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[ female announcer ] visit exelonpatch.com for free caregiving resources. the united states and russia agree on a new nuclear arms treaty. >> with this agreement, the united states and russia, the two largest nuclear powers in the world, also send a clear signal that we intend to lead. >> it still needs to be ratified by the senate. hillary clinton had a suggestion on just how to accomplish that. >> i think president obama has said that he would send rahm emanuel to moscow and we all immediately endorsed that offer, so you know, if president medvedev wants to take us up on

it, we're ready. on a more serious subject, john mccain facing a very different kind of threat. sarah palin comes to the rescue today, campaigning for mccain, but can she help survive -- him survive a strong challenge from opponent, former congressman j.d. hayworth? he will be joining us this hour. and now what? that's what the economist is asking today. so is the white house. the president's campaign to build public support on health care and we will have rachel maddow, orrin hatch and karen tim lty on that. the president and russian president medvedev signed off on this agreement in a phone call this morning. each side must reduce deployed warhea warheads. it is the most comprehensive arms treaty in two decades.

>> the treaty also shows the world particularly states like iran and north korea that one of our top priorities is to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime and keep nuclear materials out of the wrong hands. >> savannah guthrie joins us from the white house. this is a big deal. it did not go as far as some hoped, but it is a first step. the first time such an agreement has been signed in decades. >> of course, there was the moscow treaty that former president bush signed, but this was a key moment for this white house. they're very pleased they've been able to get this done. they were tough negotiations right up to the end when the russian president took another run at missile defense, wanting to put language in this treaty and was essentially told by the

president, that's a deal breaker. they're pleased with the treaty itself, but also with the larger issue of kind of this reset with russia. so important, but also there's a host of issues including iran trying to get sanctions on iran. they're going to seal the deal april 8th in prague, where the president gave a speech one year ago. >> and of course, this level is 30% lower than that 2002 moscow treaty. thank you. we'll talk to you later. meanwhile, in arizona today, john mccain and sarah palin are back out on the campaign trail together again. norah o'donnell the live in tucson, arizona. norah, what are you expecting today from sarah palin? >> we're hear at the pima county

fairgrounds. as you know, john mccain is facing a very tough challenge from his political right, so on this day, sarah palin is coming here to try and boost john mccain, her former running mate. in fact, it's going to be the first time we see john mccain and sarah palin together. the last time we saw them together was in the 2008 presidential campaign. i've been talking to people familiar with this campaign. the three big issues where mccain is vulnerable, immigration, one, because he has advocated a path towards citizenship for illegal immigrants. two, because he voted for the t.a.r.p. and three, because of his maverick image. a lot of core conservatives, tea party activists distressed john mccain, so sarah palin here is going to vouch for john mccain. for his conservative credentials. sort of an ironic twist given

that he made sarah palin a star and now she's here trying to shine the spotlight on him. >> and it is ironic also because there was so much of a dust-up between sarah palin and john mccain's former staff, the campaign staff, certainly in her book and theirs and yet, he always remained loyal to her. resisted prattling on and the criticism and she is returning that loyalty. >> absolutely. it's payback time now and sarah palin is going to pay back john mccain. she's now a multimillionaire, a celebrity in her own right, but john mccain needs help. he's facing his toughest election ever. so, sarah palin is going to bring out a lot of people here. it's two rallies today and tomorrow, then she's headed off to nevada to do a big tea party even there. one other thing i want to mention. there's a wild card in this race. the state republican party and

some conservatives are looking to close the primary to independents, so it would only be republicans. if that happens, that would probably be a death nail for john mccain. obviously, john mccain's camp is trying to keep that primary open to independent voters. andrea? >> okay, norah o'donnell there. by the way, the most recent example of john mccain coming to palin's defense, on "today" yesterday, he defended what palin put up on facebook and was suggesting regarding the opponents of health care and whether or not the democrats should be targeted. he certainly did not dismiss the threats or the significance of those threats. just want to make that clear because i may have misspoken yesterday and that's not what i meant. john mccain's challenger is now joining us and he argues that mccain is not conservative enough for anthony republicans.

thank you very much. it's good to see you. john mccain has always been known as a maverick. what specifically are your objections to john mccain and why shouldn't he have the party's nomination and loyalty after all of his service? >> well, first of all, thanks for the chance to join you today. i think every american respects john mccain, his service and very real sacrifice on behalf of the united states, but after 24 years in the senate and 28 years over all in washington, d.c., i think most arizona republicans and most arizona conservatives are happy to say john, thanks for your service. let's welcome you home and have a consistent con sifrtive in the u.s. senate. first of all, the tax cuts i helped write both in 2001 and 2003, john mccain opposed, calling them tax cuts for the

rich, voting against both. sounding more like john kerry. >> isn't that because he's a fiscal conservative? >> no. actually, no. as we know, that was revisionist history to repackage the set of expectations for the presidential campaign in 2008. we can also point out more revisionism where john has suddenly embraced those cuts and wants to see them continued. we certainly welcome a conversion, but i think most arizona conservatives are skeptical that we would see john mccain in a fifth term. as you pointed out, he relishes the role of the maverick. now, in this primary, we'll see republicans and independent conservatives decide whether or not they want to send john mccain back for a six-year farewell tour in the united states senate or send a new senator who would be a

consistent conservative. >> let me ask you about sarah palin in her op-ed today. she writes -- sarah palin certainly is known as an independent and conservative. why does she embrace mccain and see those values in him and you don't? >> i just began my time saying we represent john. this isn't personal. there are some profound policy disagreements. if i had a lot of time, we could run through all of them. to your question, as we heard in norah's report, we understand the very genuine, human impulse of gratitude. with all due respect, it's not going to be sarah palin from

alaska -- >> you're saying he's paying him back for that? >> well, that's just what you and norah spoke of. no, the point i'd like to make is this. it's not going to be sarah palin from alaska. it's going to be sarah boyd from scottsdale and thousands of conservative voters, arizonans are going to determine who's going to serve in the senate. we welcome governor palin and respect john mccain. there is a record that john mccain has that is going to make it difficult for him to win a fifth term in the united states senate. i believe august 24th, the majority of republican voters will champion a consistent conservative and i look forward to governor palin's support following that primary. >> in a web video, john mccain's team has questioned you about the birthers. said that you have been associated with the birthers. are you and do you have any questions about the legitimacy

of barack obama's birth and his nationality? >> no, not at all, andrea. i'm not birther. i am a broadcaster and suggesting that i advocate something that i talked about on the air, conducted interviews on the air about, would be tantamount to claiming that you as an objective journalist are endorsing me. this entire discussion strikes me about as esoteric as the fevered discussion dealing with the birth location of chester allen arthur. it is not mr. obama's eligibility that concerns me. it's his performance as president that concerns not only me, but a majority of americans and the people of arizona who will be voting for me in august. >> do you agree with palin that three arizona democrats who have

been threatened directly because of their vote for health care, do you believe they should be targeted? >> i believe every two years, our founders made it clear. the people's house, everyone in that chamber runs every two years and there's a clear difference as you know, between political targeting and having a vigorous campaign and the really repugnant kind of expressions of violence against members of congress of both parties and those in the public eye. let's make a clear difference. we settle our questions politically with balance at the ballot box. not with bullets and threats of violence. those are repugnant for anybody of any political stripe, but i can tell you in all candor, if we were to go through the threats i received, we wouldn't have time to talk about anything else. it's a sad statement on our

culture. let's all learn to disagree in agreeable fashion. >> on that note, we can agree. thank you very much. we'll be following the campaign. hope to have you back soon. democrats and republicans trading charges over threats and violence aimed at current lawmakers. the latest on these acts with rachel maddow coming up. the white house makes another attempt at helping struggling homeowners. plus, what president obama reading these days? cameras caught the president thumbing through books written by mitt romney and karl rove in iowa on thursday. of course, he didn't buy one. instead, he spent about $37 on children's books for the girls. there's new motrin pm. no other medicine, not even advil pm, is more effective for pain and sleeplessness. new motrin pm.

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police in virginia are investigating the laits incident in violation aimed at politicians and the targets aren't just democrats. three bricks were thrown through the republican headquarters. this is the same area where earlier in the week, a gas line was severed at the home of democratic congressman tom perriello's brother. joining us now, msnbc's rachel maddow. rachel, what is going on in our country? the whole thing is so astounding. let's just talk about the perriello incident. he said -- how did we get so out of control? >> it's interesting. in response to the cutting of

the gas line at the brother's house, tom perriello put out a statement saying how dismayed he was in talking about the political climate that's given rise to this sort of threats. the national republican committee responded by putting out a statement attacking him and saying the congressman wasn't a victim. his constituents were the real victims because his policies were so awful. now, there's been an attack in virginia. he's saying, this is not okay. we have to say this is not okay. this is not a time for scoring political points. i think that shows not only dignity, but a real maturity on the part of the congressman. i think across the nation right now, everybody realizes people need to take a deep breath and everybody in the position of leadership who could affect this needs to take steps to lower the temperature. >> and for those who say that this is not frightening and is

not real in terms of the anger that has been generated out there. this was a call to congressman harry mitchell's office in arizona. it takes a bit to play out. we've cut it down and cleaned it up, but this is one what woman completely misled, this is the call she made to the congressman's office --

so begging everyone's indulgence, but just to give you an idea, this woman, by the way, i hope it's obvious that i'm not in any way related, this woman think that is somehow this health plan will come between her and her insurance company, her and her doctor and this is the kind of language she uses. >> and you know, andrea, i'm cognizant of the fact that next month, we are coming up on the 15th anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing and we have to hear this person calling this representative and saying i hope that a bomber comes and blows you up and using that kind of rhetoric, i mean, we are seeing parallelins to a time in the

clinton administration where the reaction on the right to that new democratic president was extreme antigovernment rhetoric, the rise of the militia movem t movement, increase in gun sales, a fascination of weaponry and m ammuniti ammunition. we know how that ended. we have seen some of this. even the militia movements haven't all gone away. a former militia leader from alabama, this week, was calling publicly for people to throw bricks through windows of democratic party offices all over the county tru. this is not ancient history. we've seen how this works out before and it's -- can't take this more seriously. you can't underestimate how serious this is. >> now, to speak of, to go from something that's serious and concerning to something utterly

ridiculous, the fill page ad in today's "boston globe" to nail down the ridiculous attempt to suggest you were going to be a candidate in an election that's years off. >> this is one of the strangest things that's happened to me. senator scott brown of massachusetts is up for re-election in 2012. he sent out a fund raising letter this week saying that i'm running against him for senate and since i'm such an awful person, people from all over the country need to send him money. i'm not running against him. you never called me and asked me. i've never spoken to the massachusetts democratic party. there's been no public overture to me. he's just sort of made this up and is running with it and even when i keep saying i'm not running, he went on talk radio in massachusetts and said, bring her on. after i did the ad, his

spokesman said -- it's an open secret that maddow's going to be running. at this point, i have literally taken out a full page out saying, dude, i'm not running, and he's still trying to run against me. i feel like i'm down the rabbit hole. >> we're all right there with you. you're not running for office. we're glad you're still here with us. thank you. and of course, be sure to watch rachel tonight and every weeknight at 9:00 eastern only on msnbc. the white house today is taking another stab at trying to fix the foreclosure crisis. politico's eamon javers walks us through the new efforts. and the white house party crashers are getting 12 episodes. "the daily beast" reports the couple will star in a new reality series. no confirmation yet from bravo. plus -- it's one of the most

repeated sound bites of the week. joe biden's profanity has one team hot under the collar. a 16-year-old says he wants biden to apologize. he's the same teen who convinced california lawmakers to pass a no-cussing revolution. just hope he doesn't come to our news room one day. flowing with g combination of seven tantalizing flavors your cat craves. friskies signature blend. feed the senses. , signature blend. host: could switching to geico 15% or more on car insurance? host: is ed "too tall" jones too tall? host: could switching to geico 15% or more on car insurance?

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this is isn't going to get to everyone. >> that's right. well, look, there are a lot of people in this country who are underwater. that is they owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth. that's a very tough financial position to be in and it causes people a lot of financial pain. it holds back the economy. so what the obama administration is announcing is to focus on the under employed. they want to allow mortgage holders to let the unemployed folks to have a couple of payments off or scale back to 31% of their unemployment insurance, that way they're able to have a little breathing space to find a new job and get back on track without going into foreclosure and losing their house and having a setback become a real disaster for their fami family. for the underwater folks, the administration is trying to provide incentives to lower

principle amounts. >> what we're talking about also is trying to help people as you point out, who are understood water. 24%? >> almost a quarter of all homeowners are underwater. they owe more than the house is worth. that's because they bought during the peak of the housing boom when prices were sky high. almost nobody expects they're going to get back to where they are anytime soon. those homeowners are just stuck. they can't trade up. they can't move. really restricts a lot of choices they can make. >> right. a little hope on the horizon. eamon v eamon, thank you very much. and a new chapter opens for president obama. how can he sell the bill while fighting republican efforts to repeal it? plus, republican senator

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youtube didn't exist. and facebook was still run out of a dorm room. when we built our first hybrid, more people had landlines than cell phones, and gas was $1.75 a gallon. and now, while other luxury carmakers are building their first hybrids, lexus hybrids have traveled 5.5 billion miles.

and that's quite a head start. ♪ topping our headlines, 11 people are dead in kentucky after a van struck head-on by a tractor trailer. it was carrying men, women and children, all reportedly from a men night church group head tog a wedding. in iraq, calls for a recount will be disregarded. hundreds of protesters gathered in front of government buildings demanding a manual tally. the vatican is defending the pope on allegations that he mishandled another case of sexual abuse in the church. a munich arch decisis says he

had no knowledge of the decision to return a pedophile priest days after he began. and next thursday, the president heads to maine, home state of olympia snowe, the only senator who voted for reform at the community level. savannah guthrie joins us and karen timulty. karen, you have been, since day one, we've all suffered through this, but we have gotten to cover other stories. this is liberation day for you. did you host a glass of champagne, just that it was over. >> it's been such an extraordinary story and for those of us who cover politics, it is hard to think of a story where real things were on the line. where you knew that things were going to transform people's lives for the better or worse. >> savannah, part of the

problem, the challenge for the president, opportunity i should say, he's got to explain what it really is that people are getting and the tape we played earlier of this misinformed and abusive constituent of harry mitchell's in arizona who thinks that now she can't deal with her insurance company, her doctor, that these things are not going to happen. >> yeah, in some ways, the obama administration's second chance at life. second chance to sell the health care reform plan and we saw him do it in iowa and in maine next week. there's a public campaign as some of these reforms come online, they'll organize public events around them to highlight some of these benefits that will kick in almost immediately. at the same time, and i thought we heard beginnings of this in iowa, the president also preparing folks for a lot of these huge reforms aren't going to happen overnight. for example, the health insurance exchange.

a lot of these things don't go into effect for years and years. on the one hand, they want the highlight the fact that armageddon didn't happen, as the president said. the more people realized all the doomsday scenarios didn't come to pass, well, that's a positive for them. as the same time, they'll think, what's this health care reform changing by life. the other side of it is an education campaign. a massive campaign within the federal government agencies to educate, make sure people understand the implementation of the various provisions of this law. a nightmare scenario in terms of at least what one senior aide said to me, when the drug benefit came online, people didn't understand it and were angry about it. they don't want to see that happen. >> and the flip side of this is what karen writes about. you write --

is this the unintended consequences? >> this is all about the implementation. you know, this is a process, most people are not going to see much change at all. even over the next four or five years because most of us get our health benefits where we work if we're lucky, but ultimately, the question is, whether these things that are in the bill, that are supposed to make this a more rational system, a system that is more efficient that really focuses on outcome and not just how much treatment you get, these are going to be the real test of this bill and we're not going to know the answer for that for 20 years. >> and the initial verdict comes a lot sooner. november this year.

karen, thank you. you're liberated to the next big challenge. we appreciate your extraordinary reporting this whole year and thanks to you, savannah and chuck weekdays at 9:00 eastern for "the daily rundown." and we'll be talking to dine ravage, who originally supported the effort and now says it's a mistake. and nancy pelosi getting a birthday surprise after signing the fix-its to the health care bill this morning. >> can you imagine a more important birthday privilege than signing health care for all -- >> this legislation was not a piece of cake. [ crowd cheering ]

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if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, it doesn't show any sign of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability. our kids get one chance at an education and we need to get it right. >> president obama is proposing an overhaul to the no child left behind act. to reward schools for improvement and better prepare stunts for college. with us now, someone with an opposing point of view, education historian, former assistant secretary of education and author of a new book -- thank you very much. thank you for joining us. it's good to see you. i was fascinating by your articles, your new position on this. you've studies it and you think now that you were wrong initially. that we are being too punitive of teachers and students are

being drilled on the basics, but losing out on everything else. >> in my new book, i explain why i've changed by view of no child left behind. i supported it eight years ago as did 90% of the congress. ted kennedy was a big booster. it's been a disaster. we have seen virtually no improvement on very things that have been tested for eight years. no improvement in reading. small improvements in math and our kids are not learning history, civics, the arts, science, anything else. i don't think president obama's going in the right direction, but we can talk about that. >> why do you think he is not improving and that in fact, he is punishing teachers and basically going down the wrong track? >> i think he's still too tied to the punitive approach. it said labeled schools are failing.

the schools are not necessarily failing, they're enrolling low-performing students. what the president is proposing is to have threats and punishments towards the lowest performing, to close them, fire their staff. i think it would be better if he would have a program to have an inspection team go to each school and say, what is the problem. there's got to be a different problem for every school. don't turn it over to private entrepreneurs. don't give it to private management, but instead, try to fix the problems. i think that education is a profession of helping and supporting, not a punishing profession. >> here is the education secretary, arne duncan. >> standards got dummied down.

we have to challenge every child to hit their full academic potential. not reducing standards. we're committed to reversing that. >> now, isn't he saying a similar thing to what you're saying is that the states in order to meet the standards, dummied down the standards so they could pass and get the money and that didn't help the kids. >> that's exactly right and i agree. the problem is that the proposal he's come up with which in many ways improves no child left behind, it targets 5,000 schools and says that because they're at the bottom, they're either going to be closed, their staff already fired or they'll be given to private management. i don't know of any place including chicago or any city that has closed schools and seen better schools. you have to have a plan.

it doesn't help kids. >> what about the charter schools? you've pointed out that charter schools are very -- the responses on charter schools, the success rate, is very varied depending on what kind of kids they get. they get some good marks because they tend to take children who speak english or don't have the disabilities others have. are charter schools the answer in some communities and not others? >> they can sometimes be excellent and sometimes be terrible. on the whole, if you look at the national scores, charter schools do not get better scores than regular public schools, so if we're trying to improve our education system, charters are nice, but they're a distraction. 3% of our kid rs in charters. if we work really hard, we might have 6% in, but what we really need in this country is to improve the school system that

enrolls 97% of our kids and not to focus on these little answers. >> diane, thank you very much. continuing conversation on our education challenge. coming up, orrin hatch of utah. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. [ female announcer ] sometimes you need tomorrow to finish what you started today. for the aches and sleeplessness in between, there's new motrin pm. no other medicine, not even advil pm, is more effective for pain and sleeplessness. new motrin pm.

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turn words into action, made progress that is clear and concrete and we demonstrated the importance of american leadership and american partnership on behalf of our own security and the world's. >> president obama and russia's president medvedev have agreed on a nuclear arms treaty, but the parliament has to ratify it. orrin hatch joins us now. i want to ask you first about today's developments and the

ratification. do you think this will be ratified? it is strongly supported by the ranking republican on the foreign service committee -- i'm sorry -- foreign relations committee, dick luger. >> i think we'll have to look and see what it says. i don't think anybody knows what it says right now but once we look tat, naturally, a lot of us would like to have arms control and have it work. >> do you think from the runup to this that it did eliminate the chance that the russians were hoping for of getting missile defense off the table so it deals with the reduction in strategic warheads but not what the russians were really holding out for. does it take a step that you think is hopeful? >> well, keep in mind, this is something we'll have to look at very, very carefully. most people don't know what's in it right now and it's going to have to be evaluated very well.

i think almost everybody would like to move forward in arms control and especially with the russians, because we're the two big powers that have the most nuclear weapons onboard. so we've got to keep it in mind and look at it very carefully to make sure our country is protected because the whole world depends upon a good, strong america. >> i want to ask you about health care. you've been one of the leading critics of the constitutionality. we have more than a dozen state attorneys general now trying to challenge the legality of the individual mandate. do you think they have a legal case here? >> i really do. in other words, this is a situation where, you know, for the first time in the histories of our country the government can tell you what you have to buy. even if you don't want to buy it. and that is just a reduction in liberty that really has to be fought. i really believe the states attorneys general who are fighting this are on the side of the people in doing so. some think it's a close

question. it may be. but the fact is we cannot permit government to erode liberties to the extent that they can just tell us what we have to buy. if that's so, why have a cash for clunkers bill? just have the government tell us what kind of chevy we got to buy or what kind of car we got to buy. nobody in this country is going to want to see that. i personally think there's a limit to how far you can go under article i of the constitution and this is going way, way too far. >> it was first proposed or one of the earlier proposals along these lines was in 1993 when you and other republicans came up with counteroffers to the clinton white house and the individual mandate was perfectly acceptable to republicans back then. >> well, it really wasn't. we were fighting hillary care at that time and i don't think anybody centered on it. i certainly didn't. that was 17 years ago. but since then and with the advent of this particular bill and really seeing how much they're depending on an

unconstitutional approach to it, naturally i got into it, got into it on this issue, and by the way, the president, himself, was against these job killing mandates when he was debating hillary clinton during the campaign. he was against them because he thought they would cost too much money and he's right about that, too, but i'm against them because they erode liberty and take away the rights of individual citizens. you know, we just shouldn't do that, plus, it's a very, very expensive way to do business. >> i also wanted to ask you, on a day when sarah palin is campaigning to try to save john mccain against a strong challenge from j.d. hayworth in arizona, in utah your fellow senator bob bennett, a veteran senator with a great deal of accomplishment on his side is also being chased by the antiincumbent tide and he said to the "new york times" if the anti-incumbent tide is as strong as some people think it is, i will be swept out despite all my efforts. if the anti-incumbent tide is a lot of conversation but has no center of gravity as a true

political movement then i'll be just fine. there's just no way to know. what is going on out there in utah? >> well, he is fighting back at this particular point and i think doing a very good job. i suspect bob will probably have a primary but hopefully he'll be able to at least get through the convention and then go to work on the primary. he's an excellent senator. you know, he's got a great deal of experience, will become the top republican on the banking committee, which is a very, very important thing to utah and to the country at large and i think most people back here think he's an excellent senator who should be re-elected. i know even democrats have come up to me and said, gee, what's happening to bob? you know, they're basically -- even they realize he would be a good person to keep in the united states senate. but it's a tough process. we have to go through it and i've gone through it twice now in the last two times and been able to make it through but it's not easy. >> not easy being an incumbent and all the things you have to

face. >> no. >> now, you guys have finished, obviously, with health care. the recess begins. are you off i hope for a holiday break and go back and face those voters? >> well, i know i'm going to have town meetings back there and i remember the last one just a few weeks ago around 500 people showed up and there were probably ten to 25 who no matter what i said were going to be against whatever i'm for or against me. the rest were just angry, really angry at what's happening. just think about it. you know, when this president took over the national debt fwa $6.3 trillion, about 56,000 bucks for each family in this country. today it's 8.2 trillion and that comes to about $77,000 per family debt. by year 2020, it's going to be $20 trillion, and that basically is going to be up to $170,000 per family. we're actually going into such debt with what this

administration is doing that we've got to stop it. according to the president's own budget by 2020 we'll be -- the debt will be 90% of our gdp. we can't remain a great country and do this. how are we going to pay for this health care bill? this is what people are asking. >> we are out of time, senator. and tamron hall will take over now. thank you, senator. this is msnbc. their fair share of funding. we can't move forward until you mail it back. 2010 census.

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