so you're not getting a check. well, i think we've all learned a valuable lesson today. good day, gentlemen. thanks a lot. thank you. introducing hotel price assurance, where if another orbitz customer books the same hotel for less, we send you a check for the difference, automatically. we can find common ground on sensible changes to the current health care system that will make it work better. >> the president's republican adversaries are taking the proposals point by point. >> i'm a big believer that we all make mistakes. he apologized quickly and i'm appreciative of that. >> the president says he forgives joe wilson for his outburst during the president's speech. but forget, that may be a different story. what consequence was the south

carolina congressman face for his rudeness? la mau i canners are arguing for over a political plan. the treasury secretary trying to explain t.a.r.p. whether it is work, money will get paid back, status of the nearly trillion dollars that we shelled out to bad banks. we will tell you one of america's most famous restaurants going bankrupt. good thursday. contessa brewer. ad glad to see you here. melissa francis is traveling. big news this hour, the new spark in the health care battle. flurry of activity on capitol hill in reaction to the president's speech. >> the ball is now clearly in the court of the republican party. are they going to continue to just say no? or will they need meet us part of the way? >> severe disagreements over how we are going effect health care

reform in this country. and if you listen to what the president said it is almost as if there is a certain amount of tone deafness on the part of the white house. >> right now, the white house is holding a live press briefing continuing to beat the drum for quick action, robert gibbs answering questions. let's bring in mike viqueira. we heard chuck schumer say the ball is in the republicans' court. the democrats control both houses of congress. how is the ball in the republicans' court? >> reporter: i'm glad you brought that up because it raise ad red flag for me. i came from the house of representatives where lynn woolsey is the head of the progressive caucus in the house of representatives and remember they famously wrote the letter to president obama last thursday saying we have to have a robust -- adjective of the week here -- robust public option or they cannot support any bill that would ultimately end up on the president's desk if it

passed congress to begin with. she said the ball is now in our court, the progressives. the president last night voiced strong support for the idea of a public option but no question about it and left themselves wiggle room saying that's the goals and admonished the left and right to come together in the context of this debate of which to come the threshold question should there be a government-run plan for consumers can go and get their health insurance. today nancy pelosi, speaker of the house, was also using the president's formulation wire as before she has been shermanesque in saying nothing can pass the house or will pass the house without a public option. she is now looking for flexibility there. very interesting developments, fairly clear path here, contessa. that is that in order to be successful they are going to have to talk the left into voting for a bill that perhaps has a trigger but not a public option to start things off. >> i was -- i was watching john boehner talking to reporters about the president's speech last night. he was taking it apart point by

point and made the point today that the president was wrong about proposed health coverage for illegal immigrants which nonpartisan back checkers say that it is not true, the president -- here's my question, though. after he takes apart the president's proposal, he says but look, we can find common ground and list as couple place wears they can do that. on medicare liability and says he wants doctors, practicing offensive medicine and not defensive medicine. and perform with -- overhaul that. do you get the sense when you are talking to republicans that they yes, indeed do want some element of health care reform? >> reporter: absolutely. i mean, everybody stipulates to that. i think that we have had the stage a lot of this where everything is not quite what it seems. we take people at face value. that's what we do unless there is hard evidence otherwise. most republicans say it is yes, it is time to reform the insurance process. the president did take a step,

conciliatory step in the speech last night and talked about tort reform and what they call frivolous lawsuits which leads to defensive medicine and leads to billions of dollars of waste that they believe in the health care system in this country. and he talked about a test program in some of the states. john boehner said that's good but not good enough. you know, john baner is not going to be onboard -- >> by the way, heinz has done a work on this. tort reform, lawsuits and settlement, very tiny fraction of our overhaul -- overall health care spending. one more thing. we are looking ahead to the moderate democrats getting together and they are going to have this big meeting. herb kohl, wisconsin senator, is listed as a moderate democrat. i mean, is moderate the new cool? >> reporter: well, you know what? this legislation brings out the moderate in a lot of people. as one aide heavily involved in the formulation of the bill told me that this is a vote that can mean people don't come back here to congress. i mean, this is a very tough

vote. and boehner himself was saying and nobody would disagree there is a lot of emotion involved in this debate. people are motivated. people around the country, town halls, waving versions of the bill around. i have been conditioned to think working for a living here number of years at television nobody cares about the process. people care p the process. they are involved. everybody is treading very lightly here and a lot of hand holding needs to be done by the white house and democratic leadership. >> by the way, they are waving around that big house bill, likely to pull a muscle. that thing is massive. >> good one. >> do i the best i can. thank you. okay. let's begin with health insurance reform. who in the world would take a stand against insurance companies deciding willy-nilly, not going to pay the bill? even though customers paid their premiums for years. republicans fought against medicare expansion tooth and nail for years. now they are arguing we have to save medicare. where is the logic in that? is the public option as a term

losing its impact? everybody is talking about it but there seems to be no clear consensus on what it actually means. we will cover all those angles. key economic indicators out today. let's get to them. companies appear to be laying off fewer workers with the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits falling to the lowest level we have seen since april. the government says first-time jobless benefits fell more than expected last week to 550,000. trade deficit hit the highest level in six months as a record rise in imports, outpace. meantime the census bureau says the number of people lacking health insurance rose to 46.3 million in 2008. the nation's poverty rate increased more than 13% last year with nearly 40 million poem now living in poverty in this nation. that's the highest rate since 1997. take a look at how the mark receipts doing now. dow jones industrials up 74

points. s&p pops up nine. nasdaq is up 20 points. looks like a positive day overall. the government is shelling out big cash to car dealers following the extremely popular tax for clunkers program. transportation section laila hood says the government has approved $1.2 billion in reimbursements so far. today r to date more than on% of the dealer applications have been paid and the government is on track to pay all eligible dealers by a september 30th deadline. remember there wrast was griping because the dealers weren't getting reimbursed quick enough. cash for doneklers ended and led to 690,000 new car sales. hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars talked to banks to brink of failure and what did we get out of it? t.a.r.p. treasury secretary tim geithner is explaining the status of the troubled assets relief program. here he is live responding to a scathing report from a congressional oversight panel that questions the program and

how it is being used. >> i think that many americans share a fear that i have that emergency p piece of legislation that was meant for economic stability has now morphed into a $700 billion revolving bloupt fund for the administration. >> now, okay, so even some in the audience now are showing their anger and weigh saw people here -- you can see a little bit right behind tim geithner's head there holding up signs asking where's the money? geithner says t.a.r.p. helped the economy get back on track. >> today i believe because of comprehensive quality actions put in place since then we are back from the edge of the abyss. >> senior writer and columnist for "business week." i know that there are people that would have -- take a lot of issue with being back from the abyss and whether t.a.r.p. has anything to do with that. but do we have a clear idea where that money went?

>> i just want to see republi n republicans go you lied! >> quite honestly it wouldn't have the same impact. >> after last night. let me get that out of the way. look, a year ago we didn't know what was going on. we had our financial regulators step up, of course, and say there's something on the brink and other side. it is ugly and we don't want to face it. they were making it up as they went along. new treasury secretary brought in to answer for a very imperfect project and it is hard do. >> he is answering, too, not only for himself and the actions that he has taken but hank paulson as well. there is a role here for the treasury secretary in accountability. so maybe you didn't have anything to do with going to these lawmakers and saying look if you don't do this, this could be the end of society as we know it. maybe he didn't do that. the point remains he has a role in overseeing what's happening now. >> that's why we have the congressional accountability office. executive branch.

they are not happy but again, if you counter-factualize it and would you have preferred we let chrysler liquidate into chapter 7, would you have preferred we just have gm and thousands of auto parts suppliers go under and -- potential 10% unemployment? the problem is it is hard to counter -- it is hard to answer that if he says look, what was our alternative without perfect information, we did what we had to do. >> you know, it is interesting because it looks like just taking a small piece of this that the auto bailout probably is not going to be repaid, looking at, you know, half of the $10.5 billion owed by chrysler, he has $50 billion that went into gm and not likely we will recoup the costs. shouldn't we as taxpayers be upset about that? >> yeah. shouldn't you as taxpayer it is government had a poll and voted said look, we want to invest $80 billion, would have you plunged it into chrysler and general motors? it was not the free-will and at-will very many. >> you do think tim geithner can

do anything to assuage the concerns of the lawmakers grilling him now? >> no. law make verse to work -- >> ten minutes i heard -- >> visual that explains it. they have to look like they are accountable. we didn't have perfect information. not apologizing for anyone. in the end it happened under another administration's watch and happened under the great panic of 2008 is what they are calling it. and you can monday morning quarterback it as much as you want but i think a lot this is posturing for constituents. >> we want and we do. thank you. coming up, two words we love to hear. you're approved. hidden danger you may not know about when you swipe your debit card. plus big decisions on oil production from opec. more from cnbc's melissa francis. joe wilson, i'm sorry. poet he apologizes for heckling the president. talking to luke russert who got to face to face with the republican at the center of

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progressive. call or click today. breaking news now coming to us from the white house. the economic adviser to the president held a conference call the administration expects unemployment in the united states to top out at about 10% by the end of this year or perhaps early next year. again, right now it stands at 9.7%. it looks like she is predicting a little more pain before things start to improve overall. efforts by mortgage companies to help homeowners in danger of foreclosure may be working. realty track reports the number of foreclosure related filings held steady last month and bank

repossessions dropped by 13%, dropped 13% from july. next time you swipe your debit card to pay for the $3 coffee or -- you should be worryi worrying. it could cost you ten times that. they because most banks charge you a double digit fee if you don't have enough in your account to cover your purchase. even though they will let you pay for it. in case you think that's not such a big deal think about this. this year alone banks are expected to bring in $27 billion in overdraft charges. banks are making more mormony covering overdrafts than credit card companies. kathleen day is the spokesperson important the center for responsible lending. great to see you here. what you are saying-when you go to pay for something and you may not mistakenly not know -- you don't have enough in your bank account, you could get charged ten times more what you are paying for with your card. >> charged even more. $1 cup of coffee and be charged $34 fee. it doesn't make sense.

consider this. 80% of the bonuses at the top four banks are paid for with overdraft fees and credit card penalty fees. here you use the t.a.r.p. money to bail out the banki ining indy and they are price gouging us. as recently as 2004 the banks were declining debit card transactions at the points of sale there wasn't enough money. >> a lot of this is ought maimed. 77% of large banks have automated overdraft programs meaning you don't sign up and say yes, i want you to cover the charge if i go to try to buy something and can't afford it i want to you cover it. you don't get the option of saying i don't want you to cover it. >> we feel strongly that the government -- fed needs to write rules that require banks to actually affirmatively get consumers' okay before they are put into the programs. consumers want that right and

affirmatively asked and majority of them would decline it because it is such an expensive form of credit. there are better options. of course the bank doesn't automatically enroll new those. >> is there any indication whether this kind of legislation could actually pass? what you are talking about is consumer protection. >> new regulation by the fed. if you look at the big picture here, let's think about this. economy torpedoed by bad mortgages and we have had the overdraft abuses and credit card abuses. we have had paid lending. it goes on and on so we need to -- new consumers protection and agency that obama administration has proposed and congress is considering and as a way to offer some protection for consumers and taxpayers. this is the second major bank bailout in 20 years. we are still paying for the last one. >> and in the meantime, what's the alternative? mine, obviously, you need to go ask your bank do you automatically cover my charges even if i don't have the money in my account? is there anything else consumers can do? >> yes.

people have to watch out. if you swipe your card, debit card for gasoline, hotel or a rental car where it is not determined right away what your final cost will be, they will put a hold on a block of money our debit card that -- could well exceed what's in your account and bank will approve it. you won't know. if you have $70 and $20 worth of gas you may not know they put a hold on $70 and that hold may not come off for a couple of weeks. so you go out and you are charging maybe a hamburger if you are a student, senior citizen, and -- >> i have no idea. hi no idea that could happen. thank you. >> when it comes off, there is a delay of a couple of weeks. >> wow. kathleen, thank you so much. appreciate that. >> thank you. famous new york city restaurant tavern on the green could be in the red. owners of the landmark central park restaurant filed for bankruptcy yesterday. the eatery opened its doors in 1934 but now, today, 2009, lists

debt between $10 million and $50 million. that's a wide range. oil prices on the rise because after weaker dollar at more than $71 a barrel. after the biggest oil cartel made the decision not to change the level of production. my partner, melissa francis, was at the meeting in vienna. >> reporter: the opec meeting ended with no unchange. $07 a barrel is actually a good price. the consumers are happy. there is not a lot of complaining on either side. no need to rock the boat. not a big surprise. we saw the quota unchanged. one of the issues, though is compliance and means there are a lot of countries within the cartels that are cheating, producing more than they are supposed to and making a few extra bucks around the edges and strong language inside about sticking with the quota. what does that mean for you and me? probably means that this has

been the range for oil prices for the last few months. lit keep a lid on gas prices at least for now. >> melissa, i miss you. coming up, the congressman that heckled the president, live on national television, backs down in a big way. . bernie madoff's new york city penthouse goes on the auction block. price tag plus the unbelievable words of the billion dollar swindler himself. i'm racing cross country in this small sidecar,

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all make mistakes. he apologized quickly. and without equivocation. i'm appreciative of that. >> oh, to be a fly on the wall in joe wilson's office today. the south carolina republican is in the spotlight like never before after heckling the president during a joint session of congress. incomes's luke russert has been on capitol hill today. luke, i know you went face to face with the congressman. what was going on behind the scenes of that apology? >> reporter: the day started off about 6:30 in the morning when a number of cameramen staked outside of his office. i got there about 7:45. one of about 20 or so reporters. before the congressman got there. a low of reporters stopped by from the right. people from the conservative group freedom works. there was an appearance from montgomery, alabama, tea party patriots to stop by and support congressman wilson. wilson showed up about 11:35.

took about two questions and was hustled out quickly by an aide. he was obviously nervous and jittery, not surprisingly, because he had to withstand a media frenzy, 70 reporters shoving mike phones in his face. >> i'm sure that he is a bit chagrinned at getting the national spotlight in this particular way. that being said certainly it made him a hero among those that are on the far right, conservatives. i'm just curious, does he expect there to be repercussions even if a formal reprimand along those lines, being frozen out by his congressional colleagues? >> as of right now we have not heard that. mr. bane they a mr. boehner said he was happy congressman wilson apologized and the fact that president obama accepted the apology as well as pelosi saying it is time to move on and that may give him credence he can go on his way.

when his name is mentioned he will be oh, that guy that shouted out kwp you lie." he will still garner a lot of support from the right. his opponent from 2008 according to msnbc's mark murray raised $150,000 for the election fight in 2010. he definitely is a lightning rod sure to galvanize both sides of the aisle. >> right. the campaign ads for his opponent basically rights itself. luke, thank you. california assemblyman mike duval is denying he had an extramarital affair and said his crude remarks caught on tape during a hearing were just creative storytelling. mike duvals are i don't knowed less than 24 hours after the tape air order a local tv. on the tape he was describing -- that's the way it sounded -- lurid affair with two women he slept with including a lobbyist, 19 years younger than he was.

>> he says that was just storytelling. that he -- he didn't really do it. conservative republican is married with would children and seen as sort of the staunch conservative family guy there in california. hay says his resignation was not an admission of an affair. coming up, we get real about the high cost of health insurance. one woman breaks down what she has to ask each month after paying her insurance bill. amazing pictures from far beyond our galaxy. the story behind these images from nbc's veteran spare correspondent, my favorite space correspondent, you know, pretty much the only one we have but i love him anyway. ♪ well i was shopping for a new car, ♪

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welcome back. we are learning more about the inside world of disgraced financier bernie madoff today. one of the convicted swipdlerrer's phone conversations was just released. in the 2005 phone call madoff coach ad potential witness how to fool federal regulators. this is how that call began. >> obviously first of all, this conversation never took place. okay? >> what are we hearing on these recordings, scott. >> reporter: first of all, it is interesting the folks on the other end of that call, something called fairfield greenwich which was the biggest investor in bernie madoff, they came out with a statement that said hey, you know madoff may have said this conversation never took place but we did not follow that advice. and they point out that they told the sec ahead of time they were going to be talking to madoff which makes it all the more brazen. madoff talks about how fairfield greenwich investors should deal with upcoming questions by the

sec. listen to some of what he says. >> you don't have to be brilliant with these guys. . >> mad offsays in the conversation that lasted more than an hour, he says oftentimes when he would get inquiries from the se c would look at them and laugh and say what, are you writing a book and that worked. according to the inspector general the sec botched no more than six investigations of mad offand three years before madoff confessed to a fraud and sec never did catch it. >> even when madoff gave them his account number and thought oh, now this time i'm really toast, never checked it. never went in and checked the

account and missed the opportunity. makes you question who is behind the wheels. scott, thank you. >> sure. health care reform and money. fact checking the proposals outlined by president obama in his speech to congress last night. here is what he said about the cost of the program. >> i will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficit. either now or in the future. >> so is that really the case? no final plan yet but the associated press says white house and congressional democrats have already shown her they are ready to skirt the no new deficit pledge. the ap says house democrats offer ad bill with the congressional budget office said that would add $220 billion to the deficit over ten years. we hear unemployment percentages

and health care reform costs in the billions. what's it doing to your wallet? let's bring in gail and get real on this. talking to us about her personal health care fight and -- i know, gail, you watched the president's address last night to congress. did any of what he said -- did it appeal to you? did it help you in your situation? >> it did appeal to me. i was really very happy with the message. especially his appeal -- that it be a moral imperative because i feel that health care is just so important and while i understand that people are concerned about what it is going to cost and we hear a lot about what the debt we are leaving our children and grandchildren, i feel that leaving them without health care is an even greater travesty. >> this is something you are facing in your own personal life. i know you were laid off from your job after 26 years with time warner cable. are you on unemployment?

>> i am unemployment right now. i -- my monthly benefit is $1272 a month. and my -- cost of my cobra insurance is $916 a month. fortunately, i have the benefit of the relief that obama is offering, 65%. right now i'm paying $320 a month for my health insurance. >> all right. we did the math on the screen while you were talking about it here. it leaves you $355.47 to pay your expenses. there's the number. does that -- does that cover your expenses? >> no, it doesn't. i mean, fortunately, i -- i did have a severance package that will get us by as a cushion for a while. but it nowhere near covers our expenses. that's not even food for a month. really. >> what happens -- i mean the fact that you are on cobra now and paying those cobra premiums,

a lot of people across the nation -- i hear from them say that's ridiculous. who can afford cobra if you lost your job? that being said, what do you do if you don't find new employment that offers health insurance as a benefit by the time cobra runs out? >> it is a very, very scary situation. i mean, we either have to dig into our retirement accounts that are decimated, of course, because of the economic situation or make even more serious decisions dpop we keep our house? my husband and i have been very responsible over the years. we saved money and paid off our mortgage. and we don't have any credit card debt. we do have a car payment. but i mean, there's still -- a lot of living expenses other than that. and including other insurances like home insurance and long-term care insurance that we have for -- when we retire. >> i appreciate so much that you have shared your story with me.

you reached out on facebook and i want to encourage my other viewers to contact me on facebook and fwiter and i want to hear your stories about how you are struggling with the way we do health care in america today. i want to hear -- look, i know a lot of you are in much more dire straights and -- >> thank you. >> i appreciate that. again, logon to twitter.msnbc.com and send me your story there. is the economy just going to pot? maybe more than you might expect. plus, what a few gyms around the country are doing to hold on to their clientele. layoffs, lay-ups, lateral crunches. i'm walgreens ceo and i'm also a pharmacist.

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latch a that includes kentucky chopped down plants worth $12 billion in street value. any wonder people are looking to marijuana as crop if you can come up with that kind of dough? come on. in the difficult economy small businesses are adapting taking steps to cater to their clients. take this gym. in philadelphia, for example. some customers of sweat fitness lost their jobs. so the gym's owner has taken exception to keep the unemployed customers from canceling their membership. >> you really have to think out box here the way the economy is now. things you would never think you would do before to get through it. there's really no rule book now. >> j.j. hosted msnbc's "your business." all right. what are they doing to keep customers who -- let's be real, they could quit their gym memberships and go running outside and do situps in their house. there are way as around the gym.

>> particularly on mondays they get tons of calls from people saying i need to cancel my membership. their thought is we are not going to let anyone leave. we will make a deal with you. we have a lively debate on the show this weekend as to whether that's a good idea or not. >> for instance? >> what they are doing is saying we will give you 10%, 5% off, we will do all kinds of other things. some of our panelists said don't discounting. find other ways to keep them there but you can't lower the price and then raise it again when things get better. >> if they are getting a discount 10shgs%, gym membership, gym memberships can vary widely from place to place, $10 a month to $1 1 20 a month. >> 10% off is not that much if you are paying a $30 gym membership. three bucks. you can save the price of sandwich at a cheap deli. >> what they say is we are not going let anyone go so we will talk to them and see how we have to go to keep our people here. >> is it working? are they saying that there are clients who are coming in and -- >> yeah. so far they have been able to retain 80% of the customers who

were going to leave. and their thought is we need to keep them here because we want to make sure they are here when the recovery happens. >> the big topic we have been talking about today is health care reform and i know this is an issue small businesses are very concerned about. we saw your own hatch write this letter to president obama yesterday and said look, we have to make insurance affordable for small businesses and make it easy for them to band together. what's the biggest obstacle to small businesses being able to afford medical coverage for their employees? >> being able to afford it. it is so expensive and it is confusing, frankly, also. but it is so expensive. i talked to so many people that say if i had to provide health insurance i have to lay off half of my workers. we have a senator that will be talking about what she thinks is important for small business owners to see. >> i know your business, the show is involved in a rather unique opportunity to promote small businesses. >> yes. a really fun contest. for anyone out there who has a

small business that's really touched their heart, they can enter and win $100,000 in marketing support and in cash from american express. go to msnbc.com/shinealight. >> look forward to seeing your show on -- sunday morning. >> 7:30 eastern. >> very good. thank you. there it was. you can watch "your business" every sunday morning at 7:30 a.m. on msnbc. sometimes it helps to look at the prompter. california's supreme court refuses to get involved in a dispute over tip sharing at starbucks. the court was asked to review a ruling to overturn an $86 million judgment against the coffee teller. the class action suit complains they were forced to split the tips with their supervisors. severe thunderstorms could keep is schayes shuttle "discovery" in orbit longer than planned. they are threatening to delay the return tonight in florida.

hey, jay, i know normally there is a finite window of when you can get them back, where you can get them back. what are the scenarios? >> reporter: well, tonight they have two opportunities, contessa. first one is at 7:05 and second one is at 8:42. it is not looking very good. they expect thunderstorms within the 30-mile area. nekts them for the first opportunity. for the second opportunity they expect them to still be there with high winds. it doesn't look very good they will be able to land today. probably will have to wave off until tomorrow. tomorrow they will have two opportunities. they can make it four if they want to bring up edwards air force base but again, on saturday, edwards air force base, if they wait a little bit, believe it or not, california has a hurricane to deal with called linda. it is coming up the way. yes. that could be threatening the landing out there. not florida. but california. >> and they like to reserve that edwards air force base for the landings, too, i know because

then they have to get the shuttle back to cape canaveral. and let me ask you about the big news coming from space today. we got these new photos from the hubble space telescope and wow, are they -- use this term tongue-in-cheek earlier. they are stellar. >> they sure are. you know, i wrote the book, "journey through time" which is hubble space telescope. and what you are looking at here are the pictures from the new cameras that just put up back in july. this is called the butterfly. but let me tell you this. all of these pictures are xhin our own galaxy with the exception of what you saw there at the very beginning where you have three, four galaxies together but do you know that these pictures that we are looking at, they took place thousands of years before the pyramids were built, you know, where these images are very, very old. they just took a long time to get here. >> wow. i mean, it is -- indecreed i will. looks like some of them were actually seen -- i don't know.

the stars burning up or -- do they have explanations for some of the more spectacular? this butterfly one, what is that we are looking at? >> well, what it is is the slowing out. beginning of a solar system probably. you see what our own solar system back 4.5 million years ago was harmed, it was like this, too. the star sartz going into pure hydrogen in the middle and burning and then it throws off all of the stuff and the materials, so this is the beginning. now here right now is the nebula i was talking about. it would be light years. that would be 2,500 years before the pyramids were built. >> jashgs you are a veritable encyclopedia of space knowledge and i like it. thank you. >> i like you, too. team tennis sensation melanie udoin not only did she

lose her match yesterday, "sports illustrated" is reporting her parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce. according to the records, her dad says her mom cheated on him with melanie's tennis coach. and both admitted to the affair. she made the headlines this year but didn't make it all the way. protecting your heart includes watching your cholesterol. now there's new heart health advantage from bayer. its non-aspirin formula contains phytosterols,

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wow, whitney houston's new album debuted at number one on the billboard charts. "i look to you." first album in seven years. it sold 304,000 companies. she's everywhere these days. here is a dream come true for someone that prides herself on her "idol" worship. >> i just finally got the okay moments ago to announce this to you today.

oh, god. i am going to be the new judge on "american idol." >> ellen degeneres takes a spot on the stage formerly known by paula abdul. the thing that i don't get is when she said that, there was no skepticism on the part of her audience. they gave this big applause. meanwhile, i'm sitting back going -- that's funny. what's the punch -- there is a punch line coming here. >> they knew or were in on the joke. i thought that was odd, too. like they were immediately accepting of it. what? >> okay. give me the reasons why this is a good move for "american idol." >> it gets people to stop talking about paula leaving or the possible bill of paula coming back. right off the bat. from the pr standpoint people are not talking about that. they are talking about the show's future and something new. ellen's arrival. that's a great move for the

show. also, they came up with something that was completely different. no one was expecting ellen degeneres. thinking jennifer lopez, cyndi lauper. >> in music. i know there's a lot of people who are frustrated because she is daschle endegeneres does not have a career in music. here is a comment from a fan. it is a total joke. "idol" officially jumped the shark. here's what i'm going argue. number one, she has rhythm. the woman can dance. if you have rhythm and you can dance, then you probably at least know what is good in music. you know. have you an ear for it. i think -- she can deal with awkward situations. remember when chris matthews went on ellen's show and came out and he like -- chill it. puts his arm around her and kind of grabs -- here it is. here's the big -- whoo. he caught the feel on ellen degenerous and she was so gracious about it and handled it so well and there was chris, you know. got let off the hook by ellen

degeneres. don't you think someone like that would be great on "american idol"? >> charm on humor will only go so far. she is going to have to provide valuable insight or input or criticism about the show. >> right. judges don't. no, i'm kidding. i'm joking, people. >> so i mean, i think -- and people are pointing to she was a judge on "you say she can dance and she bombed on that show. she tried crack jokes. she wasn't making honest criticism. she was riffing. i think that she needs to look at that performance and say i need to not do that. >> you know how some people suggest starter marriages so you can learn what mistakes to make and get over them before your real marriage. maybe that's a starter judgeship and now maybe "american idol" is the real thing. great to see you. thank you. that's it for this edition -- i mean, i'm ending on an up note. i'm contessa brewer. david shuster picks things up next. backlash from congressman joe

wilson's outburst during president obama's speech last night. south carolina governor mark sanford expected to hold a news conference in a half hour. getting all this pressure to step down and resisted so far. will we see something different in 30 minutes? that for you live on msnbc. the place for politics. ♪ who knew the store would go and check my credit score ♪ ♪ now all they let me have is this dinosaur ♪ ♪ hello hello hello can anybody hear me? ♪ ♪ i know i know i know i shoulda gone to ♪ ♪ free credit report dot com! ♪ that's where i shoulda gone! coulda got my knowledge on! ♪ ♪ vo: free credit score and report with enrollment in triple advantage. kids who don't eat breakfast aren't getting the nutrition they need to keep their bodies strong. ( bell rings ) a nutritious start to the day is essential. that's why carnation instant breakfast essentials

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