[ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum tums! hello, disrupters. i'm karen finney. coming up, we'll take a look at the budget battle, some misbehaving going on in texas, and new fears about the violence in ukraine, which is far from over. >> the president will submit a new budget this week calling for an end to the era of austerity. >> what the president is saying in his budget, we need to get america back to work. >> they're going to their battle stations. >> to see this budget, it's really a political document. >> right now the fringes have veto power on everything. >> nothing about social security. >> this debate is really about whether or not we want poverty wages in our society or a living wage. >> why would the president stick his neck out again given that republicans chopped it off the first time?

>> these protesters continue to pack independence square in the capital of kiev. >> demonstrators say they will stay in this square to act as an insurance policy. >> it's a tug of war between vladimir putin and the west. >> putin's probably going to want to crack down more. >> russia and putin will continue to pressure ukraine. >> i think they're very worried about what's coming next, the russians coming in. >> the president is very plain and forceful in these dealings with putin. ♪ this week's forecast, budget fever in washington. but this time it's more about the ballot box than balancing our nation's books. president obama's budget for the next fiscal year is due march 4th, but we've already gotten a sneak peek. the big headline, no cuts to social security, which he included last year in a gesture of compromise to the gop. of course, as you'll recall, they did not reciprocate.

so why try it again? the republican party has made it perfectly clear it has no interest in a grand bargain of any kind but that doesn't mean they won't blame the president. >> since the president has been in office, we've added $6 trillion more to the debt. so we're over $17 trillion in debt. there hasn't been an age of austerity. it's really disappointing the president hasn't stepped up to lead this effort of a deal that needs to be done for the nation. >> such a familiar refrain. instead, president obama's budget lays out what he and his party stand for. proposals like early childhood education, job training, and closing corporate loopholes. when you boil it down, it's basically what he ran on in 2012. do you remember how that election turned out? i'm joined now by the editor in chief of the wise latina club and jared bernstein. thanks for joining me. >> thanks for having us. >> jared, i want to start with

you. the republicans seem to not be able to sort of break their obsession with deficits. if you actually take a look at the numbers, which we did, the deficit -- >> that's not fair. >> you know, just trying to look at the data. what can i say? y you know it better than me. the deficit has been cut in half under president obama essentially. >> the way you should measure the deficit is as a share of gdp. it's gone from 10% in 2009 -- by the way, that's a large deficit as a share of gdp because it had to be. we were in the deepest recession since the great depression. now it's going to be about 3% next year. so a fall from 10% of gdp to 3% of gdp suggests, by the way, far more deficit reduction than i think we should have done. i actually think the folks who have kind of pushed this austerity stuff on our fiscal

accounts have hurt the economy. but there's certainly no way you can say we haven't done much in that regard. >> but also, jared, for those who -- you know, this conversation about fiscal austerity. we have some evidence from europe that it hasn't necessarily worked. >> hey, we have some evidence from our own backyard. i mean, our unemployment rate is still way too elevated. our growth rates have been too slow. there's too many long-term unemployed, wage trends. they're still really quite tepid for most people. you don't have to look far for evidence against austerity. the president is going in precisely the right direction with both his minimum wage idea and budget to help folks who have been left behind. >> viviana, i love that they're trying to blame president obama, yet i have a little bit of sound from john boehner himself admitting that not even a saint could make a deal happen. let's take a listen. >> you know, mother teresa is a

saint now, but if the congress wanted to make her a saint and attach that to the debt ceiling, we probably couldn't get 218 republican votes. >> okay. so if mother teresa can't get a deal, why should president obama put chain cpi or, you know, social security or any of those kinds of efforts towards a grand bargain on the table, particularly during an election year? >> when you're resurrecting, karen a dead sister who's been cannonized into your political debate, you know there's trouble on the horizon. i mean, look, if you think about it, this 2015 budget that's being proposed as well as the federal minimum wage proposal, all of this is the president trying to make, i think, a very effective case that democrats are the party of the middle class. that is going to play very well the closer we are getting to the 2014 midterm elections. it is not just the federal minimum wage tax, but it's, for example, these initiatives that

are coming with this proposed buckets. you were talking earlier, karen, about these investments in pre-k universal education job training. this is not just going to play really well with, for example, the social security and taking that less generous formula off the chopping block or putting it on the chopping block, saying absolutely not, we're not going to allow this. this is something that's going to play really well with elderly voters. our seniors show up to the polls. then these investments in job training and in universal pre-k plays really well with women voters as well as minority voters. some of these new emerging voters like latino voters, this is going to put 2014 into play for the democrats, i believe. >> well, i want to switch gears. jared, i want to talk about the minimum wage. one of the things we saw, we have the nation's governors in washington this week. we know this fight for the middle class, that's what we're hearing from the democratic governors. we know the minimum wage is certainly going to be an issue at the state level because we

have a number of states where there are minimum wage measures on the ballot. but i'm just -- you know, jared, because i got you here, can you just please help me understand and help our audience understand this crazy cbo report and just because we actually give people a wage they can live on doesn't mean necessarily we're going to kill jobs. >> right. i don't think the cbo report was crazy. they took an estimate of job loss from minimum wage increases. that was from kind of the high part of the range. in fact, it was quite high. but it's not outside the ballpark. the idea is that economists have looked at the impact of minimum wage increases on employment. what they found is that this is a very simple policy that does precisely what it's supposed to do. which, by the way, is kind of common sense. if you give people a wage bump, they're better off. it lifts the wages, according to cbo, of 16.5 million people directly, another 8 million

people indirectly. so 24 million low-wage workers get a wage bump that of course they very much need given the kind of economics we've talked about together for years now, karen, you and i. and let me just say, it is the case that according to cbo, 500,000 jobs would be lost. but remember, in the low-wage labor market, there's a lot of churn. when those workers get their next job, it will be a better job. but 24 million benefit, 500,000 lost. that's a good shake out. >> i think that's incredibly important. in theory, the republicans are always saying leadership is about tough choices. okay. so if we have to make tough choices and we're talking about lifting 24 million people out of poverty, that seems like while it's a tough choice, it's a good one to make. viviana, i know you want to get in on this. >> i was just going to jump in and say certainly something that needs to be looked at is how is this going to burden small businesses, and, in fact, are there going to be laid off

workers? that's something jared can explain being the resident economist. one thing that hasn't been talked enough about is how this minimum wage hike would just infuse the economy with more money that, for example, these federal -- these people who would benefit from it are going to be able to spend more. and there's another boost to the economy, quote/unquote, that's a lot softer. when you don't have people working two and three jobs just to make ends meet because right now the profile of the federal minimum wage worker is a single mom of two who's making $15,000 a year, this is the kind of woman that is heading up a household of two kids. maybe not having to work two or three jobs, you know, to make ends meet will allow her some more time to be with her children, to check that homework, and to read to her kids. >> which we should want for all families and all women. >> let me make a quick point. >> very quickly. >> just to be clear, the cbo

report found that about a million people were lifted out of poverty. so that 24 million people figure includes everyone who gets a wage bump. i just wanted to be mindful of that. but lots of those folks who get that bump, they may not be poor, but they're just on the other side of the poverty line. >> that's right. >> it clearly helps folks who need the help. >> jared bernstein keeping us honest with the numbers. thank you both so much for joining me. >> great to be on. coming up, i'll speak with my colleagues richard engel and ronan farrow about the dramatic shifts take place in ukraine. [ female announcer ] you get sick, you can't breathe through your nose...

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as the olympics wind down this weekend in sochi, russia s all eyes are focused a few hundred miles to the northwest where a dramatic power shift is underway in ukraine. the parliament has voted to install its speaker as interim president and the whereabouts of now former president viktor yanukovych remain unknown. demonstrators remain in the streets tonight buoyed by the release of the former prime minister for president. she spoke to worldwide leaders, including german president angela merkel and u.s. senator dick durbin, who describe their conversation this morning. >> she told me, she assured me she's looking for a peaceful resolution to the problems in ukraine, to follow the constitution and the law. >> the divisions have put the spotlight on how russian president vladimir putin will respond as i had olympics come to a close.

and what the ukrainian protesters push for a newly elected democracy might mean for u.s.-russ u.s.-russia relations, a topic this morning that susan rice tried to down play. >> this is not want a the u.s. and russia. this is about whether the people of ukraine have the opportunity to fulfill their aspirations and be democratic and be part of europe, which they choose to be. >> for the latest, i'm joined by n nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel in kiev. and here in studio, my colleague ronan farrow, host of "ronan farrow daily" which premiers tomorrow. richard, i heard you say earlier today that the protesters remain in the streets, almost as han insurance policy to make sure that i guess the parliament and the changes they're making make good on what they say they're going to do. is there a mistrust of government even though the changes are essentially what these protesters wanted?

>> reporter: there is certainly a mistrust in government. these people in the square behind me want to see a completely new cast of characters. they don't want this revolution that about 100 people gave their lives to see. they don't want it to just involve the same old politicians coming back and not really dramatically changing the country. so they are staying is here to try and be a reminder that they can organize pressure in the streets and that if they're not happy with the way things progress, they will protest once again. >> and what's the latest with the now, i suppose, former president? we don't know his whereabouts. i believe he was seen trying to leave the country late last night. is there any update on his whereabouts? >> reporter: he's still believed to be in ukraine. there's now some security camera

footage that appears to show the moment his helicopter left kiev. airport officials, border officials say that a charter plane did try and leave the country, and they believed that the former president was on that plane, although there's been no confirmation of that. he's still believed to be somewhere in the east by the russian border. that is where he is from. that is where he still has some support, but he hasn't been seen since he gave a television interview or television statement, i should say, yesterday in which he declared he was not stepping down. you might be able to hear some mournful singing behind me. all day in independence square they have been holding memorials. so this is a constant political reminder that these protesters want real change, but it has also been a memorial today for the roughly 100 people who died this past week to bring about this tremendous change. >> you know, richard, final

question to you. you had made a point this morning on "meet the press" about whether or not this is perhaps the start of a uerasian spring, almost like we saw with the egyptian spring, i suppose. what are your thoughts on that? >> reporter: well, i think it remains to be seen. we saw tunisia have a dramatic revolution. that was followed by egypt and a failed uprising in bahrain and yemen and the revolution, war is still continuing in syria. not a lot of people expected that knock-on effect. what will happen here remains -- is an open question. these days there is an interconnectivity among many different rebel groups, revolutionary groups. they talk online. they raise funding online. they pass along lessons learned. a lot of the things i saw protesters attempt to do in

tahrir square and failed to do in taksim square in turkey, we saw the demonstrators here doing. they built their barricades higher. they had more types of weapons and molotov cocktails. so the people who want political change, the disrupters, to use the language of your show, do communicate and do inspire each other. and we'll see if this revolution inspires others in central asia or other parts of the world. >> all right. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. thank you so much. you negotiation ronan, i want to pick up on this point about is egypt perhaps the right model to think about as part of the arab spring in terms of -- and i have some sound i want to play from tom friedman from earlier today. this idea of was this really a ground-up movement? is that going to make it more sustainable? it sounds to some degree like the folks on the ground in kiev have learned a few lessons from some of what's happened over the

last couple of years. let's take a listen. >> the good news is the fact this happened from the bottom up. the west didn't do this. the united states didn't do this. the eu didn't do this. the ukrainian people did this. what we learned from egypt is it's not about the morning after. it's all about the morning after the morning after. the morning after everyone celebrates getting rid of the leader everyone hated. what yo u discovered in egypt ws there was a huge diversity of what to do next. i think we're going to face the same challenge here in ukraine. >> what are your thoughts? >> i think there are two questions here raised by tom friedman. he knows how to raise questions. >> yes, he does. >> also micced metaphors. we love him for that. the question s is it, in fact, bottom up and to what extent? i think you can argue this is also very much the ukrainian people responding to the whims of outside powers and the flow of outside power into and out of ukraine. we obviously see a close relationship between the european union and this part of the world.

russia is responsible for 31% of the eu's gas imports. so this is a tension between those two powers duking it out in this context. remember, this all started when there was a decision made by that regime to turn away from the eu towards russia. so this is very much about these outside powers as much as it's bottom up. question two is, if it's bottom up and we did see 50,000 people coming out, is that a good thing? as you pointed out, we look at some of these models in the arab spring and see that bottom up can go awry very quickly. >> certainly it seems clear they're going to need support, particularly i know there's so many concerns about what's happening with the economy. that seems like that would be the first place where things would start to fall apart >> i think that's actually, you know -- arab spring is a loaded term. spring implies certain demographic things, the youth of the movement. in this case, we're seeing older people, more educated people taking to the streets. it's a term i would hesitate to use quickly.

but i do think that, you know, what we see that is similar there is, you know, people not really sure what's going to come next. and in many ways, responding to these outside influences. i think world players in this that we've talked about can play a big role in influencing exactly what happens next. >> so i want to switch gears to a topic that i know you care about and is obviously one i care about. that's afghanistan. it struck me this week. we were having this conversation about what was happening in the ukraine. we've been talking about syria. but we have not been talking about afghanistan, where we still have almost 40,000 american soldiers in theater, fighting a war. it's rarely mentioned on television. it was a line in the president's state of the union speech, although he did honor that wonderful brave soldier. you know, what concerns me is we don't talk about it. and we don't talk about what's really going on in afghanistan. i know you've been there. so give us a sense from your perspective of what things are like on the ground. >> i spent my two years as a diplomat, the first two years i

was in that position, in afghanistan and pakistan. the first thing i'd say is what we see in kabul and the diplomatic signals we get from karzai are nothing to do with the situation on the ground really in here that te when you get into the trenches. i mean, where this latest attack that happened in afghanistan is, that's worlds away. it does reveal that under the surface, even more than the news reports out of kabul would say, afghanistan is falling apart. it's something of a forgotten war. it came up six times, you can count it, in the state of the union address. almost all of them were in the con tetext of, we're getting ou victory, ra-ra. it may be premature for that. >> i'm going to have you back to talk about it. i want to keep talking about. we have american soldiers on the ground there. we need to let them know we haven't forgotten. it's like a forgotten war, but i haven't forgotten. >> 84 afghan soldiers killed

already this year. >> all right. thanks to my colleague ronan farr farrow. don't forget, you can catch "ronan farrow daily" tomorrow and every weekday at 1:00 p.m. eastern. in fact, we've got a whole new lineup for you starting tomorrow. you can now catch "news nation" with tamron hall and andr"andre mitchell reports" at 11:00 a.m. and noon eastern respectively. after you watch ronan, tune in for "the read report." coming up, how gop obstruction led to a judicial nominee that has a coalition of progressive groups gearing up to fight. i'll talk to civil rights icon reverend dr. joseph lowery. later, it's not just ted nugent's offensive comments that gop candidates should speak out against. he has some disturbing behavior to answer for as well. may i read something? yes, please. of course. a rich, never bitter taste cup after cup. 340 grams. [ sighs ] [ male announcer ] always rich, never bitter. gevalia.

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work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead man, and when white will embrace what is right. >> that was reverend dr. joseph lowery giving the ben fiction at president barack obama's first inauguration in 2009. today the civil rights icon is part of a growing coalition of lawmakers, activists and organizations opposing president obama's nomination of georgia state judge michael boggs. boggs' nomination is part of the larger story of the historic gop obstruction of nominations to the courts. last year the president struck a deal with georgia's two republican senators, saxby chambliss and johnny isaacson. under the deal, the white house would name two nominees and the gop are the remaining four.

judge boggs is one of those four picks. at the time, dr. lowery, along with congressman john lewis and others in the georgia congressional delegation, voiced strong opposition to that deal for a number of reasons, including a lack of diversity. and specific to boggs, there were concerns he cast a vote as a state legislature to keep the confederate battle emblemed a parz of the georgia state flag, his opposition for same-sex marriage, and a funneling tax dollars to pregnancy centers through the purchase of special license plates. since december, the opposition has grown. 27 organizations have signed on to a letter opposing judge boggs. given his poor record on civil right, women's rights and lgbt rights, you can see why such a broad coalition opposes this nomination. it's my honor to welcome civil rights leader and founding member of the southern christian leadership conference, the reverend joseph lowery. thank you so much for joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> i want to just get right to

it, reverend, and hear from you. i know you joined with congressman john lewis and a number of others from the georgia congressional delegation to raise concerns about this deal in particular and some of the people named in it specifically. >> yes, we were generally disappointed in the slate of nominees presented by the president at this particular time. although, we have great admiration for the president and for the most part have been very supportive of his administration. we did feel deep disappointment in the agenda, the nominees for the federal judiciary at this

time. not only particularly mr. boggs that you named, but we were concerned first of all that no african-americans were involved in the selection process. the committee that was appointed to bring in suggestions did not include an african-american. and the six nominees, only one was an african-american. so the fact that you don't have african-americans involved equals a kind of result that you don't have african-americans appointed in a satisfactory manner. so we were very disappointed that -- at the level of african-americans in among the nominees and we're disappointed

in the caliber and character of other nominees in the group because of their position on civil rights issues and other issues as well. >> and i want to actually read from a statement that congressman john lewis had put out. again, i believe you were part of this coalition. it says, quote, the coalition finds it troubling that several of the nominees include persons who have advocated in favor of georgia's voter i.d. laws and for including the confederate battle emblem as part of the georgia state flag. so he cited those two specific concerns in that instance. >> those were two of the issues that were particularly in the context of civil rights that we found troubling. mr. boggs, who's a member of the state legislature, fought to keep the confederate flag flying as a part of georgia's

signature. and we were very disappointed in that. and another of the appointees has become the poster boy for the voter i.d. legislation that has plagued us. in the only in georgia, but in several states in the past several months. requiring additional identification to qualify to vote. so both of those issues were troubling to us in the list of nominees submitted by the president. >> and reverend, just a final question to you, briefly. i assume you will continue with this coalition to oppose these nominations. >> yes. we have no reason to change. they haven't changed. >> right. >> and they'll be a member of

the court. they'll be there long after the president has returned to his other areas of business and long after we have retired to the great beyond. >> all right. reverend joseph lowery, thank you so much for your time today. >> thank you for having me. coming up, we'll talk more about the politics behind the judge boggs nomination and a reminder of the role the judiciary has been playing in preserving or taking away our basic rights. ♪ ♪

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fight plays out in washington. so what is this opposition from such a broad swath of groups who generally support president obama mean for this nomination? and what's behind the politics of his nomination? could there be even more than metes the eye on president obama's part? joining me now, david scott and editor in chief of rh reality check, jody jacobson. jody, one of the things i found strikin striking was that it really was broader than, you know, women's reproductive rights. as you just heard from a civil rights icon, it's fair to say, there are significant other concerns. but i want you to talk a little bit about specifically some of the concerns related to women's rights. >> absolutely. well, as you said, they're taking the lead on this campaign

with respect to boggs. it's really important because the courts are instrumental right now in protecting women's rights across the board. their right to fact-based information, their right to access to services, their right to basic, fundamental healthcare. what we've seen over the past 20 or 30 years is a stacking of the courts with people who put their ideology before the law. and now we've got a candidate at a time when we have a democratic president who mirrors that very same thing, puts his ideology before the law. he, for example, supported state funding of crisis pregnancy centers, which are known to lie to women about their health care and the status of their pregnancie pregnancies. so it's a very great concern. and i don't think it's an accident that boggs represents a convergence of positions against civil rights like voting rights and other kinds of rights. these kinds of candidates have an ideology that goes fundamentally against what i think are the basic principles

of individual rights and liberty in this country. >> congressman, i know you were part of the delegation that very quickly denounced this nomination. talk to us a little bit about that and what your disappointment was in that nomination. >> first of all with mr. boggs, he represents what georgia does not want to be represented for. it's very important. that confederate battle flag, people must understand it was appropriated away from being in the honor and the dignity of those fallen soldiers of the confederacy. but in 1954 with the supreme court decision against -- for integration and against segregation of our schools, the georgia legislators said they needed an instrument and a symbol so that they could go to the democratic convention in 1956 in san francisco to agitate

against integration to say that we are for segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. and they went and took that flag, the sons of the confederacy, daughters of the confederacy, begged them, don't turn this flag into a symbol of hate for that. but they did. and the georgia legislature, i might add, karen, this is why this is so critical. when we changed that flag, i was in the legislature. i got in the legislature in 1974. every year we tried to slave it. but you know, on the night that we did this, it was great joy when we removed that battle them bl -- emblem from our flag. between white legislators and black legislators embracing, we were crying tears of joy. not just for the great achievement we'd done for georgia, putting this racist emblem in the past, but because we knew this was going to be the end of the career of many of

those georgia legislators who had the courage and bravery and were led by governor roy barnes with that brilliant leadership of courage to change that flag, and they lost. governor roy barnes lost his election. many of those senators dead and it changes. so there's a heavy price here. >> as i mentioned, jody, there is across the spectrum some very serious issues raised by this nomination. but i'm just going to throw out a political theory of my own here and just try it out on you. i know that the obama administration would defend their record of judicial nominations. obviously it's been better -- higher than both clinton and bush. but specific to this deal, is it possible that the president made this deal knowing that this individual and a number of the others in this group would have no real chance of getting through the process because there's such broad opposition to specifically mr. boggs? and i'm wondering, if so,

perhaps he made the deal and was able to keep his gentlemen's agreement but knowing that as we're seeing, critically important groups in the progressive movement would not let it go forward. jody, do you buy that? >> you know, i can't say what's in the president's mind. and i think it's certainly a plausible theory, karen. what i think is important is that irrespective of who the president is, the groups in the progressive movement understand how deeply important the courts are to the civil rights of all people across this country. voting rights, reproductive rights, you name it. and we have a judicial emergency in many of the courts right now. we have overloaded courts that can't function properly. we have courts that are full and stacked with people who use personal ideology instead of the law objectively. so i think that it's very healthy, irrespective of what the white house's agenda or strategy was with this, that we have the progressive movement

raising up this issue of the courts. whether it's the boggs nomination or others down the pike. >> well, it will be an interesting process to watch unfold. thank you to congressman david scott and jody jacobson. >> thank you so much for having me. >> thank you. later this hour, ted nugent has a big problem when it comes to women, but are his republican friends catching on? that's coming up. good job! still running in the morning? yeah. getting your vegetables every day? when i can. [ bop ] [ male announcer ] could've had a v8. two full servings of vegetables

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texas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate greg abbot ignited a fire storm this week when he hit the campaign trail with rocker ted nugent.

most have focused on his latest round of outrageously inappropriate comments, this time calling president obama a, quote, subhuman mongrel and a chimpanzee during an interview with guns.com last month. comments he kind of, sort of apologized for. but while those comments are despicable, we shouldn't let them distract us from nugent's very well-documented history of disgusting language and behavior directed toward women. did no one tell the texas a.g. who's running ads saying is he'll protect sexually exploited children that he's actually campaigning with an admitted sexual predator? >> ted was 30 years old, pele just 17. >> i was underage. even back in the wild '70s, it just wasn't a terribly appropriate situation in most people's eyes. and now it would be criminal. >> ted admits to a number of liaisons with underage girls. while it may have raised

eyebrows, it never raised the interest of local authorities. ted charmed the girls' parents along with his teenage lovers. in the case of pele, her mother signed papers making ted her legal guardian. >> i got the stamp of approval of their parents because they figured better ted nugent than some drug-infested punk in high school. >> joining me now, grace garcia, the executive director of ann knee's list, which support's women candidates in texas, and robert draper, a contributing require writer for "texas monthly" and "the new york times." thanks to you both. grace, i'm going to start with you. this is somebody who should probably be prosecuted, not paraded around as this paragon of liberty, if you will. i find it surprising that there isn't more conversation about this part of nugent's past. it's insulting to women. there's horrible other things he's said that i can't even repeat on the air when it comes to hillary clinton and other women. some of the covers of his albums and what have you, very

derogatory towards women. and i would also think in texas men should be insulted by it too. who wants their daughter going out with a, you know -- their underage daughter going out with some crazy rocker. >> well, we totally agree. we called on greg abbot to cancel his appearance with ted nugent. he has such a long and documented history of offensive and disrespectful remarks. you've talked about them. they've been targeted a women. they've been targeted at elected officials. and we were surprised that he announced that he was going to appear with him. and not only that, but then he said once it became controversial that he really didn't know about all of these comments. but once that happened, he still didn't distance himself. he didn't denounce anything that ted nugent had said. i think this really goes at the issue of abbot's character and his judgment that he would appear with someone who is so divisi divisive. actually, there was a dallas morning news article that said that this is actually --

abbott's given texas voters reasons to doubt him. >> i think that's absolutely right. there was a cover of his 2007 album "love grenade" featuring a naked tied up woman on a food platter with a grenade in her mouth. it's so offensive we can't even show it. so robert, my question to you is, it strikes me that the voters who would be attracted to that -- you can say it's about second amendment gun rights, but that sounds like a dog whistle to me. but the people who would be attracted to come to an event with greg abbott with ted nugent, if greg abbott doesn't already have those voters in the pocket, he has much bigger problems. so why do this? >> that's why this has been such a subject of perplexity among the texas political world, karen. because you're right. he's got those votes locked down already. he does not need to do that kind of courting. i think it indicates two things. it indicates first of all that greg abbott really does -- i mean, he's a very, very conservative dude.

i think much more so than rick perry. i think the political world is just beginning to awaken to that reality. but he may not align himself with some of the specific verbiage of nugent's, but he's extremely conservative and obviously has great animous towards the president. but this is what happens in a one-party state, which texas basically is now. what it means is that while there's been kind of a dearth of talent in the democratic world of not a very deep bench because you can't make a living as a democrat in texas, that the republican side of the fence is not much better. that bench of talent is now flabby. this is a total unforced error committed by a campaign that just hasn't had to flex its muscles in a while. >> grace, i expect that this will damage abbott's candidacy with women, but one of the things i also noted, you've got ted cruz, who this week was asked if he would campaign with ted nugent. he kind of denounced his comments. he wouldn't really say if he wouldn't campaign with him.

other republicans, you know, have done the same. as you point out, i didn't hear abbott, once he learned more about nugent's past as what i would consider a sexual predator, i didn't hear him denounce any of that. >> no, and i agree with the comments that texas has been a very conservative state. i think that a lot of the people in his campaign thought that nobody would notice this. we're in a different campaign. we've got two great women running statewide. we have women running all over texas. elected officials running in races. so we really think that this is a different election cycle and they're not going to be able to get away with the things they have in the past. >> right. >> and so we're really -- i think they were surprised by the reaction. >> well, it is a fascinating race. i hope we get to talk about it many, many times over because it's fascinating what's going on in texas. thank you, robert draper and grace garcia. that does it for me. thanks so much for joining us. i'll see you back here next

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