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which may be nothing at all. for as low as $80 a day, why not reserve now? call 1800royal22 or your professional travel agent today. right now on msnbc saturday, president obama's weekend blitz, first details on what he's saying as he sweeps across the media landscape. the alleged yale killer, if he did it, did he act alone? people are now saying their investigation could lead to other suspects. also a silver lining for the economy, it turns up in the aisles of your grocery store. plus -- >> you said recently that paying high taxes was patriotic, that's not patriotic. >> okay that's the sounds of sarah palin, the opera.

is that going to be music to anybody's ears? good morning, everyone, i'm alex wit and welcome to msnbc saturday. conservatives are gathering to pick their presidential front-runner for 2012. but first there's the president pulling out all the stops this weekend to bring his health insurance reform to every single tv set. the president says jimmy carter got it wrong when he suggested racism is the secret reason for the rancor over health reform. >> like i said during the campaign, are there some people who still think through the pris prizm of race? i think that's true, but i think you put your finger on what this argument is really about. and it's an argument that's gone

on for the history of this republic. and that is, what's the right role of government. >> i'm joined live in washington by msnbc's mike viqueira. good morning to you, mike. let's talk about health care and what else the president will be hammering out this weekend. what's behind health care on the agenda? >> reporter: well the football metaphors abound this fall season, the president, they say is flooding the zone with a media blitz, trying to go all out on promoting his health care agenda which faces a very dicey future in the months ahead in the united states congress. of course the president is appearing as you mentioned on five sunday talk shows, tieing a record set by monica lewinsky's lawyer way back in the late '90s during that scandal. he also will appear on david letterman this coming monday, he'll be attending the united nations general assembly opening, but he'll appear on letterman all in the name of

health care. michelle obama, of course the first lady, appeared next door to the white house in the old executive office building to talk about what health care reform means to women and mothers. a lot of push going on here, a lot of criticism from others saying the president is diluting his message, diluting the bully pulpit. the health care plan hasn't even been taken up on the floor of the house. >> i'm thinking that his popularity rating will go up after david letterman, right? >> reporter: that sometimes happen. >> it will happen, trust me. new this morning as president obama prepares for next week's g-20 summit in pittsburgh, he says that real progress has been made in strengthening the global economy since the group met in london five months ago.

>> we can now say we have stopped our economic free fall. but we know that stopping the bleeding is not enough. our work is far from over. we still have a lot to do here at home to build an economy that's producing good jobs for all those who are looking for work today. >> the g-20 nations will discuss steps needed to close the regulatory gap around the world to prevent a new crisis from emerging. president obama is sitting down with "meet the press" with david gregory. that airs tomorrow morning on msnbc. check your local listings for the time. joe wilson says that even though he's raised nearly $2 million for his re-election campaign since shouting "you lie" at president obama, his outburst was not worth it. >> absolutely not, it was speaking the wrong place, wrong time. and now i'm the number one target of washington democrats, number one target of move on,

number one target of a.c.o.r.n. but, hey, i trust my constituents, i have never taken them for granted and i'll work hard to justify their vote next year. that is my life is supporting the people of south carolina. >> got a little choked up there, wilson also says he's thankful that president obama accepted his apology. new details this morning in the murder of a yale graduate student and a new theory about a possible motive. yale lab technician clark is -- one theory emerging is a fight over mice. clark worked in the basement of the yale research lab assisting with animal experiments alongside le. ray has always been very controlling over what goes on in the mouse room, often bothering people to the point of damn near harassment. joining me now is chief legal correspondent dan abrams. what about this people losing it

over mice. >> it's useful, but if the prosecutors have the sort of dna evidence and physical evidence that we have heard about, they wouldn't even necessarily need to demonstrate one. that doesn't mean that jurors don't like to hear it. it doesn't mean that we won't keep asking questions to try and figure out what could have led someone to allegedly do this. was it over mice? if it's true that this was over something that happened at the workplace, that was their workplace, that's what they did in this lab. so if that was the case, i mean we all say a fight over mice? we all have our own jobs and we all do things that might be seen as trivial to the outworld. but when you really get in there and people care deeply about what they do sometimes, i'm not saying that in any way justifies it but it may help explain why they're calling it workplace violence. >> get inside the head of defense lawyers because it all comes down to dna evidence and

what if builds up, what are they doing for defense? >> i'm fairly certain they'll try and suppress certain evidence, they'll say that certain evidence wasn't obtained properly. they'll try to use physical evidence to their own advantage. in this case of case, we often see defense lawyers say, wait a second, there's another fingerprint there that doesn't match the defendant. remember before the arrest, people say why didn't they arrest him when they had all this evidence before the dna comes back, and the answer is they didn't want to get accused of what they will almost certainly get accused of which is tunnel vision and focusing on only one person. >> do you think there will be one of temporary insanity cases? >> we end up talking about temporary insanity in cases where there's a lot of evidence, because we say what else if not temporary insanity. insanity is a weak defense in

that the sense that it doesn't work very often. you really have to think long and hard about presenting an insanity defense, it really has to be someone who didn't understand right from wrong, et cetera. those are few and far between. i think that an insanity defense is always unlikely, it's always something we like to talk about before the defense comes forward. i think the defense attorneys right now are figuring out what have they got, what kind of defense might we present, talking to their client to figure out, you know, what he wants to do in the context of this case. but i think we're a little bit too early to figure out exactly what the defense might be. >> how much do you think they're discussing plea bargain ing. i think that's always a discussion to have, the problem is what is a prosecutor willing to give. if they have all this evidence that they feel they have in this case, the prosecutors will say, what kind of deal? maybe they will take the death penalty off the table.

in the state of connecticut the death penalty is an option, very rarely used in the state of connecticut. but the prosecutors may say you want a life sentence without the possibility of parole, do you want to consider a plea deal? is that a great deal for the defendant? probably not. so the question is going to be how strong is the evidence, how definitive is it, those are all the questions that will have to go in before deciding and evaluating how realistic is any kind of deal here. >> thank you, dan abrams. dramatic video of a shooting on the subway in mexico city. the man pulled out a pistol and opened fire. one person tried to even subdue that gunman, but he gets shot as he tries to grab the gun.

police are shown shooting the suspect and then eventually killed. let's go now to the weather here at home, a new storm could dump significant amounts of rain across the south this weekend. friday rain rapidly filled up the streets of memphis, flooding followed, in leads, alabama, the flooding forced authorities to please several streets there. let's get the latest on the wet weather and your national forecast for today. >> good saturday morning to you, alex, and this is the last weekend of summer and some areas are going to be so picture perfect, some leaves are already changing in northern new england. that's going to be one of the places to be today. let's take a look at the weather map, the problem area is down in the southeast. we had a lot of heavy rain in the last couple of days, and that continues this morning. almost all of the northern half of alabama is getting a good soaking. and some of that wet weather is moving into the atlanta area. that's going to be a trouble

spot if you're driving or flying into the area. and flash flood watches from nashville to memphis from northern alabama to georgia. the forecast in the southeast, that's the trouble spot. look at the north, beautiful today from d.c. to boston, also chicago, detroit's going to be perfect and anyone traveling through the middle of the country or out west, it looks like an ideal saturday, alex, i hope everyone can enjoy it. back to you. >> thank you, bill for that. still ahead on the record in more ways than one. the secret conversations of former president bill clinton now the subject of a new bock. but first, the up side to the economic downturn, how it's helping you at the grocery store, next on msnbc saturday. why? don't you think nordic tuesday is fun? oh no, it's fun... you know, if you are trying to cut costs, fedex can help. we've got express options, fast ground and freight service-- you can save money and keep the heat on. great idea. that is a great idea. well, if nordic tuesday wasn't so much fun.

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department show the price of food sold at grocery stores dropping for the seventh consecutive month and now some of the country's biggest supermarket chains are employing a new way to attract shoppers. a reporter for "the washington post" joins us today. i'm curious about the silver lining you write about in these grocery store aisles for "the washington post." what is the silver lining, is it a financial drop? >> what's happening is that supermarket prices are actually declining and that's one piece of good news for consumers at a time when there's not much out there for them. what we see happening the that food prices really increased a lot in 2008. there were riots in certain countries because of the rapid increase in food prices and that's beginning to decline. that means ingredients such as wheat, corn, dairy products are dropping in price and that means that manufacturers can charge you less for the same products. >> you also talk about a significant shift taking place in many grocery stores.

there's a number of them that are moving away from the whole foods type amenities to offering more deals. how is that supposed to work? >> everyone right now is looking for a deal, everyone's looking for value, people are saying maybe i'm not going to splurge on that fancy cheese this week or maybe i'm instead going to look for a deal on toilet paper. and stores are seeing we're seeing more people coming into our stores because of that. and they're lowering products across the aisles and if the consumers are looking for value, we're going to give it to them. >> when i go to the store, it seems like the shelves have been shrinking a little bit. are they putting less numbers of products out there? are they putting less volume in products out there? am i noticing this correctly? >> this is something that retailers call skew rationalization, theyer looking at their shelves and say wlag's

really selling? and what are people really buying? they're saying we're only going to sell the things that customers like the most, because otherwise it's just really not worth our while right now. >> we understand walmart and target are planning on opening more stores with groceries. what is that going to do to the established stores? how are they going to compete. >> traditional grocers have feared walmart because walmart is known for having rock bottom prices on everything they carry. walmart is making sure that they open a lot of supercenters and target is trying to follow suit as well. target is realizing people aren't buying clothes or shoes as much anymore and what they're really looking for are those core necessities. >> appreciate that. a sobering looking now at

the state of our children, there are nearly 13 million children living below poverty level. 39% of the nation's children live in low income homes. bill cosby will come together with a distinguished panel right here on msnbc to talk about how to move children from poverty to a life of success. bill cosby says this could spark real change in communities across the country. you can watch "about our children" this sunday right here on msnbc. again it starts at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. still ahead, the secret conversations of former president bill clinton, how they are the basis for a new book that's about to come out, coming up next on msnbc saturday. to the garden. but now with zyrtec-d®, i have the proven allergy relief of zyrtec®, plus a powerful decongestant. i can breathe freer with zyrtec-d®. so, i'll race you to our favorite chair.

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find strength and stability in a company that's owned by its policyholders. ask your advisor or visit massmutual.com. let's go now to a brand new book on president bill clinton, it is set to hit bookstores at the end of this month, and it

could be the most revealing look at the former president. the 640 page book was born out of 79 secretly recorded conversations. joining me now is a "gq" correspondent and it's his interview with taylor branch that's in the next issue of "gq." thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> i want to talk to people about how this all came about, because it's a very unique relationship that the president has with this author, it goes back what, four decades? >> it's kind of amazing, isn't it? in 1972, hillary clinton, bill clinton and taylor branch actually shared an apartment together in texas while working on the mcgovern campaign. so this tiny little apartment in texas with a future president, secretary of state and pulitzer prize winning historian all coming together for a

presidential campaign. >> i'm wonder what fast food they were eating. so they got together later when in 1992, the president, he called them out of the blue, taylor branch and what was his offer. >> taylor was very surprised because he said when they parted ways in 1972, there was a bit of a disconnect between him and bill clinton in particular. and in that disconnect, he felt like hillary was split between them not in any personal way but as a political matter. taylor felt after the '72 campaign that he had been disillusioned by the whole process of the campaign and recognizing that not a lot was going to be done for the vietnam war. so he felt like bill clinton's ambition to get into politics was a self-serving desire.

>> it's interesting because these tape roerds happened all over the place, day and night. the extent of which those recordings were taken and absconded away with by the president. he would stuff them in his sock drawer, he didn't want anyone to know this was going on. >> this is a great little detail. >> it is a great little detail. what kind of access did taylor branch have, was there anything off the table? >> there was some things that taylor was less interested in. he wasn't as interested in the tawdry details of the monica lewinsky scandal. what they spent time talking about was with the longview in mind. >> that may be why taylor is a pulitzer prize winning author. but because a lot of people are curious about that monica lewinsky conversation, the quote was he said it happened when he

thought he was going a good job and got sucker punched. he thought the white water investigation was going to go away and it didn't. he was feeling sorry for himself because of what was going on in politics and that he just lost it. do you think this book offers a different revelation, a different look at this president than we have seen before? >> i think it really does. because i think for the first time, we're getting a sense of bill clinton's personal relationship with his polity decisions. and so in a lot of cases in the past, and perhaps consistently throughout the past, we have viewed bill clinton as this personally flawed or morally flawed individual who may be accomplished a lot politically with his policy. and so now, we're getting these two aspects of bill clinton that seemed unrelated before. we're getting to see how bill clinton felt about the decisions and the policy battles that he fought and how these policies

emerged from his own world view. so not just what he was saying publicly, but what he was saying privately and the frustrations and the determinations that he had in the late hours of the night often saying to taylor, i will not go down on this,ly not give up on this, we have to fight for this. >> will, is there a bombshell in this book? >> i'm not sure that there's a bombshell per se, it's amazing historically, it is unique historically to have a historian granted this kind of access to a sitting president. 79 interviews taking place late into the night, often throughout the night without anything off the table. the only things that were off the table were things that taylor was less interested in. and as an aggregate picture, that has never happened before and it may never happen again. >> "gq's" will hilton, it's on the stands september 22, it's a great article. thanks so much. still ahead the american student on trial for murder in italy heads back to court.

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call or click today. conservatives are gathering once again this morning for day two of the values voters summit in washington, d.c. several top gop figures are speaking at the event. one of the biggest topics at the summit so far, health care reform and individual rights. >> it is at times a country that is almost difficult to recognize. we have become the land of oscar -- czars, clunkers and hollywood stars. >> and former ms. california carry prejean also spoke about the controversy surrounding the

miss usa pageant this year when he said that marriage should be between a man and a woman. >> i'm so proud of the stance i took and i'm so proud of the answer that i gave and god chose me for that moment. >> joining me live from washington, d.c. is athena jones. and you're right there where things are getting underway. and what's on the cell today? >> as you said, alex, they're just starting here with the morn worship session, nearly 2,000 social conservatives from around the country are here, and they're going to be listening to house majority speaker john boehner, and later on, former massachusetts governor mitt romney is going to speak, and texas governor rick perry, but the main thing we're going to be looking for is the results of this straw poll that will be out there today. it's early yet for the 2012 election, but it's an important part of the republican base who they prefer at the moment looking ahead. on that ballot, former house

speaker newt gingrich and former louisiana governor bobby jindal. texas governor -- indiana representative mike pence, mitt romney and former senator rick santorum. and a few people are upset that sarah palin wasn't able to make it but she'll be on that ballot and we'll see how it turns out. >> for those who are doing the morning prayers, we'll talk to you later. several former directors of the cia are urging president obama to use his powers to stop a criminal investigation targeting cia directors. the former directors of intelligence ask him to -- decision to reopen the criminal investigation of cia interrogations that took place following the 911 attacks. they say it could seriously damage the willingness of intelligence officers to take risks to protect the country.

signers of the letter include michael hayden, porter goss, george tenet. john deutsch, and james woolsey. officials are using digging equipment and sonar to search the backyard of phillip and nancy garrido, police are looking for clues related to the disappearance of two other girls during the 1980s. the hayward police department spoke to reporters last night saying they discovered bones on the garrido property. >> we did discover bones on the exterior of the garrido property. and it's too early to even begin to guess what kind of bone that might be, human or animal. >> phillip and nancy garrido remain behind bars, they are charged with the 1991 kidnapping of jaycee dugard. and police in california are

looking for two people accused in an attack on a walmart employee. this week's attack was caught on camera as two of the suspects left the store with a flat screen tv in their cart. the couple ignored the man's request to see the receipt. the couple shoved the man to the ground and then got in their van and took off. the police say the employee was sent to the hospital with injuries to his hands and arms. the trial of an american student accused of murder resuming this amongst. amanda knox and her boyfriend, rafaele sollecito are accused of assaulting and killing her roommate meredith kercher. i know that court has got around underway, what has happened so far? >> reporter: i think, alex that in fact this murder trial has always been about forensic science and today the defense attempted to dismantle the prosecution's evidence.

amanda knox in the custody of prison guards smiled at her father who's attending the trial. she along with her former boyfriend, rafael sollecito are accused of the murder and sexual assault of knox's english roommate meredith kercher. a forensic scientist testifying for the defense set up bloody footprints at the scene of the crime that did not match sollecito as the prosecution contends. today the defense presented more evidence that the alleged murder weapon found at sollecito's apartment could not have inflicted the wounds that let to kercher's death. the prosecutor in the case, juliano menini stands behind his theory that her former boyfriend rudy guini killed kercher in a sex game gone wrong. all three claim they are

innocent. knox has spent the last 21 months behind bars awaiting justice. >> she's learning how to cope and make the time pass and try to make it as productive as possible. but you can never get used to prison life. >> and knox, says her father, feels the pain of losing her freedom. at least knox has not been alone, in fact her parents visit her regularly and this summer half a dozen students traveled from to italy to be with knox and offer their support. >> you say that everything comes down to forensics, what about having a third forensics witness as an option? >> reporter: the judge has the option of ordering and both sides are saying it's extraordinary, alex, the evidence in the forensic science presented by the defense and the prosecution is so widely different, it's so contradict try, that perhaps the only way to get to the truth is to find

an independent forensic scientist to discover all of the evidence and this trial could go on until next year. >> oh, wow, i just had a moment contemplating that. keith miller, the only thing about that is we get to see you more, that's good. thanks. meantime, msnbc is the place for politics and the health reform debate is poised to take a major turn. lawmakers need to fuse five separate proposals into a single bill, one whose merits could be debated and argued line by line. for a reality check on what's in the newest proposal, the one that was supposed to be a bipartisan break through, i'm joined by jonathan allen. let's look at the baucus bill because like other proposals out there, it requires americans to purchase insurance, what's being done to make health insurance more affordable? >> well, there's some disagreement about that, to be honest with you, alex.

one of the things that once this mandate goes into place, you would see tax credits for people who buy insurance for people who are making up to 400% of the poverty line. there's some discussion as to mr. those subsidies are generous enough. there's another attempt by the finance committee i think to drive down costs to consumers by levying a tax on insurers and what that would do is for these sort of gold plated plans, anything that costs more than $8,000 for an individual, or $21,000 for a family, there would be a 35% excise tax on that. and the belief is that that would us courage employers from boying these plans. and the focus of that provision

is more to collect from insurance companies and more to shift benefits from health plans to wages. >> okay, but there's no public option in the baucus bill, speaker pelosi says and the quote is the public option will be in the bill that passes the house. what should we make of the fate of the public option? >> well, you know, you have heard nancy pelosi say she can't pass a bill on the house floor without the public option. that her liberal wing will abandon her. right now all the evidence seems to be moving in the direction that the public option won't be in there. but there's still a lot of time before this is all said and done. >> there are five, no less than five different proposed health care bills, no matter which one emerges now, will insurance companies be barred from rejecting consumers from preexisting conditions? >> that provision has widespread support and it's the driver of the train, it's that provision

in that that everyone sort of sees as a must-have and they can adjust and allow some of the ore provisions to go because that one is so important prettically. >> new york senator chuck schumer emerged from a meeting with fellow democrats. here's what he said, i think there's a view on part of the chairman and on the part of just about everyone who was there to try to come up with a consensus that every democrat and perhaps olympia snowe can support. what kind of a heavy hitter has she become? how key is she to the democrats' health reform plans. >> she's the madonna right now, and she will be for quite some time at least until another republican steps forward and suggests that they might vote for the bill or she says she won't vote for the bill. democrat also try to get her support. they certainly don't want to have an all democratic bill. she will give at least the veneer of bipartisanship to any bill she supported.

so she's important to democrats right now. she may get either 60 pest of the votes or getting that done with just a bare majority. >> jonathan allen, good to see you as always, thanks so much. still ahead, path of destruction, a tornado hits a crowded cafe, those pictures coming up here on "msnbc saturday." one more with downy simple pleasures feel more calm with new downy lavender serenity feel more daring with spice blossom dare feel more elegant with orchid allure now all have renewing scent pearls that help you express every side of you downy simple pleasures. feel more

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stand up to the real thing? well, you be the judge. >> patriotic is saying government, you're not always the solution, in fact too often you're the problem. >> okay. horrible. joining us now from boston is keith powers, music critic for the boston herald. did i just do your job for you? i'm kidding, good morning, keith. >> you might have, actually i don't think that little clip does much justice to a 2 1/2 hour opera. but it opens tonight and we'll see it again. >> i'm curious about that, because in advance of the opera, you can't see it until it's open. that's the clip they released online? what do you think that was? because that's about as good as listening to nails on a chalk board. >> as you know, a lot of new music is challenging and difficult. it might run right at the heart

of the debate, these debates themselves are often fraught with a lot of tension, and the music right in that little clip, it might not be fun to listen to, but it does create the kind of tension that happens on stage when two candidates with differing points of view debate. the music in their voices, of course i have strong political sentiments, this is not about my sentiments. given what we just heard, did his political sentiments come through anyway. >> given that little clip, i don't think so, no. and i do think -- i take curtis at his word that he was more at the nature of political discourse than the politics involved. any opera is going to have to be a little timeless, it's not about whether he like sarah palin or we like joe biden or we don't like them. take the greatest example i

think is in a great opera like ieta, no the one goes to see ieta because they're still interested in what happened between ethiopia and egypt years ago. i think that's to the case here, he's after the nature of political discourse and like he said, the musical quality of their voices. you don't have to be a composer to tell that both of these people are very musical. palin especially has a very musical quality to her voice. >> the opera is also described as a light tragedy. is that a perfect one for sarah palin's character? >> i find that very interesting and when i see it tonight i'll find out a little more about what he means. because i think this is his term, i don't think it's been used anywhere else. i have my own ideas about what i might be, and when rerefers to light tragedy, he's referring to palin. obviously this is a debate between two candidates who are

trying to win something and joe biden wins and in that sense it's a tragedy for palin. a lot of people whether they like palin or not perhaps thought that she was a little bit overmatched on the national stage. a lot of times she said things that maybe she wished she could take back, that she spoke out of turn in some cases and maybe that's what this is about, that someone is placed in a situation where maybe they're not quite prepared for it yet. >> keith powers with the boston herald, thanks so much, enjoy the show. >> you're welcome, thank you. >> one of the san diego zoo's new edition got a check up, a 6 week old baby panda was examined by veterinarians on friday. he will be named in 100 days in accordance with chinese tradition. looks like his teeth are good to and his ear.

in a new interview with

"meet the press" host david gregory on sunday, the president says he largely rejects president carter's statement that much of his -- >> are there still people who think through the prism of race when it comes to evaluating me and my candidacy? absolutely. sometimes they vote for me for that reason, sometimes they vote against me for that reason. >> i'm joined by msnbc political analyst as well as reverend eugene rivers and. >> i want to get your take on what the president had -- >> the president said what any prudent, wise president would say, that, yes, it's true, i'm above that, i'm the president of

the united states, and welcome to post racial america, essentially. president carter was free to say what he could say, wanted to say as a private citizen. racism does exist. like anti-semitism exists and the president gave the appropriate moderate response to try to get beyond the impasse and some of this has been racialized, beginning with our friend from south carolina joe wilson. >> joe watkins, do you believe the president when he says he doesn't think that the issues surrounding health care necessarily involve racism? yes, there is a segment of the population that will always have that that you have to deal with, but relative to health care? >> i agree with president obama, i hope he's listening because he may not always hear me say that i agree with him. i do agree with him. >> good for you, joe, you're improving. >> thanks, eugene. but he's right, he knows that for most americans, this is not about race, this is about policy and whether or not they agree with the policy or disagree with

the policy and there are lots of people who have strong disagreements with the policy who don't want to see texas go up, they don't want to see the deficit increase, they don't want to see small business owners hurt. that's why they disagree, it's not because of the color of the president's skin. >> but the fact that you're agreeing with the president is significant in some people's minds. i want to get to what columnist bob herberts rights. republicans have been openly feeding off of race had tread dins the days of dick nixon. after all these years of race-baiting and stirringing the pot of hatred for political gain, it's too much to ask the le le lead. >> what do you say to? >> i say that white republicans elected an african-american who's doing a great job. and michael steele was elected to be the head of the political party. and michael steele is someone who's looking to the future and

moving us forward and by virtue of that vote, we know that republicans certainly are not thinking through the prism of race, they're thinking about what's best qualified to lead us as a party going forward. that's where we're headed. >> joe. >> no doubt about it. there's no value to dividing people over the issue of race, but clearly we want to talk about issues and we want to make sure that we know where people stand on issues and know where the party stands on issues. >> joe, joe, listen, let's make this conversation real, michael steele had to apologize to rush limbaugh who insulted him. the republican party is now run by the nuts. where are the days when we had william f. buckley. excuse me, jokes today the republican party is an intellectual meltdown, there is no rational leadership, we have gone to the fringe, which is why rush limbaugh could insult a

black guy named michael steele and michael steele ends up apologizing to the -- to the nut. >> well, i'll say this, reverend eugene rivers. the truth of the matter is that the republican party is a big ten, like the democratic party, and it's big enough to accomplish people with all kinds of idealogies, conservatives, moderates and liberals. and michael steele as the head of the party is doing the right thing, he's talking to people from every branch of the party. democrats have the same challenges, you have robert byrd, one of the most senior members in the u.s. senate is a democrat. people are talking to him. president obama talks to him, you probably talk to him. >> of course. >> so because people have been the way they have been in the past, doesn't mean you don't talk to them. >> that's called a concession, joe, very good, thank you. >> my man. >> ending on a positive note.