this hour, the big picture, is the recession over? new signs the economy has turned a corner, but don't break out the champagne just yet. why the good times an wall street may or may not be good for main street. also -- >> i will be able to fight even harder for you for what is right and for truth. >> let's all enjoy the ride.

>> sarah palin, private citizen, author? tv host? presidential candidate? what if the future holds. two gentlemen trying to get into that house and they kind of had to barge in and they broke the screen door. >> emergency calls released from the controversial arrest of that harvard professor. and what killed michael jackson. toxicology results expected any day now. and you've come a long way, baby. scientists say women are getting prettier and guys, apparently, you're not much better than cave men. we'll explain. that's a cruel study. good afternoon to you. i'm tamron hall live in new york. >> i'm donnie deutsche, david shuster has the day off. big picture at this hour. is the recession really over as "newsweek" proudly proclaims on its current cover? the closing bell just rang, and

stocks shed a little today. the dow fell just a tad. that's after climbing 39% since hitting a 12-year low in march. >> there was also fresh evidence that the housing sector may be starting to recover. sales of new homes soared 11% in june. it's the third straight monthly increase. >> declaring the great recession is over, "newsweek" cited improving home sales, also the stock market rally. of that fueled by figures showing the economy is expanding at a 2.5% annual rate in the current quarter. it also credited improving earnings from big companies. joining us now, the one, the only, cnbc's jim cramer. thank you. i know you're busy, crazy. i'm reading the recession is over, but every ceo of every major company i talk to is frieden frie frightened. the earnings, anybody can cut costs.

this is a different kind of are he session. we're coming out of a credit bust. are happy days really here again? >> well, i don't like that cover story at all. i mean, what happened is the depression that started with lehman brothers' collapse ended in march, and then we went into a recession. i do believe that housing has bottomed. i made that call last year that it would happen june 30th. a little aggressive but turned out to be right. >> here is that call on tape. this man calling it to the day, june 30th, the housing market bottom. let's look at that. >> when is the bottom? >> june 30th. >> june 30th? >> june 30th of 2009. >> that's impressive. >> you seen surprised yourself with that one, buddy. >> some data came out that indicated i have been dead right on that, and i feel good about it. when housing bottoms it doesn't mean you will get house price up appreciation, which is a key part of the recession being over. you don't need to see jobs being

aggressively created, but you need to see a cessation of unemployment. we have not seen that yet. you need to see automobiles go from 8 to 10 million. we don't have that yet. "newsweek" wants to get ahead of it, i don't blame them, it's a nice cover, but give me six more months and then we'll be there. >> it's like people say what world are they living in. you have 15 states with double digit unemployment numbers, and as you said it's not about creation of jobs, it's about holding onto the job you have. if you have fear that you're losing or could lose your job, you're not going to be spending. i think it's part of that disconnect with wall street and main street in them taking so long for them to say we were actually in a recession. >> i really agree with that. what's happened is "newsweek" is confusing buoyancy in the stock market with the actual economy. that's quite a mistake. the stock market can go up without employment coming back and people doing better. it's done that many times. hopefully six months from now

you will begin to see a turn. this is way too premature. i have been a bull stock market, but i also recognize the reason why the stock market is going up. it's because if you fire a lot of people, your stock goes higher. if you didn't hire them, your stock is going down. that's the simple equation. if you tell me that translates into prosperity, i have a problem with that. >> is the white elephant in the room 1.8 trillion commercial loans on a lot of banks' books. a lot of people think this could cause a kaboom and bring banks to the knees. >> completely untrue. this is mostly spread out around the world. most of the banks are getting to the point where they're in good shapes. i'm not concerned about the commercial real estate ticking time bomb because it exists from 2004 to 2007. that cannot bring the world down. >> thank you so much. >> this is not only the smartest guy, one of the most decent guys fighting for the little guys. i'm still pissed last year

because of the way stewart sandbagged him. >> "mad money" week nights at 6:00. >> we'll just alternate words and really make it real super annoying for you. but anyway now the bigger picture, wall street pain. >> new uproar is brewing over citigroup's scheduled $100 million bonus. you heard me right. to andrew hall, head of the energy trading unit. in his contract, it says he's due to be paid later this year. citigroup has received $45 billion in payout money. appointed in june, he's been reviewing the highest paid ceos. congress is also looking at new restrictions on executive pay practices. >> and joining us now from their newsroom financial times u.s. finance and business editor

francesco. congress is looking for ways to restrict pay. really what are they going to do? what are they looking at that has teeth? >> i think really they're going to send a message to the banks that the excesses to the past are not going to be tolerated. >> we've been hearing about that message for some time. >> but the franks have not been listening. they have been talking about paying themselves a lot of money again. congress is -- there's not much they can do in terms of laws, but they can however tell the banks that the political pressure is on and they shouldn't go on and pay $100 million to anybody. >> here is the thing -- the clothes that need to be taken off to show the emperor. the explanation for why he should be paid $100 million is his end of the business made $600 million. does jeff zucker -- if nbc universal makes $20 billion, does he get a 20% cut?

50% of actual revenue goes to paying these companies. forget bailout money, it's insanity. >> what is going to change that mindset? >> i think the boards. these boards that put these pay packages together, they're the ones that should be held accountable. i am investing in any company that's paying somebody 100 million bucks a year, i want to understand who is the compensation guy on that board and i want him out. i come from wall street. there are people who make $10 million a year and they're idiots. >> that's the cardinal sin. they should never have agreed to give him a cut of the profit or at least not a big cut. but he would have said, well, i'm going somewhere else. i'm going to set up on myself. >> then fine. >> it's not fine. >> tim -- there's not one guy or one woman for the job. >> but what about citi do without the $600 million in profit this guy reaped in last year? >> the point is nobody making

that kind of money for any firm should make that cut of it unless they're an entrepreneur and owner. bonuses should not be a right of passage for any of these firms and guys, we are not out of the woods with a lot of these firms. with he forget it was six months ago, nine months ago, the sky was falling. all of a sudden these companies reporting record earnings. we have to look at some accounting. that doesn't make any sense to me. >> there's talk in the wind now because you have a guy, can't remember which guy, was on a job for a few days, and walked out with several million dollars. if the culture doesn't change, we're going to continue to see this. if congress has no teeth, you're back at the beginning of the conversation. >> yes, i think that's right. i think the main thing is the banks have to realize the world has changed. doesn't matter how much money they make. the world has changed. most of them were saved by taxpayer money. the big check is in december when they pay these bonuses, whether the political pressure is high then and whether they go

through with these bonuses. >> you are gripping, you are angry. >> we've learned nothing. it's insanity. the greed -- they will find a new way to bend the line and nothing has changed. we will be visiting a scenario like this three years, five years, seven years, nine years down the road. there's no new meaningful regulation at this point and greed will still rule the day. i'm a capitalist. i wasn't playing with other people's money. there's been no real changes on wall street and main street is still suffering. they're reading that "newsweek" cover going, huh? what? what recession is over? >> you're wall street, i'm main street, i may be a little neighborhood mixed in, and i don't get the conversation not going anywhere after all this. this is a great part of the day for us. the palin chronicles. sarah palin is out as governor of alaska and sean parnell is in. the former republican vice presidential candidate officially stepped down from office yesterday. here is her reason why, one of them.

>> it is because i love alaska this much, sir, that i feel it is my duty to avoid the unproductive, typical politics as usual, lame duck session in one's last year in office. how does that benefit you? >> msnbc chief white house correspondent norah o'donnell is live in fairbanks, alaska. you watched sarah palin very closely. the way she said sir was extremely piercing. does anything make this woman afraid, including her own future? >> reporter: no, she's sarah barracu barracuda. that's the nickname she got in high school when she played basketball. she's tough. she's alaskan bred. yesterday she said she's going to protect the interests of this state like a grizzly guards her cubs, but she didn't say how she's going to do that, she didn't say what's next for sarah palin. she didn't explain how she's going to affect change from

outside the governor's office. that's still a big question mark that remains. what we do know and nbc news has spoken with the republican women's club in california who is hosting or wants to host sarah palin at the ronald reagan presidential library. they say they're expecting her. they're sold out, more than 900 tickets for this closed event just two weeks from now that. would be her first big political event. we know she's been invited to iowa, but has not accepted that invitation, and we also learned this weekend in speaking with her advisers that she's raised more than $1 million for her political action committee. that's significant. >> that is. >> because it means she's got some grassroots support out there. >> all right. msnbc chef washington correspondent norah o'donnell. thanks for the e-mail about me keeping donnie straight. he's all over the place. >> reporter: getting a little nuts there. another cut, tamron. >> she talks about her children to protect the cubs and maybe this won't happen to the next

children, yet she takes her kids out, parades them in romantic spreads basically celebrating teenage pregnancy. >> that was her daughter's exclusive decision. she said even when she gave the first interview, she gave the interview -- >> come on. >> she's 18 now. >> i really don't -- you have been around politics to know, do you think a vice presidential or future presidential candidate's daughter is doing anything in the media without a sign-off from her mother and father? to me this is exploitation and you put your kids out there and that's why there are jokes on david letterman. obviously it was a horrible joke. >> you think she's using her kids? >> of course she is. there's a romantic spread. stop with the victim, sarah. it's getting old, it really is. annoying. i don't know why i'm so pissed today. i'm just happy i'm here. i'm happy tamron -- i'm just happy now j we're goi. >> we're going to take a cleansing breath. speaking of things that make you angry, the arrest of henry louis

gates. if you were an angry white man versus an angry black man, does the cop act differently towards you? >> we will never know that. >> why did the police report not mention race in the emergency call. the emergency caller never mentioned race. >> okay. >> they kind of barged in and they broke the screen door and they finally got in. >> okay. police building a case for manslaughter in the michael jackson investigation. toxicology results coming out any day now. >> why scientists say women, but not men, donnie, are getting better looking since looks give us power as you say. >> i did not say that. >> that's the big picture on msnbc. i might let you clear it up later. to a deep micro-clean. olay deep cleansers reach the micro-particles of dirt some basic cleansers can leave behind for a clean so deep its micro-clean. olay deep cleansers.

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welcome back. we've got some breaking developments in the investigation of michael jackson's death. authorities are trying to determine, of course, who may have given jackson drugs. now his ex-wife, debbie rowe, we understand just showed up at the beverly hills office of her former boss and jackson dermatologist dr. arnie klein. it's getting stranger. >> hi, debbie. >> hi, how are you? >> i'm fine, how are you? >> good. >> what do you think of dr. klein being under investigation for his prescription practices. >> that's up to dr. klein and the government, i guess. >> what do you think of him using a gynecology office to perform a minor -- >> i don't have an opinion about it. i really don't. i haven't worked for dr. klein for 12 years. >> do you know what it is?

>> it's a medication that's used in anesthesia. ja wh >> what did you inject michael with? >> we'll be back? just a few minutes. >> meantime, toxicology reports stemming from the autopsy of jackson expected to be released this week. that will be the significant point of this case. the report will include information that shows what drugs were in michael jackson's body when he died and whether they caused his death. also today the attorney for jackson's mother said katherine jackson and debbie rowe are close to finalizing some kind of agreement on these children and he spoke with matt lauer on the "today" show. >> the agreement is a custody agreement. whatever the agreement will be will not be based on money. that was not the -- >> but will it involve money? >> the agreement about custody is not a money issue. michael and debbie rowe had their agreement prior to his passing. that's not on the table and is not what we're dealing with despite a lot of the public kind of inquiries. that's not what's happening.

>> courtney hazlett got the scoop on this from machines.csn. the attorney says it's not about money, but other sources contradict that. >> the language is very careful here. he's doing his job by dancing around that question, but at the end of the day custody agreement is part of a larger agreement that does involve a financial settlement for debbie rowe, and that is what they're trying to ensure takes place. that this financial settlement that was put in place prior to michael jackson's death, that all those terms that include custody, money, all those things are seen through because they did afford for certain things after his death as well. >> courtney, what about now it's coming out from some of the emergency workers on the scene that his nose kind of wasn't on and he's got five or six different noses in the jar on the -- >> this is ridiculous. can we stop talking about the nose, people? one of the tragic parts of this story is that the real sad part of the story isn't so much that michael jackson died young. it's that he never had a chance at a life. so let's look at this story from

the perspective of what goes wrong with child fame? what goes wrong when there's no system in place to take care of our talent, take care of the people who make this business run. >> it comes down to the parents obviously. >> absolutely. we get distracted by these shiny objects like did he have a nose. >> can we have 30 seconds to talk about an obit of the world world war veteran at 111 years old. >> i think it would be admirable. we didn't do it when john lennon died or -- >> he was a singer and dancer -- >> he was a significant -- >> he was a singer -- i said this before and i got in trouble. it's a tragedy to his family. having said that, if you had landed on this planet and watch you would have thought one of the great leaders of the world died. he's a singer and dancer. >> do you think it's valid to talk about these doctors who are prescribing -- >> that's a completely different

problem. i'm talking about michael jackson. >> but here is the thing -- >> hang on. the number of teen aingers who are d are dying -- >> that's not what people were talking about today. >> it's part of the investigation and why i'm asking you what is the latest on the investigation? are we going to see manslaughter charges because -- we can talk about a lot of things but the reality is that this is a death investigation. >> this is a death investigation. >> and this guy could have been doped up for years by doctors who are breaking the law. >> that's a different issue. >> to answer your question the state of california, there is law that allows for the finding of implied malice, and if you do that, you can kick up a manslaughter charge to second-degree murder. so if the lapd can say, listen, there was serious recklessness involved, then, yes, you can kick it up a notch and you get second-degree murder. to address your point, pop culture is culture. that is the bottom line. it's our culture. >> you don't think we celebrated him a tad too much.

>> i don't think we're celebrating -- >> of course not -- >> that's disrespectful to the people who watched it to say -- i think it's disrespectful to the kid who died in iraq that day. i just think -- >> i don't think you should compare the two. >> i think as society -- >> i didn't say the day my father died what about him? he's more important. >> not about more important. i think we've lost perspective as a country of where we've elevated this man. >> we didn't lose it with michael jackson. >> anybody else who -- anybody else who -- >> he's an amazing singer and dancer, and that's what he was. >> there's more than that because now you're talking about a person who is embroiled in one of the biggest medical issues we have -- >> yes. i'm going back to -- that >> that is why you have people who say lets donate to the arts. when you look at the beautiful statues and artists and

paintings they left behind. when nobody remembers donny or tamron, they are going to remember michael jackson and the music he left. pop culture is our culture whether you like it or not. >> entertainment is one of america's largest exports. >> all right. you guys win. i lose. >> can you say uncle? >> yes. >> well, say it. >> we want a resolution on the floor to make you apologize. do you apologize? do you apologize? >> no, i don't apologize. we can agree to disagree. >> you're just like -- >> coucourtney, thank you very much. using a democratic rival. the hypocrisy is oozing. >> it's making me sick. we can agree to disagree. but first some amazing video of a base jump that almost ends in tragedy. >> but it doesn't. >> you're watching what was msnbc. >> spoiler. >> and what was my career.

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join me and over a million people who trust liberty medical. there are a lot of things considered news in this world. >> but there are only a few story that is make us say -- >> no way! >> no way! >> wow, okay. this is high-tech stuff. this doesn't happen at cnbc. an experienced base jumper is lucky to be alive after a jump off a cliff in colorado. watch thisangle from his came camera. he says he will jump again.

>> have you ever done anything like that? >> no, i have just come on the show and got my butt whooped. that's it. >> remember the inmates we paid tribute to donny's favorite michael jackson, imitating "thriller" in the prisonyard. if you're wondering why they're such good dancers, it's because dancing is part of their rehabitual trehab rehabilitati rehabilitation. dance clation ss is a part of t exercise regime. and another hot topic here, a researcher at the university of helsinki says evolution is driving women to -- i saw you straighten your tie. evolution is driving women to become more beautiful. >> and men, on the other hand, as is witnessed throughout the show today, remain as unappealing as cave men. beautiful women had up to 16% more children than their plainer

counterparts and a higher proportion of those children are female. the researchers say those girls grow up to be attractive and repeat the trend. >> so more attractive women have 16% more children and have a higher portion of those children female. sarah palin had how many children? >> five last counting. >> how many are girls? >> i believe there are -- >> bristol, willow -- >> four girls. >> three girls. and two boys. >> and levi was almost in the family, who by the way was at a restaurant in new york with two bodyguards. not sure why. coming up, what's next for miss palin. >> speaking of. >> will we see her on a book tower or on the campaign trail? where will we see here? first, lessons learns from the gates arrest. how the controversy created a teachable moment in race relations. did it really teach us anything? we'll dig deep. you're watching "the big picture" on msnbc. undefeated professional boxer floyd "money" mayweather

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i'm julia boorstin with your cnbc market wrap. stocks closing up on wall street today. the dow gained 15 points. the s&p added nearly 3 points and the nasdaq picked up nearly 2 points. president obama opened two days of high-level talks with chinese officials in washington today. treasury secretary timothy geithner and secretary of state hillary clinton lead the u.s. del delegation. the meetings will focus on a range of topics. oil prices are back on the recovery track up just above $68 a barrel and verizon says it will cut 8,000 employees and contracting jobs by the end of the year. the phone giant reported disappointing earnings in the second quarter with profiting falling 21%. the cuts will come from the land line side of the business. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide, back to msnbc.

feeling good? >> i like the music. >> welcome back, everyone. i'm tamron hall. >> i'm donny deutsch. >> the 911 call that led to the arrest of henry louis gates, police released that call. the caller made it as she thought she was witnessing a possible break-in. police arrested gates on disorderly conduct but later dropped the charges. here is the 911 call or a portion of it. >> i don't know what's happening. i just had an older woman standing here and she had noticed two gentlemen trying to get into that house and she kind of had barged in and they broke the screen zodoor and they finay got n i went closer to the house a little bit after the gentlemen were already in the house. i noticed two suitcases. so i'm not sure if these are two individuals who work there -- i mean who live there. >> you think they might have been breaking in?

>> i don't know. because i have no idea. >> for the record, her attorney was concerned she had been somehow portrayed as a racist. as you hear in the call, she never mentioned the race of the alleged suspects. police also released recordings of the police radio transition that day. sergeant james crowley told dispatchers gates was being uncooperative. >> the gentleman says he resides here uncooperative but keep the cars coming. >> officials said there will be no internal investigation into gates' arrest but a committee will be formed to study the incident and develop recommendations for police. now to the bigger picture, what r lessons could possibly be learned? >> on friday president obama called this a teachable moment. okay. let's bring in the reverend eugene rivers -- >> as a consequence of this event, this ends up being what's called a teachable moment where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more

time listening to each other. >> all right. let's bring in reverend eugene rivers. reverend, i'd like to think of myself as about a liberal white guy as you can be inclusive of every way, yet i think i knew before this ins devent that i'm never going to be able to see the things the same way a black person's eyes sees and vice versa. what have we learned had here? >> number one, i think we learned it is probably wise to resist the temptation to rush to the rhetoric of racial accusation and grievance. what we have is a case where professor gates is arrested while breathing black in his house. there was a misunderstanding. there was a rush to rhetoric where there were charges made that he was a victim of race i remember -- racism and in addition to that sergeant

crowley was dishonest. that was an unfortunate remark which then generated a spectacle as we saw, this tsunami in the elite media around -- >> reverend, we know some of the facts right now. we know a little bit of how this story played out, but where is the teachable moment i guess is what donny and i are trying to get at. what is the teachable moment? >> the teachable moment is the following, there is a real issue that exists that got generated by this misunderstanding around the issues of race, poverty, and public safety. the teachable moment is that we must back away from the overheated rhetoric and focus on the issue of what happens to black men when there are 1 million plaque men incarcerated. what happens to black men in poor communities who are the victims of disproportionate -- >> you're contradicting yourself. you're saying on the one hand the media is elevating this moment to a racial discussion

where it shouldn't be, but then you're saying we need to bring attention to some of the issues at hand such as 1 million incarcerated african-americans. which is it? >> there's no contradiction. what i'm saying is what began as a racial incident was, in fact, not as racialized as it was presented. and the real issue is that we do have 1 million black men locked in prisons and that if we're going to have a discussion regarding race, it should be about race, poverty, and public safety and not the individual experience of an a-list celebrity intellect tug. >> reverend thank you very much. we'll chat about this. >> tamron, when you first heard that story over the wires, what was your initial reaction? >> i didn't have one. i grew up in a small texas town. i have a brother in his 30s, very dark skinned, as a shaved head and he's pulled over or profiled all the time. i have walked into department

stores recently and if i don't feel i'm dressed up or in full makeup, i have people who won't acknowledge my presence who have went to the white person before me. i don't have a chip on my shoulder. it is what it is. >> where do we go from here. it is what it is. >> i don't know. i think we've been asking that question since blacks -- >> hopefully another ten years go by and ten more years and ten more years and it's just time and more education and the more we become an educated society -- >> i think the lesson is we're not post-racial people, trying to say here we have an african-american president and all the ills and wrongs are gone and they're not, but you can have a conversation and a beer in the white house. >> coming up, our face-off on the future of sarah palin. >> will she find a moment on tv or will she end up in some campaign office, perhaps even is her dream the white house? we're talking about it. msnbc, the place for politics. >> scary thought.

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welcome back. in today's face-off, what is next for sarah palin? she officially stepped down as governor of alaska yesterday, 16 months before her term ended, and palin gave a fiery campaign-like speech yesterday before handing over the reins to sean parnell. but, she didn't say anything about her future plans or anything specific. however, her husband, the former first dude as he's called of alaska, or was called, said she

was going to play things by ear and from her spokeswoman we got this quote. there's absolutely nothing planned after today. no meetings planned, no flights booked, nothing. >> nothing. but we do know that sarah palin is expected to speak at a republican women's event next month at the reagan presidential library in california. chris kofinis is a democratic strategist and chip saltsman, a republican strategist. >> from where i sit, she's a quitter. if she's ever running for office, i'm not letting go of that, she let down her people, no matter how you slice it. >> those ads are already being cut, they're already working on voice overs. sarah palin does excite a big part of this country. she's a great communicator. she's got a great future, but she really does have to figure out how she's going to get over that quitting status. if you want to stand up for things, you stay and fight even during the harders time.

anybody can do it when it's easy. >> i want to follow up on that, chris, i know you want to get in. he's our reining champion in face-off, so watch out, chip. >> i know he's a tough one. >> we talk about her future in these broad terms. tighten it up for me. what do you think her future is ? >> she's going to write a book and get a lot of money, give spechs and g speeches get a lot of money. my opinion is she's running for president. that speech was the first campaign speech of the 2012 primary. it was fiery. it was talking about what she wanted to do, not what she had done. it wasn't a good-bye speech, but a hello speech. i think there's going to be a lot of people every day speculating on when her campaign starts. i think it started yesterday. >> chris, aren't a lot of people making a mistake of her being a compelling media figure versus a compelling political figure? i think as time goes on, she's got no shot. >> i think there's a lot of

truth to that. she's clearly attracting a lot of media attention. i think it's ironic she blasts the media while she tries everything she can to attract media attention. funny about the state of the republican party when you think about this. you have the birthers out there sounding crazy. you have republicans out there saying we don't need health care reform, and then you have governor palin who seemingly believes the best way to run for president is by quitting. >> is that fair to put her in the birthers. by all accounts those people certainly i don't like calling anyone crazy, but if you had to call someone, probably the birthers. >> i think it's a reflection of where the republican party stands that you have these extreme positions. she lies pretty close to the far right of the republican party. now the republican party is going to have to go out there and figure out a way to reach out and communicate to the different demographics that are critical to winning --

>> do you think that she speaks to not an extreme on either side, but do you think there are some people who are not extreme, who are not the base, that she could speak to? that would be no. chris? >> i wasn't sure if you were asking chip or myself. >> i think the problem with governor palin is her rhetoric has been so tumultuous, how sdos she appeal to hispanics, african-americans, moderates? she doesn't have a position on the policy issues defining us right now to make that connection with voters. i don't think she makes the leap. she's going to be a force. i'm not going to discount it. she'll be a force in the republican party. she's going to shape the republican primary, and that is not going to help the republican party. it's going to hurt the republican party. >> chip, the thing we keep snuffing under the table, i want to go back to it again.

she failed. she was an elected official that left office for purely selfish reasons, and if you're a public ser vant, you are serving public. whether you like her or don't her, i don't know how the republicans could recover. as a voter, i don't know how anything in alaska who voted for her can't feel like she quit. >> i'm not saying -- >> it's interesting television, she quit, she failed, she let her people down. >> that's going to be tough. she made a choice

that's a completely illogical position and nullifies her pursuit of higher office. >> that's no doubt that's part of the discussion. i worked for mike huckabee who decided to stay and fight and won more battles than he lost. >> good battle there. it was great talking to you. i think -- i don't think we've agreed on much these two hours, but i think you're spot on about the quitting part. i don't know how she pulls out of that. >> at the end of the day, that's number one for a leader. you're a leader. >> i can serve the people of alaska by quitting. >> it's so fundamental. forget everything else. fundamentally she failed leadership 101. she's a compelling media figure, go to fox at o'clock wh10:00 wh leaves. you are not a leader. you showed it. >> a republican senator linked to prostitutes now talking about

a rival's love fest. then on "hardball" chris matthews takes another look at the fringe right birther movement and the trouble it is creating for the gop. (announcer) before they give you the lowest price, some pharmacies make you work for it with memberships and fees. but not walmart. they have hundreds of generic prescriptions for just $4 for up to a 30-day supply or $10 for 90 days. save money. live better. walmart. ask the experts.

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there's a lot going on today, and there are three things we thought you should know. >> french president nichololas sarkozy has been discharged from a military hospital. doctors performed a battery of tests who was rushed to the hospital yesterday but found nothing of serious concerns. his office says he collapsed from the heat. he's been told to rest for a few

days. he was jogging while here in new york city. >> maybe it's the younger woman in his life. >> buyer beware. >> there are a few positive sign hs in the economy but not everyone is feeling it. ask treasury secretary tim geithner or countless other who is still can't sell their homes. when geithner left his new york city area home in february for his job in the obama administration, he put his five-bedroom home tudor-style home on the market for just over $1.6 million. in may he cut the price by $60,0 $60,000. a few weeks later the home was reportedly rented for $7,500 a month. he's got some revenue coming in. >> you're the money expert on that. >> he's not doing so well. i would have held onto the asset. unless you have to sell, do not sell. >> awesome advice given to the treasury secretary. two years after a sex scandal that many thought would end senator david vitter's career and his re-election campaign, it's moving right along. this new web ad that goes after his opponent has the louisiana

democratic party you might say fighting mad. here is the ad. >> charlie boy jetted off to posh martha's vineyard for a lobbyist love fest at this expensive hotel full of fun in the son, a little wining and dining, and rewarded by obama's friends, including big labor and attorneys. >> spokesman for louisiana's democratic party says, quote, in contrast to the kind of love fest david vit ser used to, this trip was legal, public, and no money changed hands. the last time david vitter made public comments about a luvfest, he ended up begging for forgiveness. >> vitter's number was disclosed by the so-called d.c. madam. he issued an apology to his wife with his wife by his side. >> one thing about sanford, he didn't drag his wife up there. he did it by himself. >> i don't think he had a choice. even jenny says she wasn't going

up there. >> this guy fell in love. what did he was wrong, but out of all the scandals, i think this guy, you kind of saw his heartbreak. certainly not right. i'm certainly anything but a south carolina republican loving person -- different than the -- it was still wrong. he lost his mind. he was one of these bible belt guys for -- >> we'll a chat after this and you can chime in. after surviving four days of hearings, judge sonia sotomayor's confirmation to the supreme court became a foregone conclusion but tomorrow comes the first test in gauging her support. the vote before the senate judiciary committee. >> mark murray is deputy political director for nbc news. >> as you mentioned, the marquee political event will be the senate judiciary committee vote on sonia sotomayor's nomination to the supreme court. she's expected to pass. right now democrats have a 12-7 advantage on this om