and 3 times more everyday grease cleaning ingredients. for all your dishes. so if you like dawn, you'll love platinum. [ sponge ] the champion! [ female announcer ] dawn platinum does even more... [ sponge ] so it's not a chore. there's something new about the republican opposition to president obama, it has some cracks in it. on the surface, the major speech that president obama delivered in galesburg, illinois, this week may have seen broad and familiar. eight years ago in the spring of 2005 obama used a commencement address to make a role of government in supporting and building the middle class. a case he continues to make sense. when he ran for president in 2008, stimulus in 2009 and

american jobs act in 2011, when he ran for re-election last year and again on wednesday. >> this growing inequality is not just morally wrong, it's bad economics. because when middle class families have less to spend, guess what, businesses have fewer consumers. when wealth concentrates at the very top, it can unflate stable bubbles that stable the economy. when the rungs on the ladder of opportunity grow farther and farther apart. it undermines the very essence of america. that idea if you work hard, you can make it here. that's why reversing these trends has to be washington's highest priority. >> in that speech, obama called for more investment in infrastructure and combatting high college tuition costs and making it easier to refinance

mortgages and middle class workers to save for retirement. but now the reality check. we know what the president faces in washington. republican-controlled house that is not interested in taking action on anything he laid out this week. pretty much on anything he suggested during his entire presidency. so, why did obama go ahead and deliver this speech anyway? why did he choose to do it this week? one answer, important deadlines coming up and more and more republicans are talking like this. >> we are not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. it's as simple as that. >> oh, boy. the debt ceiling. this, again. we are on course to hit it some time late october and early november and even before we get to that, the debt ceiling, the end of the fiscal year on september 30th. no deal to fund the government by then, we could have a shut down. growing enthusiasm on the right to use those deadlines as

leverage on two fronts. one is budgetary bills to fund departments and agencies and radically taking shape in the house. house republicans want to cut funding for thare arts in half d grants for low-income students and funning for the labor department are also due to take serious hits, at least under the plans taking shape there. the other front, you can probably guess it, obama care. the senate republican mike lee drafted a letter demanding that his republican colleagues opposed any bill to fund the government that includes money to implement the affordable key act. lee is as conservative as they come but his letters started to get traction this week with less strident republicans. republicans like mark kirk and john thume who were reported earlier in the week to sign it. but that traction is making other senate republicans nervous. john mccain has spoken out against shutting down the

government against obama care and so has roy blunt and on thursday richard bird called it "the dumbest idea i ever heard of." by the time lee's letter was released on thursday, kirk's name was no longer on it, neither was john cornyn. he was off it, too. notably silent in all this, senate republican leader mitch mcconnell. the tea party right never trusted him and mcconnell will face a challenge in the republican primary next year in kentucky. may be an opening for all this with obama and started to hint at it in his speech. >> the good news the number of growing senators are looking to join counterparts and do things to get things done on the senate. they work together on an immigration bill that economists say will boost our economy by more than $1 trillion and strengthen border security and make the system work. you have a faction of republicans in the house that

won't even give that bill a vote. that same group gutted a farm bill that american farmers depend on and most vulnerable children depend on. >> for obama and democrats, that's the goal here. exploit the gop divisions in the senate and isolate the republican house and use speeches like the one obama gave this week to focus public attention on what's at stake in the coming budget battle. not going to get obama all the new investments he's looking for, he could head off another point list in crippling crisis and by the standard of the last few years, maybe that's not so bad. want to bring in frank thorpe, author of the fourthcoming book "the gamble "and political professor of science and msnbc political editor joan walsh and political analyst michael steele former chairman of the republican national committee. thanks for joining us, everybody. a lot to get through here.

i guess i want to start with this idea of sort of holding health care hostage with the money to fund the government. i think the story taking shape. i have two clips here. conservative writers saying drop the disastrous plan. this is another conservative writer. no, the gop is not going to defund obama care. looked like a lot of movement, michael, earlier this week where the tea party was exerting pressure to sign this mike lee letter and starting to get what they were looking for and i'm sort of seeing the republican establishment here really start to push back on this one. >> what it speaks to me, i don't know what kind of conversations they're actually having in the senate caucus so that they come out with a bifurcated, trifurcated voice. there's no unity of message and no confirmation of the direction that they want to take the country, should they shut down the government. you know, not do the debt

ceiling deal and repeal obama care. so, this to me speaks to a level of confusion. so, you have an opening for those voices like mccain to now step in and go, kids, let's settle down here. let the grown ups handle this and we're going to move into a different direction. i think at the end of the day, this is a lot of noise as we've seen in this drama before leading up to the end of this fiscal year and the beginning of the next. there's going to be the dance. obama care is not going to get the fund at the end of the day. you have to wake up and smell the reality here that you're not going to defund obama care the way everyone is talking about it. at the end of the day, you are going to cut a deal on the debt ceiling. the question for the party is how do you position yourself to go into 2014 and your base is not sitting there. if you really believe what the president is doing is not good

for the country. >> this letter, this mike lee letter that we're talking about. earlier in the week it was reported to have 15 republican senators signing it. mark kirk, you know, one of the more modern republicans in the senate took his name off. john cornyn, second ranking republican took his name off. leaves you with largely conservative, like the most noteworthy names on here marco rubio from florida. some people will make amends for his conversation. most interesting one for me, jeff who is the appointed republican senator from new jersey by chris christie and it may be sort of a little proxy posturing on christi's part but, lynn, i look at this and say does it feel different. all the debt ceiling brinkmanship. i'm seeing, am i right i'm seeing cracks here on the republican side that we didn't see two years ago. has something changed in the last couple years? >> i think you're exactly right. i think congress at an

institution is at an interesting point. the good news for members of congress say their approval rating as an institution has doubled in the last year. the bad news is that it's still like at 10%. so, if you're a member of this institution your personal approval rating is much higher than that. but congress as a body is not held in high regard by most voters. one of the things that i think maybe is happening is here's a way for the senior members of the chamber of both chambers, hopefully, to come out and say, let's not get ourselves in the position we were in two years ago where we saw our approval ratings as an institution really plummet. here's some ways we can compromise and have a solution. but the more tea party conservative members can still stand their ground. so, everybody sort of enters 2014 where they need to be. people like john mccain are synonymous with their states. arizona, john mccain, he doesn't have to really worry about

people back home not re-electing him. everybody can play their role. >> what about the president's role in all this, too. you know, we've looked at the idea, the idea of the bully pulpit has gotten a lot of scrutiny over the last few years. the president good at giving speeches and hasn't moved public opinion and people talk about how in a lot of ways when a president weighs in on something just kind of polarizes things in a a lot of ways. how do you think the message obama is sending plays into the health care and the budget fights this fall? >> i think it's important on a couple levels. the speech didn't break new ground but i'm with james in "new yorker" where the headline was something like boring is not bad. boring is not bad. these are our problems. did he say many of the same things in 2005? yeah. he is incredibly consistent of inequality and what it will take to solve it. the speech itself was good enough. but the more important thing is that he's going out on the campaign trail. and he needs to be on the

campaign trail because what he has to be about is holding the attention of the obama coalition. holding the coalition together and educating the coalition, making them long-term voters. making sure that they continue to vote. 2010 was a disaster for democrats and he can't afford we, as democrats, can't afford to have voters say, well, the republicans are polarizing him and my vote in 2008 and 2012 didn't do any good. i'll sit this one out. he's got to be about having a conversation with voters. is he going to swing people in the middle? most research shows the bully pulpit doesn't. >> frank, we talk about the cracks within the republican ranks on the senate side, but the house is sort of the player here, too. the republican-controlled house. a similar letter to the mike lee letter circulating on the house side. how do they factor into this? is the fever to force a showdown over health care dying, too or showing there? >> it is more about politics

than practicality here. most of this strategy is more to give political cover to senator rubio in terms of his opposition for the tea party for his immigration reform. on the house side, they don't like this strategy. this is not going to happen over on the house side. they look at this as a losing strategy. they say for two reasons. they say that it's temporary. you know, it's a cr, it's a temporary government funding bill. but number two, if this actually happens and the government were to shut down, they are going to be blamed for it. that's a terrible, terrible strategy for them. the only way they can possibly definitely lose in 2014 is if they shut down the government. >> is that a message, boehner and canter and the republican leaders now, do they have the clout with the own members at this point given what the tea party right has towards the leadership. can they deliver that to the rank and file in the house and say, really, don't do this.

back off. do they have the clout to do that? >> i think they do. more that tea party is alienating themselves within the conference. on unrelated issues steve cane made his issues on immigration and gave the republican conference and republican leadership that they can point at that and say, yeah, they feel that way but that standpoint is not going to stand. i think that republican leadership cooler heads will prevail here. a lot of talk of whether they want to defund obama care, but in the end, just not a winning strategy for them. >> the obama care aspect of it and the broader question of funding the government and all the cuts that we now see republicans in the house try to push for. whether anything happens with obama care, the issue funding for the government. i want to get into that, after this. sometimes i think my family off the field...

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some numbers from the nbc poll that came out earlier this week. testing attitudes of americans towards the tactics of congressional republicans. are they too inflexible when it comes with dealing with president obama. limit that to only republicans or tea party republicans. but, again, broadly speaking, that's what americans were thinking when they looked at the sort of strategy that the house republicans are using. lynn, i want to take with that in mind look at the other kind of showdown that is looming here. we have been talked about the idea of defunding obama care and government funding bills taking shape in the house now. the republican house that make just deep, deep cuts in all sorts of, for instance, this big fight getting a nominee confirmed and mccarthy and the senate filibuster and now the

administration has its person in place and, yet, on the house side, they're basically talking about stripping out funding for the epa and putting in new rules that would bar mccarthy from doing what the president wants her to do. how do you think a number like this blends with the republican strategy? >> yeah, the other interesting number is the change in this figure over time. and i was looking at this yesterday. and people are moving in exactly the directions that we talked about in the earlier segment. more and more, in both parties. so, even republican voters, people who we identify as republicans say they want more compromise. so, i think that's also going to be an additional component of the pressure of the things, the pressure to not have a repeat of 2011. so, i think this also picks up on what joan was saying. why does obama go out on the campaign trail to give these speeches? it is to rally his base and his set of voters and also to get people to put pressure on their

members. it's called going public. when you lose the power to persuade in the chamber, you have to go to the people and say put pressure on your people. obama is now leading, doing the elite thing and those two things come together and i think we end up right where he said we would. >> obama is also a little bit in the tank on his numbers. that's the other reason why the president is out on the road. he's at 45% approval in our nbc/"wall street journal" poll. the president is feeling the heat as much as the members may hear from their constituency and the white house also hearing from their constitchancy. many progressives have been upset with certain moves made by the president and the white house over the last few months. so, all of this comes to this head where they have to get out. the white house still has to get out on the road and republicans, interestingly enough, don't feel they need to do that. they feel that they're in tap

enough with their base to understand, particularly tea party republicans. understand exactly where they need to be. >> how much is that -- that's what i wonder. has a mindset sort of taken hold, especially when you look at the house side for the republicans. that they, yes, their party lost the national election last year by 5 million votes to president obama. but right now they have the majority that is safe in their own districts and worry more about republican primary challenges. that's a really corrosive thing in the big picture, though, isn't it? >> and the power to block. >> it can be in the end. but republicans are looking more probably at a legislative strategy and i'll be interested in your thoughts on this. much more of a legislative strategy, we got the house, we want to expand on that and we'll get the senate in 2014 and have a legislative wall where they can propose bills, pass bills in both chambers and put them on the president's desk and that's part of that strategy where the

white house is looking an executive and legislative strategy where they feel our goal, nancy pelosi, for example, we want to take what we can out of the house and hold our ground on the senate. it's a very interesting session. >> for the republicans. they're not standing for anything. the legislative strategy. >> this isn't about standing, this is about giving control. >> to do what? they're controlled to pass bills. what do those bills do? the issue right now they want to repeal. it used to be repeal and replace obama care. no talk about replacement. eric cantor couldn't bring his bill. >> you have conservative democrats who are going to be up in the next cycle looking at their seats and the republicans control that senate seat, that senate chamber and the house and then becomes a real legislative branch battle. >> so, the question i was asking, though, about sort of this republicans being locked in maybe for the next few years to

a majority in the house where the average republican member has to worry more about the republican primary challenge. okay, maybe that can, that is enough to keep you in control of the house. you talk about winning back the senate and talking about republican candidates having to appeal to statewide leceratelec. >> they're not worry about purple in 2014 in terms of the senate because, you know, you're looking at places like montana and west virginia and check them off. >> fine, let's say they have the house and get the senate in '14, but don't these, what is the value of just getting the senate and if you don't have the white house and the tactics you're using right now preclude you from getting the white house in 2016. that's what i'm wondering about. >> that's going to be the challenge. part of the dance that they're going to have to figure out exactly if they put those shoes on, do they really fit well

enough for the voters to give them control of the executive branch in 2016 and that's going to be a risk. i think this is more of a set up legislatively to really put the pressure by getting bills on the president's desk that he has to veto and that sets up an argument for 2016. >> you cover these guys and what they're thinking. how do they make the balancing act. we have these members who want to survive and also leading a party and we have to win national elections at some point. >> i think, i think part of the strategy here is if they were to take to the senate in 2014, you have a situation if they were to pass bills out of congress and president obama is forced to veto them, all of a sudden they can switch this blame. president obama is able to paint congress as obstruction right now. continue to pass bills that are being vetoed they can switch that narrative and the president is obstructing our ability to actually pass legislation. we keep on passing legislation, it's being vetoed. but i think that in terms of the

party kind of figuring out whether or not they can balancing the different priorities here, they don't have to, the house of representatives does not have a national point of view very much, if you think about it. they play to their constituencies. they're not really forced to think about the big picture, other than house leadership. so, for them, i mean, if they're passing these bills to defund obama care and if they're passing bills that defund different parts of obama's agenda, that's a win for them no matter what. >> they've certainly, they certainly passed the bill to defund obama care enough in the house. i guess they could do it in the senate if they had control of that. speaking of the senate, we started talking about the fracture and i want to return to that because i want to talk about the source of the fracture, which could be john mccain.

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of started this by talking about how pretty evident fracturing on the republican side in the senate and one of the sources of this has been john mccain. you know, john mccain who was not mitch mcconnell, it was john mccain who cut the deal on the filibuster and john mccain the first republican voice in the senate to say, no, this idea of we're going to defund obama care with the debt ceiling, we're fought going to do that. john mccain sort of the old john mccain people knew about a decade ago. i think i know what this comes from. i want to play a back and forth here and then explain. you have to go back a couple months. the senate, the democrats who said it wouldn't pass a budget. the democrats passed a budget and the house filed suit because a concern among some senate republicans that doing this would, if you got into a conflict between a senate and a house. so, basically set up a fight where the tea party were on the one side and john mccain was on the otherer side and back and forth between john mccain and ted cruz.

i will play john mccain first. >> we're here to vote. we're not here to block things. we're here to articulate our positions on the issues in the best and possible and most eloquent way we can and do what we can for the good of the country and then let the process move forward. >> so, he was saying that he wanted the senate to send to meet with the house and ted cruz was saying, no, we cont do that. we can't trust them. this was ted cruz's response. >> it has been suggested that those of us fighting to defend liberty and fighting to turn around the out of control spending and out of control debt in this country and fighting to defend the constitution, it has been suggested that we are wacko birds. if that is the case, i will suggest to my friend from arizona, there may be more wacko birds in the senate than is suspected. >> my theory of john mccain's

politics is that they reflect who he is most egrieved with at any given moment and he lost to george w. bush in a bitter primary in the republican race and then suddenly became every democrats' favorite republican and wanted the patients' bill of rights and gun regulations. john mccain started voting with democrats a lot more after 2000. when obama beat him in 2008. remember the john mccain of the last few years and now ted cruz has ticked him off and the approach that ted cruz has brought to the senate and the support that he has gotten from others in the senate and we are no longer seeing john mccain who wants revenge on a baobama. >> creating conference committee. that you do not trust the system to work and you do not trust the house republicans. look, you have a majority. you have a majority over there and they're very conservative and not like they're going to

immediate immediately going to cave in the face of a senate budget being more liberal. this is the way it has been done. cruz says, i don't care how it has been done. we are here to block, not to create. the that is the new mantra and john mccain still has this notion that people win elections and you fight it out and then you fight out, fight it out over policy. this notion that all you need to do is block is relatively new or at a least it's new in terms of it being, not majority sentiment, but a widely held sentiment in the congress. >> but, michael, my sense is within the world of washington maybe on capitol hill, john mccain maybe is the favorite in this, the mccain versus cruz battle. but when it comes to the republican base, the message of ted cruz seems to be the resonate one right now and that seems problematic. >> the test will be is that message electrical message. in other words, does it translate in the post-2012 dynamics of going into '14 with

these congressional seats on the line and the senate on the line and the polls that are reflecting still a great deal of ambivalence, if gnaw outright rejection of the republican messaging on positioning on some of these issues. so, the real battle, i think between ted cruz and a john mccain it's really a clear example of the fracture within the party of where do we go and how do we get there to joe's part. if you can't have a conference bill go to the members of your own party who control the other chamber, that speaks a lot to me, at least, that within the party there's still a whole lot of house cleaning to be done and the question is, will mccain bill prevail ultimately going into 2014. >> we talk about john mccain and ted cruz and the name we're not mentioning in this is the official leader of the senate

republicans, mitch mcconnell. some reasons for that. one of them became apparent this week and we'll talk about that after a this. s. did you download that book i sent? yah, nice rainbow highlighter. you've got finch for math right? uh-uh. english? her. splanker, pretend we're not related. oh trust me, you don't want any of that. you got my map? yeah. where you can sit can define your entire year. and what's the most important thing to remember? no face to face contact until we're off of school property. you got this. sharing what you've learned. that's powerful. verizon. get the samsung galaxy s3 for $49.99. wi drive a ford fusion. who is healthier, you or your car? i would say my car. probably the car. cause as you get older you start breaking down. i love my car. i want to take care of it. i have a bad wheel - i must say. my car is running quite well. keep your car healthy with the works. $29.95 or less after $10 mail-in rebate at your participating ford dealer. so you gotta take care of yourself? yes you do. you gotta take care of your baby?

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to tell you about sort of the forgotten man in the senate to a degree, mitch mcconnell and one of the reasons has to do with what happened this week. he found out he is going to be challenged in the republican primary in kentucky next year. let's just play, first of all, duelling ads already up on the airwaves in kentucky for this race. first of all, this is matt bevin and his challenger. this is his ad. >> mitch mcconnell has had a long career in politics. but after 30 years in washington, is his leadership really the best that we can do? >> mcconnell has voted for higher taxes, bailouts, debt ceiling and liberal judges. >> i'm matt bevin and i approve this message because america deserves more than failed leadership.

>> matt bevin small town roots, father of nine, veteran, conservative, republican for u.s. senate. >> let freedom ring. there you go. this is mcconnell's, this is what mcconnell now has up in kentucky. >> i'm mitch mcconal and i approve this message. >> matt bevin says he's a conservative businessman, but when connecticut businesses needed help, he took $2 billion in taxpayer bailouts even though bevin failed to pay businesses assessed eight liens for not paying taxes. his company was number one tax delinquent. failed to pay tax skz then got a taxpayer bailout. bailout bevin, not a kentucky conservative. >> so, a couple, this is significant for a couple different reasons. let's, before we even get to kentucky, let's look at what this has done to mitch mcconnell in his role as the republican leader in the senate. we talk about the sort of

stalemate of the filibusters when it came time to cut a deal there. mitch mcconnell was not part of that. really john mccain and a number of others senate, whatever you want to call them, frank, who have taken the initiative and it's mitch mcconnell who has been in opposition to them. it seems to me that this is his hands are basically tied in terms of being a leader until and unless he gets through this primary because anything he does that go against the mike lee, ted cruz folks want is going to get him in trouble in this primary next year. >> exactly. john mccain's leadership on issues such as the filibuster and immigration, you know, it's questionable whether or not that will transfer to the fiscal fights that are going to be coming up here in the next couple months. the hard line that senator mcconnell will have to take on these issues will have to align more with what he will have to deal with with this primary. take a more hardline stance on this which will line-up with the more conservative members of his

conference. i think we're going to see, interesting to see whether or not this primary is really going to force him to turn his strategy to hyperconservative strategy in terms of when it comes to the debt ceiling, which is going to happen here in the next three months. >> we have got, statements here the club for growth and always encouraging republican primary challenge and conservative fund which they're basically saying, hey, we're open to supporting bevin and not sure we're going to back mcconnell and it just seems they got. for every conservative and tea party group in the country because they have the perfect leverage now to dangle over mitch mcconnell for the next year. we talk about how dysfunctional the senate is when a republican leader is facing something like this, what does that do to the functioning of the senate? >> i think this is a good reason why you see john mccain out front doing the things you do.

it reminds me of the line from "a few good men" you need me on that wall. he needs mccain to be out there doing the bargaining and compromising because he now is constrained and can't do that. the party, i think they do understand to the extent there is a party and it does care about its branding. they can't have 2011 all over again. so, i think that a lot of the reason you see mccain. it's natural for him, too, as you said. he plays that maverick role. a lot of the reason now that the opportunity is there for him to go out there and do it is because of the constraints by the leadership. >> if he compromises he will get attacked for it. if he comes to the table and he is like, okay, we'll give you a little bit of what you want for a little bit of what we want, he's going to get attacked by it and incredibly aware of it. >> michael, what is it, i know mitch mcconnell has been in washington for 30 years. 1984 he got elected. sort of, he sort of wreaks of

entrenchment. is that what it is that conservatives do? if the average democrat looks at mitch mcconnell for the next few years and he drives them crazy and this guy says our top goal is to defeat president obama ask deny him a second term. he's basically cooperated on next to nothing with the administration and yet vulnerable to a conservative challenge. >> one of the last meetings i had was with tea party activists around the country after the 2010 elections. we were high fiving and very celebratory and there was a moment in the meeting in which several of the leaders said the future is in our hands. just as we elected these folks this year, we'll unelected them in out year physical they are not true to the economic discipline that they said that they're going to hold, which is why you see in the house, for example, those members, you know, so strongly hold on to that line. you look at this race and that's exactly what you're seeing play

out here. is that that tea party element within the tea party a asserting itself in the primaries to hold the line with the incumbent in the case of a mcconnell and the off chance that they knocked him off. then you're going to have that further expansion of that point of view within the party within the establishment of the party, which is where a lot of the tea party have their biggest fight. so, i find it very interesting right now for mcconnell, to your point, that he's got to sort of do this sort of tight rope walk knowing that, you know, constantly over his shoulder he is going to have this incoming. regardless of what he does. regardless of what he does. >> he has this on this shoulder and on the other shoulder, if he gets through the republican part primary, he's in danger of losing to a democrat. one of the few senate races where a democrat has a chance to knock off a republican and i want to get into that after this. so we could be a better, safer energy company.

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allison grimes in kentucky for mitch mcconnell's senate seat and kentucky is a red state and in 2014, you know, the national tide, if there is one is more likely to be helpful to the republicans than democrats. so, he's got a few things or anybody who can be the republican candidate in kentucky has a few things going for him. but allison grimes has a chance to take out a republican incumbent. >> she is tough. mitch mcconnell came out with this catchy auto tune ad using one of her old ad as and it is all about what rhymes and it showed her original ad from two years ago with her two adorable grandmas and it mocks the ad and it mocks her. fine, everybody got a lot of laughs. people came out, people should go to the web and look at this ad. it's almost four minutes long, she came out with an ad this week that is so brilliant. it strikes back at mitch

directly. it also features the fact that one of those sweet grandmas died. so, the subtext is, how dare you mock my dead grandma, mitch mcconnell. it has the surviving grandma saying let's do this for thelma, the grandmother that died. it shows she doesn't play and she's not afraid of him and she knows she has a big smile and she talks about what she's going to do for kentucky. she knows this is a very deeply unpopular man on both sides of the aisle. >> it seems ancient history now, but in a few months ago ashley jud was talking about running in this race against mitch mcconal and the mcconnell team was super aggressive to take her out of the race and put damaging stuff out there about her. try to send a message and saying this is what you're in for. but between this grimes video that we have this week and bevin stepping forward and people were not able to accomplish that. >> i think, you know, they have

a situation where with ashley judd, they had a lot of research on her and focusing on her so much and didn't have a primary opponent at that time. right out of the gate, they're focusing on bevin but not focusing on grimes. they don't have as much dirt on grimes. they're in a situation where they have to fend off this tea party contender. then that takes away their focus from who would potentially really be his opponent, which is grimes. >> the issue for me in just looking at how this is opening is having mcconnell's team put out a hit ad, you know, an attack ad a on bevins. i don't get it, number one, because all you're doing is elevating bevin's profile statewide. two, the substance of the argument, i think, at this stage in the campaign, who cares. connecticut, businessman. if the height of the recession has financial problems, okay,

that's news. i think that bevin is positioning himself through his ad for folks to really take a good look at him and that's reinforced by mcconnell. so, the saying or the thinking goes, if mcconnell is coming after this guy right out of the box, there must be something he fears. must be something about him we should take a look at. >> this is a story 2010, you know, feel somebody in 2014 to lose one of these challenges and mitch mcconnell just as likely as anybody else at this point. the most important number in the battle for senate control is next. in depend silhouette briefs for charity, to prove that with soft fabric and waistband, the best protection looks, fits, and feels just like underwear. get a free sample and try for yourself. bjorn earns unlimited rewards for his small business. take these bags to room 12 please. [ garth ] bjorn's small business earns double miles on every purchase every day.

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if you had to pick one number to set the stage for the u.s. senate next year it would probably be seven. seven. that is the number of democratic health seats that are up in 2014 for states that voted for mitt romney last year. democratic seats in red states

and make the targets for republicans and seven targets for the republicans to go after next year. what does that mean in the big picture? letsver have a look. right now at this moment 52 democrats in the senate and 46 republicans and two independents. those two independents sanders of vermont and they both caucus with the democrats. so, for all intents and purposes, democrats now control the senate 54-46. that number comes with an asterisk because one of those republican seats is a temporary senator from new jersey, jeff chesa who isn't running in the special election. cory booker is running in that special election and few democrats and republicans are nominally completing against him, a snowball chance in ecuador of knocking him off. win the new jersey special election this october and that means that democrats will head into the 2014 elections with a 55-45 advantage in the senate. since vice president joe biden

is there to break any ties, that will mean the democrats can suffer a net loss of up to five seats next year and still hang on to the chamber. okay, so, now, let's look at the battleground. here are all the seats that are going to be up in 2014. there are 35 of them. only 34 states lighting up there because two races in south carolina. lindsey graham who is going to be up next year and senator tim scott. we have 35 races and take a lot of them off the board right now. because they're held by one party and there's no reason to suspect that party is going to lose next year. we can take 19 of them off the board. right there. 19 of those 35 off the board. they are just not going to change hands next year. and we can actually go a step further than that. here are states where it's looking more and more likely that the incumbent party will hold on. seven more seats, those are all seven democratic seats. they may not end up being that competitive next year. they could be. but right now democratic

incumbents are well positioned and democrats struggling. if we take all those seats, with the same party that hold them now that brings us down to a battleground of nine seats. nine competitive races in which republicans will need to post a net gain of at least six seats if they're going to win back control of the senate next year. that sounds like a tall order and it is, but it brings us back to that all-important number we said at the top. seven. because those nine include all seven of those seats that democrats now hold from states that voted for mitt romney. those seven targets for republicans. here they are. each seat is at risk for democrats and some more than others. take west virginia, for example. barack obama lost that state by 27 states. jay rockefeller was retiring. recruited the candidate they wanted and going to be a likely republican pickup. ditto for south dakota where

obama lost by 18 points last year and johnson is retiring. maybe from montana, too, where obama lost by 19 and max baucus retiring and dream candidate. recently announced that he wouldn't run. matched three very gettable seats for the gop. and four red state democratic incumbents who are running for re-election. you have mark in alaska and kay hagan in iowa and mary landry in louisiana. this is where the republicans need to do their damage if they're going to win back the senate. unless they can put one or two of those seats that doesn't look competitive right now into play, they're going to have to win six of these seven seats, six of the seven red democratic seats to win back the senate and even that might not be enough. because two opportunities for democrats to win republican seats next year. one we just talked about. in kentucky with mitch mcconnell and the other one is in georgia. red state of georgia where saxby

is retiring. attracted no shortage of far right candidates to give democrats a chance of winning. just this week, in fact, good news in georgia. where michelle and her father represented the state for fours terms in the senate, she announced she is going to run for her father's old senate seat in 2014. democrats can win in kentucky or georgia or win in both, that would blow up any chance that republicans have of taking back the chamber in 2014. so, we're going to talk a little bit about the 2014 senate landscape and serious self-imposed obstacles and what consequences next year's outcome will have for the rest of the obama presidency. we'll talk about that after this. ♪

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talking about the senate landscape for 2014, what it could mean for the rest of the obama presidency and we're with joan walsh and also of salon.com and political analyst michael steele former chairman of the nrc frank thorp nbc capitol hill producer and lynn. i wanted to talk a little bit about some of the trends that i think will define 2014, a thing we talked about that i'm always looking for. are any sort of these tea party candidates going to upend the process for republicans, you know, win a primary and make a race that's not on anybody's map competitive. sort of part and parcel georgia. i want to look particularly to georgia. a state where the demographics are changing a lot. a less diverse, more republican state. still a pretty reliable state for republicans but you can see it changing. there's an opening there because saxby chambliss is not running for re-election and it has

attracted a very, very wide field of republican candidates that are very, very conservative and could unnerve. to give you an idea of this. this was just a couple months ago. phil a congressman from georgia and one of the candidates and this was him on the house floor. this got a lot of attention a couple months ago. >> maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age maybe at the grade school level and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say this is what's important. this is what a father does that is maybe a little, a little different. maybe a little bit better than the talents a mom has in a certain area and this is what a mom does. this is what is important from the standpoint of that union. which we call marriage.

>> michael, we start with he's talking about let's have the school teach traditional rules. how many -- it just, you think of what happened with murdoch last year in indiana and everybody thinks of todd aiken and the republicans go down and republican men go down the road of talking about issues like this. they kind of -- and it seems like, i'm looking at georgia and i'm seeing the next missouri and the next indiana and going to be gingrich and paul brown is running and it's going to be -- >> mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, parents of all stripes will decide what messages they want to send to their children. i don't need a congressman from georgia and i don't need a congressman and i don't need anyone to tell me what standards to set for my kids. get out of it. you raise your kids the way you want. if you need to pull your grade

schooler out, have it. i will do what i want with mine. number one. number two, this is not where the country is. we do not need elected officials to tell us how to run our lives. we need them to get off and elect policy so it works for people instead of against people. the more republicans stand in the well of the congress, whether there's one person sitting there listening to that person or not, talking about this stuff. the more people move away from the party, the more they move away from the message which, again, conflicted as it is, it's still a message out there. and, so, i just, i really am tired of it. i just need -- >> republican primary voters keep rewarding it, too. >> i appreciate you saying that, michael. the problem is this is what a lot of republicans really believe. the problem with the aiken remarks and murdoch remarks is that they went into too much detail, which they did. it also exposed the fact that

this is has been the language of the republican party plaform since what? 1992. you got people. talk about the nanny state. we're going to go into the schools and tell you what the father does is better than what the mother does and instruct you in ancient patriarchal roles and you are going to be punished. i think she's facing an uphill battle. but what you see in a lot of red states is that women may hold the key to turning those states purple or blue. you have an allison grimes and you have a wendy davis in texas who people are excited about. it may not happen in 2014, but that and the emerging obama coalition is going to turn a lot of these red states purple. >> i am really looking for republican women to tell these men to shut up, as well. and to really step into that breach and really speak to these, to speak to the issues that americans are more concerned about and send back

the message. we don't need as a party to go out there and tell people how to live their lives. we need to be as a party those structures to help them live those lives. >> the story in 2010, democrats walking 2010 elections a pretty big advantage in the senate. nominated christine o'donnell, sharon angle and they left winnable seats on the table. 2012 at the start of that cycle, the conventional wisdom, this is bad for republicans. favorable math and they don't have to make up that much ground. some of it was nominating tom aiken and some more establishment. tommy in wisconsin who lost a senate race last year the republican label itself. >> i think that there are a couple things going on when you think about these congressional eelections. one of the differences between 10 and 12 is that 12 is a presidential election year, too. it brings a different set of voters into the electorate and

because the economy was growing, growing slowly, but still growing and that benefits the incumbent party in the white house. democrats get a little bit of push from that nationally. so, there are coat tails. and, so, those presidential years are really different from the off years. and, so, now we're entering an off year and we know this happens all the time that the president's party will surge and pick up seats in the on year presidential elections and decline in the off years. and, so, you know, we're in one of those years where we would expect to see some democrat losses. but i think you're exactly right at hitting at the sweet spot. if the republican party, you know, they start nominating people who cannot win general elections, then the surge and decline, that pattern might not hold. so, i think this really is the interesting elections to watch coming up for 2014 are those republican primary elections. and i'm not so sure that the conversation about morales and can women change that. i'm not so sure we're going to

see a lot of that playing out just because i think most americans think, you know, there's a little bit of a change here on the social questions and most people realize that conversations like that are not, they're not socially desirable. they're undesirable. even though they might hold those opinions, we shouldn't be talking about them. >> to lynn's point. there is a six-year itch. every time there is a president, five out of the six times this happened and since the '50s, you know, the president's party loses seats. the average is actually six. so, history is going against democrats in this particular instance. but, you know, republicans need to make sure they didn't make the same mistakes they made in 2012. he acatually said that, you know, aiken was partly right with his legitimate comments and that was a big deal back then. not only gingry but paul brown

have made for tv quotes for ads to run against them and i think that democrats kind of brag about the fact that they don't have any primary opponents for the candidates that they actually do have. i mean, a lot of states where they don't have any candidates at all. west virginia is a perfect example of that. i think that republicans are really trying to focus now on not making the same mistakes that they made in 2012. >> the problem with the gingry comments is they splatter over the party. they don't have candidates anywhere near the state of georgia having to defend or explain or ebs pres an opinion on the comment that a congressman somewhere else has made. so, what the party needs to do, which is why i reference women, women are stepping in this breach to break that cycle where some crazy comment is made over there and standing over here. i have to now look at this voter and defend something that i knew nothing about or had anything to do with.

>> you have the nrc defending the lack of female candidates in 2016 saying the presidential race isn't a beauty contest. where do they get these people? >> you talk about the brand. i mean, that really was the story, i think, of 2012. it wasn't just aiken, these other states that republicans also lost. i want to thank joan walsh and frank thorp. unlike congress, the justice department isn't waiting around on the voting rights act. that's next. aw this is tragic man, investors just like you

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major act of voter suppression. they moved closer to becoming law in carolina late thursday night. replace far-reaching new restrictions on voting and widely seen as the most voter i.d. law in the country.

this comes two days after the justice department took steps to restore some of the provisions stripped by the voting rights act by the supreme court last month. the court gutted section five which required areas with historiies to seek approval fro the justice department to make changes to their voting laws. immediately after that ruling, texas took advantage of the end of the preclearance requirement and formally adopt congressional maps. those maps are being challenged by minority groups. eric holder announced the justice department would hold them in asking a federal court to invoke a different section of the vra for texas. >> even as congress considers updates to the voting rights act, we plan, in the meantime, to fully utilize the laws remaining sections to that the voting rights of all american citizens are protected. today, i am announcing that the justice department will ask a

federal court in texas to subject the state of texas to a preclearance regime similar to the one required by section five of the votiing rights act. >> he vowed that the texas lawsuit will not be the justice department's only effort to protect voting rights in the wake of the supreme court ruling. texas is only one of several states where republican efforts to enact voter i.d. laws are in the news right now. pennsylvania a trial challenging the i.d. law a law blocked by implementation before last year's election. trial has entered its second week. measure in north carolina goes farther than most. shorten early voting from 17 days to 10 days and end same-day registration during the early voting period and extend voting hours due to long lines at the polls. that bill is going to the desk of the -- want to bring in

comedian liz winstead and author of the book "liz free or die." a democratic political consultant and former member of hillary clinton's staff in the u.s. senate. so, texas and north carolina, i want to kind of take them separately. we have the action a from the justice department is in texas right now. the idea here is basically section five has kind of been stripped away from the voting rights act and section three still exists. this is the bail-in section of the voting rights act where anybody can position the court. doesn't have to be the government. anybody can petition the court. what do you make of this strategy? is this something that you think it will work in texas and a model for else where or is this not really a sustainable, long-term strategy? >> unfortunately, i believe it is the only thing they have left to do and i'm not sure it is going to work in texas. might actually work in north carolina. but, unfortunately, the justice department's hands are tied here and i'm not sure that there is much recourse beyond that.

you mentioned something about early voting early on and you're talking about ways in which minorities use early voting and other avenues that they have at their disposal. you're cutting out a significant percentages of communities are probably going to lose their right to vote. and, unfortunately, as much as the attorney general may say i really do think his hands are tied. >> i want to talk more specifically about early voting in north carolina for a minute. just to stay in texas. what do you make of this? look, the republican leaders in texas. rick perry immediately issuing a statement saying this is obama's war on texas and greg abbot who is the attorney general and republican attorney general in texas running to succeed perry's governor. they're basically saying he has actually said he defined his job as i wake up, go to the office, sue the government and go home. politically, their reaction to this is sort of bring it on, justice department. we like this fight, but you as a

republican, what do you make of this when you see what the administration is doing here? >> look, i think the supreme court did what the supreme court said it would do five years ago in what early ruling on the voting rights act, which was to say, look, this needs to be updated. and put it back in the hands of congress. that's one piece, how do the states respond to that? take advantage of the void that has been created until there is federal law that says otherwise. so, texas like north carolina and like many other states is going to make that move and that play. my, my caution to republicans in texas or any place else around the country will be at the south, the north or the west is keep in mind. going into 2014, you do not want the sort of don't want the voting rights act hanging over your head. how you treat this issue is being treated very carefully by members of the minority community. not just the far left or

progressives. white women. that voting center that you so desperately need and also paying attention on how you respond to this opportunity. one. two, the party has to understand and appreciate historically our link to this issue. everett dirksen the senate minority leader and republican conservative was the champion of this law. helped lyndon johnson get it through the senate and get it passed. said we must do this now and this is in the best interest of the country. what changed since 1965. >> republican parties changed. but that's -- you cannot lose sight of that historic link that we have to this. so, i just think, you know, texas is going to do what texas is going to do, but i think at the end of the day the congress needs to look at this issue and basically include everybody. not just segregating certain states, but include every state in the union under this revised updated act. >> liz, practically speaking, though, we had hearings in the

senate and the house ended up doing some kind of a hearing but i don't hear anybody that expects right now that the republicans and the house will embrace what michael just talked about. >> no. and i think -- >> but there is always hope. >> honey, i respect you for your hope. it's admirable. if somebody takes in what all you smart people think and take it in and swallow it, first of all, there is no problem. it's like this weird. when i talk in my circles. there was more women diagnosed with prostate cancer than voter suppression. the fact this is happening is annoying. the second part of it for me is when you look at the laws that have already started going down in texas and north carolina that have already disenfranchised people. when you say to 70,000 people who are unemployed, you know what, you're not getting any more checks. 100,000 more people are going to end up screwed. you just build and build and build to this point now that you say we'll make it really awful

for you to vote. they're counting on people saying, i just can't. >> i want to pick that point up in a minute and look at north carolina. what early statistics have done to north carolina and specifically what happened in 2012 with that, with that attitude that lizz was just talking about. we'll pick it up after this.

so, i want to talk about what's going on in north carolina right now with this new law. voter i.d., it's broader than voter i.d. strict voter i.d. requirements but curtails the early voting period. it basically says if you're standing in line, if the polls close at 8:00 p.m. or whatever it is down there. if you're standing in line at 8:00, you may not be available to vote. it also basically deputizes other voters and encourages other voters to challenge suspicious-looking voters at the polls. we're trying to pit neighbor

against neighbor. honestly, seems like an awful piece of legislation but, lynn, if you go back and look at the history of early voting laws in this country and they date back as far as i can tell to 1985 and republicans in texas in south texas. it was republicans who want early voting because it will make it easier for members of the community who couldn't get to the distant poll places. a bipartisan thing really until the last couple of years. what has happened on this? >> a couple things that are important to think about when we have this conversation. first, it's always important to take disenfranchisement seriously. so, let's just stipulate that. but when you look back at some of the reforms that have been made to ease the barriers to turn out. and most of those are to do with registration. same-day registration, the motor voter bill where you can register at the dmv and all those kinds of things and when we look at the effect of those things and the fact is that they increase participation but among

the same group of voters who typically turn out in elections. so, the big effect for motor voter was to increase the registration among white voters in the sort of middle and upper classes. same thing with same-day registration. effects of same-day registration mobilize young voters. so, we're trying to get to that core group that has sort of been left out of the participation, left out of the process and all these reforms are not getting there. and, so, it's, i wish we could stop on both sides using scare tactics like voter fraud and voter suppression. and, you know, really talk about the fact that all these reforms have had very small effects. and it's really hard to change people's habits of voting. and that picks up on what liz was saying. if we start to get people interested in politics. interested in politics is a huge predictor of whether someone turns out in an election. >> well, there's actually

another provision of this north carolina thing. a program to encourage to get high school students interested in politics and to encourage them to vote and help them to vote. that's eliminated under this, too. >> it seems like all the coalition that brought obama to the table that's slowly being widdled away. young people, college students who republicans have lost in the last few elections. but in terms of voter fraud, i mean the instance of voter fraud in north carolina is less than 0.01%' we created a whole set of laws now to essentially go after that less than 0.01 of a percent. but disenfranchise millions of people. >> this is where i want us to be careful with the claims that we make. you know, just because you have an early voting period that's two weeks and you see people turning out for those two weeks and then you say, what happens if we shorten it to one week? it isn't just a take away that all the people who voted in

those first seven days now will be disen franchised and won't vote. they will know that they now only have seven days and they will figure it out. >> you looked at like ohio last year where they shortened the secretary of state shortened the early voting period and made it a lot tougher than it had been and we saw on the news these six-hour lines, eight-hour lines and i think the fear there is maybe the intent to vote still exists for people, but they show up. how many people can give up eight hours a day to vote? how many people should be asked to give up eight hours -- >> i think you're disregarding when you look at the totality of a bill like north carolina, the biggest thing is how people process that and then what is their motivation? i think that you're leaving that out oaf the equation by saying it's not necessarily so and we have to watch what we say. people talk about a litany of things, including if your kid votes in college you can't use them as a tax credit and if they

don't vote where they grow up those things make people go, i don't want to do it. i don't want to discredit it. but the other thing i would like to say is when you look at these voter laws and you look at the greed of, let's add more, let's add more and unconstitutional thing, just like they did with shoving in all these reproductive rights bills. taxpayers are paying for legislation that judges are going to block and then pay for that lawsuit and then if they're also paying for some organization that wants to fight the laws in court, taxpayers are paying for all sides of this war. and they should be angry about it. >> all right, i have to cut it off there, unfortunately. >> i'm sorry. >> anthony weiner, we have to get him in. he said he was not surprised about the explicit photos and messages that surfaced this week and how about the reaction from voters. that's next.

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anthony weiner been probable

campaign for mayor of new york and falling apart before our eyes thanks to the new revelations this week about conversations online with women he never met. new revelations that came to light after "the dirty" posted messages involved activities that took place after weiner resigned from congress in 2011. weiner made a defiant statement on tuesday. as the week went on, he struggled to address specific questions about his behavior. >> how many women were there? can you remember? >> there are more than, there are few. i don't have a specific number for you. it's not dozens and dozens. it is six to ten, i suppose. but i can't tell you absolutely what someone else is going to consider inappropriate or not. >> were they sexual? how many conversations did you have with women after you resigned that were sexual in nature? >> i don't believe i had any more than three.

>> already impacting his standing in the race. the poll before this week's drama had had him leading christine quinn by four points. weiner plummeted to third place among likely democratic voters. quinn there at 26% and the public advocate. if you don't live in new york, the position exists. de blasio at 17% and bill thompson at 15% and the city controller john liu at 7%. basil, i want to start with you. full disclosure here. you worked on hillary clinton's staff and you worked and just want to make sure and i think anthony weiner. >> client of mine several years ago, yes. >> glad we brought you in. he is your former client and you're watching this and what do you think? >> it is very difficult to watch. heartbreaking.

listen, i think anthony displays qualities that i think a lot of people have responded to and said we would like him to be mayor because whether you have paid attention to his policy, you see him being a fighter and you've seen that on the floor of the house. but i think what's happening with who and now and people are being of two minds. on the one hand, respect her for coming out in the way that she did because she's such an extraordinarily private person and a lot of us who worked with her realize she's so private and for her to come out the way she has, we all sort of respected that. on the other hand, it gets to a point where you look at him and say, why did he drag her through this? that's where people are right now. and you're starting to see these numbers fall. he was doing so well in the african-american community. i think a lot of that is going to his opponents like bill thompson who is probably the beneficiary of a lot of that defection. but i think you see a lot of other folks go to the undecided

column. it was very, very difficult to watch. it was heartbreaking to watch. but i think he's still in it. i think he's going to go full steam. >> anybody who has been watching this show is probably no secret. i have not been the world's biggest anthony weiner fan even not having to do with anything with this. with all due respect, somebody who he, he cuts corners. i see him, he gets a lot of -- he is good at getting attention and getting on tv and sort of making a scene and i have never seen him interested in putting in the work behind the scenes. the famous moment on the house floor rallying against the republicans. he didn't do any work on that. carol maloney they put in the work behind the scenes and anthony weiner goes to the floor and he makes himself the star of the drama and i saw this repeating over and over in this guy's career. >> i feel the same way. i feel the narcissism. if this was not a sexting scandal and something where anthony weiner just kept

inserting himself in the conversation, i would still be grossed out. now we have a guy who literally has more issues than the city of new york and all we do is talk about his issues and i'm sorry, when you go on television and you say, i'm not sure how many people i've texted. i know exactly how many people i texted my junk to, this is just for everybody -- >> just so we know. >> it's a by request situation. it is not on spec. and that is just something that america needs to know because this one seems to not even understand the decorum behind it. and putting your wife in front -- >> but you did actually -- >> there's rules. >> but you hit on an important point because in all of this, we're not really hearing policy. we're not hearing policy. all of that is getting lost and new york has so many problems. >> and his, his claim is, oh, you know, we should get back to the issues and there are all

sorts of other candidates out there in this race. to say, you know, let's talk about policy versus let's just ignore this and elevate me to mayor in the name of talking about policy. >> i keep waiting for him to say that this is just proof that the nsa really isn't -- >> you know, as an outsider from the washington metropolitan area watching this whole drama. >> because you don't sext down there. >> we don't. just stick a fork in this guy in new york and move on. the fact of the matter is he may stay in this race, but that number will drop from third place to fourth place to fifth place. i think the voters here, despite his wherewithal of that sense of urgency that this guy is always fighting for me. at the end of the day, boils down to what do you say, what do you produce from that fight? he produced nothing except for his junk on the web and i think that is something that people just don't want to tolerate. i watched her and i had a bill

clinton moment where i was thinking to myself. i feel your pain. i could see it in her face. i wondered and questioned, despite her cries of i support him, i love him. why were you there in that moment? it was humiliating for her and i really think new yorkers feel that and that doesn't help him. >> i think i agree with you that he's fading out, but he is sort of rasputin. never fully gets -- >> he has millions of dollars to burn. >> i'll feel better of that prediction after the primary. the one vote that pitted chris christie against rand paul, that's next. what makes a sleep number store different?

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snowden defeated 217-205 and brought together coalition of lawmakers that we're never going to see before and never see again. joined with liberal john coniers from michigan to co-sponsor the measure. >> we're here today for a very simple reason. to defend the fourth amendment. to defend the privacy of each and every american. >> all this amendment is intended to do is to curtail the ongoing drag net collection and storage of the personal records of innocent americans. >> the coalition that came together to ulimately defeat the administration also brought together some unlikely allies such as democratic nancy pelosi, michele bachmann. the day after the vote, new jersey governor chris christie criticized lawmakers, including from his own party who have railed against surveillance

programs. >> this strain of going through both parties right now and making headlines is a dangerous thought. as a governor now as a state that lost the second most people on 9/11 behind the state of new york and still seeing those familie families, john. i love all these debates that people are getting in. >> senator rand paul, for example. >> you can name any number of people and he is one of them. these intellectual debates, i want them to come to new jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation. >> well, that conversation, lynn, might be part of the debate over the next few years in the republican party. i'm looking at chris christie and rand paul, we might see this conversation play out between them. just interesting numbers that came out this week. the evolution of national public opinion and tea party opinion.

just four years ago when the question was put to tea party republicans whether the government is going too far to restrict civil liberties or not far enough to protect the country. not far enough to protect the country and now it's overwhelming the other direction. too far to restrict civil liberties. this huge shift, i don't think coincidentally by tea party republicans but really kind of changing what traditionally has been the posture of national security. >> i think there are a couple interesting things going on here. one is, how do you feel about your personal information being out there or being spied upon by people you don't know are watching it. that's an interesting conversation given that people use google and search for things and the internet is forever. second to that, does this conversation, does this rhetoric become a focal point as we go into future elections and in the republican party separate candidates? i think my sense of that is that not as much as it might look

like it will now. i think that it's ten years or more since 9/11 but we are safer today because of actions the government has taken. you see that repeatedly in polls. across other countries, too, when they look at americans, america is safer. that's an opinion that can't be discounted. people feel safer and they credit the government with that. >> they feel safer. maybe they credit the government, but at the same time, you know, we talk among that shift of tea partiers. playing out among all voters. >> sometimes i get and i know feelings matter and sometimes facts should present themselves and as somebody like talking about this on big levels this way but i just know when you look at how this is done and you look at the hand picked john roberts court and then you look at some of these congress people

like steve king and michele bachmann who have questionable, i don't know. i'm going to say intellect. and, so, when you know that they're the people supposedly overseeing and then you hear senators we don't have much information and we shouldn't be reported to as the way we should. as a person who has that much information as a regular person, why not look into this and why would you vote against this? i don't get it. >> michael, we're running short on time here. but i want to get you where the republicans, traditionally the republican party has been the hawkish national security one and want aggressive government on national security and it really feels how marginalized on how paul was in the past. >> that libertarian element which i was surprised to hear christie call it out the way he did in a negative way because it is part of the main conversation going forward. i think the poll numbers that you cite reflect something

important here. the first poll reflects what people didn't know. the second poll reflects what people now know. and that's the difference. when people know the extent to which the government is holding that information may or may not be using that information, that personal, private information. their attitudes change because all of a sudden now big government, big brother has more on me than i thought they had and lord knows what i have been putting on my facebook page or tweeting out. >> and we say, you know bipartisan in the house and it's bipartisan public opinion. basically the same ratios. democrat and republican about that balance between civil liberties and strong national security. >> sitting down with those family as from 9/11, that's a nice emotional po that christie was putting out there. at the end of the day -- >> what he was articulating there was sort of what drove the debate for the deck nade.

what do we know now that we didn't know last week? my answers are after this. voicd or great gas mileage. that'd be like eating sweet or sour chicken. oh grrrlg what is this?! sour chicken... it's good, right? that'd be awful. i think i like "and" better. and is better. the 2014 focus. only ford gives you ecoboost fuel economy aa whole lot more. go further.

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so what do we know now that we didn't know last week? well, based on reporting from david corn of mother jones, we now know that there is a brand-new conservative group in washington called ground swell. it includes, among others, alan west, and ginny thomas, the wife of supreme court justice, clarence thomas. they've been meeting privately since the beginning of the year with the goal of taking on not just president obama on the left, but also the republican party's establishment, figures like karl rove. according to corn, the group has been trying to develop talking points for fellow ground swe swellers, if that's what we call them, to use in the media. in notes from the group's meeting, include a rather frank discussion of the republican party's struggle with non-white voters. one idea, the notes say, we are failing the propaganda battle of minorities.

terms like gop, tea party, conservative communicate racism. alternative, fricke douglas republican. it changes minds. well, we don't know if that's the magic solution for the gop, bulb we do know that the next time groundswell might want to spell frederic douglas's name right. a notoriously prickly congressman, whose behavior had become somewhat erratic was drummed out of office. california has that new election system, where candidates from the same party could end up running against each other in general elections. although stark was actually outspend swallow by a 2-1 margin, he had a sizable chunk of change left in the bank when the election was over, so he threw a party. stark used some of his remaining catch for a tent and a band called the hula monsters as a thank you for his former staff members.

federal election rules state that campaign funds can only be used for political purposes, but it will federal election commission hasn't said anything about stark's party, at least not yet. and finally, we now know the most and least honest places in america, based on a nationwide test by the beverage maker, honest tea. the company rated an experiment in every state, plus the district of columbia, where they set up unattended stand for people to take honest tea for one dollar. the test found that alabama and hawaii were the most honest, where 100% of the people paid their dollar, while washington, d.c. was the least honest, where 80% of the people -- or only 80% of the people paid. while no one is probably surprised by these results, we're waiting for snapple facts to confirm them. i want to find out what my guests know now that they didn't know when the week began. we'll start with you, liz. >> if you are overwhelmed by the anti-choice legislation that is coming in all of these different state legislations, you can go to the website, aisfor.com.

so it keeps you informed and lets you know what's happening in your state. >> michael? >> last week, mort zuckerman wrote a piece in the "wall street journal" about the jobless recovery and how that's not really recovery at all. and i think that that's going to be a sustaining argument going forward, into the fall discussion, as you talked earlier in the show, and one little nugget of that, i think that people need to keep in mind, even among those who have a job, 77% of them are living paycheck to paycheck. so a lot of americans out there are still hurting, and the congress and the president had better focus on that, because next year, it could have more surprises for both than they anticipate. >> in cities like new york and boston, where we're electing mayors the this year, these cities also have mayoral-controlled schools. and there could be some interesting changes in mayoral control, education reform, particularly school choice and charter schools as the unions start to gain back power in some of these cities. lynn? >> i think what i know now that

i didn't know then is that even though everyone agrees the service sector is the next middle class in this country, that we are a really long way from any kind of public policy that moves the public and private sectors together to change that service sector majority to the middle class majority. it's a big problem and there aren't solutions. >> all right. and i know that the pastry plate's unusually empty this week. i guess everybody was hungry today. my thanks to comedian and author, lynn winsted, michael steele, democratic strategist baa junior. and join us tomorrow when aisle have ana marie cox, josh barrow, and melissa harris-perry. but before she joins us tomorrow, she has her own show. on today's melissa harris-perry, what eric holder is doing to combat efforts to suppress the votes, even as states like north carolina pass some of the most extreme measures yet.

plus, the one and only yvonne joins melissa live on set. we'll see you right here tomorrow at 8:00. thanks for getting up. wait a sec! i found our colors. we've made a decision. great, let's go get you set up... you need brushes... you should check out our workshops... push your color boundaries while staying well within your budget walls. i want to paint something else. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. refresh your home inside or out with behr premium plus ultra. interior flat starts at $31.98 a gallon.

[ herbie ] there's no doubt about it brent, a real gate keeper. here's kevin, the new boyfriend. lamb to the slaughter. that's right brent. mom's baked cookies but he'll be lucky to make it inside. and here's the play. oh dad did not see this coming. [ crowd cheering ] now if kevin can just seize the opportunity.

it's looking good, herbie. he's seen it. it's all over. nothing but daylight. yes i'd love a cookie. [ male announcer ] make a powerful first impression. the all-new nissan sentra. ♪ this morning, my question. why won't anthony weiner just go away? plus, a pope of the people refocusing the vatican's agenda. and spiritual life coach, ill vanna yan zant joins us here in nerdland. but first, what the george zimmerman verdict can teach us about voting rights in texas. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. after weeks of speculation, we've finally got a chance to put a name and a face to the only person of