just shoot your business card receipts and they're automatically matched up with the charges on your online statement. i'm john kaplan and i'm a member of a synchronized world. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. can you be against authorizing the use of force in syria and the new deal to avert military action? it has been another weekend of fast moving developments as washington reacts to yesterday's surprise agreement between the u.s. and russia. proposed deal that calls for syria to destroy all of its chemical weapons by the middle of next year. >> the united states and russia are committed to the elimination of syrian chemical weapons in the soonest and safest manner. we agree that syria must submit

within a week, not in 30 days, but in one week, a comprehensive listing and additional details will be addressed regarding that in the coming days. >> secretary of state john kerry in his russian counterpart reaching an agreement on bashar al assad's chemical weapons. under the terms of the deal, the weapons will be accounted for, they will be inspected and they will be destroyed. it is one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world put out of commission and without a single missile being launched. given that congress looked like it was about to deny president obama authorization for military strike, some lawmakers are praising the proposed agreement that would avoid the use of force. democratic gregory meeks, from new york, who is skeptical of military action, called it significant. >> it is a big deal, i think. and i think a substantial pace for the president of the united states. >> an independent senator angus king of maine who was cautious but undecided said, quote, a

diplomatic solution to eliminate his chemical weapons capabilities is preferable to a military one. well, there are certainly challenges ahead and impolicemening aimpolicemen i implementing and enforcing the deal, i'm encouraged by the developments and the process moving forward. meanwhile, congress within ileana ros-lehtinen tweeted, international inspectors in syria in november? assad must be held accountable now. no more further delays. john mccain and lindsey graham called the deal, quote, meaningless. a message graham took to fox news last night. >> it is a blind alley. it is a box canyon for america. putin led us down a road where there is no good outcome. without the threat of force, this agreement means nothing. >> the president's retaining that threat of force, combining it with the patience and diplomacy he used to great effect so far as his statement said yesterday, quote, the united states will continue working with russia, the united

kingdom, france and the united nations and others to ensure that this process is verifiable. and if diplomacy fails, the united states remains prepared to act. president obama is at least for now on course to achieve his goals in syria without the use of force. the white house insists that option is still on the table. congressional republicans who have delighted in having democrats and the american public turning away from president obama on this issue, those republicans may now be wondering what do we do now? joining me at table to answer this and other questions, we have kate nocera for becaue sac she's a senior editor at new yorker magazine. thanks to joining us. congressman jeffries, i'll start with you. i don't know if you had much time to talk with any of your colleagues in the house, congressional colleagues since this came out, i wonder what your reaction to it is and any

reaction you picked up from your colleagues? >> it is a substantial step in the right direction. what was clear to myself and many colleagues throughout the country is that the people that we represent were deeply skeptical of moving forward with a military strike. though recognizing in many instances the problems with chemical weapons being used on innocent civilians including the death of 400 syrian children, but the people that i represent and many of my colleagues were clear that we wanted to exhaust the diplomatic process before moving forward with even considering authorization of a military strike. and this is a step toward diplomatic exhaustion, bringing russia to the table, along with the united nations, hopefully seeing syrian compliance and a step in 2014 toward the complete destruction of their chemical weapons capacity. >> kate, you were publicly undecided about how you were going to vote, if there had been a vote. doesn't look like there is going to be a vote in the house. where did you think you were heading and where the house was heading before the diplomatic

open ing. were you leaning toward voting now and do you think your colleagues were going to vote this down as well? >> i maintained an open mind throughout the process. i was convinced based on what i saw publicly and in classified briefings that assad did use chemical weapons in a damascus suburbs against his own people, two, there was a clear violation of international law, three, they needed to be consequences of that violation of international law. but the fourth step, of course, the most difficult one, should military authorization have been provided? i think it required a step back and diplomatic exhaustion. and it would have been a very difficult vote in the senate and in the house of representatives without myself and all of my colleagues more importantly being convinced that every diplomatic step had been exhausted before giving the president the authority to strike. >> and congressman grayson, let me ask you, you were against -- you've been against the military strike and what the president was seeking, the authorization he was seeking from congress. john kerry said and others said yesterday that that threat, the threat that the united states

might attack syria militarily, that the president wanted to attack syria militarily is the reason that these diplomatic talks were able to take place over the last week. and is the reason this agreement was able to be struck yesterday, in last two days. do you look -- do you accept that? do you accept the threat of military action played a role in this outcome? >> i assume the syrian government has some access to the internet and i assume the syrian government could go to the washington post website and see that 25 members of the house are in favor of authorizing the use of force and 263 were against. and, in fact, the president knew he was not going to be able to win even in the senate, that's why he pulled the vote last wednesday. now, i think what happened here is there has been a breakdown in the command and control for these chemical weapons in syria. president assad no longer has full control over them. he realizes now they're just as dangerous to him as they are to anyone else and that's why now the syrians and the russians want to see something changed. >> you don't think that the possibility -- you look at the password of chemical

disarmaments that had taken place, gadhafi in libya, and gadhafi believed the united states would attack, the united states got hussein to get rid of a lot of chemical weapons in the 1990s after attacking, the president of the united states coming out and saying it is my intention, that i have the option to attack, that did not play any role in getting this agreement? >> it is possible. i can't read assad's mind for you. i can tell you it is clear to me that any vote in the house is unsuccessful and with wildly unsuccessful. when you're lined up 10 to 1 against something, it is hard to turn that around. the votes shifted to no, not yes after the speech. 11 members committed to no after the speech. one shifted from yes to no and nobody shifted to yes. >> okay. let me ask you, you cover capitol hill, you've been following the vote movement that the congressman is talking about there. what do you think -- where do you think things were until the announcement of the deal, where do you think things were on capitol hill and what do you think the fallout will be in congress as a result of this deal? >> well, what we saw was that this all happened sort of right

at the last week of recess, and so members were hearing from their constituents basically i think congressman grayson you told me it was 95 to 5 to 100 people calling you. and so that really had an impact. the fact this was out lingering when members were at home hearing from their constituents had a real impact on what was going on. i think now the question is is that if this -- if diplomacy falls through, will there be a vote or can president obama just say, all right, now is the time to strike, now that this has fallen through? >> do you think -- does this strengthen his position? it looks like the sort of -- the timetable that is being set up here is actually going to be really condensed as the things go, as chemical disarmament goes, they're talking about getting rid of this completely in the next year and usually apparently that process takes years. it is being condensed because there is a civil war going on there. do you think if the process breaks down that having gone

through, having said i'm going through congress, having taking a step back and saying i'm going to pursue the diplomatic track, do you think that gives obama more leverage with congress to come back, three months, six months, nine months from now and say i tried this, it failed and i need authorization now? >> i absolutely think it does give him more leverage to go back to congress and ask for -- ask for authorization. i'm not sure if he will ask for authorization. these two might know better than i do what the reaction would be if he did not. it certainly does give hmm a more convincing case to say i've exhausted what you asked me to exhaust and now is the time to go ahead and strike. >> and, we heard, amy, we played lindsey graham on fox news last night, and we also have, i think this was bob corker reacting yesterday, this was one of the first reactions to come in, he said, the administration's handling of the crisis hurt credibility. some criticism, a lot of skepticism coming from republicans. but i kind of look at this and

say, what is to argue with here? >> i mean, you know, one thing that definitely would not have led to this breakthrough in terms of whether the credible threat of use of force or not would have been if he had as many expected ordered air strikes, then we definitely wouldn't have a deal. we wouldn't have gone on with this. i really -- there say lot of talk about his credibility, about how he looks, does he look fumbling? but i really question how much of a political price he's ultimately going to pay for doing -- for not doing something that none of his constituents -- very few of his people on his constituency, very few people in congress, a lot of our allies didn't want him to do anyway. he's still in keeping with what he said his goals are. if you believe that the goal of military strikes wasn't really just to degrade chemical weapons capacity, but was to turn the tide in the civil war, was to

bring down assad, then this doesn't accomplish that. but if you take him at his word, and say, the whole goal was to reinsert international norms about chemical weapons, that's done this. or this will -- has at least the logical possibility of doing it in a way that air strikes that were done without the backing of the international community didn't. there is always a question of how you really asserted international norms if you didn't have the world or at least the trappings of international law or congressional approval behind you. >> so you make the point, we're ending up right now basically at what obama's stated goal was at the beginning of this. we're here without missile strikes taking place. i want to think about the criticism i had from bob corker, from lindsey graham last night, the criticism we heard a lot, and it is not just from republicans, but the criticism of president obama's leadership on this, we heard a lot, and the narrative that has taken hold over the last three weeks. i want to put that in a bigger

context, take a step back and look at the last year in syria, where we started, where we are now and if a reassessment of that narrative is in order. we'll pick that up after this. .. neil and buzz: for teaching us that you can't create the future... by clinging to the past. and with that: you're history. instead of looking behind... delta is looking beyond. 80 thousand of us investing billions... in everything from the best experiences below... to the finest comforts above. we're not simply saluting history... we're making it. ♪ you make me, make me, make me go crazy ♪ ♪ you make me, make me, make me go crazy. ♪

like i said, i want to take a step back here and try to understand where we are now in relation to where this all started. this all started a little over a year -- in terms of the united states' role and the response from the obama administration, this started a little over a year ago when president obama made his red line comment and for months after that, there really wasn't any sort of formal follow-up from the united states. i want to sort of establish with amy, we look at the red line comment, the impression is this was an comment, off hand, unintentional comment made by the president at the beginning of it, wasn't meant to lay down the line that was interpreted.

is that correct? was this something he didn't quite mean to say, the way he said it, and then spent the next nine months or so hoping it would sort of go away? is that a correct interpretation? >> i think he hoped it would be enough that there is an idea that if you could just sort of say these simple straightforward things, you don't have to worry about it as much anymore. obviously, the situation in syria has -- is unhinged. it is a fullout civil war. it is hard to know which side, you know, who the people are on the side, that's against assad. that we can support some of the elements of the rebels who are tied to al qaeda. it is a confusing, difficult situation that doesn't lend itself easily to simple declaratory statements like there is a red line, it is going to be crossed and we'll know what to do. >> but then there were sort of the reports earlier this year of potential, you know, chemical use and we didn't fully know what was going on there, and

then we had the august 21st incident, a lot clearer that something pretty grave had happened. and congressman jeffries, what is interesting to me, i think maybe because of how the red line thing was introduced over a year ago, every action that obama has taken since the 21st of august until the resolution was taken has more vacillation, more changing his mind. first, is he going to say anything? then he wants to do a strike, and then backs off and says he'll go to congress, and then takes the diplomatic route. there was a narrative that every single one of these steps represents indecision, and yet maybe now we look back at that and say, well, actually, each one of these was sort of the comments and the reaction that led to a resolution that people seem fairly happy with right now. >> i don't think that obama's actions ha s havs have consiste represented indecision. i think they more logically represent careful deliberation and calculation. and this is very complex situation. really three elements to it. you've got the syrian civil war, very complicated, you've got bad

actors on both sides, at saadth regime and moderate rebels and also some al qaeda affiliates who we don't want to associate ourselves with moving forward on the rebel side. second, you've got the use of chemical weapons, that can't be countenance, violation of international law, clearly at least in my view and the view of many members of congress it was used. there has to be consequences. the president seems to be successful in moving along a diplomatic track. third, what is the reaction of iran in particular to the united states decision to deal with the use of chemical weapons as it relates to iran's march toward a nuclear weapons capacity. i think the president, if you look at those three different elements, has accomplished successful objectives as it relates to the chemical weapons use, and not sending the wrong signal to iran. the civil war is far more

complicated and is going to have to continue to be involved carefully as he moves forward to arrive at an outcome. >> i wonder congressman grayson, that chain of events we outlined that leads us to the agreement we're talking about this morning, how do you think about the obama administration's role and the decision-making along the way, now that we reached this point, do you sort of take a step back and say, there actually is some -- this was sort of sensible in the end in? >> shakespeare said all's well that ends well. the president i think was motivated by humanitarian impulses which i respect. two mistakes were made by the administration. the administration could never come up with a military plan that was regarded as credible. the military plan presented to us was universally recognized as not safe even not effective. in fact, on the contrary, it would have been pointless and dangerous. the plan that was presented to us would not have ended the assad regime, it would not have ended the civil war, it would not have prevented a future military tack using chemical weapons and would not have

reduced the stockpile of chemical weapons in syria. all it would have done is possibly transfer the chemical weapons inadvertently from the government to the al qaeda rebels. that's why congress would not go along with this. and the fact that the president overlooked overwhelming, overwhelming public sentiment against this attack. many congressmen told me and even published their numbers showing that their e-mails and telephone calls were running over 100 to 1 against this. the president simply misperceived public views about this. the public does not want us embroiled in another war in the middle east. they want us to deal with housing, with education, with jobs, with the things that we actually can control. >> go ahead. >> i think the thing that was also very confusing for members was the administration was publicly, you know, making these comparisons to the holocaust and nazi germany but saying this is going to be a very small, i believe, john kerry -- unbelievably small strike, and, you know, this isn't about

regime change, but maybe it is about momentum change. so the goals were not clear all the way even though they were saying, you know, this is just enormous humanitarian atrocity. >> so, yeah. it was tough for me to understand that too, that if there was, you know, these atrocities taking place and we're not going to try to actually remove assad from power, we may be trying to get to the bargaining table, just deliver some kind of message, but congressman jeffries, i asked congressman grayson about this earlier, as i look at that and think about that now, we had jim moran yesterday making the point, what was that really all about. he's saying that was about delivering the message to assad, to russia, that the united states was about to act militarily. that threat had to be there in some real way, the united states was going to act militarily and without that threat, all of the diplomatic progress over the last few days wouldn't work. i asked congressman grayson about this, i'm curious from your standpoint, do you look at it now and say that threat had to exist for this to happen? >> i think the credible threat

of a military strike did play a role in the decision by russia and partnership with assad to say, maybe we should take a step back from our bold proclamations as to whether we are concerned about the united states' action or not and come to the table and work toward what hopefully will be a negotiated resolution to the situation. the president maintained his ability to engage in a strike regardless of congressional authorization or not. i disagree with that position, keeping that on the table, but nonetheless that was the position of the administration. i think the conversation with the american public through presenting this to congress for consideration of an authorization was probably helpful in the process. this is a robust democracy, a lively debate, significant number of members of congress kept an open mind as it relates to it, though i agree with representative grayson that there was significant opposition. >> is this a -- do you think this is a precedent. we're talk ing about potentially if there is a breakdown now in

this agreement, you know, and the president decides i need to act militarily again, do you think the president has established where he has come back to congress of doing that on the issue of syria and the question of iran, if something were to happen with iran, when he makes the same decision, do you think there is a precedence he'll go to congress for something like that? >> i think the president did understand there was significant war fatigue in this country, and perhaps that helped inform his decision to go to the united states congress. rather than act unilaterally, have a conversation with congress, and the american people through their representatives about why the administration seized a need to take this action, and so i think that moving forward, now that he's already done it, if the diplomatic resolution that has been put on the table fails, he'll probably have to come back to congress again. >> okay, yeah. that's going to be the -- it is looking at the timetable here that is involved, inventory of syria's weapons i think in the next week, there is the civil war raging while all this plays out. and within the next year the goal of having all -- the sort

of dismantling of the entire stockpile, it is a very ambitious goal, from everything i read. we'll see if there is any -- if it is a smooth path or if there are some breakdowns along the way. that's the question to follow. my thanks to congressman hakeem jeffries of new york, congressman alan grayson of florida and andy davidson of the new yorker. how does the gop escape a racially fraught past when a leader wants to multiply it by 100? that's next. doing what you lov, more is better. that's why we designed the all-new nissan versa note, with more technology, to get you into, and out of, tight spots. and more space so that you always have your favorite stuff. and just for good measure, an incredibly efficient 40 mpg highway. so that when you're doing more, you're spending less. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪

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this week republican senator ted cruz of texas addressed a gathering in washington hosted by the heritage foundation. the name of the event may surprise you, though. it was called the jesse helms lecture series. yes, the heritage foundation has an event named after the late north carolina senator who, upon his death in 2008, was remembered by david brodeur as, quote, the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country. fast-forward to ted cruz telling the audience that his first political donation was to one of helms' re-election campaigns. he forked over $10, a lot of money when you're a kid, and then told a story about a time that jesse helms called john wayne. >> placed the call and the duke answered the phone. and apparently jesse helms said, mr. wayne, this is jesse helms, i just wanted to thank you for your tremendous support in this race. apparently john wayne said who? and he said, well, jesse helms, i'm running for senate in north

carolina. and apparently wayne said, oh, yeah, you're that guy saying all those crazy things. we need 100 more like you. but the willingness to say all those crazy things is a rare, rare characteristic in this town. and, you know what, it's every bit as true now as it was then, we need 100 more like jesse helms in the u.s. senate. >> 100 jesse helmses. think about that for a minute. helms opposed civil rights legislation, called the 1964 civil rights act, quote, the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced into congress and blatantly filibuster filibustered, he was complaining

about as you heard in the quote a minute ago, the homosexual lobby, he complained about that a lot. i want to talk about helms and his legacy. we'll bring in to do that, republican strategist reverend joe watkins, former white house aide to president h.w. bush, jamel buoy, and philip bump, writer at the atlanticwire.com. and kate nocera is still with us. joe, i'll start with you. there has been a lot of attention paid to that this week that kted cruz just said what w talked about him saying, lauding jesse helms. i think the setting to that to me is more significant. the reason that ted cruz was talking about jesse helms is because there is a jesse helms lecture series at the heritage foundation, this pillar of conservative thought, movement of conservativism and that is what compelled him to talk about jesse helms. it is not just one republican talking about him, it is the conservative movement deciding that a man who defined his political career really on

racism and homophobia and many other things that they want to honor him and give him a place in the modern republican party. as a republican, how does that make you feel? >> i'm an african-american, and a republican, and certainly when i go places, people know my political party status, they know i'm an african-american. >> i noticed that right away. >> and so anybody that was against senator helms was against civil rights, against voting rights, against all those things i care about, the authorization or the reauthorization of the martin luther king holiday, which i helped fight for, with mrs. king, is clearly not somebody i want to remember and look forward to. ted cruz would be smart not to look to the past, but to the future. you don't win by looking to the past. mentioning jesse helms' name at a jesse helms lecture at the heritage foundation will going to you some applause. but the national theater, that's a sure fire way of -- >> hold on a second. why is that going to get him applause? >> because -- >> who is he appealing to there?

>> the people, of course, who funded, maybe in jesse helms' name this lecture series that obviously is taking place at the heritage foundation, for those people, it is an applause line to say jesse was a terrific fellow and we need 100 more like him. but guess what? that phrase, in a national election, is a commercial, if you want to run for the presidency. that's a commercial that means you lose. because that commercial galvanizes everybody in the country who is against segregation and against failed efforts to blunt civil rights and who don't like diversity and who are homophobic, for all those -- for all that does, is it means that ted cruz is not a national candidate, can't be the republican standard bearer. and for the republican party, if we're going to win, if we're going to be competitive in 2016, the only way we do that is by being a big tent. our party has to say we have

room for everybody. we don't what you look like, what your orientation is, we love everybody, we have room for everybody, we're going to defend everybody, we're going to work together, we have principles we care about, fiscal principles we care about, but room in our tent for everybody. >> and i hear you, i look at 2016 and look if ted cruz were the republican nominee, i think he would have more trouble winning nationally than maybe a more generic republican, but at the same time i look at ted cruz and say, for all the flack he takes over this and a lot of other things, i think he's a smart politician. i think he's a crafty politician. there is a logic to, you know to what he's talking about here, political logic to what he's saying. can you explain it? >> i think the political logic is that ted cruz recognizes correctly that jesse helms is in a lot of ways the forebearer to the kind of republicanism he represents. not so much -- not so much the racism, but certainly the relentless obstructionism, the sense that we are defending a lost age, the sense that we are

here, not just to moderate the policies of government, but to drastically reduce government scope and lives. ted cruz, it is a bit of a hyperbole but ted cruz is a jesse helms republican, the kind of people that jesse helms supported during his kreerk tcae people that through direct mail, coast to coast fund-raising, was able to push into the republican party during his time. and so, you know, the fact that heritage has a jesse helms lecture, the influence of jesse helms in building the republican party has and cruz knows appealing to that, to signaling to people of the heritage foundation to activists online that, listen, i'm that kind of republican, i'm the kind of person who will be outrageous and who will fight and who will have a backbone and who will stand up to the liberal agenda that is destroying your sense of what america was. i'll do that for you. and i think it is -- it doesn't

help on a national election. i don't think it is helpful -- >> how does -- how does the republican -- a lot of comparisons also this week have been drawn to trent lott. trent lott in 2002 praising strom thurmond, segregational candidate for president in 1948 and being thrown out of republican leadership in 2002 when that happened. cruz plays a different role in the republican party than trent lott did. there is no official title here. he sort of defines himself in his opposition to the people with titles. >> that's right. he got elected to the senate based on his opposition to the standard view of the establishment. i think it is important to remember that while cruz is speaking, not only is it sponsored by the jesse helms, whatever, he was introduced by a man from the jesse helms foundation who referred to jesse helms as sort of being this apostate on the senate. he called the scribes prejudiced scribes who were attacking jesse helms which i thought was the height of irony. but it represented the fact this is institutionalized,

institutionalized that jesse helms represents something that the rest of society doesn't see jesse helms representing. the first thing that came to mind for me is the fact that we're having this debate in washington, d.c. right now over the name of the football team. which i think is equivalent in some ways. there is a football team that represents things that people find good, but it is beyond the pale of what it is named. what the republican party is trying to do is have jesse helms represent a man of courage and integrity, but the rest of the world says you can't do that because of the other things he did while he was in the senate. >> and what helms represents too, i struggle with how can you separate -- is it responsible to separate h -- possible to separate from the other messages he had, or is there a lost age he represents, that lost age was the age of segregation and white supremacy. i want to pick up, there are some parallels i think between the projects that cruz advanced

and the projects that helms did. we have a tape that illustrates this. we'll play the tape when we come back. ♪ we go, go, we don't have to go solo ♪ ♪ fire, fire, you can take me higher ♪ ♪ take me to the mountains, start a revolution ♪ ♪ hold my hand, we can make, we can make a contribution ♪ ♪ brand-new season, keep it in motion ♪ ♪ 'cause the rhyme is the reason ♪ ♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪ all your important legal matters in just minutes. protect your family... and launch your dreams. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side.

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i've always suspected the washington post and a lot of other numbers of the news media across the land would never be satisfied until a card-carrying communist is sitting in the oval office. >> jesse helms in 1990 at cpac. and when i -- we dug that -- one of our producers dug that clip up and the first thing i thought of was ted cruz, this was ted cruz -- a story from the new yorker earlier this year but quoting him from an event he spoke at where he said there were fewer declared republicans in the factle faculty, talking harvard law school, in faculty than communists there was one republican, but ten who would say they were marxists. and that got a lot of attention when it was first reported.

there are similar themes explicitly invoking communism and institutions that jesse helms is attacking the news media, the washington post, the news media wants a communist in the white house, academia, harvard, the elite. it is this attack on elites and there is very similar themes there. >> there is similar themes and there is also the similar theme of trying to obstruct legislation in the senate, of trying to block things from happening. you have to remember that ted cruz raises a lot of money every time he says something -- something crazy, every time he talks about, you know, communism, i would imagine even with the jesse helms bit, he raises money. and that's part of what is happening here. and i think that's an important point to remember. so he says he needs 100 more jesse helms, he's also raising money for the senate conservative fund which helps get him elected. >> that's what i want to ask you about, joe. i feel like he has you guys and by you guys i mean republicans

who are willing to come on and say you're a little uneasy about this, he has you guys in a trap, though, because when you speak up and do that, you say you're a squish and he gets to raise money, right? >> i hope not. i think i probably represent the mainstream republicans by being for civil rights, by being for a big ten party. i'm a chris christie republican, i'm somebody who believes you can have friends who are democrats -- you can compliment democrats when they do something right because they do a lot of things that are right. they're not wrong on every single issue. what is best is to work with everybody. i like chris christie as really a model for the republican party. >> we haven't heard -- maybe i missed it, i did not hear a lot of republicans coming out this week and saying this makes me uncomfortable, we need to rethink how we're talking about a guy like jesse helms. >> that's why i'm taking this opportunity, i want to say on behalf of all the republicans who didn't take time to say it how uncomfortable we are. jesse helms had his place. i don't want to disparage southern white men, because there are great southern white men, like the man whom i worked,

sheldon hackney, who passed away this past week, the president of the university of pennsylvania, president of bill clinton's appointee for the national endowment of the amenities. a great believer in equality for everybody and showed it by what he did. you can't disparage every white southern man. jesse helms is not the person we want to look forward to. we don't want to hold up the image of anybody who was an obstructionist, against civil rights, that promoted homophobia, we don't want anybody like that being our standard bearer going forward. while there are people who will give money for folks who have those kind of stances, it is not going to win your national election, no doubt about it. >> philip, maybe you can speak to this, the other thing is we mentioned the trent lott example earlier and how trent lott made republicans very uncomfortable when he said what he said in 2002 and said we can't have this guy in a leadership position, we have to show this makes us

uncomfortable. the postscript is that four years later, when there was an opening, trent lott ran for it and his fellow republican senators elected him to it. it was like -- it raises the question to me, how much does this really bother them? >> i think that any of these sort of instances in politics have a short time frame. any sort of gaffe along these lines, very few of them last for eternity. and i think that what ted cruz did was he was trying to appeal to a very conservative side of the republican party, standing in a very conservative place, he was introduced by a very conservative person and was standing in front of a painting of ronald reagan. i think that it is important to remember that ted cruz, who, you know, not sure if he's running for president or not, but here is my birth certificate showing i can run for president, he wants to win the primaries and not only is he doing this to raise money, he wants to say i'm the standard bearer and among those -- among the conservatives

who see jesse helms for being a courageous person who stood up to a lot of things including, you know, racial equality, he left his mark and i think that will be remembered over the course of the primaries. in the general, it is more -- >> it is hard to -- >> what is interesting about all this is it comes two weeks, literally two weeks after the rnc held its 50th commemoration of the march in washington which showcased its black republican members. i find it very odd that no one has spoken out, that it seems that even if this is ted cruz speaking to an isolated group of people, he's a prominent republican, people don't pay attention to politics know ted cruz. and if the rnc is serious about appealing to african-american voters and latino voters and anyone who thinks the united states should be a vibrant multicultural democracy, that they should be speaking out against -- >> just the opposite actually. republican party really does

care -- >> i'm not saying -- >> we got like 20 seconds. the quick question is why -- i mean, it is not -- did they forget to speak up? is there another highlight? >> you don't want to highlight it. you don't want everybody to focus on what ted cruz said. you don't want jesse helms to be the thing that become a lasting memory for folks you're trying to bring into the party. you want to forget it. that's what they have done. they have not made a big thing of it. they're not highlighting what ted cruz said, highlighting jesse helms. they want to look to the future. where are we headed for the future? >> i have a feeling there will be a next time with ted cruz or maybe with somebody else, so we'll see what happens. i want to thank kate nocera, joe watkin watkins, thank you for coming in for a few minutes this morning, philip bump, bill de blchblasio out of nowhere to win.

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bill de blasio's commanding victory this week makes it easy toer to get until five weeks ago no one thought he had a prayer. the crowded field that included a history-making front runner and notorious ex-congressman trying to come back from scandal, at least until we found out that scandal wasn't as past tense as he made us think it was. against that field, though, bill de blasio is running at the back of the pack. didn't have a ton of money either. his campaign offices were furnished from craig slist for free. his campaign made a decision. whatever money they could

scrounge together, it would all have to be spent in one place if it was going to have any impact at all. the place they decided on was television. that is a decision that looks awfully smart right now. one of the tv spots for the money bankrolled a tribute by de blasio's son daunte, described by the new york times as the commercial that changed the course of the mayor's race. probably how bill de blasio won the primary. but there is more to the story. because spending almost all of his money on tv meant that bill de blasio was giving up more than new furniture and ceiling tiles in his campaign headquarters. he was also giving up the chance to send direct mail. glossy sheets of campaign literature, a tendency to clog up mailboxes right before an election. he did have a brochure, but it was a piece of paper that volunteers had to hand out in person when they went door to door. no big deal, right? who even checks their snail mail anymore? bill de blasio wasn't sending any political mail, had to be a good thing fo new yorkers.

this is what two of my producers received in just one day at the beginning of last week, two of my producers here in new york, just flooded with this kind of mail. i always try to picture the person who actually sits down and reads through this stuff, reads through the political literature that hits their mailbox. try to imagine the person who hasn't programmed himself or herself to throw it straight into the recycling bin without looking at it or someone carefully examining the bullet points, the meaningless slowi i and what kind of person would possibly find inspiration in that. we take it all in and say this, this is my candidate. i'm not surprised that bill de blasio won without sending any mail. but having said that, i have to admit, i have a real soft spot for political mail. i collect it. and i covet the collections of others. this week, knowing i would be talking about this subject, i jumped to the chance to borrow this piece of mail from the rachel maddow show.

this is from carl paladino, the republican candidate for governor of new york in the last race. it was sent out to more than 200,000 people. it was the key here, garbage scented mailers, designed to smell like trash. and, by the way, it still smells like trash because he wanted voters to know on a visceral level that new york state capital stinks. but three years later, they still haven't managed to get the stench out of it. even when they don't give off noxious fumes, campaign mailers serve as great records of political history. before he was a four-time president, franklin d. roosevelt was a vice presidential running mate to ohio governor james cox in 1920, documented by this amazing postcard. seven decades late, the republican party in massachusetts tried to turn voters against bill clinton by tying him to former president jimmy carter. remember the last time we elected a southern governor president of the united states, and the font helps remind us the year was 1992. it is the message on this mailer

from the clinton/gore campaign, vote hope, tells us who actually won that election. bill de blasio's decision to do away with campaign mail confirms something i always suspected, most people hate the sftuff or are indifferent to it. i bet future campaigns will learn from this example. if political mail goes away entirely, candidates will save money. voters will spend less time sorting through junk mail. a few more trees will get to live too. doing away with campaign mail and there will be a price for political junkies like me. we, at least, will be wistful about what we have lost. next iowa caucus is years away, which means the presidential campaign is already in full force. that's next. nom, nom, nom.

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advanced planning isn't

really my thing, which probably makes what i'm about to say even more premature. i want to talk about something we estimate is going to happen 840 days from today. there will be three world series and there will be two super bowls between now and then. maybe you heard this week that amc will do a "breaking bad" spin-off with the sleazy lawyer character called "better call saul," that's the title. that show is a vague concept right now, but will probably be in its second or third season on the air 840 days from now. 840 days. that's how far off the 2016 iowa caucuses are if they happen to be held on the same day they were held in 2012. that is two years and almost four months until the very first votes are cast in the next race for president. i get why it could be very hard to believe the next thing i'm about to say. but it's true. the 2016 race is already a real thing. a very real thing. there aren't any officially declared candidates or campaign ads and the polls now don't really mean anything. but make no mistake, the

jockeying, the posturing, the cozying up to key constituencies by would be candidates has already begun. and the conversations among decisionmakers within each party, they're absolutely under way too. votes won't be cast for a long time, but the alliances that will shape how rank and file voters cast their ballots, they are being created right now. it is called the invisible primary, and it really does matter. political scientist jonathan bernstein wrote a piece with a simple title i think says it all. quote, official permission, you may think, write and talk about dem and gop white house 2016 without guilt. that was the headline. he says in the article, you know the candidates are going to iowa, new hampshire and south carolina right now. and that they're giving policy speeches aimed at 2016 right now. and that they're working the party networks right now. and that they're staffing up for 2016 right now. and it is not just in 2016. every presidential cycle next wave of kept candidates always us clues as to what will happen.

which leads us to wonder what if there really were a playbook and we came up with a few suggestions and what we're going to call how to run for president for democrummies. begins with lesson number one, rule number one, go to iowa, which is what joe biden is doing today, where he will be speaking at tom harkin's annual steak fry, the largest democratic event of the year, usually a first stop for would be presidential contenders. it is the same event where in the summer of 2006 that was more than two years before the 2008 presidential election, where the featured speaker was so startled by the large and enthusiastic crowd that greeted him that he began taking seriously for first time the idea of running for president. and that candidate, in case you hadn't figured it out, was barack obama. so here to talk about all of this, here to go through the rules with us, we have our panel, we have democratic strategist chris kofinis, former chief of staff to senator joe manchin of west virginia, former communications director for the john edwards presidential

campaign, we have ginger gibson, on several different campaigns and now with politico.com. still with us, jamel buoy, we have former democratic congressman martin frost of texas involved in every presidential election since 1968 when he first worked on hubert humphries' campaign. thanks for joining us. and let's just sort of -- we have these rules, number one, go to iowa. we have joe biden in iowa today. there is a piece at your site, ginger, politico, previewing joe biden's speech and he's run for president in 1988, ran in 2008, basically says he has relationships in iowa going back 30 years, from one iowa activist who says he has literally touched just about every iowan there is. joe is a person to hold your hand or touch your shoulder or share an emotion. he is a known entity in iowa. this is like a 30-year project for joe biden. >> the people of iowa want to know you. they're a state of people who

take the job of going first very seriously and they want people there. so going to iowa is very important. they want to shake your hand and joe biden loves to shake hands. the kind of guy who remembers people's names after meeting them and no doubt the time he spent in iowa, not just when he ran, but a swing state last year. he went to the state as a campaigning for obama. goetz a l he's got a lot of ties there. the endorsement game is important. who state lawmakers what county party chairs endorse you is really important. they're going to start working the ties right now. >> looking at the very unique situation in the democratic side right now, where joe biden is sitting vice president, but not considered generally heir apparent, everyone is waiting on hillary clinton. in going to iowa now, what can joe biden hope to achieve in terms of his ambitions for 2016? >> keep hope alive. that's what he's doing. i ran a county in iowa, iowa caucuses for gephardt in 1988. and they want to see you.

there is no question about that. but, again, winning iowa does not necessarily win you the nomination. you have to make a decent showing. gephardt won in 1988 and the campaign fell apart because he wasn't prepared to go on past that. biden is there. it is important for him to be there. i think that hillary still is clearly the prohibitive favorite. >> him being in iowa is very much a signaling thing, saying to donors, saying to interest groups, saying to potential endorsees three years down the road, right now, i'm in this, and you should consider me a quantity ty thhat's going to do this. >> you talk about the invisible primary, that's a perfect example. he's trying to send a signal. is there anything more than that that joe biden could accomplish now in iowa. could he get state lawmakers, could he get county, party leaders to say, you know what, i don't want hillary to run? are we in a situation now where maybe the best he can do is make visits like this to say i should be the first choice if she doesn't run? >> i'm of the opinion i think he's going to run regardless.

>> you think he would run against hillary? >> i have the opinion he'll do it. i think from his perspective, what has he got to lose? he loses the race -- >> he loses by 40 points or something? >> still ends up being vice president with a nice residence. if we learned anything from the last few presidential cycles in particular '08, races are very unpredictable. i think for joe biden, it is a little different because he's been around for so long, he's been in iowa so long, he's run for president so many times, so it is a little bit different than what obama was able to accomplish in '08 running against hillary. that being said, you know, i think he's looking at it in his adviser looking at it, we want to go in there and, you know, re-establish the relationships, build the relationships, we're not going to get any endorse s, no one gets endorsements three years out. we're not going to set up campaign offices two plus years out, but we start making it clear to people we are thinking about doing this and see what

the feedback is. and so it ends up becoming this kind of process. at some point they're going to have to make the decision, because what has changed with presidential races, i think, dramatically is you need an enormous amount of money, especially if you're going up against a prohibitive front-runner, who is going to raise enormous amount of money. so i think the biden folks, if they decide to run it and have to announce probably earlier than normally would, because they have to raise to compete against the hillary campaign in the upwards of, like, tens and tens of millions of dollars because she's going to break that and if not more. that's his challenge. >> the interesting thing too is the year of federal matching funds is over. there will be no more federal funding for presidential races, either in the primary or the general. what happened was mccain took federal funding and agreed to spending limit in south carolina, george w. bush did not. and he -- george w. bush swaum swamped mccain and then obama

didn't reject federal funding, mccain took federal funding, obama way outspent him, it is all about money. no question about that. >> i remember one of the turning points for that was it was considered huge money in 1999 when george w. bush set out to run for president. we talked about the invisible primary. half of them did not make it through the year 1989 because george w. bush raised like $35 million in the first quarter. $35 million. so staggering, scared the field away. $35 million today, not nearly what it was 12 years ago. i want to move on to get to lesson two, the second lesson we have, to write a book. and you have -- we all know these -- everybody it has to have their campaign book. bush was charge to keep or something like that. barack obama wrote a real book but we had the news this week, marco rubio will be writing one on the future of the republican party, marco rubio, maybe a ghost writer, i don't know. hillary clinton has a deal to write a book.

campaign mail, most of these bo books i'll exempt dreams of my father from this, most of the books, does anybody read them? >> be careful what you put in the book. rick perry had things in his book which came back to haunt him big time. >> social security. >> be very careful what you say. >> so the opposition researchers will read the book, but do any actual voters want to read joe biden's take on the future of the democratic party? >> the reporters who cover them read them as soon as they come out. writing a book is an easy way to campaign undercover. you can go to iowa, can go to new hampshire, can go to south carolina and have a book signing or a book reading and you're in the state and meeting people and it is not an official event and not requiring you to declare. we saw newt gingrich do this. lots of book signings. >> have we figured out -- there was a theory of newt gingrich last year that newt gingrich had actually -- was sort of the genius who had figured out that, you know, you didn't really have to run for president to make money, that you could -- it

would be a marketing exercise where he could hold book signings, could sell videos under the -- and get a seat at the debate and it caught fire for some reason, but he was out there selling his book. >> there are certain candidates that run, you know, simply because they want to raise their profile. simply because they're thinking about having a television career or selling books, that is the nature of the process because it tends to be especially, you know, recently tends to be more open. and they're reluctant to say no to certain candidates even if they're not polling anywhere. and it is actually for the republican primary it was devastating. and it really hurt them in terms of how they presented the message and the candidates to the american people. i think this whole idea about a book i think it is interesting and you're right it has become the kind of this check the box thing that candidates do in order for them to run. i think it is such a passe thing

that it is not where the technology is going. you're going to write a book and the masses are going to rise up to support you? >> you're doing it -- by necessity, one or two years beforehand, you have no idea what could change the political landscape. right now, a republican candidate could write a book against intervention and in two years republican party could come back, ready to -- >> and this just happened with jeb bush, didn't realize where the party might be after the election and it was -- >> but it really helped bill clinton in 1992. because he -- all through the campaign, he referred to, here's my plan, it was in my book, here are the things i talked about, and it helped make him a more credible candidate in 1992. >> i don't mean to make this too new york or too liberal, we just talked about bill de blasio winning, christine quinn started in new york as the front runner in this narrative collapse enveloped her and one reason is she came without a book and it sold like 90 copies or something. and it was really embarrassing,

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lesson three of how to run for president. they are running for president now, this is lesson three, rule number three, we call it run up the score. this one involves chris christie. the news this week, out of new jersey, chris christie is running for re-election in new jersey this year. he's rolling out another massive television push in new jersey. this comes, we have the most recent poll from the garden state puts kristie ahead by 20 points, down from 30 and the

whole question is what the final margin is going to be in this race, and the christie people will talk about this privately how big can he win here? the goal is to come out and i won a state that voted for obama by 17 points, i won it by 20, 25 points myself and this idea here, this will impress the national republican party and say we have lost two straight national elections. do you think that has currency with republicans. >> chris christie will run if he runs as the guy that can bring the sides together. the anti-tea party guy, we see him fighting with rand paul, that wasn't an accident. and running up those margins real high is important for his campaign. they think they can go to the american public, to iowa, to new hampshire and say, look, republicans and democrats vote for me and if i run, all those swing state s will be in play ad a couple more. >> how seriously he takes this when frank lautenberg was

senator and died this year and had to schedule a special election, went out of his way and at the cost of $24 million to have a separate three weeks earli earlier special election. >> you had chris christie, a tough guy and willing to take criticism when he maneuvers the date of that election. that's when i really took him seriously as a real candidate and real possibility for president next time. i think he will run up the score. i think he's the strongest candidate the republicans have. whether he can get nominated is another matter. george w. bush in 1998 was up for re-election as governor, he ran up the score. hillary was up for re-election in 2006 for the senate, she ran up the score. this is a part of running for president. >> i'm not sure -- i'm not sure it is a generic thing, though. i think for someone like chris christie who needs to prove to republicans who just nominated a former blue state governor that, listen, this is not a bad idea. i'm a popular guy.

i think generically it is important to lead your state popular. bobby jindal, i don't think is a credible candidate, he'll leave his state probably deeply unpopular. but if you win your re-election by two or three points but leave your state with like a 60% approval rating, that's great too. >> and the flip side -- the risk for at this stage in the process, somebody eyeing the white house and has to run for re-election, the risk is best illustrated by george allen. george allen, look back at the invisible primary in 2008, this will be the republican candidate. senator george allen of virginia, and then this happened on the campaign trail in 2006, running for re-election. >> this fellow here with the yellow shirt, whatever his name is, he's with my opponent, he's following us around everywhere. so let's give him a welcome here. welcome to america and the real world of virginia. >> i mean, he uses a slur and

you're out of the process. we have lesson four here for navigating the primary. fake it until you make it we're calling this one. and the idea here is you sort of position yourself as an official voice of your party, here is a perfect example of it was in 2011, michele bachmann, on the verge of running for president, the party didn't ask me to deliver a state of the union response but i'm going to deliver one anyway and this was the result. >> good evening. my name is congresswoman michele bachmann from minnesota's 6th district. i want to thank the tea party express and tea party hd for invite meg to speak this evening. i'm here at their request and not to compete with the official republican remarks. >> not to compete with the official republican remarks or look directly into the camera. thats with a the other thing she forgot to do. i remember looking at that at the time, she was, what, a third term member of congress and the campaign ended up going nowhere but she had her moment and was

able to exploit the possibilities there, in terms of delivering this response and building a profile. >> putting aside the uniqueness of michele bachmann's style and approach to politics, it actually, i think, does reflect a more significant point. that is, you know, running for president and presidential elections on the national level are very different than governors races, house races, any other type of race. there is -- and the ability now for candidates to use, you know, technology and be able to reach out to individuals across the country to build some kind of support and gain media attention has changed dramatically in four, you know, eight years. it is going to become even more dramatic. so you have the ability for candidates whether michele bachmann or even like a barack obama which is the more positive example in the sense of someone who, you know, eight years earlier, six years earlier, no one in the national level had heard of. and next thing you know he's president of the united states. he was able to accomplish that because he understood and his

team understood how much presidential campaigns have changed. so you're going to see, i think, more likely i think on the right because it is going to be a more competitive diverse field, you see some candidate figure out that there is a chance here, if they run a smart, you know, positive, big campaign to really kind of gain attention using this kind of new approach. >> you can't be a nut case. you can't -- >> you can't be a michele bachmann who is as far out and extreme positions s and just because she does her own response she's taken seriously. >> i think that maybe bachmann is not the best one. i wanted to show that video. i never get tired of watching it. when she was looking for there and what perspective candidates are looking for are moments to elevate their profile, to make them look presidential. she was going for sort of the presidential look and feel. you got to look into the camera and all these things, but that's something they're all looking

for right now. >> look at chris christie who was going to take over the rga, he's going to be out there talking about gubernatorial campaigns, cam page for gubernatorial candidates and that gives him an air of officialness, a voice for the party. we saw him go to boston and give that speech at that lunch which we didn't see but heard about afterwards. he's embraced that mantle. she did try that. and someone -- a congress with not a lot of experience got taken seriously and capitalized on that to some degree. >> we're out of time for this segment. we'll say that rule number five was embrace the base. and, you know, sort of peg to ted cruz and positioned himself as the voice of purity on the republican side, maybe embracing the base a little too much, that was the discussion. and rule number six, don't be a nut. i like that one. chris kofinis, ginger gibson,

jamel buoy, and martin frost of texas. she was brought out on to the court on a throne carried by four men. and three sets later billie jean king had changed the lives of every woman and girl in america. we'll discuss how the battle of the sexes today continues to transform our culture. that's next. my asthma's under control. i get out a lot... except when it's too cold. like the last 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. there may be more you could do for your asthma.

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of infinite deliciousness. ♪ oh! perfect. [ wisest kid ] campbell's has the recipes kids love. like easy chicken and cheese enchiladas. so good! can i keep this? you already have it at campbellskitchen.com. nice. [ blows ] [ gong ] m'm! m'm! good! 40 years ago this week, tens of millions of sets of eyes were glued to the houston astrodome, the eighth wonder of the world it was called back then and a tennis match that was bigger than the game of tennis and all of sports was playing out. a matchup between bobby riggs, 55-year-old tennis veteran, and billie jean king, a player in her 20s, during the prime of her career. the buildup to the must see tv event, riggs used every opportunity he had to taunt king. >> i know and as billie jean knows there is no way a woman

can play tennis with a good man tennis player. but what makes this match a credible match and what makes it the attraction it is and because and why the eyes of the world are on it is that this isn't just a tennis match, this is a battle of the sexes, and the gladiator for the men happened to be me, i was cast into that role, a 55-year-old guy with one foot in the grave that hasn't played tournament tennis for 15 or 17 years. >> the match known as the battle of the sexes defined women's tennis, women's sports in the fight for women's equality for years to come. we're going to discuss it next. ? okay, who helps you focus on your recovery? yo, yo, yo. aflac. wow. [ under his breath ] that was horrible. pays you cash when you're sick or hurt? [ japanese accent ] aflac. love it. [ under his breath ] hate it. helps you focus on getting back to normal? [ as a southern belle ] aflac. [ as a cowboy ] aflac. [ sassily ] aflac. uh huh. [ under his breath ] i am so fired. you're on in 5, duck.

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the same amount that rafael nadal pockets for the men's championship the next night. even though both matches feature the top players in the world, nearly twice as many americans tune in to watch the women's final than the men's final. four years earlier in 1973, margaret court and john newcombe take home checks of $25,000 each. a lot less money than $3.5 million, but they at least get the same amount. that's because of the previous year's winner. billie jean king, the player whose name would one day grace the site of the u.s. open. billie jean king earned $15,000 less than nastasi for winning the 1972 u.s. open. she got $10,000 to his $25,000. and billie jean king said if the prize money wasn't equal by the next year, by 1973, she would not be playing. she didn't think other women would be playing either. what she said, it worked. at that time, there is no wnba, no danica patrick, no u.s. women's soccer team playing

under the lights at the rose bowl, in front of 100,000 people, there is only billie jean king, demanding equal pay for equal work at the u.s. open. and no small achievement when a married woman can't open a credit card in her own name. in 1970s, billie jean king convinces her colleagues to form a players union, a wta, the women's tennis association. she's part of the first tour of tennis tournaments for women players, sponsored by virginia slim cigarettes. sometimes she and the other players would show up and there wouldn't be any tennis balls at the arena. they would have to hand out tickets on the streets, sometimes even stopping cars. billie jean king starts women's sports magazine, and the women's sports foundation, an organization devoted to promoting athletic opportunities for women. billie jean king also sets out to prove that women who play tennis can be just as talented as the men are. meet bobby riggs, a retired tennis pro, former wimbledon champion, he's 55 years old, and he is an admitted, a proud male chauvinist.

1973, bobby riggs beats u.s. open champchampion, margaret co in an exhibition match. the cover of "sports illustrated" gloats never bet against this man with his picture. bi billie jean king wants to take that bet. the battle of the sexes to take place at the houston astrodome, the most famous construction since the pyramids. 90 million people in 37 countries around the world tune in to watch that. and in a career where billie jean king would win 140 career titles, 39 grand slams, a career that would also see her get presidential medal of freedom, where billie jean king is remembered for most is how she changed the american landscape for women 40 years ago this week. >> mrs. king trounced riggs in three straight sets last night, it wasn't much of a contest. riggs had said over and over he would psych out mrs. king, but mrs. king ran her 55-year-old

opponent ragged with overheads and passing shots. and when it was over, riggs had just enough energy to jump over the net. billie jean savored her victory at court side and her fans across the country did the same. >> well, the two men in my family left me alone with the match after we saw how it was going to go and watched bonnie and clyde. i loved every minute of it. >> he said women should stay pregnant or something, didn't he? they should be kept home and kept pregnant. i mean, you know, i'm glad a woman beat him. >> and i want to bring many selena roberts, and we have mike pesca, national desk correspondent and sports reporter for npr and susan ware, author of the book "game, set, match." thanks for coming here. i guess -- i'll start with you, selena, maybe just set the stage, take us back to 1973,

take us back to what women's sports was like, what the atmosphere was like in 1973 and how this battle of the sexes that played thought week, how it fit into that. >> billie was the perfect face for a new shade of that revolution. i think that when people think about the women's movement back then it was very hard-line, it was very visceral and very angry at times and billie really, and i think gloria steinem said this over and over, she brought a different face to the movement. she brought the face of someone who would smile and the face of somebody like bobby riggs and who would, in so many different ways ask for the same thing, equal pay, equal treatment, but it was coming from a different voice. it was coming from a girl next door. and i think that's what she did. she empowered the movement by broadening it, by getting it out of the hard line and into the mainstream and this was a perfect vehicle for her to do so, to take on a guy, a bit of a huckster, to play along in many

ways, to laugh when he would say absurd things, and then to go and beat his butt. and that's what she did. >> so, susan, in 1973, billie jean king is 30 years old, she's a very accomplished tennis player, but tell us who is billie jean king in 1973, what does america see, who is she? >> they're seeing her mainly as a tennis player. she's also a tennis player who embraced and linked her career with the women's movement. i think what we need to remember is that in the early 1970s, the women's movement was a topic of great conversation and confusion for a lot of americans. and what is so interesting about her is that she's able to link her desire to be the number one tennis player and to improve things for women's professional tennis with her own career. and people really are seeing her on the tennis court, but they're also seeing her against a backdrop of this new social movement called feminism which is just sweeping the country. >> she -- so bobby riggs wins the -- the first battle of the

sexes and bobby riggs and "sports illustrated" puts him on the cover and then he wants to play against billie jean king. she doesn't want to participate in this match, right? >> she knows she has to do it. there was a sense of so much riding on this match. i think it is hard for people who didn't actually watch it live. i remember watching it. and just being on the edge of my seat. and i watched a tape of the whole match recently, i was still on the edge of my seat. i was afraid she wouldn't win. >> she said, i thought it would set us back 50 years if i didn't win this match. but, mike, tell us -- the other side of this too is the bobby riggs character. and we play the clip of him taunting billie jean king and sort of a colorful guy, how much of this was -- was he acting like a male chauvinist, trying to make money off of this or is this how he was? >> he was a huckster, a carnival

barker and great theater. the thing about this match, you don't have to know how to keep score in tennis, if someone explained it to you, you got it immediately. that's why it was great theat, cut through everything and riggs played it perfectly. there was a story that suggested maybe he threw the match, the mafia got to him, i don't know about that. the facts of this as we understand them really tell this story of america and they tell this story -- everything about this seems like an anachronism, you watch the tape, there are cops in the background smoking inside the astrodome, like this is such a different time, but if she had lost, and she knew this, this is why she was appalled margaret court took that gig, if she lost, who knows what would have happened. pt barnum would have won? the guy who is a self-proclaimed male chauvinist pig wins? it would have been crazy. >> in terms of the tennis, margaret court is not able to beat bobby riggs. i look at the scores, wasn't

that close. and billie jean king plays and she crushes him. what was the difference in the game. what did she exploit? >> i think margaret wasn't prepared for what style of game that bobby was going to have. he was throwing up a bunch of lobs, wouldn't give her a pace to hit against. she was used to a much more intense match and let's face it, margaret was taking it because it was good money. she wasn't taking it because she wanted to say something about feminism. she was not. she was very much not a femin t feminist. she was out there and she made a little bit of money and bobby was going to do his things. she wasn't prepared for the dinks and the dunks where as billie watched that match, knew what the plan was and was prepared and let's face it, bobby, the whole week leading up to the match, he was out every night, he was loving being bobby riggs and all this stuff. billie was focused on the match, prepared for what the -- the junk he was going to throw and she had a great strategy, to run him around the court. run that 55-year-old guy ragged and beat him at his own game. i think she was prepared, she

went to that and that's why it is really a farce to think he threw the match. >> there say bit of a recent story, you looked into this too, can you speak to that about what you've -- >> absolutely. the espn story was relying on the 40-year-old recollection of a 79-year-old man who said i heard something that bobby was going to throw the match for money because he was in dechlt t debt. if he was in debt, he was going to win the match, declare his debts. secondly, after billie jean king, if he had won that match, the promoter for the entire match was trying to set up chris evert for a winner take all. there was no way -- it was a huge industry to keep beating women. there was no way he wanted to lose that match or he was going to throw that match because the upside to him was so great.

and after that match, anyone who saw bobby riggs, his best friend, sat there with him, he was staring straight into space, he was in an ice tub, he was mortified he lost. there is no way that was a thrown match. >> and there is also -- we'll take a break here, i'll pick this up on the other side, reading about the relationship in the later years is interesting too. i want to ask you about that and talk about the evolution of women's sports since the battle of the sexes. with the spark miles card from capital one, 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. produce delivery. [ bjorn ] just put it on my spark card. [ garth ] why settle for less? ahh, oh! [ garth ] great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. here's your wake up call. [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase every day. what's in your wallet? [ crows ] now where's the snooze button? ...amelia...

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anniversary, bilialieia an ia j talking about the impact on women's sports. for all the sort of public sort of hostility of him towards her in 1973, he lived another 25 years, i think, and from what i read, they were in close communication to the end, she was calling him daily, and the night before he died, she called him and said, i love you. >> i think it makes a certain amount of sense, they were in it together, in this amazing moment in popular culture. and i think it really made both of their careers, the rest of their careers. and it really was a huge time that brought them together and also puts a step forward for women's tennis. and i think she really credits him, a man, for helping to put women's professional tennis on the map. >> so let's pick that up and women's professional tennis, and women's sports in general, we think of right now u.s. open,

you know, the -- twice the tv audience for the women than the men. professional women's basketball league, the ncaa final four for women and for men. i don't think until the early 1980s there was a women's final four. so there was all these sort of evolutions, revolutions in women's sports. how do you place what happened in 1973, the riggs and king match, into the context of that evolution? >> there is really no title nine without that match. it was passed in '72. in '74, it was facing a huge pushback from football, from football coaches who wanted to eliminate title nine. having that gravitas of 73 pushed and has survived many threats to title nine over the years. it certainly is without that match, you wouldn't have had you know, the 99ers, the women's team in '99 getting the push they got. i think a lot of people felt like the battle was over, that battle of the sexes match has really -- was going to turn the dial on everything and in many ways, you know, we turned back. there has been a bit of a regression in the coverage of

women in sports in the last few years. i think that's a lot to do with the proliferation of online blogs, that the blogosphere does not pay attention to the journalism of women's sports anymore. sports illustrated, they had more women on the cover in the '60s than they do now. i think that shows you that even though a lot of progress has been made, there is still a struggle ahead. >> and how -- it is interesting what selena is saying, it is true the television ratings for women's tennis, healthier on the women's side than the men's side, how do you think about that? >> put the men's final at 5:00 on a monday, that doesn't help. and that, you know, men's tennis has some problems. especially if you're an american. women, serena, great, men's tennis for american men, not good. but i'm a structuralist. i think the most important thing about that match was that she didn't lose. it was vital she didn't lose. title nine was passed before. didn't even realize it had a sports implication. we should do some -- i think everything you're saying is true. and the media treatment of

women's sports is sometimes off. but just look at the numbers. 4 1/2 boys play high school sports now in america, it is almost 4.5 million, but 3.5 million girls. we have made great strides when you compare us to the ref of the world. we do a couple of things really well as americans. getting women to play sports is one of the things we do well. traces back definitely to billie jean king. >> you think about women's professional sports right now, where do you see it going, where do you see the wnba or women's professional soccer, do you see these reaching a point at some point in the future where they're close to parody with men in terms of the money, the commercial deals, the crowd, all of that? >> i think there was a closer relationship with where the men are going probably about ten years ago. i think that coming out of the atlanta games too, there was a huge push about women and sports and the new soccer league that would crank up and the wnba was cranking up and all these things

was going to happen for women. but what happened really is a lot of staffs in the newspaper has shrunk so the coverage of women has also shrunk. you have this situation where you have all these women playin playing sports, but nobody is really covering them. nobody's really paying attention to what their story is, because, let's face it, the nfl takesing over over everything. and even though serena just won and it was a great match and it was really intense, if serena isn't an american, you don't have a lot of people paying attention. you really feed that celebrity status. and i think that the sports media has done a great job pus picking out the stories in women's sports and pushing them. >> and talking about billie jean king, she's still around and still playing. we couldn't get her on the show, but how does she think about where women's sports are today and how they've evolved over her

laftime. >> one of the things interesting about her career, she has been able to continue it no longer playing as an advocate for women in sports. that has been very consistent, going back to 1974, when she founded the women's sports foundation. and she's still out there, trying to raise the very questions of inequality that selina was talking about. and this is one of the things she really cares passionately about. and i think she will be talking about those issues up until the day she dies. >> imagine if kurt flood were mickey mantle. just one of the greatest players ever was also one of the greatest activists ever. and she's even said, all the pushing she's had to do probably hurt the number of titles she won. it was so draining. she beat bobby riggs because she knew about the mental aspect of the sport. can you imagine. maybe this is why serena is able to do so well. she can concentrate on the tennis. >> she was as vocal off the court as she was productive on the court. it's an amazing combination.

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it's time to find out what our guests think we should know for the week ahead. selina? >> this week will mark the end of one another great trailblazers in sports, tina thompson with the wnba for 17 years. she was one of the original members of the wnba team. she will be retiring this week, as soon as the storm gets through their playoff run. and i think we really owe a lot to her, i think the players do, because she taught them not just how to play, but how to play and be a mom at the same time. she was a trailblazer in her own right. >> obscure sports update. men's soccer, the u.s. is in the world cup. they beat mexico. it's our highest ranking in years. wrestling, back in the olympics. the championships start in budapest. we have one american man who's a medal winner, a couple of american women, and the wnba

playoffs start this week. >> susan? >> i've got to go back to billie jean king, and on the day of the anniversary, we really need to remember, she won that match and won it fair and square and don't let anybody take that away from her. >> she crushed him, actually. it wasn't even close. i want to thank selina roberts, mike pesco, and susan ware. thank you for getting is up and thank you for joining us at home. next weekend on "up," norm ornstein, not to mention carole king will be among our guests. next saturday and sunday. up next, "melissa harris-perry." two important anniversaries, five years since the collapse of lehman brothers and 50 years since the birmingham church bombing that killed four young girls. nerdland is next. hope to see you next weekend here on "up." have a great day. run, go, go! did he just fumble?

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. this morning, my question. is the vatican reconsidering celibacy for priests? plus, we get nerdy about miss america and the future of feminism. and we're going to go live to the 16th street baptist church in birmingham, on the 50th anniversary of the day four little girls were killed. but first, five years after we thought the skies were falling, banks are back and bigger than ever.