the new poll that could have the white house extremely happy about a concern congressman who can't keep his pants on. chaos. yemen, syria, libya. violent clashes across the arab world leave scores dead and fresh fears. all order in the region is quickly being lost. and, yes, the distinguished gentleman. brooklyn's most talked about wiener tries to salvage what's left of his political career, hir marriage, his name. can he do it, or is he just cooked? if there's one person today who may actually be glad of the attention swirling around anthony wiener, it may be the president himself. the congressman's digital deceit has been exposed and the tabloid newspapers are in no doubt as to what is the most important story

of the day. the naked truth says the "new york post." yeah, i'm a schmuck says the quk new york daily news." but there are other headlines that have nothing to do with sexting and everything to do with the increasingly perilous state of the nation. sausm today says the country owes not $1.5 trillion but $62 trillion in unfunded obligations which means that every household now carries a debt of $534,000 each. "the wall street journal" reports that almost 40% of homeowners who took out second mortgages to pay for everything from new cars to college for their kids are now under water on their loans. but perhaps most disturbing of all for the president is a new "washington post" poll which finds that americans' disapproval of his handling of the economy has reached record highs. by a martin of 2 to 1, americans

say the country is seriously on the wrong track and 9 out of 10 see the economy in purely negative terms. but perhaps most startling of all for the white house, the same poll shows that among registered voters, mitt romney, who only just announced his run for the white house, is ahead of the president by 49% to 46%. any laurels he might have rested upon following the death of bin laden have certainly been pulled from under his feet. this afternoon at the white house, the president addressed the nation's economic woes. >> 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. we've still got some enormous work to do. as long as there are still some folks out there who are unemployed looking for work, then every morning when i wake up, i'm going to be thinking about how we can get them back to work. >> and that's why we begin our broadcast not with whether

anthony wiener can hold onto his congressional seat in new york, but whether president obama is now in serious jeopardy of losing in 2012. let's get more now from chuck todd, nbc news chief white house correspondent joining us live from washington. good afternoon, chuck. and the numbers, they say it all. americans are deeply unhappy and they're looking for change, aren't they? >> reporter: well, they are. and you talk to the foux helks at the white house and they're not surprised by the poll numbers. they have seen similar numbers they have seen from the campaign for the dnc, and about the only thing that they would take issue with is simply saying it is 2011, not 2012, and that there will be a fuller conversation and that they're counting on this election not being a full-fledged referendum just on the president but that it will become a voice of the vision of the president and a vision of the eventual republican nominee, but considering everything that came out over the last three to

four weeks about the economy, all of it bad, you know, it's there he goes. it's no wonder, as i was talking to one person about this, it's no wonder all of their numbers are as bad as they are. you heard the president. his argument is this is a bump in the road and that it's going to continue to get better. the problem they face is what if this is not a bump in the road. what if this is the start of a negative trend? that's a conversation that they're not willing to have yet publicly. >> but is there anything the president's team can actually do because we've had stimulus, we've had quantitative easing, and still unemployment is high, the housing market won't move, and the economy seems stuck. >> reporter: i'll tell you one thing i have talked to some administration folks about, not here at the white house, some folks in the administration but a little bit frustrated with how both the white house and congress have handled the housing situation, there is a

way they would argue that this housing market should be allowed to bottom faster and quicker meaning these banks should be forced to take these write downs on these mortgages, forced to deal with dealing with the fact that houses are worth less than they are on paper and force the banks to take what's called write downs and they won't do it, and that in itself is creating this instability in the housing market, and until you get that done, martin, nobody expects the economy to ever come roaring back. >> absolutely. chuck todd at the white house. joining us now is the chairman of the republican national committee. good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon, martin. thank you for having me on. >> it's a delight. good news for the rnc, romney at 49%, the president at 46%. this looks like a good time for republicans, doesn't it? >> well, i mean, it's a good time for republicans, but, you be fortunately for our country, it's a terrible time for people looking for work because we have

a president who just doesn't seem to want to engage in what the most obvious problems are in our country. and you laid it out perfectly with just the numbers which is we're dying under an avalanche of debt. we've got a president that's proposed a budget that includes the biggest budget deficit in the history of our country. we've got reel problems in this country, and we're really in a battle for the very idea of america economically so i'm not surprised we have a poll here that shows that basically only 27% of all registered americans believe that this president is doing a good job and only 20% of americans think that he's handling the economy well. with that type of record, this president is not going to get elected and he's not going to get re-elected if he can't put americans back to work. >> it's interesting, isn't it, mr. priebus, because you're right to appeal to the economy as his greatest opponent. you don't appeal to a particular

republican candidate because that doesn't appear to be where the potential challenge to him is coming from. it's from the economy. that's where this election is likely to be lost, isn't it? >> well, the problem the president has right now is an old -- it's a sort of a political test that all candidates have. it's how do you square up against anyone but the president or how do you square up at anyone but him. right now anyone but obama does pretty well in a generic poll, and that's because americans are coming to the conclusion that we have someone in the white house that's whistling past the graveyard while, unfortunately, and as stunning as it is, our country is going broke. that's terrible that we're even talking about this right now in our country, but that's where we're at, and americans are learning that, and listen, this is not -- i'm the chairman of the republican national committee. this is not a republican or a democrat issue anymore, this is about saving our country and our

economy is in the ditch and we have to do something about it and, unfortunately, this president just doesn't get it. >> in this same polling group, republican voters were asked who they'd vote for if a caucus were held today. again mitt romney topped the list with palin following but no one else reached double digits. are you concerned at all that there appears to be an overall dissatisfaction with potential candidates for the gop and how do you see this particular race focusing on your own party, how do you see that race shaking down? >> well, you know, martin, i think the field is still getting set. i think it will be set by the end of summer. but i think the field as it is now is very strong. i think that we have intelligent, articulate alternatives to a president that the american people are getting ready to fire -- >> would you like to see sarah palin run? >> you know, it doesn't bother me either way. >> so you're not particularly committed to her running and you're not that bothered as you

say. >> i'm not committed to anyone. i'm committed to doing whatever i can to make barack obama a one-term president because i think he's destroying our country economically and that's my job at the republican national committee. >> okay. let's turn now to anthony wiener. house minority leader nancy pelosi has called for an ethics investigation. i know this is a bit of a gift for you, but you have also called for his immediate resignation, haven't you? >> the man is a creep, and he's a member of the united states congress, and he's admitted to flat out lying not only to the american people multiple times but to multiple reporters and even coming back to hallways after he knew -- >> can i ask you, is john ensign a creep as well? >> well, you know, listen -- >> sorry, can you just answer that? >> john ensign resigned. i'm not going to get -- >> was he a creep prior to his resignation? >> i have no idea about whether or not he was a creep or not, but the man resigned and he did

the honorable thing, and the reality is that i think anthony wiener should do the same. i mean, what's the solution? you've got nancy pelosi and my counterpart at the dnc basically being -- my counterpart is silent. nancy pelosi wants an investigation. why do we need to spend taxpayer dollars on investigating whether or not the guy is a liar or whether or not he's fit for public office? the man should resign and we should move on and put someone else there that's fit to serve. >> mr. priebus, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. >> thank you, martin. appreciate it. coming up, congressman anthony wiener. enough said. and violence spreads throughout the arab world. we go live to a region embroiled in chaos. next.

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huge explosions have rocked the capital of libya during a series of nato air strikes. some of the blasts appear to have been close to the compound of colonel gadhafi. but the libyan leader is absolutely defiant issuing an audio recording on state television and repeating his insistence that he will neither surrender nor be defeated. we're joined by nbc's stephanie gosk live in tripoli. can you give us a sense of how severe these nato attacks have been around tripoli? >> reporter: well, martin, it was the biggest barrage so far of the campaign. literally all day long we were hearing day we were

told that altogether 26 people were killed and 60 people injured. but we heard a defiant gadhafi again. that audio tape, we didn't see him, and there's actually no way to verify whether or not that was recorded today, but it was a familiar message. he said i will stay here, they will have to take me out dead before i will give up to nato and it's better to be a martyr than to be defeated. martin? >> the head of the african union panel for libya has urged gadhafi to go. president obama has said the same. yet, here he is, he issued a statement in effect defying the entire international community. for how much longer can this go on? >> reporter: well, if you listen to what he has to say, it goes on until he's dead. i mean, that's exactly the point he's been making. we hear that from people here in the city, too.

our government minders say to us, well, how come we're not hearing from european leaders? how come they're not talking to us. they have said before we will not negotiate with gadhafi's government. he has to step down before negotiations will take place. people here are saying he's simply not going to do it. the offer on the table to gadhafi is he could leave presuppr presumably with some sort of immunity, go to a country with no extradition treaty. but he's defiant he was not leaving. >> stephanie gosk, thank you. be safe where you are. as we witness these uprisings across the middle east, americans are left wondering when and if democracy will actually take root in places like egypt, yemen, and syria. and what these ongoing protests will mean for the stability of the region. we have a professor of middle eastern politics at the london school of economics. good afternoon, sir.

gadhafi has vowed to stay in the country dead or alive. does that mean that unless there is a concerted military attempt to remove him from power, in effect kill him, that this conflict is simply going to go on and on and on? >> i think you're absolutely correct. gadhafi is not going to go anywhere. this is a fight to the end. he is cornered. he is fighting for his political and physical survival. he has made up his mind. i think nato is making a big gamble because they have decided to eliminate gadhafi and the inner circle. they are hoping that by killing gadhafi they'll bring the conflict to a fruitful conclusion, but the reality is this conflict will last probably between zero hour and one year. in the meantime great devastation and the civil war continues, martin. >> can we move then to the yemen. we're learning president saleh was much more seriously wounded

in that rocket attack than previously thought. does that mean he's unlikely to return from saudi arabia, and could that be the break through that the protesters have been seeking? >> i mean, i think you asked me about libya and now you ask me about yemen and probably later on you will ask me about syria. >> i am. >> this is what we call regime confrontation. in tunisia and egypt you have regime change. whether it's gadhafi or the yemeni president, they will fight to the end. they will fight to preserve their power base. they will fight to preserve their interests. they will fight to preserve their regimes. it seems to me that the united states and saudi arabia are playing a major role behind the scenes to convince the yemeni president not to return. the people around him, his family and his inner circle, would like him to return to yemen, but he seems to me as you

suggested very seriously injured. and this could be the best thing that could happen to saleh himself and family and yemen is for him to stay in saudi arabia. let's see, let's wait and see if the next 48 hours will bring about a deal between the broadly based opposition and the yemeni regime. this is a likely scenario given the extent of his injuries and the role that the united states and saudi arabia are playing behind the scenes. >> well, as you just telepathically said, i am going to move on to syria. it looks as though the government's patience with protesters has expired completely. there are reports of multiple deaths. the syrian government is describing these protesters now as armed gangs and criminals. but most western media reports describe them simply as peaceful protesters. so is this president al assad simply smearing those who oppose his regime and hanging on by any means whatsoever? >> i think at one particular

point i would like to make very clear the situation is very confusing. there is lack of information. we don't have independent sources, but one thing is clear, the situation is spay riraling of control in syria. despite the massive force used by the president, the protesters are spreading all over syria, the situation is spiraling out of control, what we know and this is what's alarming is hundreds of security personnel have been killed in the last few weeks. not just the 120 on monday. and this is a major acknowledgment on the part of the regime. this is very embarrassing. the regime would not have mentioned the 120 security personnel killed on monday if it was not true. what's happening now is that you have a limited armed insurrection and this tells us that the uprising in syria is entering a very dangerous phase and obviously the assad regime has failed to crush the opposition, to silence the protesters. the situation, expect more escalation in the next few hours

and next few days in syria. more bloodshed and more people are going to get killed, martin, unfortunately for syria and syrians. >> absolutely tragic. we'll continue to monitor the situation right across the middle east. thank you for joining us. next, more shocking evidence presented in the case against casey anthony. and two questions on anthony wiener. why do powerful men do such stupid things? and is sexting cheating? time for the "your business" entrepreneur of the week. lori perin owns two women's resale stores in connecticut. but she wanted the cachet of being in new york city so last year she opened two new stores in the big apple. she says the move has taken her business to the next level. for more, watch "your business" sunday mornings at 7:30 on msnbc.

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for the first time in an american courtroom, prosecutors are using odor analysis to prove their case. it's happening in the murder trial of casey anthony under way right now in orlando. 25-year-old anthony is accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter and storing the child's body in her car. our correspondent kerry sanders was in court when the forensic

expert took the stand. odor analysis, what is that? >> reporter: it's extremely different because it's never been presented before, but in the scientific lab, they use a gas speck ttograph and they bre apart and determine what's in there to analyze what is that odor. the defense has suggested from the beginning that if there was an odor, it was simply garbage. the prosecution has suggested that was the stench of death. and we've seen those cans, they're sealed. they're yet to crack those open but the experts have talked about the odors in there, and the breakdown of one of the odors is critical. it is the presence of chloroform. now, one of the experts says that it was off the charts there was so much chloroform there. and a naturally decomposing body would emit some chloroform. why would this have been so high? that's because the prosecution

is going to suggest later in this case that casey anthony was able to get some chloroform and put it over her daughter's mouth to knock her out, to put her to sleep so she could go off and be a party girl. and so one of the experts that the prosecution put on said, wow, this was off the scales. but then there was an fbi agent who was also called by the prosecution who said, no, there was no more chloroform there than you'd find in a cleaning product you might buy at the grocery store. martin? >> kerry sanders in florida. as ever, thank you very much. coming up, the growing chorus of complaints about congressman anthony wiener. >> i know congressman wiener. i wish there was some way i can defend him, but i can't.

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tau taudy -- tawdry text messages. nancy pelosi is calling for an ethics inquiry in whether he misused his office in his online exploits. meanwhile, majority leader eric cantor as well as the rnc chairman on this broadcast have both said he should resign immediately. let's get the very latest now from nbc's luke russert who joins us from capitol hill. in fact, no, you're not in capitol hill, you're in our studio in washington. democrats were originally giving mr. wiener something of the benefit of the doubt, but how much of the tables have turned since what he admitted to yesterday? >> reporter: well, he certainly disappointed a lot of people within the cause cuss and that's because much like he did to the media, he lied to a lot of democrats last week when he said this was a prank, that his account had been hacked. he even reiterated that story to members of the democratic leadership last week. that's why up until about sunday nancy pelosi had his back saying we have to let the facts play out, we have to listen to representative wiener, he will do the responsible thing. it turned out on monday when he admitted that he had lied, she was very quick to bring down her

investigation of a hammer in this kiss which would be recommending he be investigated by the house ethics committee. there's not a lot of goodwill towards him because they view him as nothing else now, martin, as a distraction. last week they were supposed to hammer away at paul ryan's voucher program coming on the heels of a stunning victory in new york's 26th district. they were not able to do it because the media was enamored with this anthony wiener story. it's still anthony wiener. he does not have a lot of friends right now in the democratic caucus. in fact, republicans have been pressuring house democratic members who have received dough medicati donations from anthony wiener to give it back. you will probably see some more of those in the coming days. >> before we come very quickly to talk about any kind of

punishment that he's likely to suffer following an ethics investigation, you interviewed him. i'm very jealous of that fact because i would have loved to of interviewed him. he denied all of this to you. as you sat across him, did you believe what he was saying as he answered your questions or as you looked into his eyes, did you sense this was a man who was deliberately being deceitful if. >> you always take everything they say with a grain of salt to use a cliche. obviously there is messaging and spin with everybody, but what was odd about this case was he had been reiterating this position. did he it with me and i sort of took him at his word at that point. the second question when i said it s that you in the photograph, and he said i couldn't answer with certitude whether or not that's me. that came across as odd not only to me but it's entire country. what was different was when he not only reiterated this story to me but everybody on the major networks and then on thursday

said i have nothing else to say, i am going back to do my job. we thought after that occurred maybe there was some relevance to maybe he was hacked or at least he had a story plan he could defend. well, it turned out on monday when more photographs came out that that defense was completely implausible and it's shocking that a guy who is so media savvy like anthony wiener, somebody who is one of the most effective messengers in the democratic party in the house was so naive to think he could get away with that, especially in this modern media world. >> luke, i have to ask you very, very quickly, you have very few seconds, what kind of punishment could be brought to bear upon him? >> reporter: it all depends what happens within the investigation conducted by the ethics committee. i spoke to one democrat who said we wish he would resign so he would not be able to be investigated. he says he's going to fight and stay on there. if it was found out he was using his government communication devices improperly, there could be a punishment for that. you can have everything from censure which occurred to charlie rangel, could you have

expulsi -- you could have expulsion. if anthony wiener has any skeletons in the closet, the house ethics committee will find them. >> thanks for joining us. >> always a pleasure. from wiener to schwarzenegger, to john edwards americans are nearly getting whiplash shaking their heads wondering what were they thinking? in the case of congressman wiener, how could he fall prey to the temptations of sexting with the clear likelihood of being discovered? well, we have two women experts with us now to figure out why men are so dumb. clinical psychologist dr. michelle golan is with us from los angeles and kristin conger is a tech writer from discovery news and how stuff works.com with us from atlanta. michelle, if i can start with you, explain the psychology of this, please. why does a man like anthony wiener, a powerful congressman with a gracious and beautiful wife, why on earth does he go

online on digital devices and start sexting with strangers? >> well, i think the first point is that individuals like this really believe they can get away with it. that's what the biggest problem is, is that they believe they're om nim tent and they have this ill lution because of their own sense of power through politics or work. it's a big issue. it's narcissism. >> so is it, in your view, is sexting adultery in your view? >> oh, absolutely. i work with couples all the time that have experienced this, have been victims of it by their partner or have perpetrated it, and when we step out of our marriages and we are intimate sexually and even deeply emotional with another person who isn't our partner and is the opposite sex or is our -- could be attracted to us or them, it is cheating. it is a betrayal and it is painful and hurtful.

>> okay. kristin, what is it about the mode of communication that is sexting that makes it so tempting for people? >> right. well, i think that sexting is tempting and dangerous for some of the same reasons because you have 24/7 access to smartphones where you can hop online, see if someone is on a facebook chat. representative wiener, it came out he sent multiple chats to multiple women. it doesn't take a lot of time to snap a photo of yourself, even if you might be, say, in your office as he might have been, and then send it out to someone. so it's that kind of instant gratification that sexting offers that's so tempting and so dangerous. not to mention how traceable it is. >> so does that suggest, kristin, that the individual who would engage in this has very small low levels of self-control? >> well, it might not

necessarily boil down to the person. one interesting thing from the press conference that representative wiener had yesterday was that he mentioned that the communication felt very frivolous at the time. and that points to the fact that this is very low commitment forms of communication. you can send out an e-mail, you can send out a text, and it seems like he got stuck in a pathological pattern of doing this and maybe getting addicted to that instant gratification. >> well -- >> dr. michelle, go ahead. >> i think on that point, and this is really true, it's low commitment but it's high arousal. what happens with individuals who are politicians, you know, we've seen the slew of them, doesn't matter if they're republican, democrat, or whatever, it's about this quick lift arousal, emotional arousal and you're dealing with individuals who are in high power positions, and so their arousal level is in a constant state of needing more, and so

these things sort of peak it and allow it to be pumped up quickly, i'm needed, i'm looked at, i have attention on me, and i'm omnipotent and it's a little secret and it's a little sexy. it's that urge and desire for the quick arousal. >> as it says in the picture in front of you, me. >> yep. >> dr. michelle golan, and kristin, thank you for joining us. coming up the star of tv's biggest breakout hit. 6 million viewers a week watch faithfully to see what comes into his las vegas pawnshop. are you one of them? remember when you had more energy for 18 holes with your buddies. more passion for the one ya love. more fun with your family and friends. it could be a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. come on, stop living in the shadows. you've got a life to live.

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call this number or go to selectquote dot com. selectquote. we shop. you save. and we have some breaking news concerning the parent company of this network comcast nbc universal. nbc has again won the bid for the u.s. broadcast rights for the olympics through 2020. nbc has been the home of olympic coverage since the 1984 summer games.

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i'm amanda drury with your cnbc market wrap. finally a positive day. the dow is currently up by 17 points. a 1 point game for the s&p and the nasdaq up by 4. the markets are keeping a close eye on this right now. ben bernanke is delivering a new report containing his assessment of the state of the economy. this is his first statement since april when he said temporary factors like high gas prices were largely to blame for slow growth at the start of the year. these this from cnbc, first in business worldwide. it is consistently the

number one rated reality show on cable television. set in sin city with its clever play on words and characters that are so dynamic they must be real, "pawn stars" takes you behind the scenes to reveal what life is like for the harrison clan and the family business. they bought everything from family heirlooms to guided missiles and today rick harrison is here with us to discuss the show and his new book "license to pawn." rick, thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> 6 million viewers a week. i'm deeply jealous. how do you do it? >> i don't know. i mean, it took me years to convince a network a show about four fat guys and a pawnshop would actually do well. i think it's a lot of different things. it's not the same thing every week. it's not a motorcycle show, it's not a car show. i give little history lessons on every show. i have moms all the time come up to me and say they love the show, it's the only show they

can get their whole family together and watch. >> there's no doubt about it. do you find that at the moment particularly with the downturn in the economy that you're getting more people into the store, more interesting attempts to sell you things? >> i am getting a lot more stuff in the store but it's a misnomer when people think a down economy is good for pawn shops. remember, all those things coming in, i have to sell. and most people for some reason believe that antiques and other things like that always hold their value or go up. it's not true. it's just like the stock market. the price of antiques and collectibles goes up and down and currently they're down. >> tell us the strangie isst it. >> i have been doing this for so long they're not really strange to me. in my store right now i have a 1490 samurai sword. i have erotic art that's over 200 years old. >> erotic art. >> yeah. it's a scroll. it was give to a girl on her wedding night in japan a little

over 200 years ago. obviously it scared the hell out of her. >> i'm sure it did. >> i have four olympic medals, i have four super bowl rings, a world series ring. >> super bowl rings? >> yeah. >> from anybody -- >> most of those were bench warmers. guys who never got paid a lot to begin with and they get down in their luck and they end up getting rid of them. >> you said world series. >> i have one world series ring, three pennant rings. one of the gold medals from the -- from mexico versus brazil in the 1970, the last game world cup pele played in. they only gave out 17 medals only to the players. i have one of those. i get a lot of weird stuff. >> you clearly do. you also took possession of a sophisticated missile system, didn't you? >> that's -- what happened was we filmed it. it was the guidance system from a 1960 f-4 phantom jet for their

missiles. completely declassified and everything. somehow or the other tmz learned that i bought this, got the story completely messed up -- >> this is the news website. >> yes. the next thing you know i literally have people from the government in black cars and black suits walking in and going we need to see this and the funniest part was the production assistant goes, well, we don't like to really show thoughs until they're on the air, and he goes listen here, i want bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep now. >> were you forced to hand it over? >> no, i sho he had wed it to t they started laughing. it's 50 year old technology. >> rick harrison, thanks so much for joining us and your book entitled "license to pawn" is available in stores. after the chaos of yesterday's press conference confession, attention is now turning to whether congressman

anthony wiener can survive in congress and salvage his reputation. and after apologizing, he might have had grounds for hope. the trouble is he lied for ten days about this photo that he said had been hacked onto his twitter account. a story that set intoaccount. a story that set into motion a growing web of deceit. >> you dot questions, i do the answers and this jack ass interrupts me. the miss chief is to distract me from what i am doing. my system was hacked. pick pic tours can be manipulated. pictures can be dropped in and inserted. this is an international who-done it-it. it was a prank. i'm treating it like a prank. it is hack or prank that someone posted on my twitter page with someone else's name in it.

the photo doesn't look fom fam to me but people are cautioning me that stuff gets manipulated. >> stuff gets manipulated indeed. in this case be, the truth. how deep congressman weiner has dug for himself. i'm joined by howard from los angeles. first of all, what did you think of the single and sole management of that press conference yesterday? >> well, i thought it was pretty horrible. what you don't want to your political opposition to hijack your press conference which andrew breitbart did about a half hour before he spoke. you don't want your greatest enemy in the world to take your moment in the spotlight and that's exactly what happened. i was sort of appalled that he got hijacked. there was no security. no one watching the podium. this thing has been a pr fiasco from the start, martin. >> but from the moment he pressed send on his blackberry

device or whichever he was using, the moment he sent this was it was curtains, wasn't it? >> i don't think there was any way to get out of this. we live in a shockingly transparent world. twitter, facebook, these are public ways of communication. we think they are private but they are truly not private. i don't know if there is any private communication any more as wikileaks have proven. i think once you do that, you decide, how are we going to contain damage. let's week was let's do interviews and pray. but even then, if i was advising him, i would have done one interview last week and shut up. he insisted on going to everybody and doing interviews. he was belligerent as held. he almost had someone arrested in his office. his wife was hillary clinton's press secretary when she was a senator now works with secretary of state's office. >> absolutely.

howard, many individuals like eliot spitzer and chris lee resigned immediately. is it your view that that's the best course of action in terms of rebuilding your reputation na the longer term or do you think by being belligerent by the way he is seven saying i'm not going to resign is a better course. >> everyone has a different dna with the media and different issue to contend with. eliot spitzer's was a bigger issue because of the hypocrisy because he was fighting to change laws for sexuallization and crimes. chris lee resigned immediately because i think there was possibly more than could have come out. and he didn't want to contend with it. i understand what congressman weaner is doing. >> howard bragman, prematurely cut off there. thank you for your insights. we'll be right back.

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>> it's time now to clear the

air. and everyone from the late night comics to psychiatrists have been scratching their heads an wondering what motivates a highly successful man married to a beautiful and brilliant woman to seek out illicit on-line sexual relationships with complete strangers. it almost begs a belief that six-term congressman and favorite to become the next mayor of new york should spend at least three years on his phone and blackberry engaging in various forms of sexting. and in addition to the responsibilities of public office, some commentators have also alluded to mr. wiener's religious convictions knowing him to be jewish and a regular attendee at synagogue. and why didn't his faith deter him from such recklessness. the same question of other figures from evangelists to wall street money money. talking about the importance of

personal morality to end up being dashed upon the acts of their own stupidity. why did they do it? i think one answer may be found in a commencement address that was given by the late david foster wallace in 2005 to the graduating class of canyon college in ohio. david foster wallace was a novelist and academic. as he addressed fresh-faced graduates, he said the key to life is not who you are but who you worship. in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheist. everybody worships. the only choice we get is what to worship. if you worship money and things, then you will never have enough. worship your intellect being seen as smart, and you will end up feeling stupid. a fraud.

always on the edge of being found out. worship your own body and sexual allure and you'll always feel ugly. judging by the pictures that have come out, it's hard not to assume that the center of anthony weiner's worship was anthony weiner. maybe he needs to worship someone else. thanks for watching, dylan ratigan is here with the smartest take on the economy. dylan? >> i don't know whether today's take will be on the economy but i hope it is smart. i appreciate the hand off and the show starts right now. the big story today, whether we like it or not, is 24. that, how many hours past since we wansed as a group, you and i together, along with so many others, the is you real and chaotic scene that unfolded