breaking news this hour. faisal shahzad gets life in prison for his failed bombing attempt at times square. i quickly turned around and went to him and jumped off my jet ski. and i had to turn him over because he was face down in the water and turned him over, and he was shot in the head. >> an american is missing. his family says he was shot and left for dead by pirates along the u.s. and mexico border. but now mexican authorities are casting doubt on their story. firefighters watch a man's home go up in flames and do nothing to help because he didn't pay a $75 fee. plus, could it? should it?

would it be the donald in 2012? he tells msnbc for the first time he is considering a run for the white house. welcome back to msnbc world headquarters in new york. i'm chris jansing. joining us, former congressman j.c. watts, karen finney, alicia menendez, colonel jack jacobs and former fbi agent and profiler, clint van zandt. it's hard to imagine waiting to hear if one of the suspects accused of raping and killing your wife and daughters is found guilty. but the case of a brutal home invasion in connecticut is being debated by 12 jurors, some of them reduced to tears during gruesome and graphic testimony. william petit is the on one in his family who survived. and along with his wife's family, they've been a constant presence in the courtroom. nbc's jeff rossen is live outside the courthouse for us. and should i assume that william petit is at court waiting for

the verdict today? >> reporter: yes, correct assumption. william petit literally hasn't missed a single day of this trial over the past several weeks. and he's actually even been here for the deliberations both yesterday and again today. as you mentioned, he's simply sitting in the courtroom with the family. this has been incredibly tough on him. you think about how strong this man is. he's spoken to the media just very briefly as he's walked out. after being tied up and bound and hearing his family being tortured and killed in the house, he's been able to come to the courthouse every day, testify, and face the man who's accused of doing this to his family and keeping his composure the entire time. there was only one occasion when he actually had to walk out of the courtroom in tears because he couldn't take the evidence. and chris, some of this evidence, as you had mentioned, was so gruesome. i mean, we're talking about burned clothes. his family's final moments in the house, graphic images, pictures from the crime scene that he has had to endure.

but he's told us from the very beginning that the reason he did it is to stand up for his family. and as he said once to me, i'm just trying to do the right thing by my family. and i think that means standing up to the man who's accused of doing this, chris. >> jeff rossen, thank you very much. and susan filan is a former connecticut state prosecutor. it's good to see you, susan. such a heartbreaking story. and look, there is no question, he says he was there. he says he did it. he says he strangled the mother. is this really just a question about whether he gets the death penalty or not? >> yeah. they had to go through this phase of the trial in order to get to the death penalty phase of the case. i suspect that this will be a relatively quick deliberation. there will be a relatively quick guilty verdict on all counts that will come. >> probably today, you think? >> i think so. i think in the next couple of hours. >> so what would you do? i mean, here you are. you're a public defender. and you have somebody who says, i was there. i did it.

you've got obviously overwhelming evidence there. but you don't want him to die. you want life in prison. how do you set that up? >> well, you do two things. first you try your case extremely carefully because you want everything in the case to be grounds for a possible appeal. so everything that's going on during the trial phase is not necessarily just about trying to get an acquittal. it's trying to set up something for a possible appeal number one. and number two, it's to lay all of your cards out for the penalty phase. when you get to the penalty phase, what you're looking for is what's called mitigation, anything that you can say to the jury, mitigates in favor of life in prison rather than a death penalty. what the state is looking for are the aggravators, the factors that aggravate toward death. the defense is looking for the mitigators that mitigate against death. >> and in this case, there's another defendant. so what they want to say is he's really the bad guy. my guy was just sort of the follower here. so he shouldn't be put to death. >> yeah.

or not even so much that. but what you're doing in the death penalty phase is you're actually looking at the life of this person. almost as if you're before god in heaven and you're saying, is this person's worth -- is this person's life worth anything, jury? is his life worth sparing? look at him as a man. we all look at the heinousness of his acts. that's one thing. look at the crimes. you've already found him guilty. you've already heard it. but now look at him as a man and see if there's anything in his life that mitigates saving it. look at his childhood. look at how he was raised. look at what he had to go through. and you're going to look at sympathy, which you don't often do in a case. often when you hear the jury instructions, you hear, put sympathy aside. don't let your emotions rule. well, not so in the death penalty phase. you can ask the jurors to find some kind of sympathy, something in this person's life that's worth sparing. and one of the arguments is going to be if it's wrong to

kill, why isn't it wrong to kill? >> well, that's the whole death penalty debate at large. legal analyst siusan filan, appreciate you coming in. more interesting comments coming from christine o'donnell. this time it's that she had classified information about china plotting to take over the united states. now, she's not responding to that right now, but she is hitting back about something else she said years ago. that she dabbled in witchcraft. listen to this. >> i'm not a witch. i'm nothing you've heard. i'm you. none of us are perfect. but none of us can be happy with what we see all around us. politicians who think spending, trading favors and backroom deals are the ways to stay in office. i'll go to washington and do what you'd do. i'm christine o'donnell, and i approve this message. i'm you.

>> j.c. watts is a former republican congressman from oklahoma. karen finney is an msnbc contributor. and democratic strategist. alicia menendez is a senior adviser for the new democrat network. okay. alicia, obviously, there she's responding to this whole witchcraft thing. but now we're hearing back in 2006 in a debate, she said, china had a strategic plan to take over america and, quote, there's much i want to say. i wish i wasn't privy to some of the classified information that i am privy to. so what do you make of this? >> i mean, i don't know what to make of this. i think it's absolutely absurd. and it sort of falls in this larger pattern. we've been seeing with her which is she's a loose cannon. you don't know what she's going to say. you got the impression that she's not very serious about this. that for her, this is her 15 minutes' fame. and not a lot more. listen, i think voters want to hear substance. they want to hear plans for if we send you to washington, what

are you going to do? and i just don't think they're getting very much of that from her. more to the point she's sort of been m.i.a. i mean, a lot of the press in the state has complained they can't get her to sit down for an interview. they can't find her. so much so she's had to say that she's not hiding. when you hear clips like this, you sort of understand why that might be. >> yeah, j.c., go back to your own experience and, you know, when to talk, when not to talk, what to talk about. she said that she wasn't going to talk to the national media. that her job was to run in delaware to inform the voters of delaware. but if the reporters there can't find her, is that a good strategy? >> well, chris, there is wisdom in silence on many occasions. but i don't think that you're going to have the luxury of being able to avoid the press over the next four or five weeks or through november 2nd. she's going to have to face the press at some point.

but, you know, i think christine should say, as they take shots at her, as people take shots at her in delaware from around the country about where she might have been when she was in high school and how far she might have been. tell them that, hey, i didn't have anything to do with creating a $1.4 trillion deficit this year. at least a $1.4 trillion deficit. i didn't have anything to do with creating $13 trillion in debt. medicare, social security is practically bankrupt. and so if this is what all the smart people are doing, then, you know, breing in the fifth graders. >> you were sitting in on classified briefings about china trying to take over america. i don't know. >> you know, i can't -- i can't speak -- i can't speak -- i can't speak to that. i can't speak to that. but, again, i think -- i just

think it's fantasy lan land to that you're going to run from the national press with all the attention this campaign has garnered through november 2nd. >> but this is actually kind of a strategy that you've seen with these tea party candidates once they kind of reach the general election. you had someone go out from the national republican senatorial campaign committee. >> do you think they were surprised to find themselves in this position in some cases? >> i do. i think it's meant a whole new type of career for political strategists being high-profile baby-sitters. they're someone sitting on christine o'donnell, someone sitting on ken buck, joe miller, sharron angle, rand paul. if you notice his appearance over the weekend, he was a lot calmer than he was when we saw him. >> the new rand paul. >> actually, a friend of mine on the republican side said if we could keep them all in witness protection between now and the election, we might actually win. just saying. >> okay, thank you so much. well, illegal immigration is one thing. pirates on our borders, well,

that's another thing altogether. a family that claims they were attacked and their dad shot on the mexican border. they're pleading with president obama. >> he has to come home. president obama, help us! president of mexico, help us, please! imagine calling firefighters to your home as it's burning to the ground. they come, but then they just stand and watch. it happened to one man, and it was all about a fee he didn't pay. ♪ yes! ♪ look, they fit! oh my gosh, are those the jeans from last year? how'd you do it? eating right...whole grain. [ female announcer ] people who eat more whole grain tend to have healthier body weights. multigrain cheerios has five whole grains and 110 lightly sweetened calories. more grains. less you! multigrain cheerios.

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a family's desperate plea to help them find their son and husband. david hartley who is still missing. nearly a week after his wife, tiffany, says the couple was attacked by mexican pirates on a lake that straddles the u.s. and mexico.

this morning david's wife, sister and parents were on the "today" show talking about what happened. david's wife says she tried to save him after he was shot. >> that's when i tried saving david and getting him onto my jet ski. but i just -- i couldn't get him up. and i just kept hearing god tell me, you have to go. you have to go. so i had to leave him. so i could get to safety. >> i'm now joined by colonel jack jacobs, susan filan and j.c. watts. there's been so much controversy about what's going on on the borders. she says, and the local officials, the american officials, say they can't search for her husband's body because it's on the mexican side of the border. she wants president obama to intervene. do you think he will or should? >> well, you know, when you've lost a loved one, you want anybody and everybody to intervene. i do think that, chris, the

appropriate federal agencies, you know, the state department, you know, border security, you know, the appropriate federal agency should make some inquiry about this because, you know, you've got american life that's been taken. something has happened. and as federal government, as federal agents, i would want to be informed, and i would be concerned about what has happened. so let's peel the onion and get to the bottom of it to try and see what has happened and take the appropriate actions. >> yeah. without a doubt, something has happened, susan. we don't know what. officials on the american side say they believe tiffany's story. on the mexican side, they say they have absolutely no evidence that something has happened. what do investigators need to look at? >> yeah. peel the onion is a good way to put it. i would definitely peel this onion back, and i would be suspicious of the story. i would approach this with all due candor, skepticism.

it just doesn't sound on the face exactly like it happened the way she says it happened. so i would want a fact-finding investigation from the get-go. and i would investigate exactly what she says happened. and i would look forñi corroborating details, back from where she left the hotel room, what happened around the trip, life insurance. i would backtrack the history of the marriage, and i would try to find all of the circumstances and facts surrounding the trip, the planning, life insurance, the marriage, and her story. >> we always talk about the fact that it's the spouse who's always first suspicion when someone disappears or is killed. and it doesn't matter if this is the circumstance, same sort of theory. absolutely. so jeff, i mean, one of the things she says is, look, they were holding a gun to my head. and you've read in on this. where do you go with this, jack? >> well, i'm a cynic and a skeptic. >> by nature. >> i automatically think something's wrong. having said all that, the northern part of mexico is totally out of control.

the national police, the national government of mexico has almost no control of the border area whatsoever. it's roamed by drug lords. gangs are shooting each other up. >> it wouldn't surprise you if they say we don't think anything happened. >> they're not going there. >> do you think they did a thorough investigation? >> they did as long as five minutes can be thorough. they're not going to investigate. they're not going to respond. last time i think we went into mexico to investigate ourselves was 100 years ago. so we're not doing that tomorrow either. >> all right, jack, j.c., susan, thank you all very much. signs of possible serial killings on u.s. highways, if you can believe it. the details are chilling. and richard lui has them next. >> we're talking about freeways and highways we may have used to visit grandma's during the holidays or labor day weekend. this map here we're about to show you -- maybe we will -- there it is, that map, it may

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share the world with the ones you love! and ask your doctor about reclast. or call 1-866-51-reclast. year-long protection for on-the-go women. on average all of us who drive spend countless hours and travel thousands of miles each year on america's interstates. here's something you might not know. serial killings could be happening at rest areas around the nation. fbi investigators have linked at least 450 deaths to serial killers who have been using highways to abduct and then dispose of their victims. msnbc's richard lui has been looking into this. how long has this been going on? >> yeah, we were talking about it this morning. really surprising, chris, when you look at the numbers. first off, every month according to what we've learned over the last 40 years has been one highway serial killing, according to data acquired by

"usa today." of the cases, less than 7% even have suspects that have been arrested and identified. i want to show you this map right here. because this map shows us where they have happened according to the fbi across the country. and as you noticed, these are interstates that cross the entire country. these are places we have all driven on. and this is just a portion of some of the killings. now, at least half of these killings involve what truckers call lot lizards or fender lizards. chris, those are prostitutes that basically troll the truck stops looking for johns along the way. now, right under our noses, it is believed, that this is happening. and at places here that are oasis in the desert. after driving long periods of time, it could be across the country. these rest stops often are separated in two sections, though, one for cars and one for trucks. and they do remain separate. so that may give some comfort to some. but that may not comfort all of us. especially since the subculture of killings is not well known here.

clint van zandt is an analyst and profiler on the phone right now. i was just mentioning that subculture. what is that? it's been written in some of these writings that basically you have killers that are mr. rogers by day and jeffrey dahmers by night. is that right? >> well, you've got to realize there are about 3.5 million truck drivers in the united states today. so we're talking about a very small portion of these individuals. but, again, i mean, these may well be men who have, you know, regular lives, families, everything else during the day. but when a small portion of these truck drivers hit the road, i mean, as an fbi agent, we've known for years that it's likely that serial killers are enter state truck drivers. they pick the victim up in one place. an hour later, they're 50 miles away. ten hours later they're 500 miles away. and it's very hard to link those crimes together. >> that jekyll & hyde dynamic is frightening. also on top of that is that may

be happening right underneath our noses. right at rest stops. >> yeah. and as you suggest, there is a double culture at rest stops. you and i drive in in our cars, our family gets out, buy a hot dog and come back out. but in the back of that lot, we see dozens and dozens of truckers. and within that subculture, there are people who are back selling drugs, maybe stolen property as well as prostitutes selling their bodies. when we get an area like that, when you get someone who is into prostitution, into drugs, we call that a high-risk victim involved in a high-risk activity in a high-risk area. those three, many times, unfortunately, spell murder. >> all right. we've got to go. chris has a question for us. >> real quickly, i'm just curious when you talk about rest stops. there's two kinds. there's ones where you drive in and buy a hot dog and there seems to be a lot of activity, a place most people feel safe and then you have places that are places to just drive off the road. maybe they have a bathroom. they're usually in a heavily wooded area. are we talking about one kind or

another? >> well, we're talking usually, chris, where we see truckers, over-the-road truckers pull their 18-wheelers, whatever it is, where they pull in and stop and park where they have their own, like, little community. but we've also seen some truckers who have been killers who will park their truck and then walk into a nearby community, commit an act and then get back in their truck and they're back on the road again miles away. but the reality, chris, is that truck stops, especially rest areas, are very safe places. we should feel comfortable going. but just like anyplace else in the world, be aware of where you're at and who's around you. >> and on that note here, thank you very much, clint, former fbi profiler. chris, some tips that we were getting from aaa as well. as clint was intimating, be careful. park in lit areas near facilities. fairly straightforward. keep your keys in your hands so when you walk in and out of your car, you can use it perhaps as a

defense weapon. crack the window to talk to people. don't roll the whole thing down. and finally, make a scene if attacked. some of us don't want to do that, but make noise. those are the tips aaa is putting out based on this very amazing story that's out there. >> i've also heard, especially for a woman who's traveling alone, if you go into one of them and you're the only person there, there's only one other person there, it doesn't matter if you make a scene if that other person is, you know, somebody who's going to hurt you. so drive on to the next place if you possibly can. >> exactly. keep on going. >> thanks, richard. good advice. trump in 2012? the donald breaks the news right here on msnbc about whether he's considering running for office. my question today, if you want to run for mayor of wasilla, does this help or hurt? levi johnston gets hot and heavy in a brand-new video.

here are the top stories we're following for you on msnbc. failed times square bomber

faisal shahzad has been sentenced to life in prison. shahzad pled guilty in june to ten terrorism and weapons counts. french police arrested a dozen people today for links to islamic militant networks. the roundup connected to two separate counterterrorism cases. today the supreme court will hear arguments over whether the federal government had the right to investigate the personal lives of nasa contractors in california. prince william made his first save as a search and rescue helicopter co-pilot. his crew pulled a man from an oil rig after the workers suffered a heart attack. sun chips crinkle bags are a thing of the past. they tried but frito-lay is pulling the noisy bag off the shelves after months of customer complaints. an absolute nightmare for a tennessee man who watched his home burn to the ground and apparently so did firefighters who arrived at the scene. see, county residents who were outside a certain area have to pay a $75 fee to get fire coverage. he didn't pay.

so firefighters wouldn't put out the flames. keith olbermann spoke with him last night. >> everything was lost in the fire. even three dogs and a cat that belonged to my grandchildren was lost in it. and they could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it. >> when you -- >> it was just a loss. >> when you all called 911, as i understand it, you told the operator you'd pay whatever was necessary to have the firefighters come out and prevent the fire from spreading to your house? what was their response? >> we wasn't on their list. >> have other houses in the area burned down while the fire department watched because people hadn't paid the fee? >> yes, sir. they let -- as far as my -- i know for sure, they let three. and i heard of four. and then on the other side of

union city in the community, they let a barn burn that had horses in it. >> now, there's one more point to this story. let me introduce susan filan, karen finney, j.c. watts, alicia menendez. his neighbor had paid the fee. so his field started to burn. so he calls 911. the firefighters come out. they put out the fire in the field. and then even though he said forget my field, get my neighbor's house, they said he didn't pay. j.c. watts, you've been in politics a whale. have you ever heard anything like this? >> no, i've not, chris. this is quite interesting. the gentleman, obviously, should have paid the fee if that was what was required at the outset. but to let his house burn, that's just as wrong. so two wrongs don't make a right. and it's quite -- that's quite startling. >> yeah. i mean, at least the people

looking at this and saying, okay, you want government out of your lives? this is what's going to happen next. do you see a political implication for this kind of story? >> i do think there is definitely a political angle here, which this, not to be sensationalist, but this is what tea party america could be like which is they want to talk about this free market, about opting in and out of insurance plans, about, you know, paying for services like this which are basic services that are meant to protect our citizens. this is real-life implications of what happens when you pull funding for first responders. >> i have to say -- >> chris, i've got to comment on that. >> sure. >> i think that is quite a stretch to make this a tea party issue. i mean, what is the issue with the tea party here? the fact is the gentleman didn't pay his fee, which he should have. and they didn't respond when his home was burning. >> his house just burned down. >> listen.

i think part of what alicia's saying is right. >> i'm saying they should have responded at this gentleman's home burning down. how is that a tea party issue? >> the mayor was asked about this. you know, he made no bones about it. listen to his reaction. >> anybody that's not inside the city limits of south fulton, it's a service that we offer. either they accept it or they don't. >> here's the thing. i think it's time for us all to take a step back from the rhetoric. that's what i get out of this story. because when we talk about -- i agree with alicia to some degree that some of this tea party rhetoric goes a bit far when we talk about repealing parts of the 14th amendment. what does that mean? also we should be talking about big versus small government but what is the role of government? it is outrageous to believe that a county entity like the firefighters would let animals die, would let people's homes burn down over a $75 fee. that's not an appropriate role of government. so i think we need to be shifting the conversation. but j.c., you know that that your folks on the conservative side argue for smaller

government. and this sort of a la carte government. >> that's totally inappropriate. when you've got $80 billion to $125 billion in medicare that republicans and democrats both say was fraud, with that much fraud in it -- >> j.c., republicans say when an illegal immigrant shows up at a hospital, they shouldn't get care. it's the same thing. >> you ought to be able to find money to do the things that government should be doing. you don't have private contractors in the fire department. you have volunteers, but, you know, that is a government role. i mean, let's use some common sense here. we're getting a little silly with this. let's use some common sense. his home should have been taken care of. they should not have allowed his home to burn down. that's the bottom line. >> if we all agree at that, real quickly, susan, do you smell a lawsuit here? >> yeah, i smell a lawsuit. what if there was a child in that house? >> three dogs and a cat, by the way.

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an admission from donald trump this morning. "the apprentice" host may want

to be hired by america. speculation began after reports of a poll in new hampshire measuring voter feelings toward trump as a presidential candidate was taken. nobody knew where it was coming from. well, this weekend the donald said he would not consider running for president, but then when he called into "morning joe" today, he had a little different message. mika brzezinski asked him if he just wants to join the political conversation or actually get into the political game. >> i can tell you this, mika. for the first time in my life, i've had so many people over the years ask me to do that. and for the first time in my life, i am absolutely thinking about it. i don't know that i'll do it. it's probable that i won't do it, but i can tell you, i'm thinking about it. somebody has to do something. we are losing this country. >> joining me now, huffington post contributor jennifer donahue and the company is back, j.c., karen and alicia. all right, jennifer. the donald in 2012, what do you think?

>> well, as we know, early polls in new hampshire tend to be quite wrong. this past cycle in 2008, the republican side, giuliani was the front-runner two years out. in 2000, elizabeth dole was way ahead of g.w. bush this far out. so i wouldn't put much stock in the fact that reportedly trump did okay in the polls. i would say, however -- >> no, no, it wasn't a poll about whether you would vote for him, it was one of those feeling-you-out kind of polls. >> i know. exactly. it was questions like do you like him? >> yeah. >> would you support someone like this? which also brings up the issue -- >> what about the issue that he's given money to democrats? >> exactly. it's sort of a leading poll is what you get. from the little bit we know about the questions is that someone is leading you to say to consider the donald and consider that he might actually be a candidate for president which frankly i don't think most people would think about new hampshire unless they were hammered over the head with that idea.

>> you know, karen, you've got to give him this. the guy knows how to get publicity. >> absolutely. levi johnston's probably watching, taking notes, right? it's good publicity for him for this season of "the apprentice." did you notice the first time he was asked about the question, he said, i hadn't really seen the poll. when he talked to joe and mika this morning, maybe he had seen the numbers. maybe that's why he was changing his tune. >> do you think that's it? >> you never know. >> who's taking these polls anyway? $2.4 billion, alicia. $2.4 billion is what he is reportedly worth, according to "forbes." so i suppose if he wanted to spend, you know, less than half of that, what are they saying, it's going to cost $1 billion to run for president in 2012? >> i mean, he would join a lot of candidates from this year who are going to buy themselves senate or gubernatorial seats. you know, we certainly are used to seeing people spend this type of money in politics. i have to tell you, though, i'm going to throw my support behind the naked cowboy. >> you are? >> i do. i think that he has a much stronger platform.

but listen, you got both of these people. it's clear that this is a great way to get attention. >> do you put him in the same category, the naked cowboy and donald trump? >> do you know how hard it is to parade around times square naked with that guitar, chris? >> how much, j.c., would you, as a lifelong republican, love to have your candidate run against donald trump or maybe not? maybe not him and his $1 billion. >> you know, if you've got the naked president and donald trump, i'm going to have the belief levi johnston should run as well. i am a big fan of donald trump. i met him on a couple of occasions. you have to admire the brand that he's created. i think donald trump is a lot like a lot of people. i think they want to be president, but i don't think they want to run for it. i would be -- i would be surprised if -- >> do you think he really would want to be president, j.c.? do you think he's want that? >> well, you know, donald trump did not become,ñr you know, did

not grow a net worth of $2.4 billion by being, you know, a bashful, unopinionated person in america. i think he would want to be president. and, again, when you consider where we are in america today, you know, he couldn't do any worse than what we, you know, what we've had in washington over the last 20 years. so, you know, why not? >> let me say this. i do think, karen, it could be fascinating to see because j.c. makes a really good point. you never really wonder where the donald stands on anything. whether it's a candidate, you know, on "the apprentice" or whether it's what he think's going on in the world or the business world. it would be really interesting to see what kind of candidate he would be. >> and because he's got so much money, it would mean that he could continue to be candid and not have to worry about special interests and upsetting this group or that group. it could be an interesting campaign with donald. >> even if he isn't going to run, jennifer, how do you see him playing into all of this?

>> well, this is what i was going to say. it's almost absurd that we're taking it so seriously because i think as much as his ego gratification is served by this whole exercise, the truth is, he's probably not going to run, as he says. and he probably does want to be president because he's got an outside ego. and right now in our celebrity culture, you've got this split between republicans who are celebrities like palin, glenn beck, rush limbaugh, and then sort of big-tent rank-and-file republicans who would no sooner elect donald trump than you or me. >> but wouldn't you say -- >> is it donald -- >> is it, jennifer, necessary criteria to run for president to have an outsized ego? >> i think it is. i'll be totally honest. >> yes. >> gone are the days when j.c. watts used to be recruited to run for president. people with normal egos. >> you are so kind. >> j.c. is getting a compliment here. you know, it's going to be

interesting. michael bloomberg might be a little more serious candidate with his own billion dollars. >> that's right. >> stranger things have happened. who knows where we'll be in six months from now? >> that's right. >> when really they're going to have to start getting serious. when will they have to start getting serious? >> well, people are generally starting to sort of test the waters now. really once we get past the midterms particularly on the republican side because it's open on their side. you'll start to see, you know, trips in and out of iowa, in and out of new hampshire, kind of testing the waters. >> there are a lot of folks out there who think there's going to be a surprise somewhere. whether it will be trump, i don't know. but the donald himself will be here on msnbc a little later on today. he'll be talking to tamron hall at 2:00 eastern time on msnbc. thank you all. levi johnson getting hot and heavy with a pop singer in a new music video. but was that the proverbial last straw that broke off his engagement with bristol palin? program note for you, tomorrow on "the daily rundown,"

chuck and savannah continue their series "back in business." it's aimed at helping older, unemployed americans find work. tomorrow, which sectors are hiring experienced workers?

we were talking about youth vote and president obama trying to get it out. we just got this in from the press secretary robert gibbs who tweeted today a conversation with president obama next week will be hosted by mtv, cmp and b.e.t. apparently it's going to be commercial free one hour. he's going to be in front of a group of young folks, a youth town hall meeting is what they are calling it. about 250 invited young people. so we will hear from the president next week. take a look at the music video made by a young person, mr. levi johnston. apparently this is the rumor it led to his second breakup with with bristol palin. after love starring levi and

brittani senser. ♪ >> he's kind of convincing as a bad boy, don't you think? the director had to get in my ear and say we're running out of tape, i was so transfixed. >> by the steamy scene. >> is that you laughing at me, j.c.? are you mocking me because i think that this video is so compelling? >> no -- uh -- [ laughter ] no comment. >> so i want to ask a very serious question as a strategy for setting up a run for mayor of wasilla, alaska, how do you think this is going to play? >> i don't know the people of wasilla, alaska, but if they're

anything like the people of union city, this would be a joke and his days would be over but it is definitely fun to watch because if you remember watching him at the convention on stage with his pregnant girlfriend holding her hand you sort of had the feeling like, wow, this kid got the wrong girl pregnant. and now he's managed to turn that into something and i think that sends a bad message to young men that you can sort of get away with this behavior, had absolutely zero responsibility, and become a big star. >> well, are we saying -- we don't know that he's a bad father. >> we'd just like to know how much he got paid for the video. >> "us weekly" told you that. i change my mind completely. >> i'd like to know how much he made for the video and how much is going to his child. >> we would have heard if he was supposed to be paying child support and he had fallen in arrears? wasn't that a story from a while ago? >> let's find out from this video how much he made. how much is it worth? >> you have to admit, though, we would not be even hearing the

name brittani sensor or listening to this video or seeing her -- that's not her. that's the woman who plays her mom in the video, if it wasn't for this, are right? but i'd be okay with that. i'd live. >> it was a stroke of genius by bringing him in because she was a nobody, brittani senser. >> who knew that? >> by bringing in levi, all of a sudden we know who she is, listening to her song. >> it has a cool, sexy vibe to it, right? >> what other aspiring musician also want to get levi? >> is there a risk of overexposure and i mean this literally as well as figuratively. >> we haven't gotten there yet. >> it already happened in "playgirl," right? did he? could he make this girl a star? >> levi johnston did. >> and he's thousand become

known as -- whatever you want to call it. >> well, i don't know. >> would you be so harsh on him if he wasn't levi johnston? would you be saying, oh, who is that hot guy? >> no. no, you're right. >> i tried to get somebody in trouble but it didn't work. richard lui, j.c. watts, we've had many fine conversations on the show. this was not one of them but i thank you for playing. >> levi's the big winner here. >> why? why, j.c.? >> because we've talked about him so much. >> that's right. and after all, isn't that what he wanted? >> that's right. >> i feel so cheap. >> that's it for me this hour. i'm chris jansing. i'll see you back here tomorrow and every weekday at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. we have george pa ttaki joining "the company" and contessa brewer joins us. >> i feel cheap, too, but then

again -- i'm not saying it's by association. not at all. so the military is going green. it's not because they want to help the environment so much as a practical consideration. we have more on that. it has to do with a tax on convoys and an attempt to save lives and money. new york's republican candidate for governor epitomizes the angry gop. i will look at whether that anger can translate into good governing. and how is this for a headli headline -- man denies crack in butt is his. i know you want the back story. i have it. and you thought, chris, you felt cheap, huh? hey, did you ever finish last month's invoices? sadly, no. oh. but i did pick up your dry cleaning and had your shoes shined. well, i made you a reservation at the sushi place around the corner. well, in that case, i better get back to these invoices...

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good tuesday, everybody. i'm con it tess a brewer. covering the big news coast to coast and a big story right now is the dozen suspected it terrorists arrested in two separate raids. french investigators say three of the men they're holding recruit fighters for afghanistan and make false passports and other documents.