mitchell reports," sex and the city. another new york politician makes a tearful apology. unlike eliot spitzer and chris lee, anthony weiner would rather fight than quit. the conservative blogger who broke the story and prebutted the confessional tells m s matt lauer he has one picture the public hasn't seen. >> if anthony weiner decides to make this a jihad against me for his interpretation of putting me into this situation, i'll take that as a -- you said an insurance policy. i can't foresee a circumstance in which i would release that. >> facing an ethics investigation and no support from fellow democrats. can the career politician survive? the white house rolls out the red carpet for german chancellor angela merkel.

for talks ranging from the war in afghanistan, where they agree to libya and deep differences over how to handle the economy. >> i'm not concerned about a double-dip recession. i am concerned about the fact that the recovery that we're on is not producing jobs as quickly as i want it to happen. plus, the new "washington post" poll suggests the economy is now the president's biggest opponent. and one if by land, two if by sea. the midnight ride of sarah palin continues as a new war breaks out over just who will write the last draft of history. good day, i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. can he survive? well, not if the new york tabloids are indication today. anthony weiner is a man alone today. facing an ethics investigation ordered by his own party leader and the man with more than 63,000 twitter followers and more than 47,000 friends on facebook cannot find a friend in washington or new york.

at his cringe-worthy news conference, weiner says he doesn't think he violated he house rules. >> i don't see anything that i did that violated any rules of the house. i don't see anything that i did that certainly violated my oath of office to uphold the constitution. >> nbc's luke russert covers capitol hill and interviewed anthony weiner last week. politico was at the congressional congressman's news conference in new york. welcome both to you. maggie, first to you. let's talk about the news conference, itself. describe the room and what went on when andrew brightbart took the podium. >> he took the podium in fairness at request of reporters who wanted him to be able to address everyone in unison and freely. he was surrounded by cameras after a few of us noticed him. there was really an astonishing warmup act for anthony weiner who came in and gave what was also an amazing performance. i don't mean that critically.

he was very genuine in his tears and he was sorry. it was quite something to see someone stand there and take questions this way. that was not something eliot spitzer did. >> in fact, i should point out eliot spitzer did resign. >> yes. >> and the fact is that weiner is saying he's going to fight and he won't quit. >> that's right. >> so you've covered him a long time, since he was a member of council. you've seen him over the years, 13 member years in congress. how astonishing was it? how -- you thought it was genuine. a lot of people from the outside who may not know anthony weiner as well as you do in covering him politically didn't know whether he was faking it. you thought it was real. >> i thought it was real. he was genuinely emotional. those were real tears. he was very upset about what has happened. i think he genuinely felt bad for what he did to his wife, huma abedin, who i've known

since hillary clinton's senate race beginning in 1999 who is a terrific lady. i think anthony weiner is very remorseful about this and doing what he knows how to do is be in front of the cameras. he couldn't tear himself away. i've never seen a press conference like that in the last four or five years of covering pretty spectacular scandals in new york. this one is really amazing. i think mostly because his denials and his claims of being a victim all last week, especially to luke russert, were so aggressive. he was the victim. yet here he was sort of melting before our eyes. >> and, luke, it was just amazing. those of us who have known huma well, travel with her, she is the most private, the most dignified, the most competent and special person that any of us have encountered in that kind of role. to see this and weiner's explanation now. you interviewed him. let's play a little bit of your interview with him from last week.

>> okay. >> i was pranked. i was hacked. i was punked. whatever it is. someone sent out a picture. i'm an easy name to make fun of. i think that's what happened again. last friday night i tweeted a photograph of myself i intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in seattle. once i realized i had posted it to twitter i panicked. i took it down and said i had been hacked. >> luke, you sat across from congressman weiner when he was aggressively defending himself last week. now, what is your impression seeing this transformation and your assessment now that nancy pelosi and the others have called for an ethics investigation, his own party? whether he can survive politically? >> well, it really has come full circle, andrea. let's take a look at a timeline. last tuesday anthony weiner was combative. he called a colleague of mine at cnn a jackass. then on wednesday he took the

time to sit down not only with me but every other major news network and reiterated what you just heard, he said this was a prank, a hoax, a hack. someone had come in and taken away his pictures, possibly, or doctored a photograph. he didn't know if that was him or not. and perpetuated his terrible, terrible thing against his character. thursday, he said, i've spoken for 11 hours, i'm not going to speak more about this. the press conference yesterday, admitting to it, change of events, andrea. what's going to be interesting going forward is what exactly occurs within the house ethics committee. these are serious charges. if you that is to be true, it could be a huge headache not only for anthony weiner but congressional democrats in the 2012 election as this story will continue to survive. andrea? >> there's the question of whether or not he gets re-districted out. that's up to the state legislature. isn't that a big threat, luke?

>> it's a possibility. i believe the state of new york, maggie can correct me here, is going to lose two seats going into the next election. this one could possibly go. there are talks of ones in western new york. look, andrea, i'm getting e-mails now from the nrcc, from the nrsc, tieing anthony weiner to different candidates around the country, saying they should give back the money he's donated to the political campaigns. republicans are going to keep this in the media as long as they possibly can. the chairman saying congressman weiner should resign. this is like rangel all over again, in the sense you have someone who's not going to resign, who's going to stay and fight and by staying and fighting he becomes the story and overshadows what democrats want to push forward. last week was supposed to be about medicare, democrats' message on the economy. that was lost in his media wave that was anthony weiner which still shows sign of swelling and still shows signs of being strong, andrea.

>> luke russert and maggie, thank you very much, both. now, joining us for a look at what may be going on behind the scenes in the house, the former head of the democratic congressman campaign committee, former congressman martin frost. marty, this is as luke and maggie were pointing out a very tough behind the scenes drama because he doesn't have very many friends right now. in fact, i can't think of a prominent democrat in new york or otherwise speaking out for him including his former boss, chuck shuk chumer. >> if i was still there i would do what steve israel and nancy pelosi have done, an immediate ethics investigation. now, what will happen, you don't -- a member never gets expelled for something like this. the only reason you have congress ever expels anyone is if you committed a felony or pled guilty to a felony. that's not the case here. the ethics could very well seriously reprimand him. if they're going to do that, they need to do it quickly so the party can get it behind him. i imagine there will be other conversations going on. >> martin, the speaker of the

house took action within 24 hours against two members, two republican members. doesn't that create a new standard, a new threshold? it makes nancy pelosi and the democrats already look as though they're falling behind. >> not necessarily. remember that senator vitter, a republican member of the senate, continued to serve, was not asked to leave by his leadership when he was involved in a sexual scandal. larry craig, republican senator, served out his term. he didn't resign. >> that's the senate, not the house. >> i understand. i understand. but you have to look at what's gone on in both parties in both chambers. what may happen, a very interesting solution to this would be to urge him to do what phil gramm did. totally different context. phil gramm switched from the democratic party to the republican party. you may remember. in the mid 1980s. what gramm did was to resign his seat then run for re-election in a special election. if anthony weiner wants to be

vindicated, that would be an interesting path to follow. it would cost the state of new york some money, but he could resign then say i'll run in the special election, let the voters of my district make a decision on this matter. >> the republicans are not going to let go of this. >> they're not. they're not. there will be other issues that will supplant this. it's unfortunate, sad, terrible when a member does something that is stupid. there's noth other way to characterize this. anthony is a good guy. he's a good member. he did something that's inexcuse bli dumb. he'll pay the consequences whatever they are. you talked about redistricting. when new york loses two seats, which is the case here, one is taken update and one is taken out of the city. it may be the legislature says, okay, this is the seat we eliminate in the city. he has a lot of challenges ahead. no one can force him to resign. if he wants to stay, he can stay. he can run for re-election. he has a late primary.

the new york primary is not until august or september. it's one of the latest in the country. he has almost a year and a half before he has to face the voters again. there will be serious conversations inside the democratic caution with anthony when he comes back here. i don't know what he'll do. it's really up to him. the speaker cannot force him to resign. congress is not going to expel him. you don't get expelled for anything short of committing a felony. the ethics committee ought to look at this right now as quickly as possible. he ought to fully cooperate. they ought to lay it out out. if they want to chastise him, reprimand him, they ought to do it. >> the history or the track record of the ethics committee doing anything quickly, martin, is another story. >> i have a feel this time they will. this time they will. the republicans control the congress. it's a bipartisan committee. the republicans are in control. >> they can schedule it. >> they can schedule it if they want to. >> martin frost. thank now. nbc won the olympic television rights for four more sets of games.

2014 games in russia and 2016 summer games in rio de janeiro. the network won the rights to the 2018 winter games and 2020 summer games whose locations have yet to be determined. nbc will air next summer's olympic games, of course, in london. this is a very big deal. the first negotiation without the long-standing and just departed head of nbc sports. president obama is hosting german chancellor angela merkel at the white house for an official visit that will be capped tonight by a grand state dinner. the two leaders have been dealing with libya, afghanistan and german criticism of the way the united states is dealing with the deficit and with budget reform. chuck todd is nbc news chief white house correspondent and host of "the daily rundown." well, breathtaking news on the olympic front. let's go to the white house. >> reporter: i'm excited there. you know what it means, though, andrea, the punishment will be to cover russia at nbc, but the reward will be rio, right? >> well, we're all going to rio,

right? >> reporter: we're all going -- everybody's going to want in on rio. >> everybody is going to want to go to rio. let's talk about angela merkel. for all of the sweetness and light at these meetings, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. disagreements over libya, germany rejecting a role, abstaining on libya, and deep disagreements over the economy. and then at the end of the news conference i noticed someone actually asked about the brandenburg gate. when i was over there covering candidate obama in the election, preelection run-up in his visit to berlin, angela merkel did not let him make his big rally in front of the brandenburg gate. >> reporter: right. the interesting thing about the press conference, it was no surprise, right? they both tried to paper over these differences. you pointed out the two big differences. number one on libya. you had the president go out of his way to say, you know what, germany stepped up some things in afghanistan, doing a little bit extra there to free -- which

ape low s them to have resour freed up. it wasn't as if chancellor merkel said anything new, somehow saying she was supportive of what was going on with the nato thing. she simply said when he goes, and that gadhafi needs to go, when he goes germany will be there during the rebuilding effort. she brought up the real issue european leaders have about what's going on in north aftric. that is, this will lead to a refugee problem in europe. this is on their doorstep, number one. on the issue of the greek kdebt c crisis, he talked about the fact there was the politics of the bailouts here. were unpopular. imagine being in germany having to bail out another country. he's trying to be apathetic, but sounds like still sent the message, hey, will you bail out greece and do it sooner rather

than later, please? >> they have a lot to talk about also. presumably they will ratify decisions that seem to be in place for the new imf head in germany, now going along with france and christine lagarde. that's in america's interest, according to the white house, because they want to keep the other big international monetary group, the world bank, in american hands. that's sort of a long-standing agreement. chuck todd on all things foreign right now. over there at the white house. thanks so much, chuck. >> reporter: see you in russia. >> or rio. up next, rare daytime bombings in libya. we're live on the front lines with nbc's stephanie gosk in tripoli. what is the president's real re-election opponent? the "washington post"/abc news poll tells the story. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. [ male announcer ] look at this,

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in libya, moammar gadhafi is vowing today to fight to the death, at least in audio speech, the most intense day of bombings yet. explosions have been echoing across tripoli all day long. 30 nato air strikes have hit gadhafi's compound and nearby. stephanie gosk live in tripoli. stephanie, you've been experiencing all of this, some of the explosions going off right behind you in an earlier report. tell us what is going on in tripoli and do we think that gadhafi's audio speech is real? >> reporter: what we don't know if it's real. it seems to be a response to these bombings. there's no way to verify it for sure. it's a message we've been hearing from gadhafi over and over again. as you say, this is the biggest barrage from nato since this campaign began. there have been excchos of bombings throughout the day. right now we're hearing planes

circling above and some explosions in the distance. among the targets, gadhafi's compound which has been hit on several occasions. amazing it isn't completely destroyed at this point. it was hit again today. leveling a guesthouse where south african president zuma actually stayed when he was here a week and a half ago to convince gadhafi to step down. and defiantly gadhafi is not doing that. nato has been intensifying its attacks and today we're getting a real taste of that. andrea? >> stephanie gosk in tripoli. thanks so much. stay safe. and still ahead, wikiwars, as palin supporters try to rewrite history. plus restoring rinse. it's the only listerine® that gets teeth two shades whiter and makes tooth enamel two times stronger. get dual-action listerine® whitening rinse. building whiter, stronger teeth. so let's plant some perennials that'll turn up every year. trees and shrubs to give us depth. and fill it out with flowers

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president obama is struggling to overcome fears about the economy that remains the biggest obstacle perhaps to his bid for a second term. msnbc contributor and managing editor of postpolitics.com, chris cillizza joins us. the new "washington post"/abc poll is a strikingly bad pole for the white house.

the approval rating overall, losing nine points. what else in there are you looking at? >> yeah, well, andrea, you hit on it. we spend so much time, i do, talking about the republican field, is it weak, is to strong enough? can they beat president obama? what we probably should be paying more attention to is what's the unemployment rate and do people think the economy is moving in the right direction? the answer at least in the "washington post" poll today is clearly no. that's a big problem for president obama. let me highlight one number in there. we asked who do you trust more to handle the economy better? republicans in congress, 45%, president obama 42%. three months ago, president obama had a 12-point edge in that question. that's a disturbing trendline if you're sitting in the white house or chicago trying to plot how to get president obama re-elected to a second term. >> and it may be within the margin of error, it clearly is, but for the first time, mitt romney edges ahead of barack obama head to head.

>> and no accident there, andrea. i don't think we should be surprised. if this is a referendum on the economy, we think 2012 will be ultimately, then if the president isn't doing well in the eyes of voters on the economy, other people who are viewed as credible alternatives are going to do well. this is great news for mitt romney. 49%, 46% isn't statistically significant as a lead. i can guarantee you every single mitt romney donor, activist and every single person on the fence about supporting mitt romney got sent a copy of the poll that showed five people losing to president obama and mitt romney, again, not statistically significant, but ahead. that matters in moments like this. beating president obama, a huge priority for the republican party. the issue, is it going to be decided on electability? that's what mitt romney hopes. or on core conservative beliefs, where he might struggle more? >> just finally, that matters in the commentary, in the news articles. may not matter to the core voters no iowa and other places who choose their nominees not

necessarily based on electability in a general election. >> and, andrea, you've highlighted it. the constant struggle is in voter intention, head versus heart. is it someone they think can win or is it someone they really deeply believe in? i think mitt romney is hoping the distaste for president obama is significant within the republican party that they're going to make a head decision. they're going to say, let's evaluate this, who's the best guy to draw a contrast with the president to be a reasonable, credible alternative to the president on the issue which is the economy? if as you point out there are those heart voters in iowa and south carolina voting more on social conservative issues. he's going to struggle more, clearly. >> chris cillizza with "washington post"/abc poll. we'll see you later. thanks, chris. up next, president obama loses his top economic adviser. plus education nation. is the for-profit college boom the next big bubble to burst? clustery things have fiber? fiber one. almost tastes like one of jack's cereals.

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those german bean sprouts may not be the cause of the deadly e. coli outbreak in europe. all the test samples have come back negative. german health officials are sending another task force to conduct more tests. 22 people have died. thousands are sick from the bacteria throughout europe. in iowa today, flooding from the already swollen missouri river is expected to break levees and dams in record numbers. the river is threatening the small town of hamburg, iowa, where crews scrambled to pile massive sandbags and shore up levees. seven states from montana to south dakota are under a flood emergency. more than 20,000 people have been evacuated. federal officials are predicting heavy flooding will last throughout the summer. in arizona thousands of firefighters are struggling to contain wildfires that scorched 230,000 acres of land. 230,000. winds gusting up to 60 miles an hour are complicating the efforts to fight the blazes that have forced thousands to

evacuate. sarah palin's account of paul revere's midnight ride launched a wikipedia war and is now late night gold. >> for those who say it's implausible for revere to have ridden a horse while ringing a bell and firing multiple warning shots from a front-loading musket, all i have to say is, prepare to eat historical re-enactments. first we insert -- there we go. >> and it went on and on. politico, senior politico reporter jonathan martin joins us right now. well, none of us would try to get on a mechanical horse and reload a front-loaded musket while ringing a bell, but you get the point. and the whole wikipedia deal, let's talk about just what this

does to sarah palin or is this just more fun and games? >> you know, i think this distracts from her attempt to, you know, try to get in the public eye and join the political conversation. if you think back over the last couple of years, oftentimes for all the ridicule that sarah palin receives from these comedy shows and scrutiny she gets from the press, she oftentimes can be her own worse enemy, andrea. she'll say things like this or do things like write on her hand notes to herself. to avert from the actual substance of her message, and her natural charisma and focus on these sort of -- it's not helpful for her if she's trying to become a serious political player and trying to run for president. although i think the jury is very much still out on just that, whether or not she wants to become a sort of full-time political celebrity in the rush limbaugh fashion or if she

actually wants to try to join the political fray and run for president. i think both prospects are very much realistic. moi point is we're not sure which bucket she's falling in yet. >> i mean, any one of us could forget, when pressed, the question of who did what during the revolutionary war. the point is it was a gotcha question. the basic question, what have you learned so far? she was the one who said she was on a tour to remind americans of our history, that it wasn't a political tour, it was a family vacation to remind us of what the founders did. you'd think at paul revere's house she would have brushed up on that history and now wikipedia had to close its editing function because palin supporters were trying to rewrite wikipedia to match her version of events. >> i think your point about her not conceding that she made a

mistake sort of captures one of her other challenges which is she is loathed to ever admit she was in the wrong or made a mistake. i think that's partly a product of not having people around her that can sort of give her that hard truth, that can say, look, it's time to walk this one back. and if you are your own adviser, your husband is your adviser, there's nobody in the room to tell you to do those kinds of things, to apologize when it's called for. then you oftentimes wind up compounding a problem and making it worse for yourself. >> jonathan martin from politico. thank you very much. >> thank you, andrea. president obama's longest serving economic adviser is stepping down. austan goolsbee, the youngest and arguably funniest member of the cabinet, is returning to his teaching position at the university of chicago. this opens up another big vacancy on the economic team for an administration struggling to fill vacancies. all this amid new signs of a threatened economy.

ezra klein from the "washington post" joins us now. first of all, the back story behind austan leaving. we know him well. his tenure was in jeopardy if he didn't go back. he's head of the council of economic advisers and other members of the council are not nearly as well known or as expert in the economy. you don't have a whole lot of ph.d.s running around there. >> right. there's a bit of an asymmetry with austan, interesting for him. he was very well known and beloved publicly, been on the daily show multiple times. incredibly funny spokesperson, muchi much funnier talking about economics than i am. he wasn't powerful internally. this is a moment when the administration isn't going off economic advise as much as political advice. they're dealing with congress and trying to negotiate with republicans. that wasn't the chicago professor's forte. in some ways he had more success externally at this moment in the administration's trajectory than internally which i think has

been frustrate ing to him. >> at the same time, they're trying to negotiate with congress, that is a very, you know, challenging negotiation, on the debt ceiling. on a larger budget agreement. they're trying to deal with what is the best economic policy going forward, dealing with a recovery that may, or may not have stalled. and you have global economic issues and no one really standing in the wings ready to step in here. they've lost christina romer, they lost larry summers. they've lost a lot of their big name ph.d. economists and have political advisers with economic skills and a lot of other vacan vacancies. just yesterday i guess the long tv standing, long-stalled nomination of the new fed nominee, diamond, a nobel laureate, rejected because senator shelby and others on the republican side were not giving him a hearing. there he is at his nobelor er s ceremony and he can't get accepted to be on the fed board.

>> i would have thought once you have nobel prize on your resume, you're done having to worry about your qualifications. i would have been wrong on this. this is a moment that's particularly treacherous for the economy and if anything we should be more solicitous of the best work in economics. austan goolsbee represented that best work. he's an expert on the tax code, we're talking about tax reform. it's not a fun time to be an economist associated with this administration right now. you know what needs to be done, you know the size of the emergency and yet washington is doing very, very little. it's very paralyzed. and if anything, there's been a real backlash against doing anything dramatic. the republican congress has really tried to rein in the obama administration. it's a very tough time to be part of it. >> ezra klein, thanks to see you. thanks so much. our spotlight on education nation takes us to capitol hill today. senators heard horror stories about college students paying more and getting less from controversial for-profit

colleges heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. iowa senator tom harkin chaired today's hearing and the investigation, and is an old friend of the forecast. great to see you, senator. thanks so much. >> andrea, nice to be here. >> among your witnesses there was a witness from a non-profit organization describing the problem. this is pauline abernathy. >> debt at for-profit colleges is off the charts. this sector has the highest share of students with debt. the highest debt loads for degrees. and the highest student loan default rate. >> it's that student loan default rate that is so striking, senator. what do you think is the solution here? i guess how would you define the problem? >> well, the problem is that these for-profit schools are using high-pressure tactics to get these students to sign up. they get the government loan, guaranteed loan. they get the pell grants.

these go to the schools. and then the students get a sub par education. a lot of them drop out. some of these schools have as high as 84% of their students drop out before they ever finish. yet these students have huge debts that they will carry with them for the ref st of their lives. >> i want you to play a little bit of adam schmidt, a constituent of yours, a former college student. he testified, he's from iowa. i know you heard his testimony. i want to share it with our viewers. >> obtaining a degree is viewed by most as a financial plus. the judge who reviewed my child support said that despite having recently lost my janitorial job, i would be able to get a job making as much or more with my education. now i owe $45,000 in student loans without a permanent job to pay those bills. only very rarely in the past seven years since completing my

associates have i been able to make any payments at all and the debt continues to pile up. >> senator, what can you do to help someone like adam schmidt, a heartbreaking story? >> andrea, right now, to make sure that he gets into an income-based repayment program. the real solution is to make sure that these don't happen anymore. we have to have better legislation, better rules for the for-profit industry. for example, we heard testimony this morning that one state in florida, there's one for-profit school that for an associates degree, that's just for two years, it's $46,000. the same program at the miami-dade community college is $6,000. same program. $46,000 for-profit, $6,000 at community colleges. we need to have better oversight over the for-profit schools to make sure that they aren't just

gouging students, going after the most vulnerable of students, getting them in and then just letting them go without any support. >> i know you're going to stay honest, senator harkin. i want to correct myself, that was eric schmidt from iowa telling his story of $45,000, $46,000 from debt from the associates degree and still no job. thank you very much, senator. in philadelphia, the school district has begun issuing more than 3,000 pink slips, half involving teachers. fueling a legal battle with the teachers union there. for now, though, layoffs are on hold pending a hearing next week on whether some teachers were unfairly exempted from those cuts. philadelphia school superintendent arlene ackerman will be joining me to discuss all of this tomorrow live in philadelphia as we take education nation on the road. if you're in the area, do come by to the constitution center by 12:30 to be part of our live audience. if not, always watch us right here at 1:00 eastern. and up next, weiner's

downfall with "the new york times" columnist charles blow.

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i'm tamron hall. coming up on news nation, at 2:00 p.m. eastern time. police have reason to believe a missing nursing student in california was murdered. what could be a link between her disappearance and another student. the erie similarities investigators are looking into right now. plus a man takes out a billboard announcing his ex-girlfriend had an abortion. his attorney, if you can believe this, says even though it may be offensi offensive, it is protected speech. this has set off a huge debate and it is our "news nation" gut check. anthony weiner's mea culpa may not be culpa enough for his political critic ps the social network that got him into trouble was lining up yesterday

with his confessional. charles blow was one of those tweeting during the news conference yesterday and joins us now. charles, great to see you. you were all over the place among your tweets. you said notably the wife is not standing by his side. that was to the relief of many. you also tweeted that this man is so in love with the bright lights that he can't even walk away when he's withering under them. sad. it was sad, wasn't it? >> it was very sad. i mean, there's -- it's a big pr faux pas. i mean, he doesn't seem to know how to handle his scandals. not only did he lie for ten days about it, when he finally got up to the podium to confess it, he took almost 25 minutes of questions which only opened up the door to more questions as to whether or not he was having phone sex with these women,

whether or not they were all adult. there were a lot of questions that he could have avoided if that statement had been more carefully crafted. he left the podium and went about his business in the vain of tiger woods or other people. >> what is it -- let me just ask you, woman to man question, charles. what is it about men who are willing to risk everything when they are at the peak of their power and especially men in politics? they seem to have this death wish, this self-destructive thing that a lot of women have been talking about amongst ourselves. we don't understand it, frankly. >> i think, you know, people have said that it's a weirdness. that it is stupidity. and speaking as a man, men do strange things when it comes to issues surrounding sex. so i think a lot of people are throwing stones from glass houses. i think that if you expose the secret sex lives of most people,

there would be things in there that you would not want to be exposed and things that you might be embarrassed about. in the senator -- i mean, in the congressman's case, you know, he could have come to a mike early on in this process and said, i like flirting with young girls on the internet. i know that i shouldn't to that because i'm married. and i shouldn't do that because i'm a congressman and i'm sorry for that. on some level, many people would understand that there are people who do things that they probably would not like to be made public. he did not do that. in fact, it's not the male part of it. it's not even the -- what he did in the first place that is the biggest problem. it is the covering up and throwing other people under the bus that is the problem. it is taking brightbart who has a very checkered past and saying, who are you going to

believe, me or the devil? and throwing him under the bus. and in the process, kind of elevating and redeeming brightbart to some degree. it is throwing the young woman in seattle who ended up being in the public light for ten days, struggling to maintain her own personal privacy, struggling to try to explain why someone would send this to her when he could have explained that and saved her all that heaardship. he didn't. he let her squirm. it's that part people i think are the most upset about. it is using other people to cover himself. the actual part of men doing stupid things, we do stupid things sometimes. >> charles, i did not mean to put you on the spot for the entire -- >> i fully confess. >> but it is true that new yorkers are very open minded and very forgiving people of political figures and of other

figures and so a second and third act especially in new york, but the way he handled it was certainly not in his best political interest. thank you, charles blow, thanks very much for joining us. and political story will be making headlines in the next 24 hours? i'm jon haber of alto music. i've been around music my entire life. this is the first alto music i opened when i was 24. my business is all about getting music into people's hands. letting someone discover how great music is, is just an awesome thing. and the plum card from american express open helps me do that. i use it for as much inventory as i possibly can. from picks...to maracas... to drums... to dj equipment... you name it, i can buy it. and the savings that we get from the early pay discount on those purchases has given us money to reinvest back into our business and help quadruple the size of our floor space. and the more we expand,

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once we begin an investigation, we have the responsibility to look in every corner, make sure every "i" is dotted and every "t" is crossed, and try to make sure that we do credit to the process. people have a lot of angst right now, and so then when they see a politician, a public official, that seems to have violated their responsibility to the people that we all work for, the american taxpayer, it just adds

to that layer of disgust that people have right now. >> that is joe bonner, the chairman of the ethics committee. the first word on how they're going to proceed. they can't confirm that they're taking up the case, but he's clearly talking about it. which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours? msnbc contributor and managing editor of postpolitics.com chris cillizza joins us. it's not going away. >> well, you stole my thunder. >> i'm sorry. >> andrea, you're exactly right. it's not going away. if you needed evidence it wasn't, as soon as anthony wiener had that extraordinary press conference, i'm doing something later about the top five political press conferences in modern memory and that's going to be in there, after he had it, nancy pelosi, and steve israel said we have to have the house ethics committee look into this. if that's not a sign they would like him to exit stage right,

there isn't one that exists. this is going to keep going and it's going to get uglier before it gets better for anthony wiener. >> and i apologize for to you chris cillizza for the tabloid footage up there, but it is going to get uglier for a lot of folks. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> and that does it for us for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." tomorrow we're on the road in philadelphia with education nation. if you'd like to join our audience live from the national constitution center be there by 12:30 eastern on the mall. among our guests superintendent of philadelphia schools. and bill burton and michael steele. my colleague, tamron hall, has a look at what's next on "news nation." >> hey there, andrea. in our next hour we're following the latest fallout from anthony wiener's explosive admission. there are reports the congressman offered an adult film star, a porn star, pr advice to lie about their

ongoing relationship. what happens next here? plus, new comments from president obama about may's disappointing jobs report as a new poll finds americans give the president his worst marks yet on the economy. "news nation" is just minutes away. plus restoring rinse. it's the only listerine® that gets teeth two shades whiter and makes tooth enamel two times stronger. get dual-action listerine® whitening rinse. building whiter, stronger teeth.

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right now on "news nation," new allegations that congressman anthony wiener attempted to get an adult film star to lie and even offered her reportedly help from his team. how will this play into an ethics investigation? and police fear a missing nursing student is dead but her family is clippinging to hope. and the disturbing similarity to another kidnapping and murder case in the same area. plus, what would happen if president obama and mitt romney faced off today. a new poll show was some voters are thinking. plus, freedom of speech or an invasion of privacy? a man