to kill you all the time. it's kill or be killed. are you ready to kill a man, pete? are you ready to choke a man over a vote? >> i don't think so. here in washington today, jimmy carter back building houses for habitat in the rain. this is one 86-year-old who does not quit. >> we're still working hard, driving nails, erecting walls and we look forward to this week of very diverse opportunities. and the still photographer tracking tiger who got the shot of the day. it didn't help team usa retain the ryder cup though. midterm elections are only four weeks away. incumbents finally back home campaigning full time. we're seeing some evidence of the traditional october tightening in the polls. pennsylvania governor and former democratic party chair ed rendell joins us now. and you've said dem rats are,

quote, finally getting a little backbone. what's the evidence of it? >> well, first, the president himself is getting out there and hitting the issues i think he needs to hit and doing it in a fairly aggressive and forceful way. the key to this election still is energizing democratic voters and getting them to come out. in pennsylvania we have almost 1.2 million registered democrats than republicans. if we can get our vote to the polls, andrea, i think we win. we've seen recently trending that way. dan onorato, our wonderful governor candidate went from being 15 points down ten days ago to being four points down in a poll released about four days ago. the trend lines are good. i think democrats are coming home. i think they're deciding think e they've got to get out and vote. >> staying in pa parks let's look at the senate race.

among likely vote ners the last poll i saw it had a nine point edge for pat toomey over joe sestak. do you see any narrowing of that? >> a little bit. if you break it down to all registered voters, it gets narrower. our task is to convince those voters who say they're not likely to note to vote. i think the president is helping in that regard. everybody is out there. i think people are starting to talk about it. i think on your show, i think you and i broke ground with the wacko and froot loops comment. but i think that's a gift that keeps on giving. you now have republican congressional candidates talking about doing away with social security, not just prooivatizin some aspect of it, but ending social security. look, social security sure needs reform, but it's one of the greatest things that government has ever done for people. it's a godsend for older

americans. nobody in their right mind should want to get rid of it. so i think our voters, particularly in southeast pennsylvania where we've gotten a lot of the christine o'donnell flack, our voters are starting to say, hey, do we really want these guys running the government? maybe our guys haven't been perfect, but do we really want these guys running the government? >> governor rendell, you told al hunt over the weekend on "bloomberg" you would like to be chief of staff. is that because you think you're the only one who has the vocabulary and the plain spoken tradition to compete with rahm emanuel's tradition over there? >> i actually was sort of joking, andrea. i said that's the only government job i would take and that's true. but i don't think i'm a very good candidate for chief of staff. as i said in the next breath, if i were president, i don't think i would want ed rendell to be my chief of staff either. for chief of staff, you want someone who is not going to make

news necessarily, who is going to tow the line, who is going to get things done. i think there are aspects of the job that i would do very, very well. but there are aspects of the job i wouldn't do so hot at. >> what happened back in pennsylvania in 2008 when you were fighting against, in the primary against barack obama, present tense -- >> i think that's not a problem. look, barack picked hillary clinton to be his most important cabinet officer. >> good point. >> hillary and barack have developed a great relationship. hillary has been a loyal soldier. if i went to washington, and it's not going to happen, but if i did, i would do my best to contain my normal ed rendell tendencies, and that would make me probably a pretty boring chief of staff. >> we don't want you to change. >> sure, sure. but seriously, peter rouse is a good choice. he's smart and i was almost

bowled over by the terrific comments he got from republican legislators as well. he's a fine choice. >> part of the democratic firewall against a republican takeover of the senate is west virginia. and what's going on with your good buddy joe manchin, the governor there, who is really facing a tough fight now? >> well, it's really the strangest thing because unlike a lot of our governors, myself included, whose favorable ratings have gone down with the economy, joe's favorable ratings were terrific right before he announced for senator. now all of the sudden he's in a tough battle. but i believe joe manchin will prevail, andrea. he's up against a self-funder and that's particularly hard, particularly because joe hasn't had time to raise money. he's a terrific governor, a west virginian through and through. he's a populist in a state that

populism resounds in. any year other than this he'd win by 20 points. this year he'll probably win by four or five. it's tough out there, tough form everybody. it's tough for republican incumbents as we've seen. >> it's a pretty tough one indeed. >> thanks, andrea. >> cabinet democrats hang on to the house. the national political chris spon dent to "the new york times" and msnbc contributor chris vel liss sa and author of the blog, the fix. first you, jeff, you're looking at the atmosphere. let's stay in pennsylvania. they have the murphy race and jason altmire, two embattled democratic incumbents. it's not looking good for a lot of democratic incumbents, the 25 seats or so that they picked up in particular are the ones really -- >> on election night, pennsylvania will give a good indication of how the rest of the country is going if democrats don't do well. really some six competitive

house seats republicans could really have a sign of what's happening there. i think governor rendell sort of made several interesting points. one is the democratic party, it has a strong edge in voter registration, some more than a million voters. i think this will be the true test over the next 28 days or so. if this organizing for america, if this outgrowth of the obama campaign is worth its salt or not. if it is, perhaps it will help in some narrow races. but it's not going to overcome these huge advantages. governor's race, senate race, both looking good for republicans in pennsylvania. >> chris cillizza, to the point of turnout, it's the tea party part of the party t conservative voter, these where the enthusiasm is passion is right now. >> can i first make the point that ed rendell for chief of staff, boom. he basically said if i did come

to washington. we all know he's term limited out. i found that fascinating. sorry, couldn't ignore that. the voter en thank you as in republican primaries as we've seen time and time again, losses in alaska, delaware, colorado, nevada is in the tea party part of the party. now, i think it's important, the tea party, i still think if you look at polling, the vast majority of these people identify as republicans. 80-plus percent say they agree more with republicans than democrats. so while this was a bad trend in the primaries for the establishment republican party, i do think they will benefit in the general election from having the tea party behind them. i don't think the tea party agrees with them all the time. i think it's kind of an anti establishment movement. given the choice as governor rendell said, dan onorato, the democrat and tom corbin in pennsylvania, my guess is if you're identifying with tea party, you'll go with tom corbin, the republican. >> what about the way they're

trying to energize themselves, get the stew dernts back into the fray, that they've lost independents, they've lost a whole cohort of the original coalition from 2008. >> without a doubt which is why they're going for the core democratic voters. the idea of winning back independents is out the window for the next month, perhaps women voters who are concerned with health care. otherwise, the white house is trying to put a bit of a guilt trip, if you will, on some of the liberal democratic supporters to try to shake them, bring them to attention and say, you know, if you sit on the sidelines, this will be partly your fault. we'll see how much that works. in some places where there's early voting, where democrats have some 30 days to get people to the polls, i think it may make a difference. again, only in races that are already sort of neck and neck. there are a lot of democrats out there who are farther apart than any type of motivation can solve. >> chris? >> just very quickly. i think jeff's point is really

important. we're talking about gains on the margins for democrats. i've got about 900 pieces of paper, this is my life, going through polls every day. most of the polling that's out there suggests that broadly republicans are still positioned to pick seats up, enthusiasm gap, generic ballot, economy, we're talking about can enthusiasm on the democratic side get up high enough that it makes just enough difference that maybe they hold the house, maybe they lose 30 seats rather than 40 seats. we're not talking about democratic gains. i think it's important to keep it in context. jeff made the point. i just wanted to second it. >> quickly before i let you go, i wanted to play just a little bit of what happened in california on that saturday night debate, the debate between meg whitman and jerry brown and the key issue was clearly this whole question of immigration, something that illegal or undocumented workers that she had made a big issue and of course it came right back to bite her. let's watch. >> jerry, you know you should be

ashamed, you and your surrogates put her deportation at risk. you put her out there and you should be ashamed for sack fisding nickie diaz on the altar of your political ambitions. >> now you're trying to evade responsibility. don't run for governor if you canned stand up and say, harks i made a mistake. you have blamed her, blaechld me. blamed the left, blamed the unions, but you don't take accountability. >> chris and jeff, how do you score that one? chris, you first? >> look, both of them had canned -- they knew this was going to come up. both had a qed statement and response. i thought jerry brown was quite good. she might have been better off to say we made a mistake, this was a loving member of my family. i'm hurt we had to part ways. i did the best i could with the information i had. she didn't say that. now as a result we're in this long process debate over who signed what document.

and that's not good one month before the election for whitman. >> and lie detector test offers, right, jeff? >> she's spent $160 million in ads. perhaps that clip we just saw overcomes all that. people will remember that, not the ads she ran this summer. >> jeff and chris, thank you very much. and coming up next, the travel alert for americans in europe. plus why the newest supreme court justice is sitting out so many cases. send me your thoults. you can find me @mitchell reports. for example the fingers are perfect. appraiser: the bird is in mint condition. appraiser: and i would say if this were to go to auction today, appraiser: conservatively it would be worth 2 in the bush. woman: really? appraiser: it's just beautiful, thank you so much for bringing it in. woman: unbelievable

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travel alerts issued by the united states and japan for travellers in europe with heightened concerns about al

qaeda terror plots. nbc's jim ma say da is following the developments in london. can you help us sort it out? what do we know? >> let's see what we know and don't know. you know better than anyone, andrea, that everything in this kind of business, the intelligence business remains unclear by definition. trying to connect the dots, i think there are probably three main ones or dots or strands coming out now either from intelligence sources directly or leaked to the media. the first one is getting a lot of play in the u.k. based on pakistani intelligence. this seems to be the origin of the mumbai-style attack scenario, a number of gunmen who would hit soft targets in london, possibly france and germany. there are some british counterterrorism experts believe this plot was spoiled as a result of the drone attacks. the other one is based on intelligence that a female

suicide bomber trained by an al qaeda affiliate in algeria was in paris at some point or maybe heading to paris targeting the paris metro. the third strand coming from german intelligence officials also suggests an attack by western jihadist, financed by al qaeda central which makes this special. it then gets very murky. you get the one german afghan prisoner ahmed sadiki who is singing like a canary, not credible at all for german agents. back to you. >> as always, jim, there's always disagreement among intelligence experts as they analyze this data. >> absolutely. >> thanks for that report. the state department has issued the travel alert. that is a step below a full travel warning. in other words, the travel department is not telling americans to avoid going to london, but to be careful in public places like aports and train stations. what are americans supposed to

do with this snf? you're the voice of calm. how concerned should we be. since 9/11 people have been certainly aware since madrid, the mumbai bombings of being careful in train stations, being alert as janet napolitano is the first to tell us to be looking around, that's the best kind of caution for all of us. what is different now? >> i think it is worth reminding, we have cumulative information which suggests as we say in travel alerts that attacks are being planned. it's reminding people to use the common sense precautions, safety measures are always a good thing. they're always important to be aware of your surroundings, to know how to contact our embassy for example, leaving your itinerary at home. if something does happen, we know how to reach you and

someone knows how to reach their families back in the united states. >> there's some suggestion from the outside looking in that this is sort of a precautionary note from the state department that, in fact, there was some diplomatic pushback on from european allies. they don't want their travel business hurt. they were negotiating the language at the last minute. >> whenever we put out any travel warnings and travel alerts, our target is the american audience. our goal and our obligation is to provide information to american citizens traveling and residing abroad to allow them to make informed decisions about their activities. that's the bottom line. >> is this sort of a protective measure, let's just say, you know, cover your options, your rear end, whatever? is this saying we don't know what's going to happen, we don't know when it might happen, but we want to be out there having warned americans to be careful? >> we want americans again to read this information and to be

again vigilant, to take security measures, to remind them, always a good thing, but especially in this atmosphere of heightened concern. >> are there specific plots? >> i think what we have out there is as much as we can say. we have information that al qaeda and affiliated organizations are planning something and again, people should be very careful. >> the fact that bin laden issued two audio messages, does that play any role? >> again, we have cumulative information. the spectrum of information suggs jests we needed to put something out to warn people about the potential for attacks. >> michelle, thank you very much. thanks for being here. you're welcome. rahm emanuel's opening pitch for chicago mayor i don't. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. "thank you very much, i don't need your help any more." you know now, i can actually say i bought my home. i knew that the more i dedicated... the harder i worked, the more it was going to benefit my family. this my son, mario and he now works at walmart.

i believe mario is following in my footsteps. my name is noemi, and i work at walmart. ♪ my name is noemi, and i work at walmart. in 2008 i quit venture capital to follow my passion for food. i saw a gap in the market for a fresh culinary brand and launched behindtheburner.com. we create and broadcast content and then distribute it across tv, the web, and via mobile. i even use the web to get paid. with acceptpay from american express open, we now invoice advertisers and receive payments digitally. and i get paid on average three weeks faster. booming is never looking for a check in the mail. because it's already in my email. ( baby cooing ) our first grandson. he sees you. ( laughing ) ( speaking korean ) ( children squealing, laughing )

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greater risk of stroke than if you didn't have it. strokes that are twice as likely to be deadly or severely disabling as other types of strokes. if you, or someone you care for, have atrial fibrillation, even if you're already taking medication, there are still important things you'll want to know. for a free interactive book call 1-877-904-afib, or log onto afibstroke.com. learn more about the connection between atrial fibrillation and strokes, and get advice on how to live with afib. and with this valuable information in your hand, talk to your doctor. call 1-877-904-afib today. on friday the white house released rahm emanuel back into the wild. speculation is emanuel is returning to chicago to run for mayor. there are many questions facing his campaign, the biggest being can he kiss a baby without it

bursting into flames. >> rahm's run for mayor is a godsend to "s&l." he's trying to reconnect with the city voters after spending the last two years in washington. josh gerstein from politico joins us now. what are the challenges there for him? it's not a done deal at all that he's going to actually find his way to the mayor's office there. >> well, i think there are basically two challenges he's facing. one is this perception he's more washington than chicago, that ad orr video he put up over the weekend where he said, i'm proud to be here and proud this is my home, and now it turns out he taped the ad here in washington, and they're airing it in chicago. that symbolizes the carpet bagger theme that's going to be played out here against him despite his history in the city and having been a congressman from illinois. the second big issue i think is navigating the complex ethnic

racial politics in chicago. 'mavemanuel is seen as not particularly close with the black or hispanic caucus in washington, has had trouble with tissue of immigration. i think latinos could be potentially the decisive factor in this election. those are two areas where i think he'll have a bit of a tough time. >> robert gibbs just briefing, was asked about his own future. >> people in this building are focused on what they're doing here now, much like i am. i'm happy doing what i'm doing. i love my job. >> we all love our jobs, but the question is, would he become democratic national chairman. what are you hearing about whether this is a real possibility? he's saying he hasn't discussed it with anyone. that doesn't mean someone else on his behalf hasn't discussed it or the president hasn't discussed it with tim kaine. >> politico's mike allen heard

this is being discussed mainly out of finance circles in the democratic party although people near gibbs or close to gibbs debated or discussed the issue. it's not sure who may have vetted it through gibbs or whether gibbs had any even informal communications. he said he hasn't had any conversations about it. i don't know exactly what that means. but it is something that's attractive to some elements on the party. on the other hand there is the fight being the professional left as gibbs called it. they're not so excited about this idea. >> okay. to be watched. stay tuned. thanks so much, josh gerstein. still ahead, the first monday in october, so what has changed? well, a lot. plus europe on high alert for terror attacks, but with no specifics on where or when, why issue those new warnings now? and sending your thoughts, you can find me on twitter @mitchell reports. [ security agent ] right. you never kick off with sales figures. kicking off with sales figures!

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topping the headlines, nato

secretary general has now apologized for the air strike that killed three pakistani border guards and led to repeated pakistani attacks on nato fuel tankers. it shut down a key supply line for troops in afghanistan. overnight pakistani gunmen set fire to about 20 more tankers carrying fuel to u.s. and nato forces. that's the fourth such attack in five days. a federal investigation into security at nuclear plants is set to be released this afternoon. the findings reportedly call for the nuclear regulatory commission to step up employee screening at nuclear plants to protect against possible infiltration by potential terrorists. cell phone giant verizon is refunding up to $90 mill xwlun to customers who were overcharged for internet or data usage over the last few years. about 15 million customers will now receive refunds ranging from $2.00 to $6.00. days after being released from the hospital, former president jimmy carter was out in the rain today helping to

build homes for habitat for humanity. president carter insists he is perfectly okay. he and his wife will be in six cities over seven days to build and rehab taetd 86 houses. the 2010 nobel prize for medicine or physiology was awarded to day to british biologist robert edwards. he pioneered work in in vitro fertilization leading the the first test tube baby. it's the first monday in october. that means the supreme court's new term is underway. for the first time ever as the justices heard arguments this morning, there were three women on the bench. one of those women will have to spend a good part of the year of the sidelines. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams has all the details and joins us from the court on the phone. pete, why is elena kagan going to be sitting it out? >> because of bad behavior. no, just seeing if you were

paying attention. it's because she agreed not to take part in any cases of which she was involved in the justice department as solicitor general. this happens whenever there's a solicitor general who becomes a supreme court justice. the last one was thurgood marshal. he sat out cases in his first two terms. what she'll sit out is specification cases, not issues. for example, one of the cases this term she won't be involved in is a challenge, the federal government challenging arizona's immigration enforcement system for employers who don't use the e verify system to make sure their employees are u.s. citizens or legally entitled to be here. she worked on that specific case, but if that issue comes back again, she could work on it because it would be a different case. now, what this means, of course, andrea is for someone third of the cases the court will hear, there will be eight justices. that presents the possibility of

a 4-4 tie. in that event it leaves the lower court rule standing. it has no precedential value. >> we always come to you for ob vapgss on how these new justices fit in. about 20 minutes in i gather from some of your reporting she already was asking questions? >> she was. she asked ten questions today in the first case of the term. that's about a supreme court average. this is a very, what they say hot bench, lots of justices ask questions. when that case is over, her first recusal. she got up and left, leaving eight justices behind. we'll see her do a lot this term, recusing from cases. that raises the possibility of ties in some of the bigger cases. >> what about the case on wednesday which is pretty big case coming up. >> right. this is one of the most prominent of the term. big test of the first amendment. it involves a group of protesters who go to the funerals of military servicemen. and their claim is that the

military deaths overseas in iraq and afghanistan are god's will, that he's punishing the nation for tolerance of gay rights, and they did that at the funeral of a marine lance corporal. they had signs that said thank god for dead soldiers, thank god for ieds, those roadside bombs. it was so traumatic that the father sued them and a jury awarded them $5 million. an appeals court said you can't do that, this is protected speech. that's what the court will have to decide. >> pete williams on duty at the supreme court. thanks so much. >> you bet. a new gao report shows women will still not making it to the corner office. women make up only 40% of managers, they earn only 80% to their male counterparts. those numbers have hardly budged in the last decade. former deputy assistant to president clinton and press secretary to hillary clinton.

you're here for the fortune's most powerful women conference starting in washington tomorrow. more on that to come. >> i am. >> let's talk about the role of women in business first. it's always a challenge. is it more of a challenge in the recession? >> i think it's an evolving picture. some of the research that i've seen is showing that there are more and more women in the pipeline coming out of graduate schools, business schools, law schools, medical schools which bodes well for women in the future in the workforce despite the fact that the gap hasn't really closed over the past couple years. i think as far as the recession goes, what i've seen is that a lot of women, particularly younger women, are very optimistic about the future, shockingly so. i think older women, women who are in the workforce, they tend to be the cfos of the household. they're passing their lessons to their daughters and other family members. so when you look at the statistics i think that the gao report i suppose doesn't surprise me. but i think the future years

will be the real telling indicators. >> what about the so-called mother penalty? career interruptions and what we see in this kind of an economic environment, are women more afraid to leave, to be working at home and raising young children and the fear they won't get back into the workforce? >> i think absolutely, that women who are working mothers and who want to take time out of the workforce to care for their kids or for their parents as they age, they're nervous. there's no question about it. companies are going through a difficult time. a lot of companies are cost-cutting which means you tend to shrink a workforce. women who work who are mothers want to hang on. so while many companies boast of flexible work arrangements, i think you're seeing perhaps women a little skittish about taking advantage of those flexible work arrangements in this economic environment. >> we're also seeing a possible gender gap in polling, not

surprising, according to "the new york times," women are paying a lot more attention. maybe women are more affected by some of the issues, the health care issues and some of the economic issues because they are running so many households. >> no question. the women are not only the cfo, but the chief purchasing officer as well. so when maria shriver, your colleague did her report, her report indicated 40% of working mothers are the breadwinners in the household. what does that mean? that's good news for children. they tend to benefit educationally, from a health care standpoint and also a nutritional standpoint. i think that women are profoundly impacted by this economic recession, and what i think is happening is there is this new normal, and people are adjusting to it. and women in particular, they're changing their spending patterns. they're saving more and they're being much more conservative with how they invest their money. >> quick question about people you used to work with and for.

bill and hilry clinton, bill clinton is now the most popular political figure in america or to americans in our poll, hillary clinton off the charts as far as cabinet members. >> i think this goes to the sustainability of the clinton brand, so to speak. but i think bill clinton has been an outstanding former president. he's led his life post presidency i think with great fortitude, great substance. he's accomplished so much across the globe through the clinton foundation. hillary clinton, now the secretary of state, i think has approached her job rolling up her sleeves and putting her nose to the grindstone and really being a work horse. she and the president have a terrific relationship. so i'm certainly heartened to see that the former president is in such high demand on the campaign trail. i think he'll be a fantastic surrogate for the democratic party. i think what you'll see him do is really craft a message that

resonates with people across the country. >> lisa caputo, great to see you. i know you're hosting a panlt tomorrow. tomorrow we will be doing the show live from the fortune's most powerful women's summit here in washington. among our guests, wendy cobb, and wendy clark. that's tomorrow at 1:00 eastern right here on andrea mitchell reports. r the ball... here it comes... here you go. good catch. perfect! alright now for the best part. let's see your pour. ohhh...let's get those in the bowl. these are way too good to waste, right? oh, yea. let's go for it... around the bowl and... [ male announcer ] share what you love... with who you love. mmmmm. kellogg's frosted flakes... they're g-r-r-reat! good catch, dad. [ laughs ] tdd# 1-800-345-2550 are still talking about retirement tdd# 1-800-345-2550 like it's some kind of dream.

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united states and european officials are offering few details about the terror threat overseas. we bring in terrorism analyst michael sheehan. sort it out for us, michael. we're talking about a growing threat level, a lot of unspecified tlelts. there's enough for them to issue this terror alert? >> right, andrea. i think what triggered this is the rest of sadiki who is in custody being interrogated by the u.s., apparently a guy who keeps talking and talking and talking. i think there was a lot of normal information out there in the intelligence system both in europe and the u.s. about possible activity. that's fairly normal nowadays. this guy triggered it. what is called this chatter lults. quite frankly, andrea, from my experience, chatter is often chatter among analysts in

washington as much as terroria the air waves. >> when you've got a situation like this, we're told that the french definitely have a threat from northern africa, that there were also pakistani based threats, a german threat. this is sort of a multiple coming together. and then in the middle of all this, you get two audio messages from osama bin laden. i'm told by senior officials that it's very clear that he would be aware of the threats, but he is so under deep cover that he's not really operational. can you sort that out for us? >> there are these reports coming in. i would again argue to you, andrea, if you went back three months ago you could probably piece together similar type of events. i think it's this guy sad dickey that triggered this. the fact bin laden's tape has

come out there, that's coincidental. it takes months for him to produce them and get it from his pipeline into the system. i think it's just a confluence of events that have people spun up. and i think it's a little time to be calm at this period. >> some people are relying on pakistani intelligence, and pakistani intelligence are trying to cooperate they say. there's also a whole fudge factor. there how do you as an analyst look at pakistani intelligence and reliability of it? >> pakistan is our most important ally in our war against terrorism and probably our most problematic. so their information is very, very important and actually does become actionable. a lot of those strikes with the predator drones and strikes against terrorist operatives in wa engineer stan and western pakistan is a combination of intelligence. it does often pan out to be good. often there's stuff that isn't too good out there. that's just one of the threat

streams coming together here andrea that has to get sorted out. >> that brings me to the accelerated pace of the drone attacks. some of this is a parallel fact. but some of it is apparently related to the threat level and to some intelligence. >> yeah. it's clearly i think pressure among terrorist groups that are feeling the brunt of this tremendous increase in activity by the obama administration in western pakistan trying to bring tremendous pressure against those organizations. they're feeling the heat. they're probably looking to their foot soldiers to respond. they're probably cranking up the level of activity, perhaps cranking up the level of chatter being picked up by the intelligence committee to respond to the attacks by the predator drones and turn the tables on the american activity that's been so intense in the last few months. >> why does the united states, the state department and japan as well warn travelers to be more alert to their surroundings? what is the value of that? >> andrea, they're in a very difficult position. when i was at the state

department i was faced with this on a regular basis. if you recall, the pack of the pan am 103, lockerbie bombing, there was information that perhaps officials knew about increased threat levels at that time. after that eat vent there was a law passed in congress that requires administration to provide information to the public when they have credible snf information. it's a legal requirement to give that information up. they're very reluctant to overexcite the public and try to prevent traveling and normal business, but at the same time they have this obligation. if they have information that seems to be credible, to get it out to the public so they can make informed decisions. >> what about the japanese alert? what went into the that, the calculus that went into that. >> that's fairly rare to see the japanese come out with an alert like that. obviously their analysts are taken a look at this information. they have a lot of tourists in europe. they decided, also probably a

political decision with all the other countries making announcements, that they, too, would step up and also warn their citizens. i think it's a matter of political consistency for them. >> michael sheehan, thanks so much. great to see you. >> thank you, andrea. what political story will be making headlines in the next 24 hours? that's next. plus, europe may have redeemed the ryder cup. perhaps the most amazing shot during this year's tournament was made by a photographer. take a look at this. a "daily mail" photograph. the ball bounced off his chest and came to rest at his feet where woods then had to play the shot from there. to help build strong muscles and healthy bones. carnation instant breakfast essentials. good nutrition from the start.

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dh which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours? let's bring in chris cillizza, author of the fix blog. i'm looking at connecticut.

i don't know about you. but that race is really hot. >> andrea, i'm always looking at connecticut, because it's my home state. >> i didn't know that. >> you'll find out. i'll mention it whenever i can. mention aside, there is a debate tonight. richard bloomenthal. this morning linda mcmahon put up an ad showing blumenthal's past mistake about his service in vietnam. says in several occasions he was in the country. turns out he was not. that's a focal point of a very nasty debate tonight. >> in a race in which the poll shows is only a three-point spread within the margin of error among likely voters. let's look at the dualing ads in the connecticut race. >> sure. >> the kind of ceo linda mcmahon wants is the kind of senator she would be. as ceo mcmahon laid off workers

and took millions in bonuses. linda mcmahon, a bad ceo, a worse senator. >> would you lie about serving in a war? >> we have learns something very important since the days i've served in vietnam. >> he covered one lie with another. >> since the days that i've served in vietnam. >> if he lied about vietnam, what else is he lying about? >> that whole attack, the charge laid out in "the ney york times" was acknowledged with blumenthal. it didn't resinate with voters in the summer. were they not waying attention? or was it not a real concern? >> the mcmahon campaign is wanting to focus on this. dick blumenthal, he's been in the job, andrea, attorney general, since 1990. he has a reservoir of good will that really did protect him back

in may. myself and many other political observers thought this could be the end of his campaign. his numbers didn't drop that much. he was ahead by 25 or 30 points in the general election ballot. now he's ahead by three. so linda mcmahon doesn't need it to make a vast difference, she just needs it to make a slight difference, because the race is already close. >> she's got so much limited money. can he compete against that? can the party compete? >> he can't. he can do his best to keep it closed. but she's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. she put $25 million in a noncompetitive primary she won easily. she'll put another 25 for not more into this race before it's all said and done. she's going to have more ads. she's going to have more money. he has o to hope the reservoir of good will stays with him amid a month's wort of on slet about his character in office. >> you have to hope he does well

in the debate as well. >> the debate will be a big point. absolutely. >> well, thanks very much. we'll be talking about that tomorrow. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." tomorrow on the show we'll be live from fortune magazine's most powerful women summit in washington, d.c. you can follow us online at mitchell reports. >> hi, andrea. in the next hour more on the terror alert for u.s. citizens traveling to europe. the latest on what we do know is ahead. plus former h white house chief of staff rahm emanuel may have a hitch in his plans to run for mayor. a little rule called a residency requirement. and the scoop on the music video that mayed have played a part in breaking up bristol palin and levi johnston. this is msnbc. hey, guys, i know i've been bad at this in the past,

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hello, everybody. i'm contessa brewer. on alert. travelers to europe told to stay caution. but what does it mean? rahm emanuel kicks off his run for chicago mayor as new questions surface about whether he's even eligible to hold the office. weapons and alcohol. is that a good combination? why more states are allowing bar goers to pack heat. plus a new look at a 14-year-old murder mystery. who killed jonbenet ramsey? police are reopening a cold case. four different countries are telling silt zens to be on alert traveling in europe. the u.s., u.k., japan and sweden say they're concerned about an al qaeda attack. what's the latest on the investigation, jim? >> hi, contessa. counter terrorism experts akroocross europe are trying to connect the dots. you can say there are