the tea party is losing big because ultimately it's winning. on the surface, something very big happened this week. the battle that has shaped and defined american politics in the obama era, that's the battle between the tea party insurgency and the republican establishment. that battle the tide turned dramatically. suddenly the gop has cracked the code and figured out how to reassert its primacy and now tea party rebels are in full retreat. that's what it looks like on the surface at least and the signs could found all over the place

this week. tuesday was pry mire night in ohio where the tea party wanted to make an example of john boehner, a house speaker they have never trusted since he took over three weeks ago. boehner ridiculed the resistance of conservatives to immigration reform. >> the appetite amongst my colleagues for doing this is not real good. this guy is back here with a camera, but here's the attitude. oh, don't make me do this. oh, this is too hard. you should hear them. >> john boehner was on the republican primary ballot in ohio on tuesday and the tea party's idea was to embarrass him to send the message he would hear. when the votes were counted, the egg was on the tea party's face. boehner took nearly 70% of the vote. he crushed the closest tea party

candidate by almost 50 points. there was another congressional primary in ohio as well where the tea party was convinced it could win and would win. freedom works and the tea party citizens fund chipped in $100,000 total in an effort to knock off first term congressman dave joyce on tuesday. they called him a liberal republican because he voted to reopen the government without defunding obamacare. dave joyce won on tuesday. another tea party primary challenge derail ed. there was another bad news for the tea party this week too. a new poll found support for the movement among republicans has fallen sharply since 2010 when 60% of republicans used to call them tea party supporters. there was great news for two more icons. for mitch much and thad cochran.

both entered potentially career threatening tea party primary challenges. the challengers both received quick support from the senate conservatives fund. that's the group that was started by jim demint, a group who has torment ed in the past few years. as the hill reported on thursday, with mitch mcconnell and cochran's primary fast approaching, that fund has gone silent in kentucky in the final two weeks and has dropped out of mississippi where it it backed chris daniels' primary against cochran. the group independent of jim demint is spending in safe primaries in the hopes of notching a win. then there was the biggest blow to the tea party this week. north carolina on tuesday night. republicans needed a candidate to run against democratic senator kay hagan. the establishment had its choice, thom tillis is his name. he's the speaker of the state

house of representatives. mitt romney endorsed him. the u.s. chamber of commerce spent heavily on his behalf. when it comes to endorsements, he's about as establishment as it gets. meanwhile his main opponent was backed by rand paul, who is the biggest tea party star in america. he came to campaign for that candidate on the eve of the primary. freedom works also endorsed brannon. they talked up the grass roots nrge. for the past few years, this has been the setup for one tea party triumph after another, for one humiliating blow to the establishment after another. but not this week. thom tillis won easily on tuesday. north carolina will probably be the most closely watched senate race in america this fall. it's a pivotal state for republicans o to pick off if they're going to win back the senate. now the establishment has the candidate it wants. this time it stopped the tea party grass roots from

nominating another christine o'donnell. it stopped the tea party from giving away the election to the democrats in the primary. so this was not a good week for the tea party. at least on the surface. i say that because if you look a little closer, there was a different story that emerges. the tea party candidates got shellacked and they are running away from republican primaries. the wind on that level is out of their sails. but why is that happening? is it because republican voters have suddenly moved to the miltd toward moderation, toward compromise? or is it because the republican establishment moved toward the tea party? take thom tillis, he has all the establishment endorsements and gotten title, state house speaker, he's a professional politician. but on the issues, thom tillis is indistinguishable from the tea party. he's pushed bills through the house in north carolina and into law that have slashed tax rates for high earners and have

radically reduced unemployment payments to to jobless residents, that have barred north carolina from expanding medicaid and that have cut hours at polling places and mandated voter i.d. asked if climate change is a fact at a primary debate this spring, tillis said no just like his tea party opponents said no. no state in the last two years has moved more sharply, more dramatically to the right away from the middle and toward the tea party than north carolina and tillis has been instrumental to making that happen. this is the real story u of the sudden resurgence of the establishment. it's not that the republican establishment is really figured out how to beat the tea party. what they have figured out is the wisdom of an old adage. if u yo can't beat them, join them. we know what happens when they nominate unfringed candidates. it's a big reason they

squandered chances to win back the senate in 2010 and 2012. now in 2014 they have another golden opportunity to grab the senate. but this time a new question is on the table. what happens when republicans package tea party ideology in a disciplined, well credential candidate like thom tillis? if it talks like an establishment republican but votes like a tea party republican, will there still a price to be paid in the general election? that's the question that the race in north carolina and that control of the u.s. senate may well hinge on. here to talk about all of this we have a political writer. and an associate page editor at the new york pams. and david korn, thank you for joining us. jim, i will start with you where all that primary action was this week i guess the first question is tell us about thom tillis.

every headline in the country this week says the establishment candidate wins. some even said the moderates get their way. when i look at thom tillis and what he has overseen in the legislature i see a tea party republican. is that a fair assessment of him? >> you know, i don't know. the whole republican party in north carolina there's no doubt that the party has moved to the right, but there's still a spectrum in the party. rand paul was here and he referred to tillis as democrat liel light. >> we ticked off the big ticket items in the last few years. what is it in tillis's record legislatively that would make somebody like rand paul say democrat-like? >> i don't think tillis is on the -- would agree with rand

paul and greg brannon on a numb of things on downsizing the federal government to the extent they want to do it. he has pushed deregulation, lower taxes in north carolina, and driven north carolina in a conservative direction. yes, he has denied climate change. he came out in favor of the shutdown last fall. but i think a lot of that might have just been to e repeal to the republican base in the primary. >> that's a question we were asking about mitt romney in 2012. is he secretly a moderate? i guess this illustrates what i'm saying, the difference between the tea party in the republican establishment is like who hides u it better. >> i think the tea party should have a banner that says mission accomplished. it's pulled the whole party forward to the right to match the gravitational pull of the

base. the tea party has had two components. one is a far right. i don't mean that derogatorily. libertarianism, cut the federal government. but it's also had a crazy side. and so greg brannon, who was running against thom tillis, at mother jones we reported that he spoke at a pro rally. public session a marxist plot. maybe that attracted rand paul to him. but thom tillis puts that aside because that does turn off moderate voters. so he put the crazy to the side but has kept the hard and fast ideology with a little bit of craziness in climate change. >> that's the question i'm asking here. okay, you look at the tea party

candidates who have blown races in the last few years. christine o'donnell had to say i'm not a witch. it was sort of at that level when they played to a caricature. we have seen that's destructive for republicans. let's take a look at thom tillis. he's a disciplined, polished candidate. he's been in politics a long time. he's not going to say the stuff that brannon would have said. is he's going to be disciplined. but on paper, you're looking at far right ideology, is he going to pay a price for that in a state like north carolina? >> so much of it depends on what kind of turnout we get, but kay hagan is counting on that. she's given support for the affordable care act. she's going to push him on ideology. and i do think that we have seen a lot of turmoil in north carolina. you have a governor who is a real moderate, one of the hand ful left when he was mayor of charlotte ran on that basis and became a radical conservative

with thom tillis leading the way for him. there's a lot of anger about that, but will those voters turn out. if you look at the republican party, both parties have an ideological wing. it was a progressive wing of sorts. it was teddy roosevelt against howard taft and moving on. now there's no establishment moderate wing. it's a wing of people who are the establishment who are far to the right of ronald reagan against a group of people who are bat proof crazy. >> so when you look at thom tillis, how do you think of somebody like tillis? >> i agree partly with what norm said, but what we have seen here is actually something we have seen going back decades. just 20 years ago if you saw what happened with the rise of

ross perot, whenever you see these populous movements, they get co-opted by one of the larger parties and i think that's basically what's happening here. the republicans saw this populous element in terms of the tea party and what it was doing. they nurtured it for the first couple years. in fact, we saw many benefits coming out of it in 2010 coming out of the house, but they saw some of the problems that arose from the government shutdown. they said, okay, we need to take that energy, bring it into the party, focus on the ideological elements and push down the crazy. >> here's the question. so okay, if the success of the establishment we're seeing this year is they are not going to nominate a greg brannon who said second amendment -- if they are

not going to nominate a christine o'donnell, but they will nominate somebody like thom tillis who is going to satisfy the tea party -- >> because the establishment of the republican party, it's a conservative party. and as tom said, the sort of what might be considered the progressive element of the republican party has basically been falling by the wayside going back to barry goldwater. so this is not surprising that it's continuing this move to the right and the establishment reflects that. >> i guess it comes to the ideological question and also how do we govern. thom tillis supported the government shutdown. are you going to let somebody willing to compromise? >> it's always been a conservative party and sometimes it's a little less conservative

or more. now it's in a period of more conservative. it sets up a really clear, really clear cut ideological divide in north carolina and a lot of other places. in some ways it makes it harder for the democrats because they can't rely on self-sabotaging. . so they have to make arguments for obamacare, expansion of medicaid, climate change argument again and again and again, because it's how the establishment, which make s it more powerful to be mouthing these far right ideological views with guys like thom tillis or mitch mcconnell in the senate who are well trained politicians who know how to win. >> ultimately that's actually good for the public debate because you're not going to have -- i think at some liberal democrats would put it, you're not going to have a kay hagan trying to run as a democrat light. she's decided to make it a battle over medicaid expansion, which is a good debate to have.

>> i want to play a clip about kay hagan standing up for medicaid expansion. it was something to watch. we'll show that when we come back. olate shakes. (growls) (man) that's a good look for you. (woman) that was fun. (man) yeah. (man) let me help you out with the.. (woman)...oh no, i got it. (man) you sure? (woman) just pop the trunk. (man vo) i may not know where the road will lead, but... i'm sure my subaru will get me there. (announcer) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. if you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution that's right for you. with easy step-by-step guidance, we're here to help you turn your dream into a reality. start your business today with legalzoom.

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our state clegs legislature decided against expanding the medicaid program and as a result about 500,000 people who would have qualified for coverage through medicaid are now not able to do so. >> as north carolina democratic senator kay hagan, she's up for reelection, on thursday going out of her way to talk up the idea of medicaid expansion in north carolina. that's sort of the -- we talked about this a little bit in the first block. she's running against thom

tillis so this will be one of the most closely watched races. they have seen to that. this is the latest poll on the approval rating in north carolina. it's left pat with this approval rating. not a good number for republican governor state like north carolina. you can see kay hagan there sees an opportunity to play up part of the affordable care act and run against that unpopular number and attach him to tillis. >> i was just going to say robert said there's a history of extreme elements that get co-opted into the party. this is a case of a party being co-opted by extreme elements. it's the other way around. in fact, if you're a republican now and you say maybe we have to realize the affordable care act is here to stay and let's look at improve iing it it, you are it becomes a difficult thing to do. the medicaid expansion we have

had more pragmatic conservative governors who said it's crazy not to take this on. but for the most part, if you argue in favor of it, you are per son non grata. given the study of health of people in massachusetts if you're not insured, more die, the failure to move forward with an alternative is going to leave some republicans in some states on the defensive on this issue. >> i want to get gym and charlotte back into this. i want to ask about this strategy we're seeing here from kay hagan where she sees not good poll numbers for pat mccrorc. there's a backlash against what they have done at the state level. do you think she's going to get traction of making -- tying tillis to mccrory, that's thom

tillis, do you think that's going to be a factor in this race? >> i think absolutely. i don't think it's as much tying him to mccrory but to the general assembly who passed all these things last year. the mine field is the legislature goes back in session on wednesday for another six to eight weeks. so anything could happen. so she's going to be making that an issue. don't forget that the protests are going to kick up against as soon as the legislature goes back in session. . that will keep all these things in the news again. >> is there polling down there or do you have a sense when it comes to medicaid expansion how that breaks? is that on their radar? is that something that kay hagan can exploit and provoke outrage over that this hasn't happened? >> i think it's something she can exploit with her base, with

the democratic base and talk about that. i don't know how much tuned into that are the middle voters, the moderate voters, the unaffiliated voters, but she can galvanize her base with that. >> just to clarify, norm said i said that the republican party had sort of taken over the extremist element. what i actually said was that it was the tea party was a populous uprising that the republican party tried to absorb. in a way, you might be seeing kay hagan try to use that populous move with medicaid. obamacare has always been unpopular, but the medicaid expansion actually polls at a much stronger way. she's using that, so she's pushing medicaid expansion as opposed to obamacare and that might turn out to be something to cross over from her base into

the broader electorate. . >> i think u in this race you'll have democratic senators who supported obamacare really focusing on the features that poll very well, that are popular. expansion -- >> everything but the mandate. >> keeping your kids on, expansion of mammograms, single moms to vote, they are really telling this. it's a great fight to have. it will be a fight about obamacare, at least from the democratic side, without obama being part of it. you know the polls, if you ask people if they u think of the affordable care act it polls better than if you call obamacare. we will have very sharp ideological debates and fights in north carolina and throughout the country.

all the more important. >> what do you get states like michigan where the republican candidate says she wants to repeal obamacare but replace it with something. but whenever she's asked what would you replace it with, how would you deal with preexisting conditions, she fumbles all over the place. in the house of representatives where they have pledged they would come up with an alternative, they haven't. it's a problem when you take a radical position, blow the whole thing up and not focusing on problem solving. >> that's why north carolina obviously you look at the polls, it's going to be the closest. it's so important to republican chances of winning back the senate. but all the stuff we talk about at the national level, that has all played out in north carolina in just the last two years. now you're really going to get that contrast this fall. you're going to get a democratic incumbent and a republican challenger who is going to have to answer for all those things he pushed through the legislature. it's going to be an interesting watch.

i want to thank jim, david corn. we'll see the three of you later in the show. more critical primaries coming up all month long. we'll discuss what is at stake. that's straight ahead. we asked people a question, how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪

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. you have heard of march madness, well welcome to may madness, a month full of key primary elections every tuesday this month. these are primaries that will offer a lot of clues for november. can they dent the gop's house majority? will they win back some of the the big state governorships they lost in 2010 in the gop landslide? may madness kicked off in north carolina and ohio this past tuesday, and by the time may is over, nominees for high stakes races will have been picked in 12 different states with six of them heading to the polls on one day alone on the 20th. 2014's version of super tuesday.

these are races that will tell us what directions democrats and republicans are headed. in some cases, states that are either deeply blue or red will essentially serve to pick the winners for november's election. let's look at what's on the calendar for the rest of may. turning to kentucky where ten days from today mitch mcconnell, the top republican in the u.s. senate, the architect of the reflection strategy that republican z have e deployed against obama, will try to head off matt bevin. as we asked in the last segment, what is the price of that survival? has mcconnell compromised himself pr a very close race with the democrat this fall. joining me at the table is benji. you have been traveling to cover all these primaries. let's look at kentucky.

mcconnell versus bevin, all the talk six months ago is mcconnell might have to worry about being the next bennett from utah, the next republican who gets taken down by one of these things. looks like he's going to survive. but has there been a price? has he had to do things to shore up his right flank that have exposed him in the general election? >> yes, mitch mcconnell has been very careful about this, about making sure to minimize his vulnerabilities. the biggest single example is that he has rand paul supporting his campaign and part of the reason, one would guess, is he has jesse benton running his campaign, who used to work for rand paul, ron paul, married to ron paul's granddaughter. he's become very close with the paul family. >> he's at the mercy of the pauls. there was a tape that kacame ou.

>> look, i have to hold my nose to work for mcconnell, but it's all good for paul later on. normally you would fire your campaign manager. he can't. >> he can't defend the line. >> it's rough because virtually 100% of them are huge rand paul fans. if you ask be vin, he will tell you, rand paul, i would be just like rand paul. it's so demoralizing not to have that in your corner. >> the most bizarre thing i have seen this year in following these senate races is the fighting controversy in kentucky. so basically be vin went to the cock fighting rally. bevin showed up and spoke and said i have no idea.

video turns up where he's saying he speaks saying criminal behavior if it's part of the heritage of the state is a bad idea. so he was speaking about cock fighting after all. >> this is an area you see that matt bevin is just not the most polished candidate. this may sound like a weird statement, but it's pretty unusual where i have talked to a politician and they have lied to my face. he said this was not a cock fighting rally. i have the first speaker and i left. this video shows up and every single one of those things was false. the first speaker was a guy saying, hey, we're here for the cock fighting rally. >> it was the game fowl defender. i want to get to another one. the 20th, georgia.

we think of it as a red state. democrats have the daughter of sam nun, they think if things break right, she can win this year. big crowded republican primary. he got five candidates in the primary. the democratic hope was the two guys at the bottom. he was one of the only people to come out to todd akins defense. it looks like neither one is going to make the runoff. does that end democrat's chances or do they still have a shot? >> democrats would argue that they all are so far to the right on their positions that they would have a chance. but it gets very difficult. the swing voters in this are sort of republican leading suburban voters and seems unlikely that too much of a problem would summon.

the chief vul nernlt would be elements of his business records. one issue is some of his companies haven't gone so well. they are outsourcing all their production. there's some of this vulnerability. but those voters are going to stick republican in this race. michelle nun's advantage is she might be able to convince some of the moderate conservative leaning women especially to come over. kingston and purdue don't leave too much of an opening for that. >> it's a state that's changing dem graph if i kplip democrats are looking for the next ten years to change. look out for karen handle in this thing. if anybody could sneak up there, she started the whole planned parenthood controversy a couple years ago. she's running with sarah palin's endorsement. it's an interesting story to watch. keep an eye on her.

tha thanks benji. a lot to get through. appreciate it. a lot happened in politics while you were sleeping last night. we'll kick it around, next. really... so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 dollars a month? yup. all five of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential? add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. low dues... great terms... let's close. new at&t mobile share value plans. our best value plans ever for business.

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[ female announcer ] we eased your back pain, you turned up the fun. tylenol® provides strong pain relief while being gentle on your stomach. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol®. back at the table, joined by our panel to take a close look at the headlines. we have l. joy williams and she's joined by david corn. lots of major news developments this morning including out of detroit where a county clerk declared that john conyers failed to hand in enough signatures to qualify for the democratic primary ballot. there won't be a final ruling until tuesday, but it means one of the longest careers in congressional history could be coming to a sudden and shocking end. late news yesterday out of arkansas where the march of gay marriage took another step.

the judge striking down the legislative and constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. the decision will be appealed to the state supreme court. rand paul is also in the news this morning. this after he dared to kbo where no republican will go these days, openly questioning his party's push for voter i.d. laws. the white house candidate met with a group of black ministers in memphis. afterward he told "the new york times" that everybody is gone completely crazy on this thing. it's wrong for republicans to go too crazy because it's offensing people. for any republican this would be news, but it's especially significant coming from paul. he famously questioned part of a crucial act of 1964. more recently paul has been reaching out to leaders with a cross country outreach listening tour. it raises the question, is this the first time a politician has gone on a listening tour and

actually listened? what do you make of this? i don't know about the civil rights act to let's back off voter i.d. he's come a far way. >> notice in his comments he didn't say let's not introduce and pass these laws. he said let's not go crazy about this. not that we might be restricting their rights. there's a clear difference of that and people know that. >> he didn't lay it out, but an acknowledgment this is offending people, he spoke at howard maybe a year ago. this issue was raised by people in attendance. he at the time was, what are they talking about? now he's saying it's offending people. >> do you get cookies for standing up and saying, yes, we're offending people? or do you get kudos for changing the policy that restrict the right to vote.

>> we should send him at least one cookie. but this is a guy who believes that tax rates should be at 10%. so he wants to slash all federal assistance programs that would help white people, black people, brown people, so he's not out there as a friend of working class americans. he's saying this is ticking peek off so maybe we should think about how we go about doing this. hep has a long way to go. >> i think there's something kind of interesting here. traditionally when republicans have made overtures to african-americans, they are trying to appeal to them through sort of the social conservative means, either abortion or gay marriage or things like that. this time i think rand paul actually has an opportunity to kind of use his actual libertarian viewpoint and appeal to african-americans that way.

because african-americans have this history of government trampling upon their rights and they have a legitimate fear of big government. i think if he starts to recognize that this idea of voter i.d. is as offensive to african-americans as the idea of going to nra people and saying we need i.d. for you to buy a gun. >> there's another point here which is he has been for felon reenfranchisement, for prison reform. this is such an interesting mix. >> drug policy as well. >> it's going to appeal to some younger people on the nra stuff but also i don't think he's going to win a lot of votes, but it's a different kind of candidate. >> those are the two questions to look at. does he tie this to specific calls for taking things off the

books, but how is this received in the republican party because he's been making so many end rows. another republican breaking ranks on a major election issue is mitt romney. came out in favor of a minimum wage hike yesterday in an interview on the set with "morning joe." >> i think we ought to raise it. our party is all about more jobs and better pay. and i think communicating that is important to us. >> he wasn't on this set, he was on remote, but romney joined other notable republicans and past presidential candidates who have come out in favor of raising the minimum wage. this morning's "washington post," a split is now emerging in the republican party on this issue. republicans filibustered a minimum wage hike in the senate a few weeks ago with democrats making it a center piece for their strategy. could we see progress on the issue? >> not in the house.

>> so the answer is no. >> this is the best evidence, if anyone thinks that mitt romney is so masochistic that he's thinking of a presidential run, that statement tells you that he is not. you can't win the presidential nomination if you're for raising the minimum wage. >> the split you have really gotten is between those who are in elected office and those who aren't. the three you mentioned, santorum, tim pawlenty, and mitt romney. >> a lot of republicans in states where there's persistent high unemployment have a different view. the leaders, however, starting with john boehner, have a visceral reaction against it. the house is just -- >> they think that unemployment -- training programs will help minimum wage. >> we're the party that we're

for the blue collar worker and we care about them that we need to move on this issue. so it has to be those republicans that believe in this that have these districts with high unemployment that says to leadership, we need you to move on this instead of moving for multiple votes on obamacare, move it on this for unemployed workers. that could win them some votes and some momentum in other places. >> santorum has had union support so it's not surprising. >> so talk about the debate within the republican party. the republican party made some interesting news on the subject of debates. we'll be getting to that when we come back. o crime files. reckless seeding... ...failure to disappear. a backyard invasion. homeowner takes matters into his own hands. ♪ ortho weed b gon max. with the one-touch, continuous spray wand...

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season in the debates that they believe damaged mitt romney's campaign before the general election even started. and now they have made good on that promise with new debate rules for the next go around. in the next presidential race, a panel of 13 rnc members will choose the time, location and media partners for each debate. they will require that conservative journalists join the moderators. new rules will bar candidates from participating in these official debates. so going to look a lot different next time around. >> even if they have ten debates, there will be plenty of opportunity. i don't think they will be partnering up here at msnbc. i think it gets them to feel even more free to say. i think we'll have less to choose from. >> when you look at the controversy that grew out of the

republican debates, was it because of gotcha questions from the media or rick perry not being able to think of three things on the fly? >> it was not the fault of the moderators or it provided a space to display their crazy. there wasn't that. . but what i find interesting is that how this limits free speech that you bar people from participating in other debates, in other areas on other interest groups. >> do you like this idea? >> i can understand why they might want to have more party control. however, even if they are not considered debates, you're going to have these forums that some of the pro-life groups are going to put on. it's just the nature of how the

base will move the candidates. they will go to those and they will be covered and you'll start seeing honest discussion. the party can limit the official ones, but the unofficial ones will go. >> it's a challenge to networks here, i think. you're being dictated to how you're going to run an event. in the past you had a network that would do a debate, decide the moderators, decide the questioners and the candidates would show up. are you going to be used this way. it's something that's going to get a lot. >> a party should be allowed to tell. >> who is going to be controlling their particular party. >> it reminds me of the nfl a few years ago realized, you know, we don't need these external media broadcasting our games. we can have an nfl network and you're taking control. we have to kbet one more thing

in here. it's almost mother's day. in honor of that event michelle obama delivered the weekly white house address for the first time. she had a special message for women around the world. take a listen. >> like millions of people across the globe, my husband and i are outraged and heartbroken over the kidnapping of more than 200 nigerian girls from their school dormitory in the middle of the night. these girls embody the best hope for the future of our world. and we are committed to standing up for them not just in times of tragedy or crisis, but for the long haul. >> earlier this week the first lady posted a photo in support of the #bringbackourgirls campaign. it's a horrible story. 200-plus girls. everybody is asking themselves, is there a way to get them back and now you have the first lady weighing in. >> it's particularly difficult because as we're tweeting on the

hash tag and raising awareness about this condition and asking other nations to get involved to bring them back, there's still the issue in the ground that people don't understand really the political landscape of what goes on because this group has been terrorizing the country for some time. clearly the tragedy of taking girls from having an education is certainly the heart of people across the world. >> i'm reading a number of articles about what can we do and there's obviously people has hope they are sending assistance. there's hope to recover all or some of these girls. there's also the question of providing support for other girls in similar situations so they can get an education and be safe while getting an education. >> kudos for that speech by the first lady. >> i want to thank norm and rob

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14 states, 14 states are poised to decide who will control the u.s. senate after this november's elections. that's the best et estimate right now have competitive or potentially competitive races that will determine whether republicans pick up the six seats they need to take over the chamber or if democrats will hold them off. republicans have been airing an ad that specifically targets women and minority voters in those states. it skews heavily toward women like the food network and bravo. take a look. >> i believe in opportunity for all. >> i think children should be the focus of our education system. >> i believe a strong military equals a strong america.

>> i believe there shouldn't be so much red tape. >> i vote for religious freedom. >> every human life is worth protecting. >> i vote for an all of the above energy policy. >> i'm a republican. >> i'm a republican. >> i'm a republican. >> i believe in opportunity for all. and i'm a republican. >> the gender gap isn't exactly a new concept in politics. reaching out to women was one of the priorities that the republican national committee identified in its self-autopsy after the 2012 election. only once in the past two decades have republicans won among female voters nationally and that was in 2010 when they were winning wherever. so that's the democrats' recipe for survival, drive up support with women and get the women motivate odd turn out. that's the basic strategy and you have probably heard about it by now. it's actually a lot more complicated than that because the gender gap we often talk about is becoming something of a

red herring, a misleading statistic because more and more what really matters in deciding who wins elections is the gap within the gender gap, the marriage gap, the difference between single and married women. single women have the power to make or break the control of the senate. they are tremendously reliable democrats, increasingly reliable democrats. 2012 barack obama won the women 55 to 44%. but mitt romney actually won among married women by seven points. obama was only able to win the women because he won among unmarried women by 36 points. 36 points he beat mitt romney by among single women. the unmarried women are growing in numbers. they account for 1 in 4 eligible voters. with marriage rates declining, their clout only figures to grow. the problem for democrats when it comes to midterm elections, unmarried women have not been showing up at the polls.

their turnout in 2010 plummeted more than 20 points from the 2018 presidential election. that's a far more dramatic dropoff than among men. our cover story writes, in one very measurable and consequential sense there are two americas. there's the america that votes in presidential elections, which has helped democrats win the p popular vote in five of the last six cycles and then the one that votes more regular ly. eisenberg points out that 127 million voters get to the polls in presidential elections, but only 78 million vote every two years, 50 million fewer. unmarried women make up a critical part of that group. they live in every state, every district and could put the democrats over the top.

will it require a long-term campaign? what explains the marriage gap in the the first place? is there something about marriage that turns women into skeps or being about being conservative that likes women to get married? my panel joins me now. so thanks for joining us. that question, i'm fascinated by this. we talked about president obama winning single women by 36 points in 2012. in 2013 this happened again in virginia. terry got elected and defied history. he won single women by 42 points in virginia. this is staggering when you start looking at these numbers. how do you explain the basics of this marriage gap of how married women are voting republican are unmarried women are voting

democrat by this large amount. what's driving that? >> another race to look at is 2010 where you had the one anomaly from the model you talked about where single women stayed home was colorado. in many ways 1/2 michael bennett's senate race. and in many ways that broke the tide because it embraced women's issues. they spoke specifically to women. other races in 2010 may u not have done that. so that includes access to health care. that includes economic benefits such as raising the minimum wage. you see that in the conversation right now. it works in 2010 and 2012. but it wasn't applied across the board the way it's going to be applied now. single women move around a lot. they tend to have less economic stability. another way to look at the numbers is women of color were the ones who made the difference. given the historical economic disparities, these are people

who are looking for specific solutions that the government can offer to kind of bridge those gaps. >> so as a pollster, you have been looking at demographics and poll numbers for your whole career. when you look at -- has it always been the case that single women are more democratic than married -- has the marriage gap always existed or is this a product of the last five years? >> it's a function of transformative changes in america that are not going away. this is not a fad. this isn't the group that we're identifying this year that we're going to come back and find the office. you have a majority of unmarried househol households, which is growing, and you have the republican party, three quarters of the evangelicals, two-thirds are married, half of independents are married, half of democrats are married. it's a big divide between the country. and given what economic struggle

it is being on your own, being unmarried is a big economic and values issues. republicans seem to be moving further and further away. so these voters are becoming more and more democratic. it's part of the structural changes. >> we can put this up on the screen keep. your firm did research from march. some of the top messages that resinate with single women. equal pay, equal health insurance, that was a top one, protecting medicare and social security, protecting job paid leave and childcare. the flip side of this though that i wonder about too, married women voting for mitt romney by 7 points. does something happen when you get married that your priorities on issues change? i'm just curious. >> i can't speak from experience. >> not trying to ask who is married or single, but i'm

baffled. >> their points are well made. these are a lot of economic issues. just last year women saved millions of dollars on birth control alone. we're not talking about mammograms or preventive care that are included in the affordable care act. so as a single woman myself, i think i would be a lot more financi financially stable if i were married and that could be one of the things. and i was thinking about the segment and talking about it this morning, i remember one of the most surreal moments of the presidential campaign. so on the one hand we targeted women voters and we're having women for obama events and talking about well women's visits and all the provisions affordable care act would give women. on the other, and it's so early to say this, we were talking about mandatory transvaginal probes. and since 2013 eight states have introduced laws about mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion or end of life.

the differences between the democratic and republican parties could not be more severe. so this is definitely why you're seeing democrats talk about it. >> so talking about colorado in 2010 and michael bennett, sort of surprised given it was a republican year and ken buck was his opponent. he's a tea party surprises who said a lot of things that were kind of out there and alarmed a lot on cultural issues. that's something i wonder when we look at virginia last year. so 42-point gap, they win the state by two points. a lot like ken buck, virginia was a state where the transvaginal ultrasound had been an initiative a year earlier. but on cultural issue, you can't get more to the right on him. is that part of the ingredient that democrats need? does the opposition need to play to type like that to mobilize voters like we saw in virginia?

>> i don't necessarily think so. to the point made earlier about women of color, black women outperforming, in that race it was 97% women voted -- black women voted in that race. but i think certainly those races where there's a clear difference between on where republicans and democrats stand, whether it's on health care issues or economic issues, that certainly helps and allows us to do that. but i think as democrats, we need to be focused when those things don't exist, how do e we speak to single women voters in order to move them out. one of the criticisms we have a lot about our party is we don't spend enough -- as much money and investment in turning our base voters out, being single women and voters of color, in midterms. and so we have to as a party focus on telling our donors to give more during that time and putting the same infrastructure

we do in presidential elections. that includes this microtargeting and focusing on women's issues of economic security, of health care, and particularly interesting about your poll in talking about medicare and the amount of single women taking care of their parents, that percentage of them caring about medicare and social security, these are messages that we can take part and focus on women to pull them out in midterm elections. and state elections. because a lot of these bills that we're seeing across the country, they are not being introduced in congress. these are bills that are being introduced in state legislatu legislatures. we have to flip those state legislatures and the governor's mansion in order to take hold on this. >> so much of that, it's midterm elections are key to that. so many governor's offices are decided in midterms. we have to squeeze a break in here. i want to look at how republicans, specifically female candidates, are trying to deal with this. we have an interesting clip i

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we want to talk about how republicans are sort of trying to respond to this -- not just the gender gap but the marriage gap. karen handle is a vp at the susan ko man race for the cure, the breast cancer organization. she had been involved in that decision briefly to cut off funding to planned parenthood and caused a national controversy. now she's running for the u.s. senate in georgia. she's in this five-way republican primary. the pick she's making has to do with the democratic claims of the war on women by democrats. this is the pitch she's making. >> the democrats play book will

be, war on women and income equality. >> you know, i have seen this in a couple places. in michigan, almost the exactly the same case she's making in an ad up in michigan. basically the claim of democrats are saying war on women, i'm a woman, i'm a republican, is that an effective advantage among women? >> i have to make the comparison between latinos and republicans because just fielding la ttino candidates doesn't mean you get the latino vote the same way that just fielding women candidates doesn't mean you get that. we're not about style, we're about substance. obviously, the party is completely tarnished when it

comes to medical and personal decisions. so this isn't about talking pretty to me or being emotional or as boehner said, more sensitive. it's about how you're voting and where you're standing on the matter. >> if republicans are going to change either policy views, do they gain any advantage or do they undo any of the damage is the better question by nominating female candidates like in a state like michigan or georgia, something like that. >> i'm so unimpress ed with thi. you roll out of the convention, credibly diverse platform. people are not stupid. you can't be rolling out a set of diverse set of candidates or speakers at the same time you're dpning the vie inin i denying the right to vote. what's that about?

people understand -- >> when i listen to that i wonder if karen handle in that situation s she making a pitch to female voters or to republicans or men who are sick about hearing about the war on women. >> i don't know what she's talking about because karen handle is the definition of the war on women line. the defunding of planned parenthood that you mentioned was a boilerplate for what would come in the 2012 election because democrats saw the kind of support the planned parenthood had and felt embol n emboldened to campaign on these issues after they saw. she created some of this formula and it works against her. so historically republican women do not do well in republican primaries. they do not like to vote for them. having a woman say there's no war on women, i i'm a woman, that's placating to republican men. but i don't think enough can be

said about how stigmatizing the language is about single women that they see them about uncle sugar and the libido. the plan if only single women got married and there would be no more poverty. these are deeply profoundly condescending ways that don't have baring on the actual realities. . >> it makes you as candidates and as a party look like an idiot. because if the messaging you're sending is of me taking and looking at the statistics of the number of single women who are working multiple jobs, taking care of households, not only theirs but their parents and other people. look at african-american women who are starting businesses and contributing to the economy and then hiring other people and then you have messaging talking about that we're taking from this country. it's completely condescending and makes you look like an idiot

and we don't want to look like idiots. >> so joy was talking about the need for democrats to focus more on mobilizing single women. we showed that dropoff between 2008 and 2010 of 20 points. much more substantial than you saw with other groups. what are -- why is the dropoff so pronounced? >> everybody gets that they have to be targeted and that's happening, but i think what we recognize and supported is they want politics to be relevant to their lives. it's tough out there for single women. they are on their own. it's financially tough. the little support. if you look at that agenda, a lot of that is recognition that says, hey, finally recognize how difficult it is to raise a kid and work and the kind of support you need if you're doing that. they are looking for both recognition of their lives and how tough it is. and in an agenda that would matter to them. so that matters to their

motivation. the biggest motivator was pay equity in our research. that's what had the biggest impact of interest in vote iing. . >> and particularly to your point, if in midterm elections, if the focus was on pay equity, if the focus was on raising the minimum wage as it is here in new york city, if it was talking about after school programs, it was about these things that matter to sung l women and matter to their everyday lives that i have a slot for my child to kbo to school and somewhere for her to go after work because i work until 8:00. these are issues that directly a affect their household and directly affect their pocketbook. so those things can move them. and so we have to have candidates on the state, local and in the midterm elections that focus on those issues. >> good news for single women as we talked about in the last segment, mitt romney is for raising the minimum wage.

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so far the only flushed out n narrative of what happened in the bridgegate scandal has come from the lawyers chris christie hired. that was called into question this week when one testified publically. details on that and on the next witness who is about to step forward. that's tomorrow's show. plus our interview with elizabeth warren. one question i asked was about the man she beat in 2012. >> i don't know if anybody could have imagined the night you beat scott brown in 2012 in massachusetts that two years later he would be a resident of new hampshire and would be challenging the freshman democratic senator up there pr reelection. you ran against scott brown. you defeated scott brown.

if jeanne says, senator warren, what's the best piece of advice, what would it be? >> here's the deal. i have now worked with jeanne for nearly a year and a half. i'm going to tell you something. jeanne is smart, she is independent, and she is strong. she doesn't need my advice. you know what, scott brown is going to have his hands full with her. >> all right, our full interview with elizabeth warren will air tomorrow morning. stay tuned for that. at delta we're investing billions of dollars, improving everything from booking to baggage claim. we're raising the bar on flying and tomorrow we'll raise it yet again.

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woman: welcome to learning. spanish in the car.c on. passenger: you've got to be kidding me. driver: this is good. woman: vamanos. driver & passenger: vamanos. woman: gracias. driver & passenger: gracias. passenger: trece horas en el carro sin parar y no traes musica. driver: mira entra y comprame unas papitas. vo: get up to 795 miles per tank in the tdi clean diesel. the volkswagen passat. recipient of the j.d. power appeal award, two years in a row. life is too short, time is too precious and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. we have to work together for what still can be and that is why i will work my heart out to make sure that senator obama is our next president. >> that was hillary clinton

nearly six years ago conceding the democratic nomination to barack obama. months later she would become secretary of state, which meant while she was traveling the globe as a states woman, republicans trained their political attacks on president obama. their goal to use opposition to bring down poll numbers as past as possible and to get him out of office as soon as possible. for hillary clinton and her husband for that matter, this was a brand new e phenomenon. the personal attacks that president obama was facing from republicans were similar in intensity and purpose to the relentless and personal attacks that the clintons faced from republicans for well over a decade. all the way from 1992 right up until the spring of 2008 when obama replaced the clintons as the face of the party. just like this she discovered what life on the political stage was like when you and your husband aren't the constant targets of the other party.

and aren't the constant subjects of scrutiny. her poll numbers soared and so did her husband's and now she is positioned like no front runner we have ever seen before to claim the next presidential nomination, if she wants it. but does she? this week brought a vivid reminder for hillary clinton and all of us of the difference twiend of press attention you get when you're a nonpolitical secretary of state and the kind of press coverage you get when you're back in the game of day-to-day politics. that's what led to this. monica lewinsky now 40 years old writing in a first person article on the last 16 years of her life ever since her affair with bill clinton became knowledge. that's the kind of press coverage she can probably escape for good if she doesn't run in 2016. in a case of why she might not run was made recently in politico. they wrote, if she doesn't run, the single biggest factor holder

her back will be the media according to an informal survey. a contentious relationship with the press was a daily reality for her for well over a decade. something that started even before she and bill moved into the white house in 1992. she's with barbara bush just after the election. take a listen. >> talking about the media there. we're still two and a half years from 2016. the argument was made that it's so early in the presidential cycle that monica lewinsky resurfacing now does hillary clinton a favor because it will be old news again. if that's true, isn't this the kind of treatment she's in for if she runs? is this what she wants her life to be like for the next two years, six years, maybe the next

ten years? to discuss all of this our panel is back with us. here you are. there's a lot to talk about with this. i want to get to the question we're raising about does hillary clinton want to go through this again? let's start with the monica lewinsky thing. it seems pretty clear the idea of breaking her silence, she's done an interview, she's spoken out a number of times. it isn't like it's the first time we have heard from her, but it's also impossible the timing cannot be a coincidence. the hilary fever is starting. low and behold, she has something to say. it make s it seem if hillary clinton e declared six months ago i'm den with politics, this

story doesn't come out. >> i think part of the context here is that monica has been unable to move on with her life. she writes in her article that the scandal still dogs her. she's been unable to get a job. she's probably paid the most profound and lasting price of that whole experience. bill clinton and hillary clinton, they all had established careers when the scandal started. they all moved on with their lives. so i think part of what is going on with monica lewinsky, part of it has to do with well, if she's going to be monica lewinsky, they might as well embrace it. that was brought up by rand paul as a way to inoculate the war on women we have been talking about. it's profoundly sexist to blame hillary clinton. most of the coverage of hillary clinton, much of the coverage has been profoundly sexist. so i think this is going to

create an enormous amount of blowback if people remember how monica was treated. she got a raw deal. a lot of the coverage of hillary clinton was enormously unfair. >> i want to show an excerpt from this. hillary clinton in her white house years was sending letters to a friend. she knew these were being held for posterity. and in it she talked about how she did blame herself for the affair. my first thought, and e she also called monica looney tune. she blamed herself for her husband's affair for being emotional neglectful. the affair was nonetheless consensual, it was not a power

relationship. one thing i have been hearing is people trying to make sense of the reaction that some feminists had in 1998 to monica lewinsky. she feels feminists were not there in 1998. she also seems to be saying he's bothered by how hillary clinton processed what happened. >> again, to your point, this is about monica lewinsky and trying to move on with her life. and so she'll forever be tied to the clintons. that's just something she'll have to bare. but how this is connected to hillary clinton and it's her fault and what chances does it have against her race is completely sexist. it's condescending and it's annoying. when we just had this conversation about women and what we care about and so bringing this up, this is a dig really at media, i would say, to continue this media cycle days over and over again about what a woman responsibility for her

husband's infidelity is condesce condescending. >> her blaming herself is not the same as baring political responsibility. >> there's a point that we're talking about bill and hillary clinton in the sense it's a former president sort of going back to the white house. his wife would be president. bill clinton is a part of the story. >> the least surprising story here is that the media will be bringing this story up and the republicans will be bringing this up as well as benghazi. i can't imagine that seeing these stories that hilary is saying, i can't believe this is happening again. she knows this is a narrative around it. she's handled it. i think the voters will very quickly have view of incapslating this in way of saying we have so much at stake

here. the biggest challenge is not this issue. the biggest challenge is how do you become a voice for change when the country is going to be looking for change. how do you deal with an economy that hasn't raised income equality. there are big issues in the country. >> but you know the clintons, so i'm curious what you make of this this week. even some people on the record around hillary clinton talking about the she really doesn't like the way the national media treated her and her husband. she really doesn't like how she was treated. except when she was secretary of state. >> that's totally unchanged. it's not a monica. it's not a scandal story. it's a lack of trust of the media. that was true in arkansas, it was true when they came to the white house. it was true in her 2008 campaign. there's a lack of trust. >> is this an example of that the fact that the media would

bring it up? >> i think it's totally predictable. i think part of your planning. >> hillary clinton may be the only democrat that has hostile relationship with the media as your average republican. and i think maybe possibly for good reason. but i think stan is right. she now has almost 20 years of her own policy record, her own political record. the monica stuff to the extent that it may have a political factor, it may be that people are always a bit weary of the clinton drama that seem to circulate around them. but everything about hillary clinton, if she does decide to run for president, is going to be focused on what she did when she was senator in new york or as secretary of state.

and how can she be a change agent when she has been on the scene for 25 years? >> this is new. we don't have the sound of this, but i want to get this quote in. but put this on the screen. marco rubio in new hampshire, last night, this may be the republican tactic when something like this comes up. it's not to talk about lewinsky directly but they are threatening to nominate someone who wants to take us to the past. the 20th century is gone. almost hope these things in the media -- >> think about the fleetwood mac song and how she can run on that anthem. >> but i want to connect this in terms of women as candidates. and how the media coverage on whether it's their past, whether it's their personal relationships, that's just another barrier women candidates, you may not think of

hillary clinton as being involved in politics having to face that, but women across the country who tried to emerge as candidates or trying to convince to become candidates have this barrier of how they will be treated, how they will be written about, how their personal lives, this is an example of that. it will continue to be an anchor you have to carry. >> my question isn't so much i have no expectation if hillary clinton runs in 2016, i have zero expectation anybody in the primary voting booth is going to make any connection i didn't like how she handled monica lewinsky. the question i'm interested in, we talked about it a little bit with stan about the relationship the clintons have had with the media. the significance of this moment is this is a return to what the clintons face from 1992 to 2008 and what they didn't have to face. the last six years, her feempeople even say it were the golden era of the press

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your money needs an ally. i've always believed in a zone of privacy and i told a friend the other day that i feel after resisting for a long time i've been rezoned. >> that was then first lady hillary clinton back in 1994 at a press conference. the significance of that moment is she sat down in front of the press for a few hours that day after sort of resisting. that was her first real sort of tell-all public event on white water. white water led to the whole lewinsky thing. but the point i was raising at the end of the last segment, we talked about this in the break. the clintons from 1992 to 2008, it's so easy to forget that they were the daily targets of the republicans. bisically every day. as soon as they left office, the

clinton restoration is coming. you can remember after bill clinton left office, they were trying to blame him for 9/11. >> they never left office. then in 2008 things abruptly changed in how the media covered them and how the republicans treated them. barack obama became what they had been. the face of the democratic party. we now in the last five or six years grown accustomed to the clintons as these elevated figures. above politics as the secretary of state, bill clinton, he was the great compromiser in the 1990s. they got along with him. they impeached him in the '90s. so this is a reminder, i think, to the clintons that that world they used to live in comes back if she runs. do they want to live in that world again? >> do you really think that what bill and hillary clinton are really looking for is a time when republicans don't attack

them? >> they did have that. the last five years. >> it's on a trajectory. it's built a platform tennessee and an opportunity to do big things globally and with hillary clinton. >> they wanted to take down barack obama so they used clinton as a tool. >> it's an annoyance, but it's not what you're looking for as an end point. i'm going to pull back bringing change because i can no longer be the punching bag for republicans. >> we had this discussion a few weeks ago. it's tactical. it's the same reason democrats praised ronald reagan in contrast to the tea party republicans now. parties do this. it's purely tactical. now if it looks that hillary clinton will be the nominee, if she's gearing up, she's jumping back into the ring. >> i'm trying to thinking about

this in human terms. the clintons have demonstrated back in 1992 when the jennifer flowers thing broke. they demonstrated that they are willing to stand in there and take the punches and not leave the ring. at this point, for any human being, do they look at the choice that's facing her of whether to run or not to run and look at daily attacks from the media? as a human being, do you want to go through that again if you don't have to? >> from a campaign perspective and the evaluation that hillary clinton is determining whether or not she wants to run, i'm sure that what media attention will happen and will they be able to cut through that in order to reach voters and win on election day in 2016 is a factor in the conversation. and certainly the personal in politics is something you think

about. do i want this information out there. >> not just as a mother now, but as a grandmother. >> is that the of the calculation on whether or not she runs in 2016 or not. but specifically if i can -- if the campaign will be able to cut through that and reach voters and have a message that reaches voters in order to pull people out. >> and she's also factoring in the thought that she can still be the second president to be making history. you know, not just -- not just succeeding in a sense after 20 years her subbed but the first female. >> i'm real interested in the idea just watching -- i came of age watching the clintons take it on the chin every single day so i just wonder as a human being. >> one thing that is profoundly different now is there was a feeling in 2008, okay, maybe barack obama will rise above partisan strife. that was explicitly his promise.

the idea was it was the clintons' fault that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy against them. we have not seen any of those right-wing attacks back off. we have not seen wild conspiracy theories about the president's origins, various aspersions cast on him, we haven't seen those abated at all. in some sense there was a blaming the victim situation with the, quote unquote, vast conspiracy theory against the clintons. so after the experience of the obama administration, you kind of -- the blueprint for the republican attacks against the legitimacy of the presidency started in the clinton era and took a new character in the obama administration. >> it raises a whole other question of when you look at how the obama presidency from a policy standpoint, how it's really all been stalled, the government has been stalled the last couple of years. if the reality is the republicans are controlling the house, what's the presidency worth in that situation. i think that's another question but that's for another time.

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time to find out what our guests know now they didn't when the week began. >> we need to put pressure and raise wearness about bringing back our girls in nigeria, but also to that 64,000 african-american women and children are missing here in the united states. so there is the black and missing foundation that works on the issues like that. but we need to continue to raise awareness about the missing. >> rob? >> the head of the largest teachers union in the country, the uft here in new york, mike mulgrew basically confessed that he sees education reformers as the enemy and he did everything he could to undermine the whole idea of teacher evaluations in the latest contract. and that is something rather disappointing. >> that's what i expect a new york post guy to be talking about. >> according to politico, rejecting the medication

expansion could kill 6,000 people in a year. >> and stan? >> i would go with that one, but benghazi and a select committee, i think we now know the tea party really does govern the house. boehner's so-called pushback is not real. the tea party governs. >> that's where we will end the show, where we started basically. i want to thank l. joy williams, rob george, irin carmon and join us tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. looking at this week's game-changing testimony in the bridgegate scandal plus the interview with elizabeth warren. we talked about her student loan bill, her first year in the senate and what to look out for if you're ever running around scott brown. coming up next is melissa harris-perry. how headline after headline is creating a political headache for the gop when it comes to obamacare and the news for democrats just keeps getting

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this morning, my question, can the gop just keep running against obamacare? plus the latest on the girls in nigeria and how monica lewinsky is rewriting her story. we'll begin with vladimir putin's dramatic victory day ride. good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. russian president vladimir putin has earned an international reputation for displays of vigor and manliness and friday's was epic as he arrived in crimea to mark victory day, the 69th anniversary of the day the soviet union announced the surrender of germany in world war ii. it was putin's first vit