>> i am the editor of wikileaks. >> we help you get the truth. >> a new and controversial movie about the founder of wikileaks called "we steal kretsecrets." hi, everyone. welcome to weekends with alex witt. developing now the president is meeting with the president of china in california. it's the second day of their two-day summit involving several key issues including accusations of china internet spying on american military and commercial secrets. kristin welker is traveling with the president and joins us. she's in palm springs. what do we know about this meeting that just got under way? >> reporter: well, alex, i think the president and china's president are going to be focusing on the economy, and they will also be focusing on cyber security as an extension of that. we heard from both leaders last night after they had met in a bilateral meeting and then they also had a dinner and according to president obama after last

night's bilateral meeting, they had discussed the issue of cyber security but only at the 40,000-foot level. the president did say that there was a need for rules and common approaches to cyber security. china's president a little bit on the defense. he said, look, china has been the victim of cyber attacks as well. i expect that will be a central issue when they really get their meeting under way. i don't think we're going to get a huge announcement out of the meeting but i do think the president will be looking for china's president to acknowledge the fact that the government does have some responsibility in terms of the level of cyber attacks that we have seen waged here against entities in the united states. here is a little bit more of what president obama had to say. take a listen. >> when it comes to those cyber security issues like hacking or theft, those are not issues that are unique to the u.s./china relationship. those are issues that are of

intr national concern. often times it's nonstate actors who are engaging in these issues as well. >> reporter: now, president obama was pressed on whether the recent revelation that the surveillance programs by the u.s. government undercut his argument to china's program, he says he does not believe that is the case. he sees these as two separate issues. those are just some of the issues on the table today, and i also think north korea will be another topic under discussion. >> you can expect that. kristin, the president is also defending the government's secret surveillance programs. let's take a listen to what he said. >> when it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls. that's not what this program is about. as was indicated, what the intelligence community is doing is looking at phone numbers and

durations of calls. they are not looking at people's names, and they're not looking at content. >> kristin, joining our conversation right now is white house reporter for "the washington post" david nakamura. david, with a welcome, the white house has said it's eager to take on this subject. why is that? >> well, alex, i think you have to look at it two different ways. they're eager now that it's come out in the open. i think what the president was trying to say neder yesterday is he himself has shifted -- when he was a senator early in his career, president bush was employing some similar tactics. he was very much against it. now he's evolved and he's learned more about it and it's important to keep america safe. he's saying now he's going to make that case. the problem is he hasn't made the case before. only now that it's been leaked out there is he wige to say he's engaging in this debate. same thing with drones and i think some of the congress people who said the president said i have already briefed the congress, they're on board with this. they're saying they don't even know all the details. i think there's a lot more to

come with this story. >> are you getting any frustration from inside the white house because the obama administration didn't start this program. it started under president bush but now that it's been leaked, this white house has to answer all the questions. >> it's a very interesting situation because, as i said, the president made a big case when he was running for the presidency, he really struck a hard line against some of this -- he said the government needs to be more open, more accountable, needs to be more transparent. he's come under a lot of criticism lately not just with these revelations but with the program the justice department was running to investigate leaks with the associated press, that, you know, his government has not done what he said and promised in his campaign to do which is to create a more transparent accountability system. the president made a case yesterday that we have set specific ground rules with this program. we're not listening to your conversations. i think other would say say these kind ever surveillance programs can give a lot of information without even listening to conversations. so i think the president again is going to have to make the case more strongly as it goes forward, especially if some in congress will start to sort of push back on this.

>> kristin, we heard the national intelligence director james clapper saying these leaks are a huge blow to national security. do you think the white house will be pursuing any possible investigation into these leaks? >> i think it is very likely, alex. this is what we have seen in the past. this is part of the flap surrounding the justice department as it was investigating leaks and seized records of ap journalists and that fox reporter. so i think it's very likely that's consistent with the reporting of our justice correspondent pete williams. i should say that i have reached out to the administration just this morning to try to get an update on that, and so far there is no update. at this point in time no investigation has been launched, but i would be surprised if they don't go that route. >> david, i'm curious if we've before gotten any real sense of how many terrorist acts these programs may have stopped. any numbers out there on that? >> we don't know. i think they've only sort of cited one incident that might have had to do with stopping an alleged attack on a new york subway. but, again, these things are all

classified. i think the government is doing to want to make a case that, hey, this has done a lot to tamp down -- catch leads before they happen, but i think the problem is by talking too much about that, you may reveal other techniques that you're using that you want to keep, you know, quiet because obviously they don't want to tip off those who might be planning. but i think kristin is right, they may well look at who is leaking this because it's very important. our reporter who broke one of the stories said that -- he said his source expects to potentially be outed and caught and potentially punished for this but thought it was important to get it out in the public domain. >> kristin welker, david nakamura, thank you so much. we've been asking you, should national security trump individual privacy? we got a lot of tweets. some of them, twitch says no yment of government surveillance will make us any safer than we would be without it. the boston bombings are a sobering example. h. david archer tweets, if individual right to privacy

overrides the government's effort to keep us safe, who should fight the bill when terrorists strike, aclu? molly brown feels police are not spies intruding on individual privacy. same for the internet. bjw2 tweets this program has been in existence for over ten years and now everyone is shocked. i'll be reading more of your tweets later on. new today, the mayor of newark, new jersey, cory booker, says he is officially running for senate. he made the announcement about an hour ago in newark declaring his candidacy for the seat left vacant after democrat senator frank lautenberg died monday at age 89. >> as i have heard from people all over our state, north to south, people believe that washington is not a place that is sticking up for american families, taking on the difficult problems or improving the quality of life for our communities.

this has to end. >> new jersey governor chris christie announced plans to hold a special senate election with democratic and republican primaries on august 13th followed by a general election on october 16. and msnbc's reverend al sharpton tweeted out this pic a short time ago. it shows him with new york city mayoral candidate anthony weiner. he met with the reverend and national action network reaching out to african-american voters. the new york mayoral race takes place this november. another story developing this hour, a pretrial hearing for george zimmerman right now going on in a florida courtroom. the trial starts monday, but now the judge is listening to testimony from voice experts to determine if their analysis of a 911 call from the day of the shooting should be admissible at trial. nbc's ron mott is joining me from sanford, florida. with a good day to you, i know you have been at that post all day. what's the latest on this? >> reporter: hey there, alex. good saturday to you. you can see the second of three scheduled defense experts on the stand right now, and as one might predict, we're getting

some pretty dramatic contrast between what defense experts are saying about the utility or usefulness of this 911 call and what the state's experts are saying about the 911 call. the state experts were up yesterday, and basically they are saying that that screaming sound you hear on the 911 call is actually trayvon martin, and they have gone even a step further to identify speech as what he is screaming. so let's take a listen at two of the state's experts and then we'll talk on the other side. take a listen. >> the words were almost entirely trayvon martin. >> did i understand you to testify that what mr. west called looping, which is simply repeating the same sample, that you have done that before with other software and that that is, in fact, often done? did i hear that right? >> yes, that's correct. >> okay. so the fact that you also did it with this software was not new

or novel, is it? >> no, no. >> reporter: why the attorney was asking that is because that's the whole point of this frey hearing. they want to know whether the methodologies these scientists are using to come up with their conclusions are generally acceptable practices in their community. so that's why the state's attorney was asking that question. today when the defense had their chance to put their witnesses up, they quickly went after that. take a listen at this. >> to reduplicate, to loop it, to double its length just by repeating it, in other words to fool the system in believing that the sample that was being put in was actually longer than it was. so, i mean, that would not be an accepted methodology within the wider scientific community. >> reporter: one of the issues here is that because the call -- you have to separate out the 911 caller's voice and the dispatcher's voice and that left very little bit of evidence for the scientists to actually work

with. the one state expert basically took it and looped it so it would get long enough that the software program he was using would actually analyze that as a useful piece of information. the defense, of course, has attacked that. back up to you. >> i think i heard they need at least ten seconds of uninterrupted, unfiltered, that's what their ideal length of time would be. they have like four to five but then you loop it. i get what you're saying there. with regard to other pretrial motions though, is this all that's on the agenda today or are there other ones under consideration? >> reporter: well, there's some others that the state -- or that the defense has filgd that have not been heard yes. one in particular is they are asking the court to ban certain phrases and words that the state can use, such as profile, vigilante, wannabe cop, he confronted trayvon martin. they don't want those phrases uttered by state's attorneys. they believe that could injure george zimmerman in the eyes of the jury. >> ron mott in sanford. thank you so much. george zimmerman has nbc

universal -- has sued nbc universal, the parent company of this network, for defamation. the company has strongly denied his allegations. we are following developing news in south africa. nelson mandela is in the hospital with what government officials call a serious lung infection. a spokesman for the presidency says that the 94-year-old is breathing on his own. his condition is being described as serious but stable. mandela was rushed to a hospital during the overnight hours after doctors determined his recurrent lung infection had deteriorated. we're going to bring you a live report from south africa in our next hour. how data experts, a child prodigy, and some poker players helped president obama win in 2012. and it had something to do with the geek gap. what is the geek gap? it's all in a new book and the author explains next. [ mom ] with my little girl, every food is finger food.

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remarkable stories today from witnesses of a shooting rampage in sman, california. on friday a man allegedly shot his father and brother before carjacking a woman. police say he forced her to drive to that college as he shot at a public bus and other cars. we're talking about santa monica city college there. investigators say he killed another driver en route, also a woman on campus as he then shot his way to the library. here is what some saw as it unfolded. >> i don't know if he was zoned out or focused, but he seemed very calm. he wasn't running. he wasn't moving around quickly. he just was standing there and looked like panning around to see who he could shoot. luckily he didn't like jolt. jolt really quick to shoot. he just panned over to me. i just jumped out of the way. >> police confronted and fatally shot the suspect in the library. here are some further headlines making news on the west coast. "the los angeles times" has the

story night stalker lived violently dies in hospital bed. it's about the death of serial killer richard mramirez. he killed 14 people in california between 1984 and 1985. and the salt lake tribune has the headline feds: wolf no longer at risk. how the government says the mission to restore the population of gray wolves has been accomplished. the 2012 election found two candidates and a nation sparkly divided by ideals, class, and generation, but a new book takes us inside the campaigns and shows another difference, how mitt romney's campaign focused on old school advertising and some vague idealism while president obama and his team used big data and technology to seal that victory. jonathan alter is the author of "the center holds: obama and his enemies" and an msnbc analyst and bloomberg view columnist. i tell you, i cannot wait to read this book. oh, my gosh, the advance is so

good. >> you have father's day coming up, too. >> that's a good idea. my dad would love it, too. some of the details here, what are cave dwellers? who are that group of people? >> so there was this really strange role reversal at the heart of the 2012 campaign. you had mitt romney, self-described numbers guy, came out of babe where they did aof this anil sis and he runs a 1960s mad men campaign. older folks who weren't really up on what was going on in the 21st century. whereas the obama campaign was running essentially a bain campaign full of the latest big data analytics expertise. and the analytics was run out of a secret annex in the chicago headquarters about which there was no publicity during the

campaign and which i got the full story on called the cave. now, the cave dwellers were these 20-something geeks, some of them were data scientists, biophysicis biophysicists, child prodigy, three professional poker players -- >> that's interesting. >> and they figure out these analytical models that were then used by other parts of the campaign to win this election for barack obama. now, were there a lot of other factors? romney being a bad candidate, et cetera, et cetera, of course. but this will change politics. so this book looks back at how they did it. everybody knows they had better digital technology. i try to show how they did it, how that geek gap between romney and obama worked, and also in the future, all future campaigns, how will it change not just campaigns but business because eric schmidt of google has now hired a bunch of these guys. i want people to read this book to have a sense of how these

tech geeks might help them in their business. >> absolutely. one thing i have to ask you about as well, that first debate, no one can forget that. and the president's pretty poor performance there. but you talk about the fact that the dislike that the president held for mitt romney got in his way. >> yeah. his coaches got very concerned that it would seep through, and so they admitted later they made a mistake in advising him to tone it down. he toned it down so much that as one of his coaches told me later, he looked like a man running under water. you know, it was almost like he didn't show up for the debate because they thought that that anger would hurt him if it came out, and so he was 0 for 6 in debate prep. everybody saw the debate. i wanted to pull back the curtain on the prep like what was going on there. >> they must have been nervous going into it. >> they all thought he was going to lose going in. they were all sure he was going to lose because the prep had gone so badly. after the debate, you remember

that viral video with samuel lncht jackson where he goes into a family's home and says wake the "f" up, wake the f.d up, the election is coming. obama said to one of his friends, i think samuel l. jackson was talking to me. that's the kind of detail i'm trying to get in this book. first book out about the campaign i wanted to really get inside it. >> what's interesting about this campaign, the president himself felt that despite the historic accomplishments of '08, he felt '12 was a more important campaign. >> and i think he was right about that. because the entire american social contract was on the line, this notion that goes back to franklin roosevelt about what government is for. the modern republican party, today's republican party, has gone so far to the right that they -- if you looked at something like the ryan plan which paul ryan would have implemented if he were vice president now, he says that it changes the american social

contract, takes us back to a prenew deal era. so a lot of the achievements of the 20th century were on the line and would have been gone now. imagine, let's just do a little thought experiment, if romney and ryan had won and the economy as it is today is starting to go up, right? the lesson would be everybody would be saying, well, you know, obama, he was jimmy carter. it wasn't until romney came in the economy started getting better and it got better because they slashed taxes for the wealthy, slashed regulations, slashed education, all this stuff they did, it would have discredited a progressive agenda for a generation. so it was all on the line, alex, in this election. it was certainly the most important election i have covered. i have covered nine of them i'm embarrassed to admit and this was a true hinge of history. a little hard to know that when we're going through it day to day. i troo i had to put it all -- step back, put it in a historical context for people.

>> interesting how we all know that president obama called former president clinton an explainer in chief but you get behind sort of the way president clinton was looking at president obama and kind of scratching his head on some things. >> president clinton said, you know, it's very puzzling to me, he told a friend, how can obama be so good at the hard stuff like foreign policy and so bad at the easy stuff like reaching out and talking to people. >> like he wouldn't hit more than ten people. >> it's not that he's not charming when he's on a rope line or whatever but he doesn't enjoy it and he doesn't like schmoozing. i have a chapter called missing the schmooze gene. he doesn't do that stroking on capitol hill and that means he has one less tool in the toolbox to use. he's working on it. >> the charm offensive. >> we talked about that before. so he realizes that was a shortcoming in his first term and part of what we're going to

now see is whether some of these lessons that i explained in the book, whether he's learned them and will improve in a second term. >> come back and we'll talk about that. the center holds, obama and his enemies. i can't wait to get a copy of the book. hurry it up. >> i will get it to you today. >> i appreciate it. jonathan alter. advice and people interested in a career in politics from a white house insider, karen finn finney, in this week's "office politics." [ male announcer ] frequent heartburn? the choice is yours. chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr. [ whirring ] [ dog barks ] i want to treat more dogs. ♪ our business needs more cases. [ male announcer ] where do you want to take your business? i need help selling art. [ male announcer ] from broadband to web hosting to mobile apps, small business solutions from at&t

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welcome back to weekends with alex witt. now it's time for headlines at the half. investigators say a pregnant actress in texas sent ricin laced letters to president obama and new york mayor michael bloomberg. 35-year-old shannon richardson sent the letters and then tried to frame her husband. if convicted she faces up to ten

years in prison. a small plane crashed into a the baton rouge suburb killing the pilot and damaging three homes. it sparks fires in two houses. no one on the ground was hurt. a judge has ordered an investigation in the health and welfare of paris jackson. jackson was hospitalized wednesday after she reportedly cut her wrists and took as many as 20 ibuprofen tablets. let's go now to weather. the first named tropical storm of the season has been downgraded but not before drenching the east coast. florida got it pretty bad as tropical storm andrea was heading north flooding several other states. new york did not fare much better against the remnants of that storm with roads flooding after andrea broke numerous rainfall records. nbc meteorologist dylan dreyer is here with more on this. hello to you, dylan. the pictures are pretty outstanding with lots of flooding. >> i at lo of flooding out there p.m. some areas. florida picked up more than a foot of water. areas in virginia picked up around eight inches of rainfall and in new york city we did pick up around five inches. so it was the second highest

daily rainfall for june out of this system. there are no longer any tropical storm warnings as this storm continues to pull away. you can hardly even see it across parts of northern new england. a closer look shows you that northeastern maine is really the only area we're seeing some of that rain in the united states. it is now moving up into nova scotia. we are also looking at the chance of more lighter to moderate rain moving into parts of virginia, parts of maryland and delaware, an area that certainly doesn't need any more rain. give that another couple of hours and that will move offshore as well. but our best chance of seeing stronger storms today will be across parts of southern minnesota and also into parts of iowa. that will move into the midwest and the chicago area as we head into sunday. but we do still have some flood warnings in effect across parts of central and northern rhode island, also western connecticut and parts of central new jersey because of all the streams and rivers and skrex still dealing with the residual water that's now flowing through the ground. that's why we are still dealing

with some of those flood warnings. those should last through the rest of the weekend. temperaturewise, it looks pretty good now that the storm is pulling away. most areas in the 60s and 70s and we will top out in the 90s across parts of texas. 110 degrees today in phoenix. the northeast will continue to see increasing sunshine with temperatures getting into the upper 70s and lower 80s. and then on sunday again we are going to see some scattered showers and storms in minneapolis and chicago. the northeast will stay dry for one more day but we are looking at more rain to move into the northeast by monday. the southwest will still be hot, but it will start to cool off a little bit as we g into sunday. alex? >> dylan dreyer, thank you for that update. in today's "office politics" karen finney, the host of "disrupt" which premieres today at 4:00 p.m. eastern, here karen talks about what she thinks is going through hillary clinton's mind as she weighs the possibility of running for president in 2016. first, she offers advice to those considering a career in

politics. >> i volunteered in 1992 at the convention, and just kind of got lucky and was actually supposed to go to uva law school, a week away from moving from california to virginia and got the call and said do you want to come on the road and do advance. so i did that and happened to meet maggie williams and i met hillary on the road and it just kind of -- that's the thing about campaigns that are so great. i tell kids who want to get involved, it's like a battleground promotion. if you get in there and do a good job, anything can happen. it doesn't matter. the great thing about it is my parents aren't wealthy, they're not connected. the gentleman who was president clinton's right hand man was a guy who grew up in a trailer park. so, you know, that's the great thing about it. everybody gets a chance and if you do a good job and you prove yourself, who knows where you're going to end up. >> in terms of who knows where you're going to end up, give me your best guess on what hillary clinton is thinking about 2016.

not going to hold it to you. just curious what you think. >> i am of the school i thought, i really think she is taking it all in because this is a woman, she really hasn't had a break since going from being the first lady of arkansas to the first lady to the senate to running for president, and, you know -- >> you mean secretary of state. >> to being secretary of state. >> traveling the world. >> exactly. and think about that. that is a long, long arc of service, but, you know, and if you look at sort of what president clinton has been able to do with his foundation, there's an opportunity to say, okay, here are the key things i want to work on. so i think she's really -- my gut says she's really evaluating is this how i want to spend my time. >> she has to basically look at a decade's worth of further devotion here. >> that's right. >> between running and potentially having two terms. >> other thing she has to realize and i think we're starting to see this, yes, is she incredibly popular all around the world? absolutely but we know politics in this day and age means no

matter what, if she gets into this race, all of the old attacks are going to come back. again, it's sort of how do i want to spend my time? is this where i can make the most impact. i think hillary is somebody who -- she's such an incredible role model particularly for women and girls. it's been an issue she's cared about since she was first lady in arkansas, microlending to women. i think she could make a tremendous impact from the foundation side in terms of really changing things for women and girls around the world. so i think no matter what she does, she's going to be impactful. i think it's a question of where can she be the most impactful. >> i want to look at this picture because there's a really good looking guy here and just so michelle obama knows i'm not talking about your husband. who is that guy? >> that's my boyfriend. he is a major in the united states army and he's currently serving his fifth tour in afghanistan, and i took him to the white house christmas party because i said, you know, before

you deploy i want you to meet your commander in chief. >> that's neat. >> it was really neat. >> what a great opportunity. >> it was really, really neat, and the president and the first lady couldn't have been more gracious. the president took a few minutes. you know, when you go through that line it's very like come on and the president really stopped and talked to him and it's his fifth deployment so he kind of was asking him questions about it. it was -- and it meant so much to him, and, you know, one of the things i realized after he and i went to the holiday party and introduced him to people, he was really blown away by just people saying thank you for your service. >> well, tomorrow at this time karen shows how growing up biracial shaped her views of politics and society, also the civil war leaders who played a important role in her family for generations, but this is the key point here. don't forget to watch "disrupt's" debut at 4:00 p.m. eastern. stealing secrets. a new documentary that tells the story of wikileaks and bradley

manning's infamous data dump. search weekends with alex witt and like us and we'll keep the conversation going. you hurt my feelings, todd. i did? when visa signature asked everybody what upgraded experiences really mattered... you suggested luxury car service instead of "strength training with patrick willis." come on todd! flap them chicken wings. [ grunts ] well, i travel a lot and umm... [ male announcer ] at visa signature, every upgraded experience comes from listening to our cardholders. visa signature. your idea of what a card should be. it's not a candy bar. 130 calories 7 grams of protein the new fiber one caramel nut protein bar. so i can't afford to have germy surfaces. but after one day's use,

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♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. in today's then and now, a pivotal moment for an iconic american car. here is nbc's john chancellor on this day back in 1979. >> and now a moment in history. today was the last day of production for a famous american car, the lincoln continental. a victim of a process in detroit called downsizing making smaller cars which use less fuel. 19 feet 5 inches long, about $11,0 $11,000, it gets 12 miles to a gallon in city driving. the worst gas guzzler of them all. >> the good-bye didn't last forever. it was redesigned to meet fuel efficiency standards. it lost 14 inches in length and half a ton in weight. the lincoln continental hrun cae

to an end in 2002. in the news this week, if it leaks, it leads. opening statements for the court martial of bradley manning began on monday and then the shocking revelations about the top secret government programs to collect massive amounts of phone and computer records. now, amid all of this, a new documentary is out. it's called we steal secrets. it's giving a fascinating look at julian assange's path from rock star founder of wikileaks to housebound lightning rod. >> this was the biggest leak in the history of this particular planet. >> my name is julian assange. i am the editor of wikileaks. we help you get the truth out. if you get this material, give it to us. no questions asked and you will help change history. >> they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier. >> scared the hell out of a lot of people. how are we going to stop it and how far has it gone already? >> this aging student hobo who was a rock star. >> wearing bulletproof vest. >> we'd been trained in evasive

tactics. >> this idealist became something else. >> i'm uncomfortable now in this country. >> joining me is "new york times" film critic nicholas rapold and thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> julian assange is one of these character that is hollywood would create if he didn't exist, right? you love him or you hate him. but in terms of his being fascinating, absolutely. how does he come across in this fill snm. >> well, i mean, i think the film tries to start out showing him as kind of a hero of like liberating information and then it kind of follows an arc where by the end he's a bit more of a villain, but it shows both sides but definitely i think ends on kind of a more negative side. >> so you think the end thought, that is the verdict on wikileaks or does it try to do that? >> i don't know if it's passing a verdict on all of wikileaks but definitely on julian assange it's sort of portraying him a little bit -- not the hero without any blemishes you might think. on wikileaks, i think it's saying the issue is very complex. >> certainly it is that. you write that it's one of the most compelling parts of the

movie, the insight into bradley manning's mind. >> yeah. it's really just emotionally compelling part of the movie because wh he does is he shows how his private life might have been affecting his decision to, you know, to leak the secrets as he did to wikileaks. and just being able to tie it in, learning through his chat messages which is just a really intimate kind of insight. >> like what? what did you get from it? >> there's one kind of chat message he repeats in the movie, alex repeats. he says maybe i just care, and that's what bradley manning says in his chat messages. and just having that insight into someone's kind of immediate like desire to just reveal these secrets. it just felt very immediate and intimate to me. it was very compelling. >> does the film give an explanation as to how bradley manning got that information to wikileaks? >> it does. yeah. it gives you -- in sort of a general sense. the documentary is impressive in

that it shows you how the secre secrets were available to a lot of people and bradley manning was able to access them and make them available. it's hard to show technically how it happens really but yeah. >>overall, what kind of film is this? who do you think will be interested? did you like it even? >> my review i guess it was kind of a mixed review. i really admire alex's documents generally. this particular one i think was sort of mixed. i mean, i think anyone who is interested in wikileaks and julian assange might find it interesting. i think if you're looking for something entirely new about the story, if you have been following the story, you might not find something entirely new. alex is kind of like a journalist and documenttarian at the same time. >> bottom line, thumbs up or thumbs down?

or thumbs sideways. >> thumbs sideways, thumbs conflicts. >> i appreciate your time. >> thank you. the rulings expected next week from the supreme court. i'm♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm saving all my pay. ♪ ♪ if i ever get some money put away, ♪ ♪ i'm going to take it all out and celebrate. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker... ♪ membership rallied millions of us on small business saturday to make shopping small, huge. this is what membership is. this is what membership does.

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next week we are expecting two more rulings from the supreme court in what is becoming a landmark decision that is taking on gay marriage, affirmative action, and voting rights. last week the justices ruled in favor of a controversial police practice of taking dna samples from people arrested for a serious crime but who have not yet been convicted of anything. joining me now is robert barnes, supreme court correspondent for "the washington post" and allen jenkins, executive director of opportunity agenda and former astoont to the u.s. sol lis for general. thank you for being here. >> good afternoon. >> robert, i will begin with you. give me an overview of what the ruling means, the ability to take the dna swab? >> well, it could really open up for law enforcement to start using this tool more and more. there are about 28 states right now plus the federal government

that allows the taking of dna. some of those are just when a person is arrested. some of those arevicted of a cr. but what the 5-4 ruling said was that it can be considered part of a routine booking operation like fingerprints or photographs. and so it opens it up to those who have simply been arrested for a crime. >> allen, in the opinion, here is what the court said. the court goes, taking an analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's dna is like fingerprinting and photographing a legitimate police booking procedure. that is reasonable under the fourth amendment. so why do you think this is different from fingerprinting? >> well, it's a pretty remarkable comparison that the court is making. you know, it's been a principle for a long time that if the government wants to search you, your home, your personal effects, they have to have specific suspicion that you've committed the crime that they're searching for. the supreme court threw that out here.

so the ways in which dna is different, this search is different from fingerprints, number one, they're trying not to identify you to make sure you are who you say you are, but rather to connect you to other random crimes that they haven't yet been able to solve. that's completely different function than fingerprinting is used for when you're first arrested and as you note, alex, when you haven't been convicted of anything. that's first thing. the second point is fingerprints are essentially a unique pattern on your skin. dna is the fundamental blueprint for who you are, your heredity, your ancestry, your genetic frailties. it goes to basic issues of identity. it's a huge amount of information as the technology evolves. >> but in terms of evolving, alan, sure, we have this technology now, but can we look back to fingerprinting? that must have seemed like a shocking technological advancement when it was invented. so can you make an argument this is just science advancing? >> well, that's certainly the

argument a majority of the court made, but i think in this instance justice scalia who dissented, wrote the dissent for the court, is right. number one, fingerprints have traditionally been used to make sure that you are who you say you are, that you're not using a false i.d. dna, and particularly the way it's being used here, is to connect you to cold cases. so imagine if you were speeding. you get pulled over and given a ticket by a police officer and the police officer says to you, you know what? here is a ticket for speeding. i'm going to go to your house and search your bedroom because it's possible you may have committed some other crime we haven't even discovered yet. that's far afield of what's been allowed in the past and it's quite different from getting fingerprinted at the police station. >> interesting, rocket, because alan mentions justice scalia and his dissenting opinion. he's a steadfast conservative yet he ruled against this with three liberals. how big of a surprise was that? >> it's not really a surprise. justice scalia has very definite

views on things like illegal searches, the constitutional rights that people have. what was interesting in this case, one of the usual liberals, justice breyer, he joined the conservatives in the majority, as you say. justice scalia wrote a very fiery dissent. you know, justice scalia is one of the most conservative justices, but he has joked as he did last fall that he should be the pin up for the criminal defense bar because of his views on these matters. >> alan, justice scalia wrote in his dissenting opinion that solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective but it occupies a lower place in the american pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law enforcement searches. so do you agree with that placement there? and if so, where do we draw the line between solving crimes and protecting rights? >> well, i think in this

instance justice scalia is right. you opened your show today with the telephone records searches that the administration has disclosed boo the obama administration. it's a similar issue, that the fourth amendment protects people's privacy except when there's a specific reason to believe they have committed a crime. and so rifling through thousands or millions of phone records without any particularized suspicion, doing a random search of the dna records to see if perhaps you've committed some crime that we don't yet know about, that's as justice scalia notes, a pretty dangerous proposition. the fact some crimes will get solved that way has never been enough to justify the invasion of privacy. the police could go knocking down random people's doors and certainly they would find some evidence of wrongdoing in the aggregate but it would be a fundamental violation of the privacy protected by the fourth amendment. >> i'm curious as we look ahead this week, robert, monday and thursday, what do we expect?

>> well, you know, with he never know what we're going to get. we know there will be decisions on monday and on thursday. there are about 26 cases the court has heard oral arguments about but they haven't decided yet. they have to finish their work by the end of june. so, you know, this is what always happens at the end of the term. a sort of big gush of decisions. the ones we're looking for most closely are very important civil rights cases, one involving the use of race in making college admissions, one involving the voting rights act, the continuation of an important part of the voting rights act and two cases involving same-sex marriage. >> gentlemen, robert barnes, alan jenkins, good to see you both. thank you for your time. >> thank you. a report on nelson mandela's latest health crisis. [ male announcer ] you know what happens

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a battle over a 911 call that is at the heart of a pretrial hearing in the case of george zimmerman. we have a live report next. plus, listen up, more questions about nsa snooping. any more answers? a leading lawmaker joins us. also, super power pow wow. what is president obama hoping to achieve in the meetings. and home economics. how will surging mortgage rates affect the rebounding housing markets? good day to all of you and welcome to weekends with alex witt. 1:00 on the nose in the east. we're going to get to what's happening out there as we have developing news. a pretrial hearing for george zimmerman in a florida courtroom. the judge is listening to testimony from voice experts to determine if their analysis of a 911 call from the day of the shooting should be admissible at trial. nbc's ron mott is joining me from sanford, florida. with another good day to you, what's the latest in the last hour or so since we spoke? >> reporter: hey there, alex. good day to you. we're still on witness number

two of three scheduled, defense witnesses here, talking about the voice recognition software and some of the methodologiies that the state's experts have used to try to say that is trayvon martin you hear screaming on that 911 call. the defense experts are saying, first of all, once you take out the 911 caller and the dispatcher, there's not enough evidence left there to fully analyze and come up with some results that can be scientifically upheld throughout the scientific community, and so that's what this judge is going to have to decide after we get through witness number three this afternoon perhaps is have they proven their case, have the state's experts proven that their methods e use to say that's trayvon you hear screaming on the tape is acceptable to the community and, if so, chances are she probably will allow that tape to be admitted into evidence. it will be a big ruling here. hopefully we'll get it this afternoon, but who knows. this particular witness has gone on for quite some time, alex, and we still have a third to go.

>> we should say tit's a technical thing they're working over. it's ten seconds they'd like to have at minimum and they have four or five seconds playing on a loop. there's arguments to made that's not legitimate enough because it's the same sound over and over again. with regard to other pretrial hearings, they're being very specific about the language they want to have used in court, right? >> reporter: yeah, exactly. there's an outstanding motion that the defense has filed trying to prevent the state from using what they consider highly charged prejudicial statements and terms and phrases that might paint george zimmerman in an unfavorable light to the jury such as profiling or he's a wannabe cop, that he confronted trayvon martin. terms they say are unfair and should not be allowed into evidence in the trial once it gets under way on monday. the judge has not taken up that motion yet, and, in fact, we start at the frey hearing on

thursday pretty late because the judge heard a couple other motio motions, including one involving whether the prosecution should be sanctioned in this case for allegedly withholding evidence from the defense. at one point the judge just caught off the arguments between lawyers and said, i'm going to take this up after the trial. we'll have to see whether george zimmerman's attorney, mark o'meara, wants to try to compel the judge to make a ruling on that before the trial starts. i think he very much wants that to happen but it looks like the judge is going to hold firm and rule on that after the trial. a lot of twists and turns left to go in the 36 hours or so before this trial is expected to get under way on monday with jury selection. >> i was going to say, it all gets going monday morning early. ron mott, many thanks for that live report. we want to let you know george zimmerman has sued nbc universal, the parent company of this network, for defamation. the company has strongly denied his allegations. president obama's wrapping up talks with chinese president ping as we speak. it is the end of a two day summit in southern california.

nbc's kristin welker is in neighboring palm springs. so the second meeting between the two leaders, what was the focus, do we know? >> reporter: the focus was the economy and cyber security. two leaders have been meeting for more than an hour now, alex. i can tell you rompers got a brief glimpse of them while they were walking around the grounds of the sunnilands estate and asked president obama how is it going? he responded terrific. they were sort of out of earshot but report essay they believe they may have been talking about exercise. sort of a lighter part of the conversation that they have been having over these past two days. that's really part of the idea of holding this summit at the sunnylands resort. it's a 1 2 00 acre estate and the goal is to foster a more candid relationship, to lay the groundwork for a better relationship as they deal with difficult issues including north

korea and cyber security. that is certainly one of the big topics that they have been discussing yesterday after their bilateral meeting. president obama said they had talked about it at the 40,000 foot level. so we expect that they have delved deeper into the cyber security issue. the chinese say that the government is not involved. we heard some of that defensiveness when president jinping spoke last night and he said china has also been a victim of cyber attacks. president obama did acknowledge this is a broader problem than just between the united states and china. here is a little bit of what president obama had to say last night. take a listen. >> when it comes to those cyber security issues like hacking or theft, those are not issues that are unique to the u.s./china relationship. those are issues that are of international concern. often times it's not nonstate actors engaging in these issues

as well. >> reporter: and we should say, alex, president xi invited president obama to china for a similar summit in china. what they are hoping for is this is the start of a more open honest dialogue between these two nations as they deal with difficult issues. >> and a long trip for you ahead if you have to cover the president in china. thank you so much, kristin welk er. >> reporter: i would love it. the controversy over government programs designed to gather information from phone companies and the internet raises some questions. joining me now is congressman jerry nadler, a democrat from new york. he's a member of the judiciary committee and ranking member of the subcommittee on the constitution. and with a welcome to you, i'm glad to have you here because i know you were one of several congressmen calling for a congressional hearing into the nsa phone tracking program. your biggest concerns about this are what? >> well, i was one of the opponents of the patriot act

back in 2002 and i offered amendments in 2002, 2005, and 2009 on precisely this point on the business records portion of the patriots act because we anticipated exactly what we've now found. i'm very unhappy this is being done but i'm not shocked it's being done. we ought to have a requirement that before the government can get even metadata, that is who you called, when you called, how long you called, not the contents, they ought to have some indication that you have broken the law or that you might have broken the law. there's an articulable suspicion that you're a suspect, not simply to be able to get a dragnet for every phone call, every internet communication in the united states. that's just wrong. now, the argument is made that, well, completely destroying our privacy may help us catch terrorists. well, first of all, i don't see why that is true as long as you can go after -- if you can

follow the tree when you have any suspected terrorists, any suspect, but even if it were true, if we simply took everybody suspected of a crime and threw them in jail, you'd probably lower the crime rate. we do not eliminate all laws and privacy in this country. >> well, as you know though, senator dianne feinstein, who is chair of the intelligence committee said at least 100 plots have been thwarted since 2009 as a result -- >> and i would bet that all of them -- or 99 of them could have been thwarted if we followed reasonable guidelines. it's like saying -- well, period. i'll say that. because the fact is if you say that in order to get the data on a phone call you have to show some reasonable suspicion, the reasonable suspicion could be this guy called a number of a known suspect. but you at least have to show a court that.

you should get the same information without a dragnet that destroys the privacy of every single american. >> what are you hearing from your constituents about this? there is national security, and there's right to privacy. >> but this is a conundrum that we have had since before the american revolution. the american revolution was launched partly because colonial leaders objected to the british writs of assistance which simply said -- it was a writ you must tell the royal officer anything he wants to know. you must give him any papers he wants. that's why we have the fourth amendment. our forbearers would certainly not have said -- allowed the government to get any information they wanted about any citizen which is what we're talking about. >> what do you think about the comments made by the director of national intelligence, james clapper, who says this leak is reprehensible, we are now giving terrorists information on how we conduct our information trying to get them. >> first of all, i think any terrorist who didn't think that any time he communicated by cell

phone or other electronic devices he might be picked up by american intelligence is a very negligent terrorist. i don't think that really presented a danger. the fact is i won't say -- it is good that we know, not the specifics. it is good that we know that our government is doing this so that congress, which is partly been kept in the dark with a few exceptions, and the american people can make judgments and take actions. our civil liberties must be protected. >> i want to ask you about that, congress being kept in the dark. senator feinstein said anybody who wants to get information about the things on which they have voted, and obviously we have allowed the patriot act to continue and the like, can get it. there are those who said we didn't know what was going on -- >> most -- ia lot of people vot, i didn't, but a lot of people voted for it without realizing the implications. >> why do they not realize the

implications? >> because congressional leaders and the administration were denying the implications. they said we're not going to look at every phone call americans make. no one ever said that. the members of the intelligence committee have been briefed, some of them. some of the members of congress have been briefed. most members have not been briefed in detail on this, and, you know, members of congress have to deal with a lot of subjects. there aren't that many who look at in detail at these kinds of issues. >> when those numbers that are privy to classified information in congress are briefed, can they not share that information -- say you were to call one of your colleagues and say i need to know what we're dealing with here. >> i can brief -- yes, i can say to other colleagues certain information. i'm not even sure i can say to any colleagues because they're not on the appropriate committee but some of it you can. you can't say it on the floor. you can't say it in public.

some of the frustration senator widen and senator merkley had when they knew what was going on and they couldn't say it out loud. it's hard to make a political case for congress to act. >> are you going to be supporting investigations into finding out who has done the leaking? >> well, it's not a question of supporting. the investigations will proceed i assume. so i don't have to decide whether to support it or not. and there are leaks and there are leaks. some more damaging. frankly, the leak of the prison information, although we anticipated that, i was not surprised by that, but others -- that affected things abroad and that leak may have been more damaging. frankly, the first leakizon and were given metadata, i don't see

how that is damaging at all. >> is it because we're damaging the operation of prism or the image. do we know prism has thwarted some terrorist attacks. >> i don't know that. i don't know that. i can't answer that question. >> how frustrated are you by all of this? >> well -- >> as you said, you have been o potsing the patriot acts -- >> not the entire patriot acts. parts of it. certainly this part. because we anticipated that this could be the result. we were assured it wouldn't be but we anticipated it could be. and there are things we can do. we wanted to narrow this provision to say that before you could get this data, you have to show some articulable -- not probable cause, not even reasonable suspicion, but some articulable reason to suspect that you might find out something useful by going after this phone number or whatever. not just a dragnet. and that's the least the american people can expect. >> all right. representative gerald nadler, always good to have you. thank you. >> good to be here.

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in santa monica, california, police are seeking a motive after a shooting rampage leaves a gunman and four of his victims dead. police say the shooting spree began at a house in santa monica and ended on the camp sus of santa monica city college where they found and fatally shot the gunman. let's talk about police and what they're saying was the genesis of this rampage. any clear clues on that? >> reporter: not yet, not at this stage. in fact, in the next two hours or so police are expected to hold a news conference and perhaps shed more light into the motivations and, more importantly, the identity of this gunman but they've been very tight-lipped about who the

perpetrator was and who may have motivated him to go on this deadly rampage. but for the time being, the investigation has focused on the campus of santa monica college. it's saturday morning here, a campus of 35,000 students. today it is a crime scene as they try to piece together what exactly happened. they have also gone to the residents of who they believe to be the gunman to try to gather more evidence. for the time being though, no clear indication as to who the gunman was. for the witnesses though that survived this, some very horrifying accounts have come out so far. here is what they have to tell us. >> it was really kind of just nonemotion nonemotional. i don't know if he was zoned out or focused but he seemed very calm. he wasn't running. wasn't moving around quickly. he was just standing there and looked like panning around to see who he could shoot. >> they had us call out on our hands and niece out the door and down the stairs and the doors to

the library were shot down. all the glass was shattered everywhere and there was blood from the entrance all the way down the stairs of the library and there was a body on the left-hand side. >> reporter: now, president obama who was also in the area was never at any danger at any time according to the secret service, though his travel plans had to be rerouted because of police helicopters that were hovering over the area. alex? >> amon mow ha dean, thank you for that live report. let's go from there to front page politics. cory booker is officially throwing his hat in the ring. the mayor of newark announced he is running for the senate seat left vacant by frank lautenberg who died earlier this week at age 89. >> when we work together, i know from experience that there is no problem we can't solve. i'm here today because i know

who we are and what we are capable of doing together for new jersey and for our nation. >> new jersey's republican governor chris christie has set a special senate election with primaries taking place august 13th and a general election slated for october 16th. meantime, a new gallup poll shows nearly 6 in 10 americans believe high-ranking irs officials in washington were aware the irs had a practice of targeting conservative political groups for greater scrutiny. 25% say they think knowledge was mainly limited to the agency's office in cincinnati where those mishandled applications were processed. 50% of americans believe high ranking officials in the obama administration were aware of the targeting. more on president obama defending the government's secret surveillance program saying congress has repeatedly authorized the collection of american's phone and u.s. internet use. joining me now, political reporter for "u.s. news & world report" lauren report and political editor for the grio

perry bacon, jr. good to see you both. perry, a lot of members of congress are defending these programs as well. the general take from capitol hill is what as you read it? >> it's very mixed. you've had "the washington post" wrote today about 50 members of congress in the last few days have objected to the phone call monitoring through verizon. you have 50 members, almost 1 of 10 members nervous about this tp at the same time the leadership in congress whether it's dianne feinstein or nancy pelosi or john boehner, they are in general supportive. you have at the lower levels some republicans and democrats very wary of this but at the top levels you have general support. that's why the issue is not very clear cut right now in terms of reaction on capitol hill. >> lauren, your latest articles is titled, liberals, obama at odds over the nsa program.

how much do z congress know about the programs. is it the handling of the situation or is it beyond that? >> one of the things that scrambles politics on capitol hill is issues of spying, issues of national security, and issues of privacy, and one of the issues that a lot of folks are having is they say, yes, some members in the intelligence committee were briefed on this, they knew about it. certainly members of congress have voted on the fisa reauthorization act, the patriot act. folks are somewhat aware, but everyone seems tofer their own ideas of what they knew and when they knew it. chairman dianne feinstein had a lot more information than other people and there were some senators on the intelligence committee like senatorwi wyden o said they were concerned about this all along but we couldn't say anything on the senate floor but we couldn't voice our concerns. >> here is where politics comes into it. i want to quote from your

article, many key democrats were critical of the wiretapping program but are now having a hard time criticizing a president in their own party who is seemingly doing the same thing. >> yeah. this is one of those tricky things. there are a lot of liberals who got behind the president when he was senator obama and said this guy is going to protect privacy and he's going to be able to balance this in a better way than president bush was, but what we've seen here is some people are disappointed. they're saying we voted for you and you basically even though these programs were created under the bush administration, you have strengthened in some ways and carried out these programs that were created. >> and so perry, with regard to the frustration within the white house, which i imagine must be there, lauren makes a good point. these were programs started underneath the bush administration, but now it's the obama administration that has to defend them publicly. >> i don't think the president is surprised by these

criticisms. i think if you listen to him yesterday, he was not surprised that some people like ron widen who have been concerned about the drone program, concerned about other civil liberty issues as well. this criticism is not surprising. i think the white house was upset these stories emerged. you saw the president yesterday talk about how he didn't like the leaks coming out again. but this controversy is not new in the sense that we have sort of a core group of some republicans like rand paul and a bunch of democrats like wyden and john conyers who are wary of a growing national security state and you have that fight against the executive and the legislators that have crossed the bush and obama presidencies. >> i read where it may force congress to pass laws to make these programs more transparent. i guess that could undermine the effectiveness of the programs because then potential terrorists would know what to avoid. >> you had congressman nadler on and i think his point is on. if you're a terrorist, i isn't you already think that the government is mining your

e-mails and mining your phone calls. so i'm not sure that's exactly the right critique of these -- go ahead. >> if that's true and i agree, i was going to bring that up myself with congressman nadler having said this. but if that's true then this whole prism program is it not thwarting what's out there in the terrorist potential attacks? i mean, are we not getting appropriate information from prism? >> i guess the terrorists may be using e-mail while still knowing that their e-mail may be exposed. that's a -- we need to know more about the what the program works and i suspect we never will know these kinds of details about how it works in principle, but the notion that if the congress discusses it the program is obliterated. i think "the new york times" and "washington post" and these newspapers do think about the implications of what they write about before they publish it. there's a broader debate about whether the leaks had the effects the administration says they do. >> and congressman nadler told

me he thinks these debates will get very contentious on capitol hill. we'll have you both back to talk about it. thank you so much. >> thanks. lunch with the oracle of omaha just got a whole lot cheaper. this year's annual charity auction for lunch with warren buffett went last night for just $1 million but this is a bargain when you consider last year's winning bid was a record of nearly $3.5 million. the winner of the auction remained anonymous. for singing definitely dry mouth has been a problem for me. but i'm also on a lot of medications that dry my mouth out. i just drank tons of water all the time. it was never enough. i wasn't sure i was going to be able to continue singing. i saw my dentist and he suggested biotene. it feels refreshing. my mouth felt more lubricated. i use the biotene rinse twice a day and then i use the spray throughout the day. it actually saved my career in a way. because biotene really did make a difference.

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developing news in south africa just before the half hour. nelson mandela is in the hospital this afternoon with what government officials call a serious lung infection. nbc is in south africa. what is the latest on his condition? >> reporter: well, alex, a great deal of anxiety right across south africa. nelson mandela considered to be

the father of the nation. there's a great deal of secrecy concerning where he's being treated and about his condition as well, but here is what we know. nelson mandela was taken from here, his home in johannesburg, to the hospital around 1:30 a.m. this morning. his wife was with him and is tonight at his bedside in pretoria. she was due to be in london today addressing a summit on global hunger but on thursday she decided to cancel. that's when nelson mandela started feeling ill. we now know that his condition subsequently deteriorated. he started feeling much worse today. we know that he's being treated for a recurrence of a lung infection. he's been prone to such infections ever since he was on robin island in captivity when he caught tuberculosis and he's now said to be comfortable in a serious condition but stable, too, alex.

>> this is a man who turns 95 next month. he has been hospitalized a few times, two or three times since december for this recurring condition. the fact that the hospital says he is in serious condition though stable, that's even more than they have usually given out. there's a certain gravity about all this we should say, a seriousness to this. >> reporter: there is a real sense of seriousness here. this is the third time that he's been admitted to hospital so far this year. people are used to hearing these announcements that he's been taken in for treatment, but this is the very first time that government officials have chosen to use that word serious. he's serious but stable but serious nonetheless, but we are being told by officials here in south africa that he is nonetheless in a comfortable condition, alex. >> all right. well, certainly our thoughts and prayers are with him.

thank you some. now to the three big money headlines. who is hiring, rates of change, and cellular differences. joining me is forbes magazine's morgan brennan. tell bus the jobs numbers. >> they were released yesterday. 175,000 jobs were added in may. that number beat analysts' expectations and it was a very positive number despite the fact that we saw tax cuts and we saw the dreaded sequester take effect. still you need to remember we have a long way to go here. that number is still lower than the 200,000 we were averaging a few months back and we still have just under 12 million americans without jobs. interestingly, one of the most positive parts of this report was the fact that the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.6%. it ticked up for all the right reasons. namely the fact that more americans are coming back into the labor force looking for jobs. we saw a record amount of americans drop out. they lost confidence, didn't believe they could find jobs in the market, now they're coming back.

>> that is good news. what about housing? the ultra low mortgage rates seem to be long gone now. >> yeah. so it's important to remember that rates are still near historic lows but they are climbing. the 30-year fixed rate is at about 3.9% this week according to freddie mac. that's 10% higher than last year. it's about 17% higher than it was a month ago. the 15-year fixed rate broke through 3% as well. we're seeing these rates rise because of positive economic reports like the jobs number. the belief is that the federal reserve will begin tapering its $85 billion per month stimulus program, bond buying program, as soon as september. i think rates will continue to climb. if you're a homeowner and you're looking to refinance or you're looking to take out a mortgage, now is probably a good time to do that. still, it's important to remember we are near those historic lows. >> so it's not that bad. what about the new study out from the pew research center about smartphones? >> this is an interesting study. the pew research institute

actually came out with a survey this week, found that 56% of americans now use smartphones. that's up from about 35% two years ago. it means that the majority of americans are now using smartphone devices. and interestingly, android devices are the most commonly used. about 28% of americans use these. closely followed by iphones. here is where it gets even more interesting. when you break down according to income levels, iphones are by far and away the most popular among americans who are earning $150,000 or more. >> forbes magazine's morgan brennan. thank you very much. >> thank you. they lead super powers, but what will their summit actually accomplish? that's next. hat makes you walk a little taller? where does goddess begin? it begins with your skin... revealed by venus for a confident glow the whole world will notice. venus & olay -- gently exfoliates with 5 blades. plus olay moisture bars help lock in moisture for less dryness.

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joining me now is brian walsh, international senior editor for "time" magazine. the latest cover story "the world according to china." before i ask you a couple specific questions, brian, with a welcome, what is the biggest nugget take away from this cover article? >> i think it's really important to see how rising china views itself but also the rest of the world. we sort of assume china, it's this rapidly growing economy, sort of a scary thing i think for a lot of americans. certainly for chinese, they're looking to sort of push themselves into the world, to have more influence, but within china itself, there's a lot of doubt, a lot of concern about the direction of the country. there's worries about the environment. worries about the economic future of the country. we profiled a number of well-off chinese who are looking to travel outside the country to actually live outside the country. so it sort of says on one hand, yes, this is a new power that's ready to throw its weight around. on the other hand, it has issues its own people are concerned about. >> if that's the case, the indication being that the newly elected president is going to have to focus inward, how much

does a summit like this, one under way at sunnylands, how much does that benefit the relationship between these two countries? >> the relationship needs to get a little more serious, a little more personal. that's what president obama and president xi wanted out of the summit. president obama talking about looking at issues from 40,000 feet up which is as far away as you can get. president xi is new, president obama will be around for a number of years. if they can start to talk, maybe they can focus on issues like north korea where there is some overlap where you can actually get something done and those other issues like cyber hacking that are made a lot more difficult. you put those aside and hope they don't interfere with the other issues. >> is there a sense with regard to north korea that china is for lack of a phrase coming around? that they see north korea as being a threat and potentially destabilizing for them as well. >> you do see china getting more serious with north korea and it's important to remember china is the only country that has any real leverage on north korea. at the same time they're very

worry fd they put too much pressure on north carolina, could to backfire on them. it's a little sense they're giving something more. they're seeing how sort of a rekals trant north korea could be a threat to china and the rest of the world. >> does china need us more or does the u.s. need shine more. >> i think it's really equal. you're talking about the two biggest military powers. china needs a friendly relationship with the united states. and for the united states if you want to make progress on things like north korea, on climate change, on the global economy, you also need a pretty productive relationship with china. that doesn't mean it's always going to be very easy. it's going to be extremely fraught as you have a rising power meeting sort of the number one power but at the same time they both need each other really -- they really need to make this relationship work. >> with regard to cyber spying, the president was being very careful the way he was presenting the issues that have come up with china getting into our military secrets and any sort of commercial secrets.

what is the incentive for china to work with the united states and pull back on this and put rules in place? >> there's a commercial element here i think. if you see companies being increasingly worried they can't fairly do business with china, that they have to worry about losing data, losing secrets, that could have an impact on their own economic relationship, on the business there. but at the same time this is for china something they see as really a way to make up for the difference with the united states. the united states is a much larger military power, more influential. it's a way to even the scales and it's going to be harder for them to give that up. >> how much have they gotten from us? how much usable important information? >> that's really up for discussion. i think they've gotten a lot. they've gotten into the military. they've gotten into major companies. we know it's something that's been happening for some time and increasingly know it is connected to the government even though that's something they will never actually publicly acknowledge. certainly it's extremely

worrying. >> brian walsh with "time" magazine, thank you for your time. mitt romney holds a retreat for republican heavyweights but some key democrats show up, too. why does it matter? the big three will tackle that next. hey. they're coming. yeah. british. later. sorry. ok...four words... scarecrow in the wind... a baboon... monkey? hot stew saturday!? ronny: hey jimmy, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico? jimmy: happier than paul revere with a cell phone. ronny: why not? anncr: get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. 14 clubs. that's what they tell us a legal golf bag can hold. and while that leaves a little room for balls and tees, it doesn't leave room for much else. there's no room left for deadlines or conference calls. not a single pocket to hold the stress of the day, or the to-do list of tomorrow. only 14 clubs pick up the right

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it doesn't charge late fees or a penalty rate, ever. because she's got other things to stress about. ♪ go to citi.com/simplicity to apply. it's time for the big three and tooted's top inks, secret data grab, whaets the point and best week/wors weeks. staff writer for salon.com erin car moan, morris reed, republican strategist and msnbc contributor susan del percio. with a big old welcome to all three of you, i'll begin right there in the middle with you, morris. there's some democratic critics of this president including oregon senator jeff merkley. >> clearly the administration has not followed what an ordinary person would consider to be the standard of the law here and has not been willing to release the opinion of the fisa court about how they're intrer preting that language despite repeated requests from

conditioning to do so. >> morris, these are programs that the president inherited from president bush. should he be getting this much heat from his own party? >> well, the senator has a very different job than the president of the united states who is the commander in chief. his chief responsibility is to make sure that america does no harm and we're protected. so i think that these guys have to understand when you run for office, there's a position that you take, but when you're in office and you are running the country, there are different tactics you have to take on. i happen to be very supportive of what the president is doing here. i think that it's important that we double down and make sure that the country is safe. we can't have a flourishing economy if we're not safe first. i think that what they're doing is the right way of handling it. whether some of these liberals and some of the critics maybe on the right may not believe, but i believe the president is handling it the correct way. >> saw sausan, republicans woul vilify the president if some attacks would happen so they

should have no issue with these. without national security there's no need for privacy. do you support the president on this? >> actually i do. i was glad to hear that democrats like morris support president bush's policies that this president has continued. and while it's certainly a difficult time, i think the most important thing to recognize is in washington information is power, and there were a lot of senators and a lot of congress members who were really embarrassed by not knowing this type of information, and i think that's also what you're hearing a lot of blowback from. >> i take issue with one thing my colleague said. this is the difference between -- this is a bush policy. when you're the president of the united states, it's a very different posture than when that you are running for president. i throw this out whether it's george bush or herbert hoover. >> i agree with you. >> listen, but you did do that partisan thing by say -- >> it's a continuation of policies because i agree with you, morris, that you don't know

what's happening until you sit in that chair. so the president did not know when he was running for office what this country faced the same way as he does today. >> and that's exactly why this isn't the continuation of the -- i think people had some problems with it, frankly, susan, because of the leadership of some of the people in the bucksh administration. >> what the president didn't realize is transparency isn't a promise he could deliver on. >> i don't know your fighting. you were going in the same -- >> there should be no partisan about this. this is about protecting america. all of us are protected because of this policy whether it's a republican or a democrat that started it. it's protecting us as a country. >> there's a big difference between going through congress -- going through acts of coming and going through judicial oversight. there's a difference between warrantless rubber stamping and

a warrant from a court. >> i'm curious with you, erin, according to "the washington post" the nsa handles literally trillions of communications a year. is this a testament to how valuable this data is or does it just show how wide the net that the government is casting? >> i mean, i think, you know, i want to sort of contrast with my colleagues here and say that i think that there are very worrying things about the scope you mention of the data that's being collected here. the president says that he welcomes an open debate about this, but up until recently people didn't know it was happening. how are you going to be able to have a debate without any sort of knowledge, not of every single working, not of when it's very sensitive information, but the extent to which people have been taken by surprise of the scope of this program. i mean, how are we possibly going to hold people accountable if we don't even know it's happening. >> we have to move to item number two. i'll begin with you, susan, on this, the next topic, what's the

point with mitt romney holding a retreat but aides say there's no specific agenda and "the washington post" made this observation, quote, romney hasn't exactly loosened up. when the former gop nominee suddenly appeared in the lounge on the way to the kickoff festivities he responded to a question about his ambitions for the conference by grabbing his wife's hand and scampering out the door." so, what's this all about? >> sometimes you need to learn,leave the stage gracefully. and governor romney has not gotten there yet. it would be one thing if he was doing some discrete fund raising, he certainly has the ability to do that for republican candidates anticipated wanted to make himself available to the party but he should not be making news right now. it's really not good for republicans. >> okay. morris, not only are some potential 2016 gop presidential candidate attend, not be surprising, but democrats attending. how do you read this? what do you think the aim of this conference is? >> two-fold, one, a lot of money in that room, people always flock to money.

republicans or democrat. two, frankly, i think that mr. romney setting up for one of his kids to get into politics. this is how you keep politics going a legacy standpoint. he needses to stay relevant. he needs to stay fresh to pass the baton to one of his kids. no accident that the hedge fund spoon shoring is run by one of thinks children. i expect this is a way for him to segue to bring one of his sons into the political fray to perhaps run for higher office at some point. erin, your take on all this? what do you make of this conference? >> incredible how mitt romney can't even open his mouth without creating a gaffe. this week, he said he was sorry that sandy happened when it did not because of the damage that it wreaked in the lives of actual people but because it seemed to hurt his candidacy. now he is having this elitist conference with, you know, cigar rooms and off-the-record sessions. my favorite was that they said that this idea's conference, like his campaign, had no agenda. i don't think anyone, republican or democrat, is clamoring for him to come back and a i'm not

really sure why he didn't. >> can't demonize cigars, love cigar rooms. can't do that now. >> calls the experts enthusiast 2013 conference or e 2 for short. all right. sit tight. we have michelle obama and dollar signs make willing big three's best and worst of the week. so don't go away. oh, he's a fighter alright. since aflac is helping with his expenses while he can't work, he can focus on his recovery. he doesn't have to worry so much about his mortgage, groceries, or even gas bills. kick! kick... feel it! feel it! feel it! nice work! ♪

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we are back with the big three for their best and worst of the week, irin, i will begin with you what is yours? >> the winner of the week, investigative journalism had a great week, despite the fact that people worried that the leak investigations coming out of the doj would have a chilling affect on investigative reporting, a week of scoops, including nbc's scoops on the german program, the guardian and "washington post" on the nsa, the extent of the scrutiny we learned a lot this week about what our government was up to. >> okay, worst? >> worst week bipartisanship around immigration reform. there was at least some fleeting hope that some republicans would see it as being in their

interest to pass comprehensive immigration reform. this week, the many conservatives in the house did what they could to blow that up, whether denying health care or voting. >> morris what is yours? >> the economy, remember that thing that keeps ticking along and creating jobs for americans? no one wants to give us any credit on that the economy is doing well. we loft economy on this side, at least on my -- from my vantage point. my loser is the prime minister of turkey. i mean, here is a guy who had everything going for him. joust mishandled the situation and it's going to be problem for a long time. >> okay. susan, yours? >> best to michelle obama, she was grace in politics and she did something that many politicians wish they could, which was put a heckler in their place. that was a great moment. the worst week set up is the east wing. the west wing had the worst week. i thought morris would

appreciate that. i say the west wing because it's more than president obama. we have these leaks coming out. we have a lot of other things that this white house does not seem like it's competent and it's showing its cracks right now and that's real problem. >> you guys are never a problem though. even when you're fighting. thank you so much. that's wrap for this show, "weekends with alex witt." see you back here at noon tomorrow evening. up next, richard lui in for craig melvin. you are sitting down there? at 4:00, the career disrupt with karen finney h see you tomorrow afternoon. eep your underwear cl. this is another! ta-daa! try charmin ultra strong. it cleans so well and you can use up to four times less than the leading value brand. oh! there it is. thanks son. hey! [ female announcer ] charmin ultra strong has a duraclean texture that can help you get clean while still using less. and it's four times stronger versus the leading value brand. charmin ultra strong helps keep you and your underwear clean. we all go. why not enjoy the go with charmin ultra strong?

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