. that was blocked by the house. they said they didn't want to spend the money. whether that would have made a difference or not, i don't know. should we look at benghazi? yes. but keep in mind that's just one place. we should look at our security throughout our embassies because they will always be easy targets. if you can attack an embassy no matter where it is you attack the united states of america. the symbolism is almost as great as what they knocked out. they didn't destroy any part of america's capability. as tragic as it was in going to benghazi. but the symbolism was enormous. that's what they're aiming for. >> were warnings ignored on benghazi, congressman? >> i think there were cables before the benghazi attack that suggest the people in tripoli and in benghazi knew they were going to be facing a potential attack. steve hayes' reporting over the

weekend shows the cia was aware during the attack happening, certainly before susan rice went on the sunday talk shows, that these were al qaeda affiliated attacks. then after the attacks the president said he issued a directive and there was no follow up on the directive. he didn't go to the white house security room. he didn't follow up to see if that directive had been pursued. >> jane harman and mayor giuliani, as we look at all of this, whether it's jihadist elements operating in syria, whether we look at now this widening plot out of the boston bombings, they wanted to attack reportedly on july fourth, there are others involved, friends of dzhokhar tsarnaev, involved in some level of clearing out some of the materials from his room, what does this tell us about what we're up against here in simply the boston plot? and this question of are we any safer, jane? >> the answer to that question is yes and no. i agree with rudy giuliani the threat has evolved. we have decimated core al qaeda.

and president obama deserves a lot of credit for doing that. but now there are these affiliated terror groups, el nusra is one in syria, that are capable of morphing and changing and attacking. then there's home grown radicalism which i think we really have to talk about. tsarnaev brothers may have had some training in dagestan and we may have missed a clue from the russians. be that as it may there are going to be other people like this. they have to be right once. we have to be right 100%. that's not going to happen. our tactics are really pretty good. but we need a narrative about what the united states stands for that will win the argument with the next kids. and that is why we need to close in my view guantanamo bay and we need to put a clear set of rules around how we use drones. i support drone strikes but it needs to be clearer that we are living our values. >> mayor giuliani, you've spoken out pretty strikingly this week about your views of what's happened in the investigation into boston this week. what do you make of it?

>> well, i think the investigation since the time of the bombing has been excellent. i think that unfortunately there were an awful lot of signals that were missed beforehand. jane harman is absolutely right. this has kind of morphed into a situation in america where we have these home grown terrorists. but we shouldn't claim surprise. this has been going on since 2005, 2006. the attack in london in 2005 was home grown terrorists in london. that should have said to us we're going to have the same problem here. chris christie when he was u.s. attorney had a case involving an attack -- an attempted attack on ft. hood. once again, home grown terrorists. he was the first to really alert me to the fact that this was a much bugger problem than exists. we shouldn't be claiming, oh, my goodness, we just found this out. we should be trying to figure out why the heck didn't we react

to this faster three, four, and five years ago? and with regard to the investigation, the point that i'd like to make is that these men who were arrested, who were involved in the coverup and were involved in obstructing justice, i'd like to point out something that hasn't been focused on enough. they were aware of the fact according to the complaint now, fbi's sworn complaint, they were aware of the fact those two brothers were involved in the bombing three to four hours before officer collier was murdered. >> at m.i.t.? >> yes. if these three men had not engaged in that obstruction of justice coverup, if they had notified the police the way any decent young men would do, there is a chance and a pretty good chance that officer collier would be alive today. if i were the u.s. attorney -- if i were u.s. attorney i'd be charging them with a conspiracy that embraced murder as a predicate act. because one of them actually said something very dramatic. one of them said, i didn't expect to ever see him again alive. so that conspiracy embraced the possibility of a violent aftermath to this situation. >> congressman, the larger point

the president made this week is we're dealing with something new. we're dealing with radicalization inside the homeland. how do we deal with it? >> i want you to take on what he said during his press conference this week. watch. >> one of the dangers that we now face are self-radicalized individuals who are already here in the united states. in some cases may not be part of any kind of network. but because of whatever warped, twisted ideas they may have, may decide to carry out an attack. those are in some ways more difficult to prevent. >> and the polling shows this, too. of course there's some things we just can't prevent. >> we don't know if tamerlan tsarnaev was purely home brown grown or if he was affiliated with al qaeda operatives in his return to dagestan. a place from which he had sought refugee status with his family. more broadly, though, we have to recognize we are still in a

global war and its radical islamic jihadists. the president by his policies and words of senior officials in his administration are removing us from a war footing and putting us back into a law enforcement model. five terrorists have reached their targets under a barack obama administration. all five given their miranda warnings and treated like common criminals. we haven't sent a terrorist to guantanamo bay in over four years. we captured suleiman, osama bin laden's son-in-law, hard terrorist, member of al qaeda central. we didn't send him to guantanamo bay for interrogation. we sent him to new york where he got miranda rights, tax -- >> let me respond on that. because -- to suggest sending him to guantanamo would help. he was given his miranda warning and as the public accounts have been, he wouldn't shut up. he kept on, kept on, kept on. he was given an enormous amount of intelligence. we've had a tiny handful, four, five, six military commission successful prosecutions. we've had hundreds in our courts.

what are we afraid of? what are we afraid of? the law enforcement did a superb job in boston. these people are before courts. mayor giuliani and i were both prosecutors. we would love to prosecute this case. >> signals were missed here. signals of this radicalization were missed. >> that has nothing to do with guantanamo. the fact is we will always -- we're a nation of 325 million people. are there going to be people like the man who blew up oklahoma city, he was radicalized in a different way. let us figure out how we respond on this. my committee will have the director of the fbi and others before it. i want to know how much did the russians give us before. were signals missed there? sure. ask those questions. but let's not overlook the fact that our law enforcement did a

superb job here. if there are people that should be prosecuted, prosecutor them in court -- >> jay harman, here's the question "time" magazine asks on its provocative cover this week. homeland insecurity. the question is do we need to sacrifice privacy in order to be safer? is that going to be the immediate lesson from the boston bombing? >> i think we need more cameras. boston has a small police department in new york if these folks had tried this they probably would have been identified faster. let me make a couple of points. first of all not all of these plots are associated in any way with al qaeda training. these are people who go on the internet and look at "inspire" magazine, this guy admitted it, and there are the directions for how to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. you can figure this out. he also was inspire bid awlaki's preachings which are online even though he was taken out by a drone strike as was the original writer of "inspire" magazine. we have to think ahead.

the best way to do this is build trust with communities so that families and teachers and neighbors alert law enforcement -- >> let me pick up on that point for mayor giuliani. there have been calls for more ethnic profiling. is it cooperation in the muslim community? is it greater tracking and monitoring in mosques and in muslim communities to defect what was missed here with tsarnaev who apparently was challenging his iimam and all the rest. >> profiling is perfectly legal and perfectly legitimate if you're following leads, objective evidence. somebody tells you that the person who committed the crime is 6'4" and he's white you don't go look for a 5'4" asian. the reality is profiling is perfectly appropriate if it relates to objective facts and not to some attempt to just smear someone. reality is, unfortunately, a significant number, not all, but

a significant number of these attacks come about from this distorted islamic extremist ideology. so you can't ignore it. you've got to go after it. we don't have to sacrifice privacy to do it, but we also shouldn't sacrifice common sense. the president could help us here a lot if he would designate the major hasan shooting of several years ago as a terrorist act and not workplace violence. i think that sent the wrong signals to the bureaucracy. >> quick point, congressman. >> the mayor makes the core point is that jihadists around the world don't attack us for the actions we take. they attack us for who we are. we are freedom's home and we are freedom's defender. it didn't take guantanamo bay, it didn't take drones to knock down those towers on 9/11. if we grounded every drone, closed guantanamo bay they'd find another pretext. >> before i let all of you go, senator leahy, immigration. you're pushing this as are others to get an immigration reform bill.

you want to amend the bill to include same-sex partners to be able to come into the country. marco rubio and others have said that effort would kill this legislation. >> there is -- you know, we've had about ten different things that people say will kill it. if we don't make the fence long enough that kills it. if we don't have a high enough fine, that kills it. the fact is there are a lot of people who want to kill an immigration bill no matter what. we will have votes on this. people can vote for or against any one of these amendments. now, i've had 20-some-odd hearings in all on immigration judiciary. we'll start marking up the bill this week. everybody can bring up whatever they want. we're going to have a fair and open thing. and then vote it up or vote it down. >> is immigration going to pass? is reform going to pass? >> i hope it does. because i think it would be a -- >> i know you hope it will. >> it would be a huge mistake -- i think it can. i think the so-called gang of eight, four democrats, four republicans, crossing the

political spectrum deserve an enormous amount of credit for the work they've done. i've met with them many times. i think we can get it passed. >> all right. i'm going to leave it there. senator, congressmen, jane harman, major giuliani thank you all for much for engaging in this debate which is to be continued. coming up here, just over 100 days into president obama's second term, is he starting to show signs he's becoming a lame duck? provocative question but he had to respond to it. we're going to debate it here with your round table. former house speaker newt gingrich, former democratic congressman harold ford, editor of the national review rich lowry, managing editor for the rio joe-ann reid. later on, conversation with all pro nfl line backer brendan ayanbadejo. all that coming up. i know what you're thinking...

transit fares! as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. no? oh, right. you're thinking of the 1.6 million daily customer care interactions xerox handles. or the 900 million health insurance claims we process. so, it's no surprise to you that companies depend on today's xerox for services that simplify how work gets done. which is...pretty much what we've always stood for. with xerox, you're ready for real business.

[ male announcer ] book ahead and save up to 20 percent at doubletree.com, so you can sit back, relax and enjoy. doubletree by hilton. where the little things mean everything. [ pizza dodging man's mouth ] ♪ ♪ [ camera shutter clicks ] [ male announcer ] fight pepperoni heartburn and pepperoni breath fast with tums freshers. concentrated relief that goes to work in seconds and freshens breath. ♪ tum...tum...tum... tum...tums! ♪ tums freshers. fast heartburn relief and minty fresh breath.

coming up, signs of improvement in the economy as the unemployment rate dips to the lowest level in over four

year. stock market soaring as well. what will republicans say now? we'll debate it next with our round table. few industries are changing more rapidly than healthcare. by earning your degree from capella university, you'll have the knowledge to advance your career while making a difference in the lives of patients. let's get started at capella.edu. let's see what you got. rv -- covered. why would you pay for a hotel? i never do.

motorcycles -- check. atv. i ride those. do you? no. boat. house. hello, dear. hello. hello. oh! check it -- [ loud r&b on car radio ] i'm going on break! the more you bundle, the more you save. now, that's progressive.

more on the theme we were just talking about. approval of president obama's handling of terror threats. he's still pretty strong at 56%. 35% disapproval as more of these

issues mount for him. back with our political round table. former speaker of the house and presidential candidate newt gingrich. former democratic congressman from tennessee, harold ford jr. editor of the national review rich lowry. managing editor of the grio.com and msnbc contributor joy reid. a lot to pick up on. speaker gingrich, the terror debate which can extend from benghazi now to syria to threats to the homeland after boston. how is the president doing? >> oh, i think in the long run not particularly well. i think mayor giuliani stated a good example. 42 months after ft. hood we are pretending that this is a workplace incident when somebody jumps up, yelling allah and kills a bunch of american soldiers clearly related to radical islam. on the fbi most wanted list, 30 -- for terrorism, 30 of the 31 are islamists.

yet the coverage of the first two days after boston was, gee, i wonder what motivated these two chechens? now, we still refuse to come to grips with how serious and how long term this problem is going to be. i think it could be a 50 to 70 year problem. >> joy, it's a political question. it's a security question. two years after osama bin laden has been killed, are we safer as a country or not? >> i think that this country obviously has a lot of basic freedoms that make it impossible to police every potential threat. we still have red blooded americans going into schools and maskering 26 people including children. we still have situations where domestic terrorist operatives that have nothing to do with islam have hit this country. oklahoma city had nothing to do with islamism. there are bad people who want to do awful thipgs. you can't stop them all. what we can do is try to do the best we can in terms of sensible security policy. i don't think anybody in the country wants to go back to the bush era and what we were doing with domestic wiretapping, what we were doing with demonizing and targeting entire groups of people based on religion. again, people who are not muslim

also commit horrible random acts. not all with bombs. some with guns. >> rich lowry, if the events on 9/11 and benghazi and that attack were a striking blow and reminder, boston was an exclamation point about the ongoing terror threat and this new age of terror where it can be developed and grown at home. the president saying this week, look, we have to come to grips there are certain things you simply cannot account for and detect in your society. >> yeah. i think clearly the rumors of al qaeda's complete demise are completely exaggerated. we saw it both in benghazi and in boston where these guys were inspired by al qaeda. i just have to stand up for president bush. he went out there after 9/11 and said, look, islam is a religion of peace. we're not going to target muslims. this is a generous country. that moved to be true. and also president obama's picked upmost of bush's terror policies, anti-terror policies. happy to slam them and slander

them as a candidate but he's picked upmost of them as president because they are responsible. when you're actually in that chair and aware of how many threats we have coming at us, the world looks a lot different than when you're on the outside. >> not things like waterboarding, not things that exacerbated the tensions between us and the muslim community. some of the things that were done during the bush era that the president -- president obama specifically outlawed were part of what reradicalized, i believe -- >> let me -- >> some guys will say we did it because of drone attacks. as tom cotton says there's always an excuse to attack the united states. >> the backdrop of all of this, harold ford jr., is what the president is facing in terms of his own leadership in his second term as he builds a legacy. at a press conference this week in which one of our colleagues asked do you still have the juice to get it done. this is part of what he said. >> i think it comes to no surprise not only to the american people but even members of congress themselves that right now things are pretty dysfunctional up on capitol

hill. >> you seem to suggest that somehow these folks over there have no responsibilities and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. that's their job. >> is he a lame duck, harold? >> no. he, i think -- no. i sense his frustration. but that frustration has to be chaneled, i think, in a more positive way. there's a leadership void in this city on domestic issues. there's a leadership void in this city as it relates to how we address the economy and how we deal with entitlements and taxes and so forth. if the president believes that congress is behaving in an immature way which i think congress resembles that statement, he's probably going to have to show more leadership. in fairness to joy's point and the back and forth there's no point that we have to be right 100% of the time when it comes to security. jane harman articulated it better than anybody this morning. i think they've done a

phenomenal job. i understand where the speaker -- i think i understand what you're saying when you say that more needs to be done. going forward you're right. this president, this white house have now got to come up with a set of policies clear, transparent, consistent along not only the lines of syria but our position as it relates to self-radicalization in this country and efforts around the world to create unrest for our policies and our allies around the globe. the president's comments about the red line, they have to be careful. i think the comments this morning in some of the national papers from former defense advisers saying the president's going to make a statement, you got to be willing to stand by that statement. they have to think more clearly. they have to be more careful about it and understand the ramifications are not only political here at home but they reverberate across the middle east. >> just talking about even the domestic agenda and what the president talked about was does

he still have his juice. you remember this well being speaker of the house of former parking light bill clinton making the case for his relevance. we're pretty early in the president's second term. what can he get done? >> all presidents are functionally relevant because they can veto bills, because they have the bully pulpit, because they mauk appointments, because of the issue of regulations. the idea of an irrelevant president has existed since buchanan in the 1850s. the fact is that the president's greatest problem domestically in the next year and a half is that he has a lot of democratic senators up for re-election in states that mitt romney carried. so the cross pressure in the u.s. senate is going to be much greater than at any time up to now. and most of those senators are going to be inclined to say, you know, it actually helps me to not be an obama democrat.

economy, but what do republicans say now in the face of that good news? >> look, those are encouraging signs but clearly the employment market is not fully healed by any stretch of the imagination. you have almost 12 million people still looking for work. you have about 8 million people who are underemployed meaning they'd like to have more hours than they do now. and there are worrisome signs that the perverse incentive for employers by obama care are beginning to have an effect where it's -- to avoid fines or paying for health care. employers are looking more to part-time workers. that's not a good thing for the economy. it's not a good thing for workers. if i can stand up for the president a little bit, though, he's been getting hammered this week for not having the interpersonal skills on the hill and not being another lbj. it's a lot easier to be another lbj when you have 60 plus senators and a large house majority. he didn't have those. and everyone should have been aware there are limits to how much he'd accomplish in the second term because of that. >> joy, the economy. good news for the president on this. what -- how does it help him in his arsenal against republicans

and his agenda? >> i don't think there's any objective facts that could really help the president with this particular congress. i think some people have described the current republican party as sort of post-policy. because really they're so fixated on opposing barack obama that i'm not sure there's any objective set of facts that could change the calculus of how he's able to deal with them. i think what we have is a republican party that needs to decide it has to actually govern. they're just opposing barack obama is not enough. look at the economy and the fact it isn't growing more strongly, we've been trying to force ourselves to do austerity which has not worked in europe, which has actually harmed the european economy. without being able to do a robust agenda from washington that does smart spending and smart tax increases the way we did in 1993 when democrats alone, without a single republican, passed that omnibus budget bill in '93 that got 90% of the way toward the fiscal balance we achieved in the '90s, without being able to do sane policy in washington you can't expect interpersonal improvement to change the economy. >> newt, do republicans want to govern? >> i have a slightly different memory of the '90s. let's not get into that.

let me start with the point with the economy. i ran into a woman named jean who works at a mcdonald's just outside baltimore on friday. she said to me -- >> you got the mcwrap. >> i got the mcwrap. she said to me, we've got to do something about the economy. i used to be in a system in an accounting firm. this is a job i now have. i kind find another job. i think it's very dangerous to suggest this economy's healthy. on the other hand, the big problem for obama in the next year is not going to be the economy, it's going to be obama care. the degree to which obama care gets implemented begins to desint grate and the pain level it's going to cause is going to be enormous. a number of people are going to have their jobs reduced to 29 hours because that way their employer doesn't have to pay for their insurance. it's going to be staggering. if you looked at the u-6 number it actually went up last month to 13.5%. i think this economy is going to

remain a muddle. i think republicans want to govern. if you look at the third year republican governors they're doing a pretty darn good job. governors are the bright spot in this country right now on the republican side. they're actually balancing budgets, modernizing things, reforming education, a lot of innovation. i think in congress it's going to remain a muddle because you have a literal democratic president, a conservative house and a mixed senate. >> some issues i want to throw on the table, like guns, which there were some developments this weekend at that nra convention, guns are going to be a big issue in 2014, vice president of the nra talking about boston bombings, gun control fight. here's what he said this weekend. >> imagine waking up to a phone call from the police at 3:00 a.m. in the morning warning that a terrorist event is occurring outside and ordering you to stay inside your home. frightened citizens sheltered in place with no means to defend themselves or their families from whatever might come crashing through their door. how many bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?

>> harold ford? >> the men responsible for the boston bombings were caught. largely because of we have law enforcement in this country. i think i understand what he's saying. i disagree wit fully. i think people should be able to protect themselves. i would hope that this debate as it heads into 2014 does not disintegrate or devolve into something nasty, ugly, more polarizing and perhaps violent. we have challenges in this country. joy touched on. this is not just an islamist issue. there are white americans who are participating and have enacted and imposed these horrific crimes and atrocities on people.

>> david axelrod telling "the new york times," until somebody loses their job, congress is not going to move on these things >> yeah. exactly. this is the key to the nra's influence. it isn't spending money. they have extremely active and engaged membership that cares about this issue more than 90% of those opposed, the 90% of the people that support background checks. until someone else demonstrates otherwise -- >> let me get a break in here. we'll continue on the other side. i also want to pick up some other stories going on. early jockeying for 2016 already under way as you know. we haven't even gotten to the midterm elections yet, but we're already talking about it. big announcement this week by nba player jason collins and why it matters. he came out as a gay athlete. i'm joined by fellow pro athlete brendon ayanbadejo. back with more from our round table right after this. reat. it won't take long, will it? nah. okay. this, won't take long will it? no, not at all. how many of these can we do on our budget? more than you think.

didn't take very long, did it? this spring, dig in and save. that's nice. post it. already did. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. keep you yard your own with your choice lawn insect controls, just $8.88. the world needs more energy. where's it going to come from? ♪ that's why right here, in australia, chevron is building one of the biggest natural gas projects in the world. enough power for a city the size of singapore for 50 years. what's it going to do to the planet? natural gas is the cleanest conventional fuel there is. we've got to be smart about this. it's a smart way to go. ♪

it's a smart way to go. we replaced people with a machine.r, what? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it? hello? hello?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello? ally bank. your money needs an ally. try align. it's the number one ge recommended probiotic that helps maintain digestive balance. ♪ stay in the groove with align. the day building a play set begins with a surprise twinge of back pain... and a choice. take up to 4 advil in a day or 2 aleve for all day relief. [ male announcer ] that's handy.

♪ from the united states postal service a budding artist can ship like a big business. just go online to pay, print and have your packages picked up for free. we'll do the rest. ♪

we're back with our round table. sports news now. thes by announcement this week from jason collins coming out as gay. first time that's happened in the four major sports. for that to happen. i'm joined by brendon ayanbadejo from the world champion baltimore ravens who's been really outspoken about this. brendon, great to have you here. why in your judgment was this a big deal? is this the start in sports, basketball, football, baseball, hockey? >> well, it's a big deal because really america's calling for it. you can still be fired in 30 states for being a part of the

lgbt community. for someone to step up and show that society is changing and society is calling for equality and people are going to go out there and express themselves, especially in one of the four major sports which has never been done before, it's really a show of the changing of the tides and what's to come in the future. >> you, i know, followed the supreme court arguments. you know about the political fight of this. the other side of this, the other side of the -- all the celebration from the president calling him to mrs. obama tweeting to others saying this is such an important step is very real and sustained opposition to gay marriage in many parts of the country, in many states, so how -- this may be a big moment. yet the political fight still goes on. >> yeah. you know, politically we're still fighting to change a lot of things to be accepted federally and to gain marriage equality in the other 40 states. socially it's a change of the times. people have to realize that even though it's your right to have religion and to -- really you can't use that right of religion to take other people's rights

away. equality trumps all of them. we protect and we believe in religion. but we just don't feel that religion should be calling out the lgbt community. we just need to open up people's eyes and educate people a little bit more. >> brendon, you where this week very powerfully about the fact that lesbians have come out in pro sports have not gotten this kind of attention. why, do you think? why is this so much different? >> i think it's just a little bit harder to break the lines in men's sports. people have this idea of what gayness is. and my good friend ez ra tuolo is a 300 pound physical defensive lineman in football. people think gayness has something to do with femininity when really we just need to erase that stereo types from our minds. lgbt people come in all different types and shapes and forms. so i think that's really what we're fighting. but the beautiful thing about

what britney griner did, it barely made a splash. that's what we're trying to do in men's sports when people announce they're gay. we don't want it to change the climate in sports. we want everybody to be accepted and people can go out there and love who they want to love and be who they are so they cannot only be better people but they can also be better athletes. >> finally you think some players in the nfl will come out. as soon as this next year? >> i don't know when it's going to happen. as an ally, myself and dante staalworth, chris cluey, scott fajita, when an athlete does come out they'll have a supportive group around them. >> brendon ayanbadejo, we really appreciate your perspective. thanks for joining us. back to the round table. rich lowry, as i say, the other side to this very big moment in sports and society is the political fight that is still moving on. there's still a great deal of opposition as the supreme court sits with this issue of marriage equality.

>> yeah. look, this is a sign that social attitudes are changing. he got a call immediately from oprah and the president of the united states. you can't get more social affirmation than that. it shouldn't be a big deal, really, one of the reasons it is is underlying -- between the knicks and celtics players turning their series. the culture of major league sports and the nba is at about a seventh or eighth grade level. that's one of the reasons it's such a big deal. >> joy-ann reid, one of the issues politically, prop 8 in california, mormon community, african-american community most strongly against this. african-american clergy speaking out in the debate over same-sex marriage and gay adoption in illinois. again, it goes to the point that societal views are changing but our politics are changing very slowly around this. >> i think they're changing

really quickly. i think the lgbt community has shown the power of the grass roots to be that additional component to political organizing. you know, you wouldn't have had such a rapid sea change on things like don't ask, don't tell had it just been listed to the congress and president. you've seen the grass roots actually move the debate forward and move society forward. look, there's also the reverse effect. president obama coming out in favor of the rights of gay people to marry actually moved public opinion within the african-american community. there's not blanket opposition to gay rights within the black community. there are prominent pastors, our colleague reverend al sharpton has been one of the most outspoken. there are plenty of black clergy who are actually in support of lgbt rights. i think the president moving has helped that. i also think the gay community itself, gay rights community, has been very aggressive, very tactical and very smart in moving for their civil rights. >> newt gingrich, do you think -- i haven't heard whether you say you think a republican nominee for president can support gay marriage? >> i think that's up to -- i doubt it.

but i think that's up in the air. i do think things are changing. but what i'm struck with is, the one sidedness of the desire for rights. there are no rights for catholics to have adoption services in massachusetts. they're outlawed. there are no rights in d.c. for catholics to have adoption services. they're outlawed. this passing reference to religion. we sort of respect religion. sure. as long as you don't practice it. it would be good to have a debate over -- beyond this question of are you able to be gay in america. what does it mean? does it mean you have to actually affirmatively eliminate any institution which does not automatically accept that and, therefore, you're now going to have a secular state, a wide range of religious groups, catholics, protestants, orthodox jews, mormons, muslims, you cannot practice your religion the way you believe and we will outlaw your institutions? >> which prohibitions are you speaking of?

>> let's start with adoption services. it's impossible for the catholic church to have an adoption service in massachusetts that follows catholic doctrine. >> isn't the catholic church, strictly catholic charities in boston, they affirmatively -- >> they withdrew them because they were told you could not follow catholic adoption which was for marriage between a marriage and a woman. >> the point is you don't have the state telling people what to -- the question is whether or not religious institutions can make public policy. whether they can -- >> there's a lot of religious institutions that have moral objections and -- >> if you're running a pharmacy the public is allowed to use -- same issue if people had -- let's say it's my religious objection to have -- >> the catholic church's opposition to contraception is on the same moral level as racial discrimination? >> i'm saying would you have the right to discriminate based on your religious beliefs? a lot of people used to say that was their reason. what i'm saying is people have a right to their religious beliefs but there is a -- >> except for when you say public policy should trump it. >> if the church is fwoing to make our public policy are we any longer a secular state?

>> harold, your general comments on the general impact of jason collins this week? >> look, people should be able to marry whom they want to marry. i'm a believer everything -- i'm a christian. >> harold, your general comments on the general impact of jason collins this week? >> look, people should be able to marry whom they want to marry. i'm a believer everything -- i'm a christian. everything god touches is perfect. if someone has a different sexual orientation than me or preference for marriage, bless their hearts. the fact we're sitting here te baiting this still, i think this is a different topic around religious freedoms. that conversation needs to take place outside of this context. bless the boy's heart. he's able to pursue what he wants to pursue and hopefully more people in sports in these masculine enclaves will make this even more acceptable. >> i just got about a minute and a half left. i want to inject something, rich, you wrote about on the social issue topic about abortion this week. the trial getting a lot of attention.

i want to put it on the record here. you write this. the unwritten rule is that when the left discusses abortion it's never called abortion but always referred to as health or more specifically reproductive health. though abortion is the opposite of reproduction. for one party involved the opposite of health. the trial of kermit gosnell is accused of murdering babies because he allegedly didn't kill them in the womb and had to finish the job outside the womb. because it illustrates how slight the difference is between late term abortion or late term health. nearly everyone recognizes as a crime. it illustrates how slight the difference is between late and term abortion and late term health. the left, planned parenthood says it's a complete outlier, but yours is a broader point. >> first, there is a matter of logic. if doing it outside the womb, if collapsing the skull, snipping the spine and all the rest of it is wrong, why is it okay inside the womb? i think that's a very difficult question for pro-choice people

to grapple with. i was struck by president obama goes to planned parenthood, first sitting president to address planned parenthood, and doesn't mention the world abortion. why doesn't he hail them for their clinics and their affiliates performing more than 300,000 abortions a year? it's such a wonderful thing. they're ashamed to say frankly what they do. >> joy, 30 seconds. >> planned parenthood does a lot more than abortion. before i had a job that paid me health insurance planned parenthood is where i got my health care. everything from just general health care and i wasn't going there to get abortions. i was going there to get health care. so planned parenthood is not simply an abortion clinic. >> right. it does do abortions. the president never acknowledged that. >> there are doctors and clinics that do it, too. the second thing is gosnell is not something that should outrage liberals, it's something that should outrage anyone. general abortion services are not performed -- he was performing these in late, late term. i don't think any rational or thinking human being or feeling human being thinks that's okay whether it's in the womb or out.

this was also a case of impoverished women who were going to a place for supposed health care that shouldn't have even been open. it wasn't being inspected where the laws in that state were not being followed. where were the inspections to make sure these services were even being provided in a sanitary facility? just because these women had no money doesn't mean they didn't deserve to be protected. >> i'm out of time. take a break. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our history matter to you? because for more than two centuries, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. ♪ and the next great idea could be yours. ♪ ...but he'd wait for her forever and always be there with the biggest welcome home. for a love this strong, dawn only feeds him iams.

compared to other leading brands, it has 50% more animal protein. ...to help keep his body as strong as a love that never fades. iams. keep love strong. now you can keep love fun with new shakeables meaty treats. now you can keep love fun help the gulf recover, andnt to learn from what happenedg goals: so we could be a better, safer energy company. i've been with bp for 24 years. i was part of the team that helped deliver

on our commitments to the gulf - and i can tell you, safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge safety equipment and technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all our drilling activity, twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. safety is a vital part of bp's commitment to america - and to the nearly 250,000 people who work with us here. we invest more in the u.s. than anywhere else in the world. over fifty-five billion dollars here in the last five years - making bp america's largest energy investor. our commitment has never been stronger. i said we'd talk about 2016 politics. we will. just not on television. we're out of time.

thank you all for an invigorating conversation. before we go you can watch this week's press pass conversation with google executive chairman eric schmidt on his new book "the new digital age: reshaping the future of people, nations and business" on our blog meetthepressnbc.com. that's all for today. we'll be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." and a good sunday afternoon, you're watching msnbc, the place for politics. and on this sunday, topic number one, syria. >> the whole thing is escalating. >> the situation in the syria area is getting tense. >> the president needs to make it clear what we need to do. >> we don't want to be the sheriff, but we do want to be the coach. >> as war planes hit targets outside the syrian capital, the debate heats up in washington. what to do and when to do it.