there are cracks but no big republican crack up, at least not yet. for a few hours this week, it looked like the wall of republican opposition to president obama was finally crumbling apart. when the week began gop threats to shut down the government until obama care was defunded seemed to be fading away. lindsey graham of south carolina, he's one of eight republicans negotiate aing with the administration on a potential spending deal suggested he was open to obama's

call to increase infrastructure spending as part of a broader agreement on spending and taxes. the house gop seemed to be fracturing and pull from the appropriation bill known for the transportation of housing and urban development. the tea party opposed the bill because it didn't cut enough and moderate republicans including members of the appropriations committee because it cut too much in line with the automatic spending cuts that were put in place last year. hal rogers of kentucky complained on a letter on his website, "discretionary cuts must be brought to an end." with house republicans unable to pass a seeming appropriations bill on their own suddenly looked like an open for the senate to broker a compromise and pass its own bipartisan bill and that, in turn, would put pressure on house republicans to

let that bill come to the floor for a vote and pass mostly with democratic votes. such an arrangement would allow congress to avoid a debt limit showdown and maybe shut off the sequester. that all came crashing down on thursday when senate republicans filibustered their appropriations bill on a 54-34 vote with only one republican, susan collins of maine joining with the democrats. the congressional republican crackup is on hold for you and the october 1st government shut down is still looming. we want to bring in white house correspondent at buzzfeed.com. malia political reporter for "washington post." crystal ball, former co-host on "the cycle." and chris wilson and contributor to the conservative online forum ricochet.com. so, thanks, everybody, for joining us. i guess we'll start, you know, congress is now the recess has begun. they're out for august. you know, who want to be in

washington, d.c. in august anyway? it's 142 degrees there every day. the recess has begun and a really interesting week because around wednesday i thought i could start to see the basis. we always talk about some kind of big deal on the budget. the basis seemed to be there where there were some republicans in the senate showing willingness to compromise with the administration and then like we said, this thing got filibu filibustered to death. the caucus hasn't fully emerged there. let's start on the house side and take it one chamber at a time. what happened? when you look at the bill falling apart and moderates weren't for it and conservatives weren't for it and didn't have the 218 votes. what exactly was going on? >> i think we saw the markings of what the problems are with the republican party. more conservative side, more moderate side and democrats didn't want anything to do with this bill and i think we're also seeing the thaw out of sequesteration. we saw some of that already in

the jobs numbers but people are trying to figure out what to do with sequestration and the white house wants to roll back some of those cuts and you saw some republicans say we weren't cutting enough and then uothers saying there were too many cuts. again, i think you have that same kind of gridlock. >> it seems like a disconnect where it took republicans a while, the sequester was sort of the threat that was put in place september 2011. it took a while and republicans braced the idea of the sequester but what the bills represent is, okay, you embraced it and now you need to put some numbers behind that and pass these bills. you basically exempted entitlement programs, social security, medicare. if you want to spare defense, it means really, really deep cuts in areas like transportation and

these bills coming out now and a fair number of republicans who are now saying, that is too much. >> it's hard to -- it's nice to talk about cutting things, it's a nice idea. it's hard to cut things. if it were easy to cut things, we'd do it all the times. the republicans are faced with a way to cut things and go back to their districts and cutting stuff and deal with the national fallout of deep cuts and community block that were talked about right there in the process. this is a dilemma for them which talking about cutting is good but doing cutting is really hard. that's where they're stuck. >> rick, what do you make, you had hal rogers long-time appropriator from kentucky coming out and saying this sequester has to stop. >> i don't want to think of it as fracture. i like to think of it as the party, there's a big cohort of

people who were elected in 2010 and those people were elected to cut. not elected to play the old appropriator game. run like the vatican and you moved your way slowly up the food chain. those guys don't, the new guys don't care about that. they were not effected to do that. they understand we're at a spending crisis in this country and they're willing to do hard stuff. the leadership division on this, you know, being an appropriator used to be the super bowl of this thing and now the rank and file was a lot more skepticism and a lot more leery of that whole culture and get you taken care of, you'll get a highway here and a block grant there. a lot more skeptical of that, i think rightly so. they know we're on an unsust unsustainable path. they weren't sent to d.c. to be

go along, get along guys. they were sent to d.c. to get the budget under control and address the deficit and spending and they take it seriously. that's why there is a cultural difference. this is not going to be the same problem four years from now, because four years from now the actuarial tables alone will push people out of the old jobs they're in and bring up some of this new leadership. we're at a transition point where if the republican party is serious about this, the party of more fiscal discipline. we went off track in 2004, '05, '06, '08. we lost races because of that. these guys know what got them there. >> i get there is that cultural clash between the tea partiers elected and what that seems to add up to right now for republicans is they can't pass anything. they have all the chaos with the farm bill and there was another, sort of drafting the interior

appropriation bill. there basically seems like they're intent in passing. you know, republicans only bill. 218 republican votes and small error for margin to start with and from pennsylvania saying, hey, look, you're going to cut amtrak by 85%. i'm in the northeast corner, that's too much. conservatives saying that's too much. you can't get 218 votes. >> i disagree with much of what you said, but the one thing i do agree with that i would put a little differently is folks elected in 2010, they weren't elected to govern. they don't care that governance is not working. they were elected to throw bombs. the real dichotomy for me is not real establishment. people who are actually interested in governance and people who aren't. if the republican party were two pa parties right now and there were no democrats and the republicans were negotiating with themselves, we would still have

grid lock. that's what we saw in the farm bill and that's what we saw this week. they can't even with them selves there is too much difference between the bomb throwers and the people just interested in governance to be able to get things done. evan, to your point, i think you're exactly right. when i was running for congress, my republican opponent, he loved to talk about how much he wanted to cut the budget and the deficit, but he could never answer the question of, okay, what would you cut? not even one single thing could he name. you'll recall, i don't know if this website exists but the republican answer was to put up this website youcut.gov where people could suggest their own cuts to sort of let them off the hook from having to the come up with these cuts. the same thing with the paul ryan budget. when paul ryan came out with this budget he was this serious, smart person. but as the rubber is meeting the road, we're seeing that those abstractions only work in the

abstract. where you only have to put numbers to it. >> this is a long march, though. these guys, they know they're not going to be able to come in immediately and get the big kill of entitlement reform. it is going to take some time to overcome of the cultural things that are not partisan. there is a spending culture in washington that allow the people elected, look, a lot of these people are just not there to blow things up and not just there to drop bombs. they had a long-term commitment to working out a way where we can get the deficit and get the debt under control. >> i think what i wonder when we're talking about in the context right now in the appropriations bill for next year. the debt ceiling showdown in 2011, the budget control. actually, there were cuts in that. it kicked in the sequester then because no grand bargaining. we had the sequester on top of that and now republicans wanting to cut further in the house below the sequester level to meet the paul ryan budget level.

that means you're exempting the so-called entitlement programs and republicans say we don't want to cut from defense. we want to restore money to defense. results in looking at clean water rates. 83% proposed cut in the budget. going from $8 billion to just over $5 billion. you're talking about a third from the amtrak and i wonder if the mindset here when you talk about what these numbers actually add up to seems like the mindset is we just don't want government outside of some very basic things. >> look, there is a skepticism. first off, there are people that believe we need to radically shrink the footprint of federal power. and those people are a rising element in the republican party. but there's also a lot of skepticism that all this spending, all these wonderful sounding things, these water grants and everything else are not delivering the things that they claim to deliver. they're not the magical solution

that creates thousands of jobs every time you switch on a program somewhere. there's a lot of skepticism about that and that is largely the fault of the obama administration and they promised by now, if we passed that stimulus bill, we would have 5% unemployment. real unemployment is 14%. we know that these things are increasingly met with the public's skepticism, not with, oh, joy. when you say a job's bill, it sounds great, but now people are like, what does that mean? what does it do? they don't see the connection. they didn't see the stimulus dropping unemployment to, like i said, right now on their chart that they released that the obama administration released. 5% unemployment right now because of the stimulus bill. that was their solid promise on it. we're not there. we're percolating along with this weak, iffy economy. we're not ever never been a big break through from the spending stuff. >> people still want the

government to do cut, cut, get rid of all this stuff, the government isn't going to do anything at all. this is something that worked very well on a cpac podium. i mean, that stuff sells very well. the government isn't going to do anything but defense. you get out there and try to campaign on that and talk about things you're not going to have money for this project that you like. it's very difficult, people don't like that. the hard thing they have to deal with is they have part of their base that wants to hear that message, but a lot of the voters want to hear, you're going to do stuff. >> doesn't want to necessarily hear about cutting medicare and medicaid. when you go to these websites about who wants to cut what or you look at polls, always the same thing. foreign aid which is such a small part of the budget. >> we're talking about, that's what i say, we talk about the appropriations bill. we talk about nondefense discretionary spending. we're not talking about medicare and social security and you end up with these cuts and the story right now is that republicans are, some republicans are

finding they can't stomach that. we want to talk about the other side of it because in the senate the story is different. some si and republicans coming together and how that could affect the house and avoid a shut down. we'll talk about that after this. ♪ [ male announcer ] you wait all year for summer. ♪ this summer was definitely worth the wait. ♪ summer's best event from cadillac. let summer try and pass you by.

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we talked about the sort of chaos in the house this week. republicans were unable on their own to get 218 votes to get an appropriations bill through. the senate, you know, the same bill in the senate, which would be funded at a much higher level in the senate. like $10 billion difference between the two. transportation and housing and urban development bill and it was a surprise, though. it actually made its way out of the committee on the senate on a bipartisan basis. republicans who voted for it in the committee and the expectation was that we are

going to break the filibuster and get more than 60 votes and get closure on this and bring it to the floor and have a dozen republicans voting for it and a signal the house can't get its act together and bipartisan majority in the senate and this is how gridlock was going to be broken and then they took the vote on closure. they did not get 60. susan collins helped draft the bill and she voted for it and she said it was leadership. mitch mcconnell and senate leadership that made a very aggressive push, what was going on there? >> i think mitch mcconnell in many ways not eyeing what he should do in the senate but what is going on in kentucky. in terms of getting deals done. he had, i think, earlier, some filibuster deals that he made, but i think right now he isn't interested in dealing. i think this is an unfortunately

named bill. >> or very fortunate. >> but it looks like there is what president obama is calling common sense, corburn and all the same people he had lunch or dinner with a couple months ago. i do think, again, the senate has a cooling effect. but the problem that this whole idea that the senate will have a boomerang effect with the house -- >> there is a few. >> it hasn't happened with immigration reform. that was the whole argument there. oh, if they got a bipartisan bill, we haven't seen that yet. this whole idea. >> what we're up against, now we have the august recess and nobody in d.c. for the next month. they're going to come back and say i think there's like ten working days in december. so that is the deadline to get funding bills through.

the case of maybe why this would happen with immigration would not happen with immigration, but might happen on some kind of budget thing is that deadline. the deadline is if you don't get anything passed, you have to shut down. maybe that adds pressure that is not there on something else. >> except for the fact that we go to deadline in washington now. maybe a couple days after and then go back and fix it. maybe you just have to wait. these deadlines are what seems to move congress and way too early talking about them doing anything. >> you're sitting there waiting for the guy to come out of the senate door. >> with the easel. >> waiting for the easel to show up. the royal -- >> does this model this idea that it seems to me it's still a compromise caucus emerging the senate and still our discussions between the white house and republican senators going on. we actually did see in the last month not much happened in congress or the senate a lot happened because the five nominations went through and it's because some of these republicans, the compromise caucus rooms starting to work

with democrats. >> that was seen as kind of a buffing, a rebuking mcconnell. there's the whole talk that mcconnell talked about how end run had happened and that is how the deal had been made. i think he was trying to reassert his power with this bill and i agree, you know, it's not necessarily. it's hard to rely on the house to do anything. it makes sense maybe for republicans in the senate to just sort of maybe help the house out. because it's not -- probably going to die there anyway. >> let me take the optimistic perspective. mia-malika is right he's nervous about his own election and has a tea party challenger from the right and he's concerned at the moment about getting through his prima primary. so, he does not want to put a bipartisan bill forward and pass through the level of

sequestration. that is one thing. the other thing that i think you're pointing to, steve, is we've seen these cracks in the senate and seen the mccains and the grahams saying they want to have some sort of governing coalition. we are now just starting to see those cracks in the house, too, for the first time. as you pointed out, chairman howell rogers coming out and saying, this is absurd, essentially. moderate republicans in the house raising their voices and saying these cuts are even too much just for us. to me, that's encouraging. >> the other thing. set us up nicely for the next segment, kentucky stuff coming up. primary challenges in 2014. li lindsey graham will have a primary challenge in 2014. i believe her name is nancy mase.

impressive biography and it looks like on paper you look at what lindsey graham represents and i look at this and say serious primary challenge for him. he's done more in terms of outreach to the obama administration and more receptive to that than the average senator. do you think we'll see a different lindsey graham now that he has to worry about a republican challenge. >> earl adays still in her campaign and i think the first wave of buzz has been very favorable for her. lindsey graham is a character, however. i have seen plenty people who post up in the early going of, oh, this is the perfect primary fit and it doesn't work out. we saw in 2012. you don't want to underestimate lindsey graham, although, you're right, he's a hot button with tea party and conservatives and the way that he has, you know, puts it in their face how much

he likes barack obama. >> well, when the subject turns to benghazi. but he always reminded me so much of arlen specter. arlen specter, you always knew he was one year up from re-election because he would go after anita hill. he is up for election the next year. >> you're exactly right. graham seems to know just how to walk that line and actually trying to govern and work with the other side. >> state politics takes the washington part out of it and understands south carolina and how it play there's. so, like i said, don't underestimate him. >> he's -- he had this quote in my state where i come from attacking obama is always good politics. i always keep that in mind. the first public test of whether the top senate republican can survive in 2014 is just hours away. that's next. tonight? ♪ [ male announcer ] it's a golden opportunity

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the most vulnerable republican in the senate got

more bad news this week as a tax from campaign manager started to take their toll. mitch mcconnell is battling allison on his left and tea party businessman on his right. calling 2014 matchup between mcconnell and grimes a matchup. shows grimes inching into lead. primary battle to deal with first on wednesday he voted with fellow kentucky senator rand paul who said he would not to cut off. the lodge legislator in congress. next day he pressured to filibuster the housing bill. we said last segment collins told politico is he never worked harder against a member of his own party than he did against me today. all three candidates are

gathering today at the annual fancy farm picnic in a remote corner of western kentucky. want to talk about this in a minute. premier event of bluegrass state politics. unvarnished reactions from the crowd. this year looks like things can get particularly brickly. a lot of states have these quirky traditions. i used to cover new jersey politics in the north ward of newark. there was this group they were in this thing on st. patrick's day every year and politicians from around the state would come up and, you know, they would give these funny kind of self-deprecating. almost like a roast. everything has a tradition. this one in remote, western kentucky. it's right near the mississippi river in that little part of kentucky that abuts missouri and it's in a town of like 400 people and the candidates come and just the audience heckles them and things get thrown on the stage. i found a story from 1995 and two candidates from secretary of

state in kk centucky. his father chants fbi, fbi during a speech. almost a fight, they had to hold him back. that's what's going on in coycoid tco kentucky today. i wonder, rick, we talk about mitch mcconnell last segment. what are kentucky voters going to be see from mitch mcconnell over the next year? >> people underestimate him because he has a soft kind of effect and this guy is not going to play a round and he's not going to take any -- there's not going to be any slack for either allison grimes or his republican opponent. this is a guy who goes for the throat and he's not going to screw around and i think you're going to see he has three things going for him. he has resources and he'll spend them, he'll spend them early, that works. an early understanding of the state's politics that is not distracted or defused.

not tom daschle that wasn't home. this is a guy who understands what's happening in his home state. the third thing is, he has the willingness to just absolutely burn people to the ground and i love that in a candidate. actually, that's what you need. that's what you need. and, so, look, primaries have a way of clearing people's thinking in their party and their conservative commitment and if mitch mcconnell is making these steps, you know, all parties benefit. >> here's the thing, here's the thing that i kind of wonder about. we just talked about in the last segment that mitch mcconnell went out of his way to kill the idea of compromise on the senate and he seems to be doing all the things as a senate leader and as a senator that the tea party and k conservatives would like. this is erick erickson sort of prominent national conservative. he tweeted this week, romney won kentucky by 23 points, i think

it was only 22. anyway, yet kentucky said it is a toss-up. why shouldn't mcconnell require like he made jim bunning do? >> he has sided up to rand paul that mitch mcconnell cut ads for in the 2010 senate race. i read a story about this last month. going throughout and talking about earmarks that he has gotten for kentucky years ago. he is going out there and stood in front of, i believe it was a park they had built and got 35 million in federal money to get this. talking about how much he could bring back to kentucky and that's hard now because the tea party wing isn't that interested in that stuff. but still trying to do that. so, i think on the one hand this is where maybe some difficulty. i agree it's an uphill climb and probably his primary opponent and him having some difficulty.

he wants to run as this guy but also want to run a guy that will shut down all kind of government spending. >> interesting what rand paul actually does. he said some pretty -- a lot of things about the opponent and mitchcconnell needs him in that race. even more interesting is the clintons. no matter if grimes loses, this is still good for the clintons because they're going to be in that state. bill clinton is on a video. he won in '92 in '96 and you can imagine if hillary clinton is trying to sort of reawaken the clinton mystique, especially in those southern states. she would be wise to be there, too. >> this is one of those -- there are few states that voted for hillary and they ask grimes about votes for obama. >> that's the thing you talk about, a few states, i think, that basically the 2008 election would have gone the same whether it was hillary or obama. a few states that hillary would

have won that obama didn't. hillary could have won. but here's the thing about where this picnic is taking place today. the county that it is in in western kentucky is one of the kentucky counties in 2012 in the presidential democratic primary with the sitting democratic president on the ballot that voted for uncommitted. uncommitted care. that's what allison grimes is up against. the association of obama care. at the same time, we say romney won kentucky by 22 point. six of seven statewide officials are democrats. >> i think kentucky and west virginia are two of these states that still have this fascinating, you know, state level democratic hold affinity and then national level republican affinity. and with mitch mcconnell, you know, i do think the relationship with rand paul is fascinating and it is a lesson of just how smart this guy is. as you pointed out, backed rand paul's opponent in 2010 and

endorsed him and worked against rand paul. mcconnell realized he had touched on something that mcconnell needed to understand and be part of and actively work to cultivate a relationship with rand paul. he has jesse benton managing his campaign, long-time paul family aide. that's how smart mitch mcconnell is. one mistake he has made thus far is that ashley judd was looking at getting into this race and mcconnell drummed her out of the race. she would have been an easier opponent than allison grimes. that is one error mcconnell has made. i think you're right -- >> shows how vicious a campaigner he is. >> one fun fact that i want to get in, the fancy farm picnic holds the guinness world record for the largest picnic in the world because they consume in one day, 15,000 pounds of mutton, pork and chicken. they're going to try to break that record today. the republicans who try to kill the reagan revolution and the democrat who helped usher it

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last month ten members of congress wrote to the owner of the washington redskins urging him to change the team's name. rush limbaugh took to the air to slam the latest effort. >> are you going to start saying you can't name teams after animals next? when is it going to stop? these change advocates are nothing but a bunch of liberals who are in truth seeking to empower the federal government. more power over everybody. >> that wasn't the last word on the matter. a member of congress delivered an impassioned response to limbaugh on the house floor this week. we'll show you that heated exchange. that's ahead. a new way to do the same for your dog. introducing new purina dog chow light & healthy. it's a no-sacrifices, calorie-light way to help keep him trim, with a deliciously tender and crunchy kibble blend he'll love.

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had still been alive. i had that thought twice this week william scranton and harry bird jr. had died. one was 96 years old and one was 98. both absent from the political stage for decades. played no role in the current one. except well, they kind of did, not directly, but their stories loom over american politics today. they illustrate the roots of the deep and intense regional, racial and cultural divisions that define the two parties today. they result in the maddening gridlock that no one seems happy about at all. if you want to know how the american political system came to this, you can do a lot worse than know the stories of bill scranton and harry bird jr. scranton an old school republican. the son of the northeast, the town in pennsylvania he came from scranton was named after his ancestors and he embodied a strain that mixed with robust

government. he ran for congress in 1960 and won in a district that went for john f. kennedy that same year. two years later ran for governor and won, again. his first year in office considered a smashing success. poured money into education and enacted a sales tax. that fleury of action led to calls for scranton to seek the 1964 presidential nomination. but he didn't show much interest in that. what scranton didn't realize at first and what almost no republican of the old guard recognized at that point is how real the threat of barry goldwater was. vehemently movement. he gobbled up delegates at one state, the modern republican establishment struggled to respond. rockefeller was supposed to be their front man but compromised by personal scandal when he lost the republican primary to

goldwater that june, it made rockefeller toast. frantic in treaties for scranton to reconsider a jump into the race, but he wouldn't budge. he wouldn't budge, at least, until a few days later when goldwater joined southern democrats that were trying to kill lyndon johnson's civil rights bill with a filibuster. one of six to cross over and join with the south in that filibuster and on the cusp of winning the republican party's nomination. that's when scranton changed his mind and entered the race. >> stand with me and the cause of freedom. stand with me for the integrity of our party and the security of the nation. stand with me as free men and free women. free republicans and free americans. stand with me because the cause is right and because it is right, we shall prevail. >> scranton took that fight to the republican convention floor in a desperate last-minute hunt

for delegates. and the words his campaign used to criticize policies later showed up in one of president's lyndon johnson's campaign ads. >> governor scranton, the day before the convention he called goldwaterism a "crazy quilt collection of absurd and dangerous positions." scranton's campaign was a lost cause. goldwater had the votes already, he won the nomination and then he lost in the landslide to lbj in november. scranton went back to pennsylvania, finished up his term and never ran for office again. years later he said of his brief presidency run, i ran primarily out of concern for the future of the parbty. republicans were being portrayed as white supremacy party and that really threw me off. it was so contrary to the party's record. it hastened the demise with

conservative white southerners where harry bird jr. came in. his father had the most powerful organization in virginia. elected to the senate with fdr in 1932 and later received 15 electoral votes in the 1960 election as a protest against jfk's civil rights policies. when byrd resigned from the senate due to his poor health in 1965 his son, young harry, was appointed to fill his seat. byrd jr. was just as conservative as his father on civil rights and other issue and denied the democratic senate nomination in virginia in 1970 when he refused to pledge his support for whoever would be the 1972 democratic presidential nominee. byrd just decided to run for the senate as an independent and won that election easily. by 1980, he was routinely voting with republicans and he decided to enforce ronald reagan for president over jimmy carter. then with reagan in power and working kevative majorities in

the house and senate harry byrd jr. was content to retire in 1982. he never joined the republican party in all those years, you can still say he played an enormous role with white southerners away from the democratic party in the wake of the civil rights act. these days going to be hard to believe that there was ever room for harry byrd in the democratic party or bill scranton in the republican party. their passing is a reminder that it really wasn't that long ago when the two parties in american politics were very different. rush limbaugh stokes a heated battle. that's next. three weekends. asthma doesn't affect my job... you missed the meeting again last week! it doesn't affect my family. your coughing woke me up again. i wish you'd take me to the park. i don't use my rescue inhaler a lot... depends on what you mean by a lot. coping with asthma isn't controlling it. test your level of control at asthma.com, then talk to your doctor.

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america samoa delegate house of representatives took to the house floor to call the teams name an ethnic slur that should not be protected by federal trademark. >> the origin of redskin is commonly attributed to not only killing native americans, but also cutting off certain body

parts and scalping. these scalps were described as redskins. i submit, mr. speaker, native americans are human beings. they are not animals. >> his remarks for sending a letter to the football team's owner last month asking him to change the team's name. he attacked the democrat and his colleagues for a second time after those floor comments on tuesday. >> i'm telling you, folks, these people are people who do not like thir country as founded and they are all part of the obama coalition to transform this country into something it wasn't. >> want to bring in wilson, a member of the osage nation and an attorney who represents tribes. what you have seen in this back and forth and this effort to get

this nickname changed in washington. seemed to be popping up for years and something that is getting momentum and do you think it will happen in the near future? >> i do think it will happen eventually if you think about what happened in regards to riley cooper. riley cooper is a wide receiver for the philadelphia eagles, he goes to a kenny chesney concert and he gets drunk and drops the n word to an african-american security guard. interesting to see how that played out throughout the country to the media and he made public apology. no excuse for what he did, but, certainly, the reactions have been, i think, remarkable. first of all, he apologized to his teammates michael vick and others accept it and another teammate said he doesn't accept his apology. he has apologized on numerous occasions and taken leave from the team to seek counseling on why he would do such a thing. but i think it's remarkable to see how roger goodell, nfl

commissioner responded to this. unacceptable comments and at the same time he tolerated and even celebrated the football name and just wonder what the first president of the nfl, jim thorpe, would think about that today. >> dan snyder is the owner of the redskins and they have the logo and changing the name might economically cost him a lot of money. his quote is, we will never change the name. it's that simple. never, you can use caps. what would you say to somebody like that? >> you know, this is, framed this as a moral issue, and i think it really is. amanda blackhorse going on regarding the protections of the name but at its heart is a moral

issue and ultimately i think the name will change one day but it's hard to shame the shameless. and it won't be with this ownership of the team and with this leadership of the team. i think eventually we'll get there but you're just seeing a reaction to rush limbaugh and not a bad thing to have rush limbaugh comment on something you care about. as an example, i don't think we have seen the reauthorization of the violence against womens act without rush limbaugh saying some of the things he did. >> he's the -- the thing that baulthers me a little bit about it. he was framing, this is what the democrats, this is what the left is trying to do. one of the people who signed this letter is one of the top republicans in the house, tom cole from oklahoma. so, it seems like, i'm hesitant to frame this as a left/right thing because when it gets polarized that way, an extra level of defensiveness enters into it that probably shouldn't be there. >> more of a geographical

element depending on what constituencies these members of congress are representing. you were making the point, you know, connecting the comments using the n-word to the word redskin. and i think that is an important connection and it's one that people made in their letter. if people were thinking about it in that way, they wouldn't come close to supporting the name. i'm long-time redskins fan and this is the one team i grew up cheering for and i feel embarrassed to tweet about the team i like because i'm embarrassed about the name. dan snyder, the only thing he cares about, in my opinion, is how much money he makes. the trademark is -- i would be interesting if you agree with that. but the other piece is driving public sentiment and this shouldn't be the sort of issue where it's a popularity contest

and majority opinion drives things. but, unfortunately, that does need to move a bit between making the connection between redskins is an important fact. >> the "washington city" paper stopped referring them to redskins, pigskins. progressives are now applying real pressure to president obama on a major economic appointment. that's next.

president has a big choice to make on a major economic appointment very soon. i want to talk about that, but, first, i want to bring in matt elajious from slate.com and also with us republican strategist rick wilson and nia-malika henderson of "washington post." president obama accustomed with dealing from opposition on his

right and now getting unusual pushback from the left on a major economic appointment from the chairmanship of the federal reserve. republicans in congress are urging president to pick vice chair janet yellen. the other top contender is larry summers. progressives argue that summers won't be aggressive enough in using the powers of the federal reserve to stimulate economic growth. met with congressional democrats this week and the president mounted an uncharacteristically emotional defense of summers. cording to jerry connally, a democratic congressman from virginia who was at the meeting, obama said of summers, "he was the rock of girbralter and trying to turn the economy around. i will not stand by and let his name be disparaged and his reputation trashed because people have a political agenda

about who should or should not be. >> he has a long list of people he is talking to. he indicated that there's not, his words, not a piece of paper difference in all of them. >> ahead of the senate democrats will support whoever obama nominates for the position. last week, though, a group of 20 democratic senators wrote a letter urging obama to appoint yellen. they wrote "our nation badly needs a chairman with a solid record with a bank regulator. the board well served by a chairman with monetary policy experience which governor yellen has with more than a decade of service in the federal reserve system." matt, you have written about this a little bit and written it probably should not be in your mind larry summers to get this job. are you part of this crowd that is trashing him like the president said this week? >> i don't consider myself someone who is out there trashing larry summers. what is strange is the seeming impulse to look beyond yellen.

when the president avointed her to be vice chair of the system, the sense was that she would be elevated to the chairmanship. she's the most qualified chairman out there. a lot of experience on the monetary side and bank regulatory side and people generally seem to like her and summers has this relatively small but extremely intense fan club that luckily for him includes the president's top economic advisors and seemingly the president himself. but a lot of people do have questions about his commitment of the regulatory commission of the fed and a lot of us are wondering why? what is the sort of crucial centrality of larry summers here? why do you want to pass up this sort of veteran loyalist who has done her time and her judgment has been proven right on a number of issues over the years and then you have summers, his views on a lot of the key issues here are not really known to the public and just not really clear what this kind of impulse is. >> pick this up as the larry summers fan club and the

backlash against a larry summers fan club and continuity with yellen if she were to replace bernanke. it just occurred to me maybe there's an answer that is obvious and i haven't seen it. remember allen greenspan served until he was 90 years old. bernanke is a relatively young guy. is he done with this? is the administration unhappy with him for some reason? why is it on the table to reappointment him? >> he's unhappy with the job. he's not a political operator and life-long official. academic and had a long career at princeton university and sort of gotten tired of being in the public eye. you know, you get criticized by everyone from all sides. when greenspan was chairman the economy was doing great. people applauded him nonstop. but bernanke kind of takes a lot of criticism from a lot of people and i think he wants to go back to his office and write

his papers and not be in the hot spot all the time. >> matt talks about the larry summers fan club. president obama seems to be part of it. i'm wondering what that stems from. just working with him a couple years ago and also seems to me based on this letter from the senate, not a lot of democratic senators are a part of that club. >> in some ways, a flashback to when obama first got in and appointing all of these clinton, clinton folks and progressives were not happy. they weren't happy with summers. they very much like volker, volker in the white house boxed out of the main monetary approach. but people also upset with summers from some of the things that went on at harvard, as well. very much a flash back to that. you flash for now until yellen. i think you'll hear a lot from women's groups. i just got an e-mail from the national organization for women. you saw the president and the big appointments so far in his second administration, not a lot of women, not a lot of minorities in the key positions.

i think you'll hear a lot. >> that harvard thing, people if they have forgotten or whatever, larry summer was president of harvard. women were inferior when it came to math and science and the first female chair of the fed. >> progressives and women's groups tried to use against them. this is a fascinating dynamic which power women's groups have built up and progressive groups, too. this is a lot of the same debate and a lot of the same stuff we heard. this time i think it feels like a bit more momentum behind these people than there were the last time in 2009 when summers got the treasury dwgig. >> i don't think the skconstitu here is women's groups. now in the phase and he does not want to select a fed chair who makes guys a few blocks south of here nervous. the taper that inevitably has to

start happening of the $85 billion a month in bond buying and all this that's kept all this liquidity gushing into the market. as that threads down, he's not going to have somebody who can scare wall street with the hope of greater regulatory issues and a greater regulatory hurdles and at the same time when you're drawing down some of the stimulus that has kept wall street riding on this bubble, this cloud of fed spending. so, i think the political driver there is obama is not going to want somebody that is going to blow up the market. the few bright spots they have. >> i wonder about that, matt, in terms of the relationship between the administration and wall street. larry summers, i think to a lot of people on the left symbolizes that era when bill clinton married the democratic party to wall street. reuben coming in to run treasury and the deregulation in all of that and i wonder if that's what a lot of the objection is to

summers right now, hey, we're implementing dodd/frank and put in clinton's deregulator. >> two sides to this. summers has made a lot of money and part-time consulting and speaking things for citigroup and other financial institutions. people on the left say we're suspicious of this guy and his ties to finance. on the other hand, i think there's this notion that summers would somehow be more reassuring to financial markets broadly. but i feel that is actually a very d.c. mentality. that summers is a real sort of policy guy and been in washington for a lot of capacity for a lot of years. jenny allen is not some unknown figure to the banking industry, but a member of the board of governors and the vice chair of the system. the idea that elevating her would be destabilizing influence in the markets, i don't think there's any support for. she's been a player in this for a long time. summers is a loose canon with

things he says. he has gotten himself in trouble numerous times over the year. the chairman has to be very careful and not engage in sort of provocations or trying to show off and be the smartest guy in the room in all the time. summers is sometimes too tied in and not too tied in to the job. >> this is a decision that is going to be made, maybe a couple months away from the appointment to be made and the idea that the president is high on summers has come out. it seems to me relatively early in that process given how controversial summers is. and it seems the weight of what sort of has come out, especially from the president's own party has been negative. i wonder, is this having an effect on in terms of the idea, hey, maybe we should not go with this guy. do you think it's starting to have that effect? >> the effect had it already the more fired up obama and the angry obama you get when the left pushes him. professional left and when the left gets mad at him is when he

gets really upset. you're seeing him out there in congress, hey, larry summers, you have to stop this. larry summers is the guy. i'm not sure if that necessarily translates to him being picked but it is a fascinating battle that when this happens, when the left pushes obama on something, he really gets fired up. that's what's happening now. we'll see if that translates to him. push back in his face. i think this woman thing is a big part of it. it's a big part of it. you're seeing in the senate with what's going on with the sexual assault stuff. this is a fired up base of the democratic party. not like they had done a lot for obama to get re-elected and i think a lot of them, the leaders of the women's groups really don't want to see summers in that job. >> when i saw that we don't have video because of a closed door meeting. when i saw the transcript offered by people who were there of how obama defended summers this week. remember his impassioned defense of susan rice when the republicans were saying susan

rice and i said, wow, he really wants to pick a fight over this and the next bit of news, he made his defense and then they moved on to another candidate. i'm wondering if -- >> for this, it seems like he's defending summers as much as he is defending his decision and his legacy. he is going to get in there and say, yeah, this guy is terrible. it's not really surprising. >> also trying to make the economy -- >> exactly. yeah, yeah. so, i don't think it translate his defense as in the case of susan rice. it doesn't necessarily translate to the fact that he's going to pick this guy. >> matt, you follow this closer than anybody here. what do you think is the shake out of this? who do you think it is going to be? >> i thought it was going to be yellen all along. went back to the fact that i thought they would have a good sense to recognize that picking summers would cause a huge political blowback. the summers fan club is more powerful and more intense than i had realized. but this came out and i think it's not a coincidence that we

got this preview in the press that the president is leaning heavily towards summers and it's a trial balloon or trying to sink him and test the water and what they see. what they're seeing a lot of critics of summers out there. he has fans, but not a ton of them out here in the world and there's not a big larry summers movement outside of the white house. they're going to have to ask themselves. how much do they feel they owe it to him. he wanted the job the last time around, but the decision was made to stick with bernanke. so, there's a sense among summers' core allies that he sort of deserves this. nobody deserves a job. >> when you, if it's a trial balloon and the first response is that more than half of members of your own party say, oh, this other candidate, that's who we're for. >> an issue gets elevate under to the political sphere. i think obama's preferences will have a very strong impact at the end of the day.

this is not going to become, fed chair, gender politics of the fed chair is not going to become -- >> i think there's a best selling book in there somewhere. the obama administration is also facing more pushback from the left on surveillance, an issue that is pitting republican against republican. that's next. okay, a? b? b. a? that's a great choice. let me show you some faucets to go along with that. with the latest styles and guaranteed low prices, you can turn the bath you have into the bath you want.

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russian government this week granted a one-week asylum to edwre edward snowden. wanted in the united states on three felony counts related to the disclosure of classified information and at thursday's white house press briefing jay carney said the administration was "extremely disappointed with russia." meanwhile, glenn greenwald of "the guardian" recorded a new piece of information on snowden.

called xt score which gathers so much information from the internet, including communications between americans and foreign sources that it can only be stored for days at a time. greenwald writes "one presentation claims the program covers nearly everything a typical user does on the internet including searches, as well as their data. nsa told "the guardian" focuses and specifically deployed against legitimate foreign targets in response to requirements that our leaders need for information necessary to protect our nation and its interests. so, it's more revelations. we had the vote now, you know, a week ago in congress on nsa reform that was, that came surprisingly close to happening and i think the most interesting thing to me to come out of that, how funky these two coalitions were. basically half the democrats were for it and half the republicans were for it and half were against it. we have the new revelations this week. do you think this moves the issue on the ball at all?

>> one thing i have been fascinated by is americans. they seem not to really care about this story. care about the idea that the government can sift through everything we sin. i think that's sort of the sleeping giant perhaps in this, but there is this strange coalition. i think if this, obviously, were a republican administration, you'd have much more vocal democrats. you had, i think, 100 of them vote with republicans on this. but it's an evolving story. we'll see more revelations some amazing reporting, but what is continuously surprising to me is kind of the american people sort of shrugging at it. >> although it does feel like the congressional vote to me indicates that there has been movement on this, in terms of congress reflecting public opinion. i can't imagine a vote, you know, 200-217. i'm imagining five to six years ago i can't imagine 217 -- >> this is a, the difficulty of

these revelations comes from snowden is that now he is a traitor. he has accepted asylum in a foreign country and he has taken himself out of the legitimate discourse here. what he's got now is poison. there should be a public debate about the scope and scale of these programs, but, unfortunately, he's become a poisoned actor in the whole thing. and the nsa has to take a lot of the blame for this because they have not articulated what they are doing appropriately. all very lawyered and, look, i want the nsa to hoover down every single electron. i want them to know what putin had for breakfast every day. i want to know intention. i want them to focus on that. and i want them to articulate more clearly the safe guards that they say are in place. and i know from -- i worked in the defense department years ago. i understand the classified world has a lot of safe guards built into it. they, apparently, have extraordinary safe guards built into it but they haven't fully

articulated that to the public. causing part of the political problem here by not having a level of transparency that goes beyond -- we're going to brief the leadership in congress, that's what we're going to do. we'll issue these very carefully worded statements. they need to walk people through it. this is like the old debate about satelliteses and overhead coverage. we used to say we can't talk about its existence at all. we can't even look at the, we can't even talk about the existence of these programs. well, there was actually a political and diplomatic utility to reveal the ability and the revolution we had of these programs. there may be some utility here and go a long way for the nsa to say these are the rules and this is the way we're going to handle the data that we collect about americans because, look, there's always temptation and always bad actors and systems and no huge bureaucracy and going to be medically sealed against a

snowden. what if snowden said i'm going to pull the porn sear has to do a better job of articulating of what they do. they do good work and collect a risky set of data unless those safe guards are rock solid and people understand them that they'll continue to have this resistance. >> someone pulling the x-rated searches of members of congress they'll have a story worth a lot of money. >> this is not toteoally hypothetical concerns. not that the fbi wasn't doing legitimate crime control counterterrorism stuff then, but blackmailing public figures and doing power plays. a lot of information. and another factor that has not gotten played in the debate is the international element of this. great to sit in america and say, yeah, of course we want to spy

on foreigners. very important to american commerce that we have the large technology companies that are based here. the googles, microsoft, facebook, twitter. all big american companies and global companies and people sitting in their living rooms in paris, berlin, tokyo, well, it's only foreigners we're spying on. they are the foreigners. >> everybody plays this game. every great power and every nation plays this game. believe me, the chinese are vastly more aggressive about spying on us, you know, on the digital side than i think even our most ambitious dreams. >> but what i'm saying is there are going to be commercial consequences for american technology companies as it becomes more and more -- i mean, absolutely are. there is a reason they are -- we are using web search in our houses, people use it in china. but china is not a global technology player in the same kind of way in part of these concerns. >> i want to make a transition here because this also formed

the backdrop for what could be the squirmish within the republican party for the first republican presidential nomination and illustrating kind of a split that occurred in the republican party where you had chris christie and rand paul getting the extenned back and forth where christie, where was he? out in colorado. >> aspen. >> aspen. there it is. so, christie went after rand paul and debates and rand paul fired back by talking about christie and peter king from new york who are both sort of hawkish on national security questions. talk about the give me, give me attitude towards government spending money towards sandy. this is how chris christie responded. >> if senator paul wants to start looking at where he's going to cut spending to afford defense, maybe he should start looking at cutting the pork barrel spending he brings home to kentucky at $1.51 for every dollar and not look at new jersey where we get 61 cents for every dollar. maybe senator paul could deal with that when he's trying to deal with the reduction of

spending on the federal side. but i doubt he would. because most washington politicians only care about bringing home the bacon so that they could get re-elected. >> speaking of bacon, this was rand paul's response. >> this is the king of bacon talking about bacon. you know, we have two military bases in kentucky and as governor christie recommending that we shut down our military bases? he wants to be this great champion of national defense. what does he want to do? shut down military bases in kentucky? >> what was interesting to me about this back and forth, evan, was five years ago, ten years ago, this wouldn't even have been a question with the republican party of how something like this goes over. christie was the absolute consense of the republican party pew had some numbers that came out and in the last three years, since 2010, a 21-point jump in the percentage of republicans who say they're more concerned about the impact of anti-terrorism policies than

they are about, you know, terrorism itself. in terms of their priorities and i think a lot of the consensus that rand paul in today's republican universe maybe came out of this better than chris christie did. >> can i say the king of bacon is a job i would take. >> next time you're here, there's going to be bacon -- >> i'll take it. but, yeah, go back to the point from before, we've seen several polls that have shifted and shown that americans have been a little more concerned about these programs as they've come out. so i think that rand paul's in that pew poll is surprising especially when you're in washington where the talk in washington among party leaders is moderating the party and making the party more open to changes on their views on social issues and stuff like that. this poll suggested that the party wants to go pretty conservative. >> but at the same time, my other thought was you talk about

chris christie and is he mark marketable because he praised obama last year, blue state, all these things. i also saw here, this is what chris christie is going to be doing a lot more of if he wins re-election. he will make that transition to being not a new jersey politician but a national republican politician and this is sort of a preview of what he is going to do. >> clearly his people had done the research on kentucky and rand paul and interesting that he pivoted directly back to rudy giuliani and talking about national security issues and terrorism issues. he basically said to rand paul, you should go and talk to those widows from 9/11, if you want to talk about defense and national security and things like that. i didn't think -- it was sort of a knee jerk sort of pre-9/11 or 9/11 moment for him and i think he will have to be in a different place because his party is in a different place. we're in a post-9/11. we're in a place where people are skeptical of these large -- >> i think that might be an

issue -- that might be where the new jersey focus is different than the focus. in new jersey a lag of how the pr proximity to 9/11 and the widows and a little more residence there than it does nationally. we're out of time this segment, unfortunately. sorry. want to thank matt for joining us today. anthony weiner's advice for the media. that's coming up next. bacon... ...and oven-baked to crisp perfection. add a soft apple-flavored center ...and say no more. new heartfuls from beneful baked delights. spark more play in your day.

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right to vote for me if they want to. you know who i decided to vote for, anthony weiner. i decided i have good ideas. i've decided that i have shown a level of independence in standing in front of you today. >> you heard him unbossed and unbacked but he does have a surprising number of supporters left. i'll tell you who they are after this. uys who leak a little, to guard their manhood with new depend shields and guards. the discreet protection that's just for guys. now, it's your turn. get my training tips at guardyourmanhood.com

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than 39 states $1.3 trillion economy, that's larger than mexico. we have wall street, broadway, statue of liberty. first thing people all over the world think of when they think of america. right now for the first time in 12 years, electing a new leader. on top of that campaign has become the most wild, unpredictable and just plain fun race taking place in the country anywhere this year. let's try to understand exactly what is going on how the race is taking shape. two questions hovering over it. does weiner have a chance of coming back and winning? if he doesn't, who will be the next mayor of new york? this is why god invented numbers. we do have some clues. most recent poll for the democratic primary. so, our first question is about weiner. there he is at fourth place at 16%. two ways of looking at this. the first is that it is a steep drop. in first place before his latest troubles and now sunk to fourth

and maybe just a start. maybe weiner will drop farther in the next poll and phase out of this race. another way of looking at it, from all he has been through, 16% isn't that bad. remember, new york has runoffs. if no one gets 40% in the september 10th primary, the top two candidates will face each other three weeks later. right now, in this poll, weiner is only five point out of second place. where is weiner's support coming from. who are the 16% who are still with them after all this. we have some more numbers. more of them are women than men. it's kind of surprising and so is this. weiner is leading among black voters. latinos make up a big share and given overall support he is probably doing pretty well with them right now, too. what is amazing about this african-americans have not traditionally been part of anthony weiner's base his old district was filled with white ethnics we used to call them.

he catered to them. like he was trying to channel ed when he ran for mayor in 2005, supporting the democratic primary came overwhelmingly from white voters. w, he is losing his old political base. he will have to get some of it back because his new base right now is not big enough to make up for the difference. here's where weiner's problems really come into focus. if he actually does make it to the run off a, that's when the floor just falls out from under him. that's what the last two weeks have done to weiner. still has a decent base of support but new voters who will vote for anyone but him. that will be a lot to overcome. so, if it's not going to be weiner, who is going to be the next mayor of new york. let's go back to that new poll. quinn has been the front-runner all year and also a weak front ubrunner. the big reason for this, because she teamed up with michael bloomberg four years ago to jump term limits and let him run for a third time. bloomberg fatigue in new york

right now. being so intimately attached to him is not helpful when it comes to a democratic primary. a lot of skepticism and a lot of hostility towards quinn among the 45% of democrats who are not happy with bloomberg and created a huge opening for her opponents. that's why weiner was able to get so much traction and bill blasio is suddenly in second place. a lot of watchers in new york are now putting their money on bill thompson. he ran against bloomberg four years ago and no support from his party back then and no attention from the media and still nearly pulled off the shocker of the century. thompson would be new york's second african-american mayor ever and just this week he spoke out in jarringly personal terms against the police program. he will end up peeling off a lot of the support that weiner

enjoys. if tauhompson could get into a one-on-one race african-american support would be tough to beat. he's up ten points on her right now in that hypothetical race. that is one theory. that's why i love elections in big, diverse cities. a limitless number of coalitions that candidates can assemble. watching those coalitions take shape, we get to learn something about politics and the candidates and ourselves. somewhere out there there is still probably a coalition that could make anthony weiner the mayor of america's biggest city. ask our panel about that possibility and a bunch of others, after this. iand we're talkingl time with diane about the walmart low price guarantee, backed by ad match. you got your list? let's go! look at that price! i like that! they need those for school.

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out for drinks, eats. i have very well fitting dentures. i like to eat a lot of fruits. love them all. the seal i get with the super poligrip free keeps the seeds from getting up underneath. even well-fitting dentures let in food particles. super poligrip is zinc free. with just a few dabs, it's clinically proven to seal out more food particles so you're more comfortable and confident while you eat. a lot of things going on in my life and the last thing i want to be thinking about is my dentures. [ charlie ] try zinc free super poligrip. we talked the last few weeks about anthony weiner and, listen, a race going on for one of the premier jobs in the united states. i mean, the old college football analyst said the three best jobs in the country, president of the united states, coaching notre

da dame, mayor of new york. this is one of those three. beano said it, it has to be true. but i'm trying to figure out what to make of the 16%. the one poll one comprehensive poll since the scandal broke. it really seems looking at weiner fading out of this thing and at 7% before we know or is this sort of personality we saw on display this week. is that going to stop the slide. you have debates coming up and he has money for ad as. is there a chance still he makes himself back into contention just to make a runoff? >> i don't see him making the runoff, but i do take your point. he is at the low water mark. he is now at the place where he can paint himself sort of the victim of the media. why is the media focusing on this issue when people really want to talk about is housing and education, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. i still think he has done too much damage. nobody really cares about it so

much as much as the people feel like they were lied to. far more important and a sense we can't trust this guy. but i think he's at his low water mark and assuming no more revelations, which is a big if, right. a big if. assuming no more. he kind of hangs out where he is right now. >> it says also the main anthony weiner and everybody around the country knows anthony weiner. people don't know bill thompson and christine quinn. it speaks to, if you put the scandals aside and i don't think anthony weiner accomplished much in congress. in terms of seeing angles on everything and being able to exploit those angles and know exactly the right words to say and the right way to say those words. i have rarely seen a politician as natural as him and i think that combination compared to sort of how low-key his rivals are speaks to the weakness of

the rest of the field and the strengths as a communicator that he's sitting at 16% at all this. >> if any voter out there believes that the media did this to anthony weiner, i mean, he's running out of message. he's got no where to go when there's so many people now talking about all these problems and mistakes that he keeps making, right? >> but, rick, i want to ask rick about this one. when i saw that performance that we showed, you know what i thought, i thought newt gingrich and i thought the open marriage breaks on the eve of the most christian state in the republican primaries and he turns the question around to attack the media and he gets 41%. >> look, here's the thing. all anthony weiner is now that the law applies to people sending shots. engage in sexual misbehavior that is repetitive. he won't even deny he's still doing it. >> he actually just deny definite not doing it.

>> at the end of the sentence. >> if, when and how. but the guy has become a punchline. and if you look at the two candidates that are running for citywide offices right now, you look at anthony weiner and he has done nothing but confirm people's negative impressions of him. he is not in this, at this point, with any sort of vision for the city. he doesn't have any selling proposition. you know, and believe me, in new york, not going to drag him over the finish line. i worked for rudy giuliani in the 1997 re-election. and people in new york want a mayor who is a character. they don't necessarily demand every single moral majority check box that might apply in south carolina. but they also want somebody who they think he may be, but he may

be a guy with rough edges, but he's going to put that to work for us. they don't see that with weiner. it is all about anthony weiner's personal problem. >> see, i do think there is a danger in, the media is going to continue to focus on his sexting thing because it's a great story. >> it's out there. >> and i do think that -- why would you go away? it's a grit story. but if you, if it continues in that direction, i do think he's able to make the case. you know, they want to focus on this. what the people of new york want to say. i'm not saying he's going to win. but i don't think he goes lower than the 16%. also because you said, steve, people know who he is. they see him on the polling and ballot. >> if you look at the ad, i don't think it was a television ad, just a video. which speaks maybe he doesn't have as much money as we think he does. he does have a great tactile

sense. i thought it was a fantastic ad except for the fact that don't look at this shiny text over here where you can see my junk. that's the problem. right? it goes back to, he has no record to run on. >> that's the thing. like he reminds me, his style, his sort of performers instinct really do remind me of ed cochand he said you're my role model and he didn't take it too well. what do we know now that we didn't know last week? my answer is after this. [ male announcer ] this is george.

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so what do we know now that we didn't know last week? we know that cory booker is backing out of a trip to the daily caucus state. shortly after the new york mayor announced a few months ago that he would participate in a special election to fill frank lautenberg's senate seat, booker's speaking agency signed a contract on his behalf to speak at the university of iowa

at the end of august. that's the kind of trip that automatically fuels speculation about a politician's interest in national office. spokesman for the university says they were expecting booker to come, but according to his campaign manager this week, the event was, quote, never at any point on the campaign's calendar. we also know that booker vowed to politico on thursday that he would not be running for president or vice president in 2016. and we know that this is the same booker who said just eight months ago, quote, let there be no doubt, i will complete my full second term as mayor. the second term that he is now interrupting to run for the senate. we now know that just -- we now know just how tense things really got between margaret thatcher and ronald reagan during the american invasion of gra neda 30 years ago. documents released this week showed up until the day before the 1983 invasion, thatcher tried to get reagan to reconsider, writing, quote, i cannot conceal that i am deeply disturbed by your latest communication. that even at this late stage, you will take it into account before events are irrevocable.

we know that reagan went ahead with the invasion anyway and apologized in a phone call the next day, according to a british diplomat saying, quote, that if they was in london, he would throw his hat in the door, first, checking to see if he would the be welcomed again by margaret thatcher. we know that he was, because upon thatcher's death this year, she said they were soul mates. on thursday, the democratic national convention committee began selling vintage 2000 bush/cheney campaign t-shirts. it says, after five years of obama, we really miss president bush. this is a very similar device in politics. when bill clinton came to office in, don't blame me, i voted for bush bumper stickers became fashionable on republican bumper stickers. and then there was this, don't

blame me, i'm from massachusetts. residents proudly pointed out that they had been alone the only state to vote for george mcgovern instead of nixon in 1972. and we now know that louisiana's colorful 85-year-old former governor edwin edwards and his 34-year-old wife had a baby boy on thursday. edwards recently finished servinging ayears in federal prison for racketeering and extortion. allegations of corruption marked his four terms as governor. he once famously said that the only way he'd only be taken down was if he was caught in bed, quote, either a dead girl or a live boy. and now at 85, he is a new father. i want to find out what my guests know now that they didn't know when the week began. speaking of new parents, krystal? >> well, i haven't seen any, don't blame me, i voted for romney stickers yet, but i'm waiting on that. one thing we know that changes made in 2010 to racist crack sentencing has already had a huge impact, saving 16,000

prison years and $500 million. think progress had that this week. >> rick? >> one thing we know is that the cbo is goosing the numbers with a lookback on changing the employment numbers for the last three or four years. it's one more quiver in the arrow, to try to make a very iffy and sort of stagnant economy look like we're slowly increasing jobs. >> i think we know that the pressure on russia over lbgt rights and the olympics is not going away, it's coming to washington. my colleague has been doing a lot of great reporting on how this is building and getting a constituency in washington to pressure russia. and the snowden thing doesn't help russia out at all. i think this will be an issue that continues louder and louder and louder up until those olympics start in sochi. >> i now know that krystal ball looks fantastic, mere weeks after having a baby. i think we thought it was princess kate who was going to set the bar for what women should look like after their babies --

>> women should look however -- >> but you look fantastic. >> i knew that krystal looked fantastic even before you -- >> anyway, my thanks to krystal ball of msnbc's "the cycle," republican strategist rick wilson, and nia-malika henderson of "the washington post," thank you all for getting up and thank you for joining us today for "up." join us tomorrow, sunday morning at 8:00 when we'll take a close look at the political price some colorado politicians are paying for their votes for gun control with mark glaze from mark bloomberg's gun control group and state snars john morse, who's now a target of a recall event for his vote. coming up next is "melissa harris-perry." on today's "mhp," congressman paul ryan held a hearing on poverty. plus, white house whispering campaign to build the case for larry summers. it's melissa harris-perry and she's coming up next and we'll see you right here tomorrow morning at 8:00. thanks for getting up. ♪

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these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer fruits chews. enjoy the relief! this morning, my question. why do republicans hate mitch mcconnell so much? plus, democrats want to capture an asteroid, but republicans don't. and why they don't like larry, the very public fed chief. but first, as a survivor's hell ends, a perpetrator's is just beginning. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. on thursday, we all sat riveting, watching as the final chapter of a story