leaking top secret documents that reveal the nsa domestic surveillance activities make edward snowden a patriot, unless it makes him a traitor. a week after disclosing exclosive details about top secret data mining programs involving phone records and internet communications, the self-identified leaker edward snowden is still believed to be hiding out in hong kong. hundreds of protisters rallied there to hurnlg the city's government to protect snowden and not extradite him to the u.s. on thursday robert mueller said authorities will track him down. >> he is a subject of an ongoing criminal investigation. these disclosures have caused significant harm to our nation and to our safety. we are taking all necessary steps to hold the person responsible for these disclosures.

>> snowden was a computer systems administrator for a national security agency contractor. we learned thursday he used a thumb drive to smuggle top secret documents out of the agency in hawaii where he worked. according to "l.a. times" they now say they know how many documents snowden took. he outed himself last sunday just after this show went off the air in an interview published by "the guardian." he was holed up in a hong kong hotel and sparked a government debate. snowden reportedly checked out of that hotel on monday and then resurfacing on wednesday in an interview with a hong kong newspaper "the south china morning post." that interview conducted at an undisclosed location. the u.s. has been hijacking computers in hong kong since 2009 and backed up that claim with what the paper verified as

documents. in the same paper on thursday snowden said i'm neither traitor nor hero, i acted in good faith but only right that the public form its own opinion. political leaders and the american public are, indeed, forming their own opinions and they are scrambling party lines. >> for somebody to tell the american people the truth is a heroic effort. >> he's a traitor. the disclosure of this information puts americans at risk. >> i don't see how that compromises this country. >> committing civil disobeadance is a big step forward. >> he should be prosecuted. >> prosecuted to the full extent of the law. >> very courageous outing. >> behold the face of evil. >> right now i'm joined by anna marie cox senior political reporter at "the guardian" and

msnbc analyst matt miller columnist for "washington post" and host of "right, left and center." if ever a week to have two "guardian" people, this is it. listening to the montage of political leaders at the end there when we had had the tease at the beginning, patriot or traitor, i guess my instinct is there has to be some kind of middle ground. patriot and traitor where we can peg edward snowden. it has a very specific definition and a very serious crime. whatever he did, it may be illegal, but i don't know if traitor is really the right word for it. i think it's possible for somebody to be both a patriot and disobey laws. disobeying law does not make you necessarily a traitor. i think what's interesting here is i think politicians are scrambling because the american

public has no set opinion on this. politicians would go the direction the wind is blowing if there was a clear direction of it. the american people seem to have sort of ambivalent feelings. >> can i suggest, grandiose criminal as a phrase. grandiose describing 29-year-old who has been frustrated every step along the way and joined the army and the people who were training him weren't sophistically dedicated to trying to make iraq a better place, they just wanted to kill arabs, in his words. he has this kind of self-importance and clearly broke the law and had other options if he wanted to spark a debate that would not make him an international celebrity fleeing the country to go somewhere else. if he's already talking about revealing that we hacked into chinese computers, what else is he planning to reveal, maybe you guys know, maybe you can't share now that the "guardian" is setting the global news agenda. i think what he's done is dead

wrong. >> can i jump in here. the focus on edward snowden and particularly to call him a traitor is a tactic to discredit before we even start considering the importance and the magnitude of what he has disclosed about the blanket surveillance of americans' phone and internet data. focusing on snowden is an enormous, enormous distraction. >> he made us focus on him, what are you talking about? >> every paper that publishes a story about him has a choice of whether or not to do it. i, for one, we can talk about what a character he is and certainly he's a character, but as far as the data goes, we can't choose our leakers. i mean, as the americans, everyone who leaks something like this is probably going to be a little cracked. it takes a little bit of craziness to do something like this. >> i think it takes confidence

but maybe craziness, but, again, talking about the man, but something here that i've been wondering about. did the national security agency think that this is never going to be revealed? was there no action plan they had that once this massive program was revealed what you're getting in the public whether they hug this guy or hate the leaker, there is a market shock to the fact that all our phone data is going in a massive bank before we were ready to say, yes, the public wasn't dealt in. wikileaks and i'm not the biggest fan of wikileaks but what they have in common is they're reacting to the fact that we had secrecy in this country that has gone unfixed. people ahead of the administration say get ahead of this. action driven response to thinks i think that are almost happening naturally. >> the access, the prism thing. the access to the internet servers of the major, wasn't that the new news? i thought the nsa phone data

mining has been public for six, seven years. >> a lot of confusion about these point rather deliberately by the bush administration and obama administration after it. the extent to which your phone data, your internet communications is being vacuumed up by the national security apparatus of the united states has never before been even acknowledged, yet alone made public. >> i thought reports about the nsa data mining of phone call stuff for five or six years. am i wrong about that? >> i think the scale is what's new. >> most people have written about the nsa have the impression and usually the nsa focused on the international system and not that there was a big black box over the united states is that they were able to go grab words and grab content and grab selectively and for those cases you would also have the fisa court which, apparently, to the president's mind, legitimates all of this was the way this was done. no one really conceived of a notion that you would have an

open-ended, inperpetuity legal authorization to grab everything. >> there are a couple different issues. one that i wanted to follow up and someone said a minute ago, if snowden wanted to get this stuff out and wanted to have this kind of debate, he had other options. i wonder what other options were there given the secrecy of the program? >> you guys have like ron who has been a real skeptic of what the nsa and the government has done. my guess is someone who wanted to be a whistleblower to work with congressional authorities, here's the kind of hearings we need to do and the idea of just doing a data dump of all this stuff that is classified that you took a sworn oath not to reveal. >> can i address this? >> when we say data dump, a distinction between what we can draw. a little more deliberate than what was done with wikileaks, this is somebody who says i don't want all of this.

>> this is daniel elsburg decades later. he did exactly what this guy did. he had access to classified documents that shook the foundation of the united states with what was revealed and he took great risk and went through a great process to try to unfold. but i would find that those who i think benefitted from daniel els elsburg to supply the same -- the president of the united states says we need to have this debate, but the president did nothing to precipitate the debate. we're only having the debate. >> can i speak to what the other options are. i have been reporting on ron wyden directly with the senator talking to him extensively for the last two years specifically on this one. point that he has been making for the last two years even back to 2008 is that entirely in secret, the government has an inwere ititation of the law, specifically the so-called business of the patriot act that

vastly more surveillance than the text of the public law on its face authorizes. he expressed great frustration that even the interpretation of the law, a public law, is classified. he can't even begin to talk about this. there's not a remedy here. >> so, do you support what snowden did? i don't know the answer. >> wyden because he's on the senate intelligence committee is being very careful and he's not in favor of the leaking of classified information. i think what you will find if you talk to him is that the available remedies for even senior senators on the committees that are supposed to oversee the intelligence committee in the house and senate when they get the answers about what is happening to the communications of american citizens. >> i want to pick that point up in a minute. there is, steve said, the president said he welcomes the debate on this, it's true. we're only having the debate

because somebody breached. they had top secret clearance and they gave the information public. only reason we're having the debate. valuable debate on one end but consequences for somebody who violates top secret clearance like this. we'll get into it after this. ♪

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just want to play this sound. this was edward snowden talking to "the guardian" last week about why he came forward and why he leaked all this stuff. >> when you're in positions of privileged access, like a system's administrator for the sort of intelligence community agency as, you're exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale than the average employee and because of that, you see things that may be disturbing. that awareness of wrongdoing sort of builds up and you feel

compelled to talk about it. the more you talk about it, the more you're ignored and the more you're told it's not a problem until you realize that these things need to be determined by the public, not by somebody who was simply hired by the government. >> i'm interested in how to think about a leaker in a situation like this. he said he feels this obligation to have the public make this decision insftead of the government, but he is making the decision himself. somebody who had a top secret security clearance and i had these documents and i think it's fine for me to violate this clearance and make it public. steve clemens, it seems to me, some sort of consequence for that, shouldn't there? >> i do believe that there is a case where we need to review what leakers do and put them up against the measure of law. so, i believe some form of consequences. in a way, i feel very vexed about this. if your commander asked the soldier to do something that was

it may be hard for the person to defect but the right response from that soldier is to walk away. this is not anything different. i think when someone like snowden at least thus far with what we know saw something he felt and knew it was so far removed from what americans thought their government was doing and then played that role, i do find it very much like daniel elsburg. >> a difference when you talk abo about daniel elsburg this was revealing lying to congress. >> the director of national intelligence went to the united states and gave a hearing and was asked specifically about a program that would approximate this and clapper said, no, we're not doing, we're not wittingly doing what you're asking. and when dianne feinstein was asked on msnbc about that issue, he said he couldn't lie. he misspoke.

that's the world we have become in. >> but that gets, but doesn't that get into a slightly more difficult situation. congress was briefed in the enclosed sessions and what happened with clapper and wyden in a public session asking about top secret information it reveals -- >> but it wasn't, we have a problem where there's been a massive expansion of both secrecy and executive branch power. certainly true that other branches of government were complicit in what we have and we have to ask this fundamental question. if the american people reacting as they are today, then something structurally wrong. >> all the questions to raise to strike the proper balance between security and privacy. but this is all in the wake of 9/11. >> a 12-year-old law. >> thanks to diligence, law and

thousands and thousands who are assigned to protect us. if we had other major attacks in the last dozen years, this whole conversation would be a luxury. the american people would expect. if we had major attacks and we weren't using data mining as a way to try to identify the needle in a haystack. >> you don't know until you watch it under stress. in the cold war when sovi sovie union was around. we wanted it look different and respect human rights. >> those are -- >> this doesn't happen. >> those are all fair questions and we're also in a different era. google and facebook are doing basically the same thing. if edward snowden came out from one of the major internet companies and said, i can't, in good conscious, go along with the fact that everyone clicks are being mined and being sold for millions of dollars, then the american public might have an outrageous reaction to that, as well. but we're in a different era. >> that is the point.

>> that's the -- >> it's not the whole point. if we had other 9/11, you would be just as outraged that they hadn't been using broad data mining to identify potential people. >> we might also benefit from technical considerations that the accumulation of data is, itself, a hinderous to targeted surveillance. consider that. >> they are almost actually collecting too much data. i mean, also, i think -- by the way, i want to reject the idea that you're telling me, personally, how i would feel about this kind of collection. >> i'm hypothesizing if we had a terrorist attack and we aren't using every means -- >> vacuuming up all thisidata and steve made a very valuable point. we no longer have a bad guy to compare ourselves to in terms of civil rights. this emorfs 12-year-old long war and we're going to win at any

cost. and that's a different picture than the cold war. we lost the habit of thinking about the united states having a define set of values of which privacy is actually the number one thing. all of our individual rights stem from the right to privacy. but i want to go to -- >> google and facebook. >> but, the data collection, i am, actually. but i also think a fundamental difference between data collection for fundamental version and a state that could punish me. >> but you're offended and outraou outraged by the other. >> i'm concerned. again, google cannot put me in jail. you know, like the data collection that is done -- >> google is just trying to make money on you and not trying to protect you from terrorist attack. >> i feel like i'm -- >> we're going to take a break here. but i want to get to this, what people make of this because interesting poling data that said two very different things. and we've made a big commitment to america.

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watch how the public reacted to this at least through polling and two questions that were released this week that jumped out at me. a poll conducted by cbs news. the public's position on the issue of collecting phone records of ordinary americans. if you ask that, approve 38% disapprove 58. not a popular concept. take that same concept and ask it this way, whether it is necessary for the government to collect ordinary americans phone records to find terrorists, to fight terrorists. suddenly, this thing people don't approve of, they now believe is necessary the 53% to 40% score. i think a lot of people are trying to balance these two things. and distinctive for privacy with, hey, have we prevented anything in the last 12 years that could have happened and could something like this prevented 9/11. when that is introduced into the equation, things start to change on this. >> this is something technicians understand probably better than the general public does because they're exposed to it more.

the accumulation of data is, in many cases, a hinderous to solving the problem that these programs are supposed to solve. the military has been dealing with this over the last several years as increasingly powerful surveillance tools have become more widespread. vastly more input than you have the ability, the man hours and thefulf algurrisms to sift through it. what you should be looking for. there tends to be among people who are in high-pressure situations. i'm taking the nsa in completely good faith. it's acting in completely good faith as it does this for the sake of this discussion, an impulse that we've seen in many other circumstances. my colleague at foreign policy magazine, an excellent book on this that everyone should read called "the watchers" as they look for terrorists and find that they can't find them and have a tremendous fear that something will go wrong on their watch. the impulse is to say, it's

because we don't have enough inputs. they gather more. the impulse to do that is self-perpetuating and that becomes increasing ly a problem with finding the haystack. >> i have to say, we can be morally outraged about, maybe rightfully, but morally outraged about the idea of domestic surveillance and the idea of losing our privacy and just so happens, by the way, this doesn't get in the way and stops in the way of terrorism. >> that's a better point. >> doesn't the argument have to be made, i feel at a certain point if you're truly, morally outraged about this, do you have to not make the argument at a certain point, yeah, there is a balancing act and you're going to have to give up a little bit. >> my point is an slaination of real situations that the military and intelligence agencies have been doing. >> do you think it's possible, though, that attacks have been prevented because of this? >> it's possible. but i think what's more important than conceding what is possible for the sake of argument is having the

intelligence agencies detail very specifically what they prevented and how these programs in a unique, in a unique fashion. not saying surveillance in general has contributed to stopping the attacks. >> we could all live in the east berlin and have surveillance and change it. what we're discussing in a way that may have been healthier a few years ago. the fact is that the american public was not dealt in to these questions and now we're having the debate we should have had years ago. jim clapper and those are behind the curve in terms of how to begin to have this sort of discussion on the security tradeoffs so the 53% of americans who think it's okay could have exhibited that. that is an unfair burden on this conversation because they didn't do that. we have to ask ourselves, why didn't they do that and don't we as a nation in a democracy have the right to have demanded that conversation earlier? >> there is, for instance,

dianne feinstein who is supportive of these programs. she wants detailed information out there -- >> were incidents prevented. when you think about national security and whether it's deployed through intelligence like this or sending drones abroad, innocence wrapped up in these and may find cases where capacity is being used for nonterrorist related stuff. we're being told by the government, trust us. when you do things like we have, trust diminishes. most of the laws we have in place are not designed for benign leadership or a good guy like barack obama to run in. they're basically put in place because we have to fear a bad leader coming in and doing things. i would not want to live under a bad leader with the kind that we're showing. >> let's speak to one more institutional point when his colleague and jeff murkily and now that, you know, as well, mike lee rand paul and others and senator are talking about come is that on the face of it, the laws that congress have

passed to balance surveillance in some way, even if you think they're too broad, what's been described under these programs, what may have reported about these programs is much broader than what the laws passed by congress authorize and it's a real big concern for, you know, considering an institutional remedy. because in private, the government is saying, we can reinterpret these laws to do what we want to do. but how do you pass another law binding that surveillance? >> i just want to point out this idea that you have to have, whether or not you have to have an opinion whether it's security or privacy that matters and come down on one side or the other which is something you implied. it's an imperfect world that we live in and sometimes privacy and security as being an a arm's race. we make strides in one and then make strides in the other. but as we're talking about this, i wonder if it's more like a market and the government has been operating in a

competition-free market for privacy. you know, they have gone and done all this stuff without like the check of a competition and they operated in secrecy without people talking about privacy. and now that it's the bubble has exploded. i mean, what they have done. they vastly overstepped the bounds that we gave them and they did this without us knowing about it and now we found out about it and almost reign everything back in. >> can someone explain, what is actually the overstepping of the bounds you're saying? >> we're going to answer that, right after this. ♪ now you can give yourself a kick in the rear! v8 v-fusion plus energy. natural energy from green tea plus fruits and veggies. need a little kick? ooh! could've had a v8. in the juice aisle. [ 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

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all right, may i ask a question, spencer. >> matt asked a very good question -- >> thank you, spencer. >> of course, man. >> have a croissant. >> matt asked a very good question on how the collection done under these national security agency programs exceeds the boundaries of the public law, section 215, the business

records provision of the patriot act and that's something they have been worrying about and warning about. the answer is, when you read the law. the language of it says the government can collect "all tangible things relevant to an a investigation in these fields." but the data for all americans for their phone records, their numbers and length and duration of their calls and possibly the locations of those calls aren't related to an investigation. they precede an investigation. a really good point by the legal scholar ben wittis of the brookings institution who tends to be, deferential is, an understanding of the government's interest in protecting national security and very vigorous in going about doing that. he gives them somewhat of a wide berth. he wrote an interesting column on monday that if this broad meta data collection is relevant

to an investigation, what is it? >> you also have, to spencer's point, the director of national intelligence, he believes the collection of this data does not really require authorization. in other words, it's not the same thing and that is, you wouldn't even perhaps need the fisa -- >> this is an interesting poin that we tried to nail dianne feinstein, the chair woman of the senate intelligence committee on. head of the national security agency testified about on wednesday before the senate appropriations committee is that they're assuring you, they've got this database, but only under strict conditions can they query it and pulsate to try to find suspected connections when they have a reasonable and articiable standard. do they have to go to the secret surveillance court and get authorization before they query

that meta data. the answer that senator feinstein gave me when i asked her about this on thursday, what is the check? they are determining for themselves technicians, who i am sure are act aing from your perspective, responsibly, and trying to stop attacks on the united states. they do this unilaterally and in secret and they do this under an incredibly vast pool of meta data they swim in of american citizens. >> are there specific instens you guys know of that there has been -- >> that's the point of the right to privacy. >> no, it's the point of my question, though. >> right, but it almost doesn't matter. if we have to say we're going to wait for someone is arrested, i think that's sort of waiting too long. >> i can actually answer the question. >> it would arguably be more disturbing if there had been instances -- >> spencer said he has an

answer. >> in june of 2012, senator wyden got director clapper to declassify in a broad sense an admission from the dreblirectort the fisa court found on one instance that the surveillance conducted, it's unclear specifically where and what on content and meta data but it violated the fourth amendment at least once. so, a court that operates in secret that basically exists as a mechanism to provide surveillance that isn't anned aver serial court and that nearly never turns down requests for surveillance founded on at least one case they could talk about publicly that searching, that surveillance program violated the fourth amendment, americans right to privacy. >> what is your reform? >> i'm a journalist. >> again, you don't have to come down on one side of it. >> but i think this is a good,

this is a good question to end on, though. where can we go from here? we talked about dianne feinstein and others have called for disclosure here and you say attacks have been prevented. let's get details of those. calls for releasing actually the opinions from the courts on what exactly the legal justification is for these programs. you know, would that be helpful? a specific legislative action. >> good to know what the case studies are of successes and failures of overreach. of victims in this process, which we haven't begun to consider, which i think is always the balance we have to have. everyone lined up the plus column, oh, this terrorist attack was prevented. which working families where people were undermined. i'll tell you an interesting thing. david ignatius wrote, snowden david ignatius wrote a wonderful novel called "blood money" and in this novel essentially a couple years ago told this whole story. screen all calls and all

financial records and what happened was a snowden-like guy, but a snowden-like guy but who worked for pakistan was in it and trying to kill cia agents. but what he described was there. we already have the telling us what's coming. in the process, that's where it goes back to snowden. if you have individuals and ones but those who want to do harm, we end up creating a world of big data about how our american runs and who is doing what to whom. it's enormous power and enormous capacity without control. i think we need to have transparency, rules, regulations for a very different world of intelligence than we have today. >> i want to thank spencer ackerman for joining us. few industries are changing more rapidly than healthcare.

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walmart. the white house announced on thursday to fight the regime of al assad. the obama administration had already been supplying nonlethal humanitarian aid to the rebels. they questioned whether it will go far enough. spokesperson for the free syrian army told "the washington post" if they send small arms, how can small arms make a difference? they should help us with real weapons, antitank, antiaircraft and with armored vehicles." killing up to 150 people. so far as many as 93,000 people died in the syrian war overall, according to the united nations. ben rodes said in a statement on

thursday "the president said in the use of chemical weapons it would change his calculus, and it has. the assad regime should know that its actions have led us to increase the scope and scale of assistance that we provide to the opposition." create a military no-fly zone in syria. according to a report from politico. okay, see what a big mess it is, stay out. i think that's a big mistake. i agree with you about this. sometimes it's best to get caught trying, as long as you don't overcommit. he said he was simply answering a question during the forum when he made his remarks on syria. also praised the obama administration decision to provide military aid to the rebels. >> some logistical complications as you might imagine in getting more support into them and he wants to talk to our allies and see whether they can help on

that, this upcoming g8 meeting. looks to me like this thing is treading in the right direction now. >> want to bring in perry bacon jr., a political editor for our sister site. you know, i guess, it's all outward signs as i look at this. this is something the president is doing and the administration is doing very reluctantly. this is something that a moment they tried to avoid and it almost feels like they feel compelled to do something and they are doing -- >> they want to act like they're doing something. >> i think so because of the chemical weapon thing. i was on the white house call that ben rhodes did the other day and a couple questions not answered. the reason the president did not move forward on the chemical weapons use, one, what was the chain of custody and what was the chain of command? we should have signals intelligence that tells us how the syrian command staff reacted one way or another. we didn't have that discussion.

using chemical weapons is, it's horrible to say this, but it's a low number. what dowe know about why they use chemical weapons in such a minor way. so, there are a lot of questions about that, i think. then the bigger question i also don't think that people get is that getting more deeply involved in syria, 93,000 people have died and clearly a humanitarian question. but the question, how does that fit into the broad american interest when you have a s sectarian war under way and unless you can answer those questions stuteejically it doesn't answer that large question of where does it fit

struteakically and they begin to see, wow, america has more assets. if we get drawn down into another pit, that sends signals we're military overextended or distracted, again. those are things the white house has not answered. >> it's a very tough situation because it does feel like they are trying to thread some political needle that is so perfect in so many ways. 90,000 people have been killed already and now the last 150 because of this awful, you know, use of chemical weapons potentially that now we're going to do something. on the other hand, you can imagine why they feel like they have to show some marker in the international community that if you cross that line, we're going to do something, but we're not going to do too much. clinton, his whole thing is, i think he looks back at the balkans and rowanda and feels like he waited too long. and his actual formulation of sometimes it's better to get caught trying is the kind of perfect political formulation. >> he got caught trying. >> what didn't run on that clip

was, you know, the most powerful part of it and the most absurd was, obama will look foolish. you don't make strategic decisions about life and death and deployed people over the way things look. you have to ask that, you know, cold question of how do you win or how do you move forward. in this particular case with the rebels, you know, the broad question. ben quoted in the paper this morning saying we would know more about the content and the syrian resistance than we did six months ago that we can get in and help. we don't know the inventory. the white house went out of its way and we do not know the inventory of what we're going to be sending. we can help do things to increase the cohesiveness and the traction of the syrian resistance. part of the syrian resistance and very, very hard line and hard core islamists and we also talk about this syrian

resistance monolithically and what i hear in the paper today from ben rhodes who is a great guy and smart and we're still trying to pick winners and losers inside the syrian resistance on who we will deal with. and i think that's a problem. >> syria today is, what, iraq ten years ago, lebanon 30 years ago. this is sectearian violence breaking out. >> it will be if the inf infrastructure of the syrian collapses. all the big players are worried. the saudis, they have a little directorate that is trying to call bureaucrats and say, don't leave. if assad ends up falling or going, we want you to stay in the country to help continue to run the country and we will protect you from the rage that comes later. and being responsible. because they're very worried that the collapse of the state, it will create iraq-like situation. >> i was reporting this morning that the king of jordan showed some demonstration of a map that there would be some vast tracks

of desert land where al qaeda would operate freely. it's tough, it's scary. >> an interesting question, why is that 150 people who were hurt, who were killed by the chemical weapons and why does that matter more than 90,000. might be a polling answer to that. we'll show after this. [ stewart ] this is the kind of food i love to cook. i'm very excited about making the shrimp and lobster pot pie. we've never cooked anything like this before. [ male announcer ] introducing red lobster's seaside mix & match. combine any 2 of 7 exciting choices on one plate for just $12.99! like new cheddar bay shrimp & lobster pot pie,

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so, i wanted to show some polling on the syria situation which partly explains why the obama administration is reluctant to get in. this is what to do in syria and representative of all the polls you see out there. just humanitarian, that is the most popular. no action. 24%. two out of three people are saying nothing or humanitarian and only 15% are talking about military action and arms. the interesting thing, though, when you ask the question, if it can be established and be proven that assad has used chemical weapons, would you favor, you know, a military intervention, suddenly those numbers, i don't think we have it up there, i

just saw it ten minutes before the show. it jumps to 65%, that term chemical weapons. used to sell the iraq war ten years ago, the potency of, wow, a dictator out there still stirs and moves public opinion in this country. >> also the thing the president said. i think the public is primed to hear those terms and think about it in that way and that's what pushed him this week. april 18th the british and the french said chemical weapons are being involved here. once that happened, i think that was -- we talked about bill clinton. his comments were coming and the president already decided this as they talked about yesterday. they had already decided this and the reason was, once the british and the french said that put us on this path where he can no longer stay out of it as long as he wanted to. the key questions they're trying to figure out at the white house, is this libya? is this bosnia or kosovo or iraq. they think it's more like iraq and i'm not sure that's exactly

right. that's the calculus. they think it's like iraq and too many groups and too complicated and not easy to solve. if you had a poll of libya last year. libya, too, but that still worked. i don't think that is necessary where the public, the president himself is very aware. >> if he is and if the risk is lebanon, that sort of situation. if you dip your toe in the water, how do you get out? >> i think getting out is the big issue. you have to understand the president was deploying his time where he wants to be focused, which is in a summit focused on china. and they are trying to keep a small footprint in syria and in the broader middle east, you know, for their so-called asia pivot because they look at the growth and gains to the u.s. economy more come from asia and where matt lives in pacific palisades in california, that range of the world. >> we're driving to new york now. >> the thing that is very

interesting to me and i don't know yet if the white house is making a very bad calculation here, the white house has been trying to, you know, libya was a cheap tipping point thing. certain criteria that mattered to the president's national security adviser in terms of pushing before they came in. the key in this case, is chemical weapons. still, if it's a chemical weapons driven strategy, what is the strategy to secure chemical weapons or deal with creating a surgical accountability for those who led the use of those. as a opposed to becoming part of the war and beginning to invest more deeply and getting into a regime change deployment of any kind, or advice. that's a very different question. a very different set of commitments than dealing with how you deal with the chemical weapons. i thought had white house given libya and how they maintained a small footprint of what they did would take a more weapons strategy. israelis have been very restrained. i have a lot of respect. they have intervened and bombed

and very distantly. i thought the white house in its rhetoric gone beyond that. >> i would like to thank steve clemons and matt miller. pacific palisades, i didn't know that. nice place. the america voted for barack obama twice probably won't be the america that votes in 2014. i'll explain that, next. little things anyone can do. it steals your memories. your independence. ensures support, a breakthrough. and sooner than you'd like. sooner than you'd think. you die from alzheimer's disease. we cure alzheimer's disease. every little click, call or donation adds up to something big. [ both laughing ] but our plants were starving. [ man ] we love to eat. we just didn't know that our plants did, too. then we started using miracle-gro liquafeed every two weeks.

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it's debilitating when you try to talk, when you're trying to eat, when you're trying to sleep. i'm constantly licking my lips. water would address the symptoms for just a few minutes. the hygienist recommended biotene. it's clean and refreshing, i feel like i have plenty of fluid in my mouth. i brush with the biotene toothpaste and i use the mouthwash every morning. it's changed my life. it is the last thing i do before i walk out the door. biotene gives me that fresh confident feeling. it is the last thing i do before i walk out the door. ♪ i' it is the last thing i do before i walk out the door. 'm a hard, hard ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm working every day. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm saving all my pay. ♪

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become the has been. not only guest star on "love boat" but also "fantasy island." that it what his life was like until he discovered politics. he ran for mayor of palm springs, california, in spring of 1988 and then ran for congress as a republican because 1994 was a very good year to be a republican. newt gingrich contract with america, you know the deal. he won that race, too. nice little comeback story. he had matured and started a new life with a wife and family and reinvented himself and now a member of congress. he also still had a sense of humor, which washington pretty quickly fell in love with. >> i was fortunate enough to get married, again, marry a beautiful woman. my wife, mary. she's here. we have two kids. i didn't care. i had a great-looking wife and she's way better looking than

cher. >> the sad part is that there was an awful skiing accident a few years after that and it took sonny bono's life in 1998 and opened up his congressional seat, too. a special election and democrats picked, i'm not making this up, ralph wait. he was better known as from the waltons. a republican district, a lot of sympathy. she liked being in congress and kept running for re-election and kept winning and then came last year. mary bono, actually mary bono mack, she had gotten remarried and changed her name. set out to run for re-election in 2012. many thought mary bono mack would win, again. she always did. when california held its primary for congress last june, she finished way ahead of ruiz.

a lopsided victory. all the candidates, no matter what party they're from, they ran from the same ballot. in this case, only two candidates to start with. the primary was like a test run for the general election. as you can see, plenty of breathing room for mary bono mack heading into that general election, most people figured she would win again in november. look closer at those primary results. look at the total number of votes that were cast. about 90,000. not a huge number for a race like this. when you're talking about 90,000 voters in a congressional race, you're talking about the voters who tend to show up most reliably. those voters tend to be older and more republican friendly. the die hards and they showed up in california's june primary last year. but the voters who showed up in november looked different. there were more of them. a lot more of them. they were younger, they were more democratic friendly.

they turned out last november. this is what happened. mary bono mack lost. she lost decisively. she lost by more than 13,000 votes. she lost even though she won the primary easily. she lost because turnout in the general election was over 200,000. more than twice what it had been in june. she lost because the obama coalition that stayed home in june turned out in november. her story, the story of mary bono mack demise illustrates the story of electoral politics at this moment in history. the american electorate is really right now two separate electorates. each defined by clear and stark ethnic boundaries. right now, those two electorates are not equally engaged in the process. the republican friendly electorate, the older, whiter electorate turns out no matter what. the democratic electorate only really turns out when there is a presidential election. do you want to know why the same

america that kicked dozens of democrats out of congress in 2012 re-elected barack obama by almost 5 million votes in 2012? look at these numbers. in 2010, just 12% of voters were under 30. in 2012, almost 20%. in 2010, 21% of voters were over 65 compared to only 17% in 2012. and in 2010, the electorate was only 23% nonwhite. in 2012 that number exploded to 28%, the most ever. this has been the story for a while now. but the trend is accelerating. look at this, about a decade ago both senior citizens and people under 30 were voting democratic at the same clip. more young people are more democratic than ever. senior citizens are moving away from that number fast. partisan habits are more polarized by age and race than ever. these are the stakes for the next big election in 2014. will democrats, can democrats find a way to motivate the obama

coalition to neutralize or start to neutralize the leg up that republicans have come to enjoy in mid-term elections. it has huge policy implications. if republicans think they're going to win big in 2014 anyway, what incentive do they have to change right now? if they do win big in 2014, will they be emboldened to push farther to the right, not just in congress, but state capitals across the country. with me to address those questions. we have anna marie cox of "the guardian" msnbc contributor perry bacon jr. and solinda lake. you work in numbers every day. when i sat down and looked at this data -- we knew that all along and that's why we picked you. >> exactly right. >> but it is amazing to me that you have these two groups now. you have senior citizens and young people who have just

completely split apart and one is identified so strongly with the one party and the other with the other party and the question is, who is showing up at the polls now? >> just to add to your point, let us remember that barack obama lost senior citizens in 2008 and 2012. and that barack obama, for the first time in 2012, lost voters 50-64. if the electorate had been in the 2010 electorate. he would have lost the election. then the numbers are astounding when you go by state. for example, florida, a key target state for all of us. 51% of the electorate older in 2012, 66% of the electorate older in 2010. there are things we have to do. barack obama bent $1 billion getting out that vote. it isn't just the presidency, the machine behind the presidency and then the second thing is the republicans did a lot to motivate that vote. you know, if you had said to me, let's talk about the election and start by redefining rape and

then outlaw birth control and then planned parenthood. i would have said, great idea, but stop dri. record restricks on abortion and opposing minimum wage in the states. >> yeah, you're perfectly setting up a discussion that we're going to have in a little bit. when you look at this, does the basic challenge for democrats approaching 2014, if we don't get our base to turn out in equal numbers or close to equal numbers with republicans, we're looking at losing ground in congress and there's huge implications from that. do you see democrats responding to that challenge at this point? >> unfortunately, no. it's sort of the same situation that we were leading into 2010 to begin with. sort of, you know, everybody thought by having these voters on the rolls that we would easily be able to just pull them out. someone who has done operations

before, it's not that easy. just because you have someone registered and all you have to do is pull them out on election day. it doesn't work like that. >> what continues to help is sort of the content that is coming from the other side, right? so, the continued push on abortion and restriction and all of those issues are very hot button issues that not only rouse up their base in support of them, but then also rowels up the democrats and make sure these are preserved. not to mention how the changing in voting contributed to that. we're not even talking about some of those things that are still on the books that were passed, you know, for the 2012 elections that still will have an impact going into the 2014 election. >> so, i'm hearing, you know, from both of you. look at sort of the overreach of republicans and you want to fight that and you want to prevent that. but is there an affirmative message that the democrats can

put out there. 2010, we just did health care and that didn't seem to aspire the masses. >> for the moment, we're not them. if they don't stand for stuff you like, we do. almost like the two electorates. right now you can't win votes because they're so different. i think that will mean, again, in 2014, i think we're going to see some conservative gains. that's where they're made. they're made in the state houses and made in off-year elections because that's where they can get their vote out. i don't know how long that can continue except that off-year electorate is literally dying off. >> the democrats in the senate are obsessed. i was talking with them earlier this week and talking about louisiana and north carolina. they are focused on how to get the black vote out. we know north carolina one in three democrats who voted for obama african-american and make sure they turn out those

numbers. their argument is these national numbers are one thing. if you drill down and look at some states, democrats have done pretty well. look at missouri in 2008, obama campaigned hard there in 2008. black vote about 12%. clare mccaskill so the democrats are showing some states that they know when they know they have to get out the group, the part of the electorate they can figure that out. they are looking at that. they know it is a big challenge. >> but i would continue, also a, in the sort of broader, progressive coalition with the democrats, as well. progressers in general, whether or not connected to a party have to do a better job of conducting with people. we only do the presidential elections from the larger progressive coalition piece. that's always to our detriment because then we spend the rest of our time fighting what's going on from the governors and fighting what's going on from the state legislatures because we're not doing the broader

coalition work increasing turnout and doing things across all the state to bring that out on off years. >> perry mentioned a moment ago on the senate side how democrats are trying to address this. very interesting story this week about a particular challenge democrats on the house side are facing. we'll do that after this. for all those who sleep too hot or too cool, for all those who sleep and struggle to sleep comfortably together, now there's a solution. the company that individualized your comfort with the sleep number bed is now introducing sleep number dual temp, the revolutionary temperature-balancing

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so, steve israel the democratic congressman from iraq also chairs the democratic campaign committee. his job to recruit candidates for the house in 2014 and he's facing that basic demographic challenge that we've been outlining. he gave an interview to buzz feed and in recruiting candidates, "we have some recruits who say, i don't know if i want to do in '14 but if hillary clinton rups in 2016,

i'm in. why is that? because clinton won those blue dog districts when he was president." the reason such a republican tsunami in 2010 republican friendly districts a lot of times, you know, south and in the midwest where, yeah, bill clinton, you could look back at 1992 and '96 and say, we carried these. hillary clinton in the primaries in 2008 because she carried him and you have democrats now basically saying, hey, i'm not sure the demographics are going to be there for me in 2014, but with hillary at the top of the ticket in 2016. >> you're better to run as a democrat during a presidential year because young voters and minorities turn out in every way. that's smart. the notion, the notion talking about all the time politics going on and a view that hillary clinton might win in 2016 because bill won in 1992. one or two things different in politics. bill clinton won in '92, tennessee.

'96, as well. tennessee and kentucky. that's not, i don't think hillary clinton is going to wyntonten awin tennessee and kentucky. make changes in philadelphia and new york and beating members like that where it exists. they lost in 2010. that's not where the gains are going to come. >> hillary is going to generate her own coalition, too. i agree with you about the suburban. with hillary running, i think you see record high support turn out among women and the other group in your coalition is unmarried voters, unmarried women who drop off dramatically in off-year elections and come back. hillary also has dramatic appeal among unmarried women. but they are going to be suburban districts we pick up. >> to perry's point, this is a debate in the democratic party

now since clinton's days and al gore's days. those states, west virginia, kentucky, arkansas, bill clinton carried these twice in the 1990s and democrats have not been carrying recently. has the democratic party, in your view, say basically, strategically, we're moving on and looking for coalition somewhere else? >> i don't necessarily agree with abandonment. >> i'm trying to put it delicately here. >> we have democratic governors in some of those states. >> they succeed by running against the national party. >> the messaging is where that plays a role in terms of being able to identify a message with working class white voters in some of these places where they share some of our economic valus and we have to be able to communicate a message that we share these values, particularly on economics and particularly on jobs and on taxes and sort of those things that will be able to sort of broaden the coalition. now, whether or not we go and spend $1 billion in those places, you know, i think a

waste of money. but definitely, we have to think about messaging and going forward to bring those into that coalition. >> i think with this change between the on year and off year electorate, i think those blue dog districts are becoming just blue districts. they want a real republican, not like that kind of democrat that was a blue dog democrat. that is just disappearing from congress in general. >> and because, just the atmosphere is so partisan, so, you know, so strictically partisan. it's going to be interesting going forward. are we going to be able to shift that? >> people who don't want to run now because they want to run under hillary. the electorate and the candidates are probably going to be more liberal in 2016. i think we'll push to the left now. >> people will view hillary differently when she's on the ticket. i remember being in missouri with barack obama in missouri where he can't walk and clare mccaskill wanted to be standing beside him. that will not happen today because he's the president and

unpopular and the democratic, the ratings when she's running for president on the ticket as the nominee with republicans saying every day how horrible she is, if she is the nominee. hillary clinton will always be as popular as she is now. insanity. >> i also wonder about the democrats talking this way about running for the house. they forget the other part of the clinton years. he won those states in '92 and '96. democrats got wiped out in those states in '94. hillary clinton in 2016, what happened in the 2018 midterms? >> these off-year elections have the coattails. everybody thinks the coattails are in presidential years. no, in presidential years people make a distinction. i'm voting for the president and making a different decision for congress. >> did the republicans just awaken a powerful force in time

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we've been talking about the two very different american electorate. the republican friendly one out from midterm elections and the one that turn out in presidential years. the democrats hoping that something happened this week will help change that math in 2014. it happened on wednesday in a house judiciary committee hearing on a republican bill to ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks. the democrats in the committee opposed the bill, but representative john coniers from michigan, the ranking democrat, offered to make an exception for cases of rape and incest that prompted the bill's sponsor to reject. >> before when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest a subject because, the incidents

of rape and resulting in pregnancy are very low. but when you make that exception, when you make that exception, there's usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. and in this case, it's impossible. because this is in the sixth month of gestation. and that's what complete negates the purpose for such an amendment. >> so, it's another republican politician kicking up controversy by talking about rape. within hours, pro-choice groups send out e-mails and democrats eagerly pounced. frank's comments the loudest example of politics returning to the spotlight. earlier this week, the obama administration blocked over-the-counter access to emergency contraception for women and girls of all ages. the legislature passed a bill typically done first trimester. soon sign a state budget that would give him the power to approve or deny funding on a

case-by-case medical abortions. overall, there has been a record number of new state level abortion restrictions enacted over the past two years. 92 in 2011 and 43 in 2012. want to bring in president and ceo of americans united for life and senior adviser to the 2008 mike huckabee presidential campaign. thanks for joining us. so, there's a lot here and i think i want to get to the state level stuff eventually, but i want to start with what's going on in congress this week where republicans are pushing the 20-week ban, ban on abortions over 20 weeks and marsha blackburn from tennessee is going to take over the management duties of that bill. no longer be trent frank after what we just showed and it looked like the republicans are also going to give in on this idea of having a rape exception built into this ban. there's a lot here, but i wonder at a basic level. you have a democratic senate and

you have a democratic president. what is the point right now in your view, even though you are prolife, what is the point of advancing something that is going no where legislatively? >> i think it's really interesting and good that you started by looking at the states and then putting this federal action into context of how much pro-life legislation is moving at the state level. we're the legal architects of the pro-life movement. we've been involved in the passage of 50 model legislation that working with pro-life legislatures at the state level. so, what you're very accurately laying out here, this disjunction between what is going on at the state level and what is going on on the federal level. part of this is helping to illustrate how out of touch national level policy is with where the american people are. you know, one of the great things about america is the laboratories of democracy and the people through their representatives at the state level are really speaking and their frustration is coming out in the state legislature. >> so, you're saying the model

of public opinion, so, saying the american people want this because the american people elected republicans -- doesn't that get to the point we were making about the different electorates that turned out because the elected officials who are doing these things that state level were elected by the 2010 electorate. which, this is how politics works. whoever shows up gets to vote and whoever wins makes the decisions. is that really representative of where everybody in this country is relatively narrow slice of the electorate that turned out. >> i did find your earlier conversation very interesting because i think there's been so much misinterpretation of the november elections and where the american people are. because one of the untold stories from november is that we actually as a pro-life movement actually picked up strength in state legislatures across the country. it was not a loss, necessarily for the pro-life movement. obviously, kind of heartbreaking to see the president come back into the white house. what i would argue to you steve

and ladies, is that this president has really, really overreached on the abortion issue. his positions are so radical and so agrsively proabortion that he's alienating large swaths of the american public. >> he's not alienating anyone he has not already alienated. yes, you're right. gains at the state level for pro-life candidates, but in those states that had the strongest sort of pro-life representation, the most extreme pro-life bills come forward, like in pennsylvania. that's where you saw the female vote really turn out for obama. i mean, it was where, when you are talking about something like life, it's hard to say overreach. when you talk about abortion is wrong, you're not overreaching, so i want to respect -- i don't want to call what these legislatures are doing are overreach. doing something inconsistent with their values. when women in those states see that, they do tend to react. women turned out for obama in

bigger numbers. >> that's a really, i like your differentiation about what is overreaching and what is not. it is hard because you just listed off a huge list of pro-life legislation that is moving forward and i think one of the questions that the pro-life movement is putting out there that we never, ever get an answer from from the abortion lobby is, is there any restriction on abortion that we can agree on? for example, we were involved in helping to pass the first ever ban on sex selection abortion and genetic abnormalities and you wouldn't believe the fire storm it kicked up. if the abortion lobby cannot come alongside and say it's okay to pass a ban on aborting a little baby because she's a girl, then they are really out of touch with where the american people are. so, of course, you can come up with examples of where there was a bill that did not gather a whole lot of support. but what i would argue to you is

that by saying that there is not a single piece of legislation -- >> but there's a lot more that happened in north dakota than just that. i will pick up after this. we make meeting times, lunch times and conference times. but what we'd rather be making are tee times. tee times are the official start of what we love to do. the time for shots we'd rather forget, and the ones we'll talk about forever. in michigan long days, relaxing weather and more than 800 pristine courses make for the perfect tee time.

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i know you want to get in. i want to point out quickly, north dakota came up there. north dakota now, we should just point out, is a state that has the most restrictive state-level law on abortion in the country, which was basically this fetal heart beat bill that went through this year where it basically says no abortion allowed in north dakota after six weeks. just want to get that out there. a thought before the break. what else were you about to say? >> a number of things here. i think, particularly, in how the issue is framed because we just saw polling over the last week that came out in terms of the american people and how they feel about abortion. and i think if we start off with the first premise that this is a choice that women and their families make and that is a choice that they should make personally. i can say here, like, i don't believe in abortion for myself,

personally. but for someone else that may be the choice that they need to make and the difference with how this legislation and how these restrictions are being put off is that we are restricting your choice and restricting your decision and your family's decision on whatever it is you like. i say all the time to people, i had the personal situation of being in a hospital room, being pregnant and tell me either you die or your baby dies. what qualifies? any of these politicians men or other people to make this decision. be in the hospital room with me and making that decision that is put before women. that's the difference in terms of the framing of this issue. if someone's personal choice, based upon their current circumstance s on what they nee to make. that's what women are pushing back on. whether they agree on abortion or personal belief. when you're pushing forth the legislation whether it's six weeks, 20 weeks and you have to get a vaginal ultrasound and it's government, again, going

contrary against a conservative belief coming in this hospital room with you to help you make a decision that should be only yours. >> here's my, here's my concern, l. joy. but is it an informed choice? is a woman who is in a crisis situation, i mean, look, the polling data is really clear. no woman wakes up one morning and says, i'm going to trendal off to the abortion clinic. she is there because it is a crisis in her life and is it an informed choice? is she being told the options and how abortion harms women and the data out there now that is undisputable about how abortion harms women and the long-term effects of abortion. >> that's not undisputable. in terms of the informed decision, look, the legislation that's being proposed and passed is not making sure that she has all of the information. it's make sure she can see this on the screen. who is to decide that? and making sure that the

information, the information is clear. that it is accurate. that it is medically accurate. all of that, that information. that is not what is being proposed and that's not what is being passed. so, having, yes, i had an informed decision from my doctor who was in the room. why does a politician in washington decide to tell him it's just recently in ohio another article that a doctor has to then tell me how much money he makes by performing abortions and how much he wouldn't be able to make if he's not. why is that information necessary in, as you say, a woman who may be in crisis and also woman who may not be in crisis. there is data of women who already have children that are having abortions. >> another thing i would like to say here is that this is, what is the priority of this? these legislatures are bogged down. montana state legislature two years ago. the first 13 bills on abortion, excuse me, the governor of iowa is going to sit there?

there's nothing else going on in iowa that he has time to decide for every low-income women whether the insurance should cover, he has nothing better to spend his time on? voters are upset this is the priority when we have so many other problems going on. >> an interesting quote from a republican congressman from pennsylvania. this is charlie dent who said this week in roll call, i'll be very frank. i discouraged our leadership from bringing this to a vote on the floor. clearly the economy is on everyone's mind and very stagnant job numbers and now we're going to have a debait on rape and abortion. the stupidity is simply staggering. >> reproductive rights are an economic issue, among other things. i don't think you have to separate out. we're just going to have a social argument. the reason why women can participate in society because

we have more control over our reproductive rights. i want to talk about this framing issue and i have seen an interesting thing happen in the pro-life movement when you make the debate not about having the doctor in the room with you, not about when does life begin, but having that woman make sher choice based and making it a human rights issue. i mean, you get a lot of people, sort of thinking about it differently and, also, i have to say, we have been talking about coalitions during this whole show. as long as the pro-life coalition is the coalition that had the other social issues tied to it, i'm not sure how much other headway they're going to make. >> charmanine is going to respond to this. [ phil ] when you have joint pain and stiffness... accomplishing even little things

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allies in washington, d.c. are completely out of touch with the american people. the biggest abortion provider in our country gets over $1 million of taxpayer subsidy a day. this offends people when we are in the middle of a huge economic crisis in this country when people are out of work and see their tax dollars going for abortion. celinda you talk about medicaid funding and all these issues, that's where we're out of touch with the american people. 70%, 80% issue -- >> i'm sorry, you're talking about defunding planned parenthood. >> the abortion industry. >> when i see the polling numbers, when i see the polling numbers, just to be clear with the american people on this. defunding planned parenthood overwhelmingly against it. >> more than two-thirds. >> talk about having your tax dollars going to the abortion industry. >> tax dollars go for birth control to prevent abortions. >> even people who are pro-choi pro-choice. even these people, they don't want to see their tax dollars

going for abortion. they want to see parental consent and there is a whole area of regulation on abortion that there is huge american consensus on. we have the most radical abortion policies in the world. right up there with north korea, china and canada. we're the four most radical countries in the world. >> and how about england and scotland? >> agreeing that there are a number of people who may not agree with you on pushing the restrictive policies on abortion. but even people that would be welcome and open to the coalition in terms of, there is too many abortions happening and what we can do. there is still not in the overall conversation of the pro-life lobby about prevention. what is it about this aversion to prevention and being able for women to have access to birth control and be able to make these choices, sex education.

accurate sex education, right? where you're not in the situation where you're pregnant. >> i'd be curious. we could tie it to the news this week. what do you make of that? obama administration saying it was no longer going to fight the court ruling of plan b, emergency birth control. what do you make of that? >> the discussion we were having earlier about informed consent. it is very, very clear that it is a potent drug and life-ending properties and that information is not getting out there to young people. if i could segue a minute because i don't want us to run out of time without picking up on a point that ana marie made. where young people are today and this question of human rights. where we are really, what i think you should be concerned about in terms of what the trends are looking like is the truth is young people today are more pro-life than their parents were. so, the trends are moving in the direction of the pro-life movement and you have to ask why. the reason is, this is the

post-sonogram generation. they believe firmly that this is becoming the human rights cause of our day. it's human rights for human beings. so, we have to be able to have a conversation that moves into looking at and grappling with these real issues of what young people are concerned about. >> we have 30 seconds, but celinda, work with the numbers. >> agagen-xers and gen-y more pro-choice. unmarried women, very, very pro-choice. so, it's not true that young people are becoming -- >> that's a really interesting thing we talk about public opinion. male versus female, you do not see a huge split in terms of the opinion of abortion. married versus unmarried women, that's where the politics are. anyway, i would love to keep going. i can't. anthony weiner said he's sorry about something we told you bout. se 3 sets of keys 4 cell phones 7 socks and 6 weeks of sleep

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i want to apologize up front. we have been on the air for two months and this is the third time i talked about anthony weiner and what he did in in o primary for one city's mayor's office. but we're also as a national figure and the story from 1991 is the story that involves an unusual ugly, divisive and devious calculation and i don't think he's ever really reckoned with it. i say this because of what happened when he was publicly confronted about the ins debit. in '91 it's about the first run for office in new york. waez the underdog in a deadly race riot had just broken out in the crown heights section of brooklyn. weiner sent out a flyer anonymously that linked his opponent to david deny kinz and jesse jackson and their quote

agenda. i told the story a month ago and weiner has been asked about it a few times. he usually says he regrets it and says he apologizes. but he usually doesn't stop there and ends up sounding like he isn't apologizing at all. that's what happened this week. two reporters asked him about it. >> that '91 flyer, it was brought up by msnbc, brought up tonight, it was brought up as recently as 2009. i'm wondering if you think there's anything you need to say to voters or to anyone else to address that. >> i apologized at the time. i mean, it was a flyer that pointed out some things that were true, but i said at the time i think immediately like that week, i sent out a note and i've seen her several times since then. >> first he said he apologized

to his opponent at the time. but there's a catch. we showed you the handwritten apology note that weiner had sent to cohen, one written after the votes were cast. in it he promised to reach out and apologize in person. but when we contacted her, she said the meeting never took place. there's something more important in what weiner said there. the line he put in there that the flyer had pointed out things that were true. one of the reporters who was there caught it and followed up. >> what was it that was true? >> reporting for the "new york times." you've seen it. the flyer is available. >> no, no, no. what were you saying was true in it, like you still support from the flyer? you said, i pointed out some things that were true. >> yeah with. that she hadn't supported this coalition. i just quoted the flyer on the "new york times." i think it was on his web site. >> weiner is saying the flyer was true, all he had done was print ared what the new york times reported. that's grossly misleading. the flyer went out of its way to

connect cohen to two black political leaders that she had never even met jackson. the coalition weiner is referring to is a mishmash of liberal groups in new york. he could have connected any number of political figures to it, but he chose to single out two play juror blacking political figures in the wake of a race riot. here's how the exchange with reporters ended this week. >> would you send it again, that kind of flyer 0? >> no. i aregret it and i apologize for it. >> if all he was doing was pointing out things that were true from a "new york times" story, what does weiner have to be story about? yes, the flyer is two decades old. when he's asked about it, he says he regrets it and apologized for it. but then he keeps talking about it and it sounds like the only thing he's sorry about is getting caught. i don't think there's a statute of limitations on holding a public figure accountable, especially if that politician gives the zingts impression that

his apology is obligatory and he doesn't mean it, which is the exact impression anthony weiner reinforced this week. i want to find out what my guests know now they didn't know when the week began. >> hillary clinton is on twitter. i think that is my big news for the week. i think her sense of humor is often underrated so i think everyone should follow hillary on twitter and also my dad, sam cox one word, his sense of humor is also very underrated. >> going from anthony weiner to twitter. perfect segue. >> i'm going to segue from her father to father's day. you know, often in the media we get so bombarded but so many negative message s particularly about men of color being the proponents of violence in our neighborhood. this weekend i hope and at least i'm go 'doing and celebrating those men of color who are not only standing up in their community against violence, there was just a press conference here in new york

where men came together for father's day in saying it's enough in terms of violence in their neighborhood. but to shout out all of those men of color who are doing what they're supposed to do in their communities and going above and beyond and i just wanted to say we love you because we often don't get that from the media. >> charmaine? >> can we have a theme here of father's day? i just want to make the point that father's day is one of the biggest pro-life celebrations out there because it comes down to, as you talk about prevention, one of the most important things for the pro-life movement moving forward is this partnership between men and women of raising children to be healthy and happy. so a shout-out to my great dad. i got the call to come on here and walked out the door on a train because of the dad of my kids, my husband. >> we appreciate that you were able to jump on that train. >> i'm going to take a little different tack, but i agree with celebrating father's day. and that is we saw the independent women's forum attack

obama care this week and say that obama care is going to lead to 88% increase in premiums in ohio. obama care is going to be the number one negative issue in the 2014 elections. i think the republicans and the conservatives have their women's strategy. i think it's a real challenge to our side. we need our women's strategy. 80% of the decision makers on health care are women. it's though moms telling their sons and husbands, get on health care that will make the difference in obama care. >> thanks to all of my guests. thanks for getting up and thank you for xwoing us on "up." join us tomorrow sunday morning at 8:00 when 0 i'll have journalist and author rick pearlstei pearlstein.

we'll see you tomorrow at 8:00. thanks for getting "up."

this morning, my question, would a linebacker by any other name smell as sweaty plus the republican obsession with controlling your uterus and new york's billionaire mayor an ally or fair weather friend. but first president obama stares down the haters to get a big win. good morning. i'm sitting in for melissa harris-perry. i want to go back to april 27th at the washington hilton and the president swapped o