the total clarity of the morning. i had a hard time figuring out what was going on in too big to fail. in this brand-new movie, you n see it all. you learn what it looks like, you get the full glamorous look, the "this only will hurt for a minute" moral depravity of decisions that's brought this country to its knees. you see what the bad guys look like for the first time and what they did to us. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "politics nation" with al sharpton starts right now. hey, republicans, americans are drowning. throw them a lifeline. >> good afternoon, everybody. >> president obama goes west with a plan to help fix the housing mess, after mitch mcconnell makes the stunning statement that firefighters and cops aren't his problem. >> they are local and state employees.

>> nice leadership, republican leader. tonight, fixing the economy without republican help, with congresswoman jan schakowsky and richard wolf. >> pawillard really wants to pl makeover, right wing edition. he just can't stick to one side. >> my collaborator and friend. >> how about help from these guys? >> no abortions, no exceptions. >> the government must intervene. >> you are pro having your cake and eating it, too. >> tonight, the gop goes extreme with dana milbank and knee nia mallika henderson. "politics nation" starts right now.

welcome to "politics nation." i'm al sharpton. tonight's lead, forget the republicans. the president is taking new steps to help people. today president obama unveiled a plan to help millions of struggling homeowners, stepping in where republicans failed to act. >> we can't wait for an increasingly dysfunctional congress to do its job. where they won't act, i will. today i am pleased to announce that the agency that is in charge is going to be taking a series of steps to help responsible homeowners refinance and take advantage of low mortgage rates. we can't just wait for congress. until they act, until they do what they need to do, we're going to act on our own.

because we can't wait for congress to help our families and our economy. >> the plan would help up to 4 million underwater homeowners refinance their loans. they could each see money in their pocket, money that could be used to help get the economy moving and get people more jobs. and this is just the beginning. on wednesday, the president will announce an executive order to help students repay college loans. and in coming weeks, he'll move to help veterans and small businesses, all of this done without the do-nothing republicans in congress who have twice blocked action on his jobs bill. of course, these same republicans claim it's not their fault. >> these bills are designed on purpose not to pass. their story line is there must be some villain out there who's

keeping this administration from succeeding. >> some villain who wants to stop the president from succeeding? i wonder who mitch mcconnell could be talking about. >> our top political priority over the next two years should be to deany president obama a second term. >> earlier today, the president addressed mcconnell directly. >> their leader, mitch mcconnell, said that -- and i'm going to make sure i quote this properly. saving the jobs of teachers, cops and firefighters was, quote, a bailout. a bailout. these are the men and women who teach our children, who patrol our streets, who run into burning buildings and save people. they deserve our support. >> this is outrageous. that is the e petmy of an insult

to the american people as far as i'm concerned. joining me now is congresswoman jan schakowsky, democrat from illinois. and msnbc political analyst richard wolf. thanks for joining me. congresswoman, i was about to go off into a sermon because it's just outrageous. how can you call firemen, policemen, teachers a bailout? >> well, i don't think any americans would agree with that. they want to make sure that their streets are safe, that our first responders are available when we have natural disasters and fires and certainly want their children to get a good education. and the very idea that he would call that a bailout when people are feeling so deserted because of the obstructionism of the republicans. they feel that there is no help coming from the congress. and they're right. this is a -- this is republican leadership that is willing to bring the economy down. they've proved it already, in

order to defeat barack obama and take all americans with them when it does. >> it's an amazing, total disregard for what is good for the american people. richard, let me show you this, rick santorum when he was in the debate over housing. look at how he deals with this housing crisis. >> what would you do as president to fix the overall problem of real estate and the housing market. >> we need to let the market work. >> these kinds of actions on the part of government haven't worked. the right course is to let markets work. >> we need to get government out of the way. reform dodd/frank and reform a lot of these other regulations that have gotten in the way. >> repeal the jobs and housing destruction act known as dodd/frank. >> here you have santorum, cain, romney, bachmann, it's all of them saying almost the same

thing of, let it go the way it's going, let the markets fix it, let this happen, that happen, government should stay out of the way. government helped do us in by deregulation and allowing housing to become a crisis. so you don't want government to repair what government did? >> obviously they're speaking to ideology here. they believe the free market approach is correct. most people actually look at the free market gone wild through the 2000s and say, that's how we ended up with with the financial collapse. whatever your argument is on the economy and what the right policy is, just isn't a matter of politics, it's incredibly tone deaf. effectively they're saying to those homeowners who are struggling, you're on your own. go default. have your houses repossessed, let the market fix it out. i guess you could go into a bed and breakfast or some motel somewhere until you figure out how to get things right.

that's a tough sell in a difficult economy. and i don't know what these candidates think they're going to do in terms of reaching out to voters beyond that very narrow base that watches these kinds of debates and these primaries. >> congresswoman, we're not even exaggerating this. mitt romney said outright, let me play you what he said. i want your reaction to this. >> don't try and stop the foreclosure process, let it run its course and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up. >> let it run its course -- >> incredible, cities -- >> let people default, put renters in. i mean, it would be shocking if it was not so real that he said this. >> totally unacceptable. we have neighborhoods and cities and even states that are so far under water where people are losing their homes. what i appreciate about the

president he is saying, we are not helpless in the face of this. and i'm going to use all my power to make sure homeowners who have little or no equity in their homes are going to be able to stay there. what is mitt romney suggesting? that the people by the millions, literally tens of millions be thrown out of their homes without the government doing anything to help? and they are such hypocrites, al. they talk about how the stimulus doesn't work and we're not going to do anything to create jobs. and yet i see one after another of them grinning when they cut the ribbon for projects that are in their district. it just galls me. >> that's right. and the thing that amazes me, congresswoman, is if government didn't deregulate and allow these banks and others to put homeowners in this position, they wouldn't be in this position. so government who citizens had the right to feel was protecting them from these kind of predatory situations has to repair what government did. how do you step back now and act

like we have nothing to do wit when you had everything to do with it when people thought they were being protected and they were not? >> they voted for the bailout. and now they're saying that we want to deregulate once again. we want to allow those same wall street moguls that got us into this economic disaster to be able to do it once again. and then just to let these banks who are hen't helping those hoe whatsoever, just let it run its course. this isn't the united states of america that i grew up in, reverend al. >> let me show you what mitch mcconnell says. he says, it's not our problem, it's a state problem. don't come to us about this. >> i certainly do approve of firefighters and police. the question is whether the federal government ought to be raising taxes on 300,000 small businesses in order to send money down to bail out states for whom firefighters and police work.

they are local and state employees. >> now, help me with this, richard. you're a smart man. should the federal government bail out states to help firefighters and police? no, the government ought to be protecting millionaires, he's saying. we ought to be protecting the billionaires and the big companies to make sure they don't pay more taxes. we shouldn't be doing this to help these firefighters and police. that's the state's problem. and i don't know if that's our job, our job is protecting the fat, rich guys. >> right. my opinion on whether they should or shouldn't is nearly as important as what the polls say. the american public thinks the right thing to do -- you're looking at 60%, 70% support for, quote, unquote, bailing out these states to help firefighters, first responders, teachers stay in their jobs. there's a weird situation going on where you have a rhetoric from both sides.

there's a speak of saying, anyone owning a million dollars or more is now a small business owner. i don't know how you square those two pieces of the english language up. if you have both parties saying, we need to get the economy moving, we need to get jobs growing, maybe you can't do a whole lot to convince businesses to hire people. but there are some things government can control. helping the states, a traditional role of washington for many, many decades and modifying home loans. you can't do much about the housing market. but changing the way underwriting rules play out through the government regulators, that's something washington can do. so deal with the things you can do and let the market do everything else. that seems a reasonable position for the middle ground for the left and the right. >> they know where the regulators are because they deregulated them. we're not just talking about something that is not real. this chart that i prepared shows that we're looking at the impact

on the economy, 12,000 layoffs, this is police only. police, 12,000 by the end of the year, 30,000 positions not filled. if we don't do something, this is the reality we face by the end of this year. >> and this is the real trickle-down. their trickle-down is let's give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires and that will somehow help the rest. the real trickle-down is when you cut spending at the federal level, state and local governments have to lay off their workers, critical workers that everyone needs to keep their communities flourishing and safe. i see them betting against, working against the economy. the american people support the american jobs act. they want it to pass. but if not, then the president is saying loud and clear, i am not powerless, we are not powerless, we're going to do everything we can to address this. you know that right now the

student debt is larger than all credit card debt in this country and it's about to hit $1 trillion. we're going to do something about that. >> that's why he's going to use an executive order on wednesday. and when you've got people like senator mcconnell saying, it's not our job to bail out states who need to do that for police and firemen, it's our job to protect the taxes of the rich, what are we talking about? congresswoman jan schakowsky, richard wolf, thank you both very much. coming up, how to prevent your political free fall. go back to the birther movement, of course. rick perry answering the question, how low can he go? karl rove trying to go moderate? really? it's happening. and stopping the epidemic of gun violence in this country, a mother loses her life while protecting innocent children from a hail of bullets.

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we need to talk about the epidemic of gun violence in this country. a 34-year-old woman killed trying to protect children from a gun battle is the latest outrage. her tragic story should be a wake-up call for all of us. that's next. whitestrips two hour express. in just two hours you can have a noticeably whiter smile that lasts for months. hi. hi. [ female announcer ] two hour whitestrips from crest. life opens up when you do. or a can of paint... you came together to vote, to share... to volunteer. and now, thanks to you, 10 communities have more to smile about. what's next? tell us on facebook.

on friday, a mother was shot

and killed while picking up her daughter from a brooklyn elementary school. she died acting as a human shield for the 11-year-old and other nearby children. ms. horton was not the first in the family to die from gun violence. one brother was gunned down just last year. another was killed being robbed for his jacket. three people, three lives, robbed by guns. stories like this are no longer shocking. the headlines are constant. but the victims are varied. last month, four were killed and several injured when a gunman opened fire at an ihop in nevada. three of the victims were national guard members. this year began with six people killed and 13 injured during a congress on your corner event. among them, representative gabrielle giffords. so far this year alone, over 79,000 people have been shot.

that's 268 people every day. and despite all of this, we live in a country where gun possession is rampant. there are 89 guns for every 100 people in this country. the next country in terms of gun possession isn't even close. it's yemen. and their average is only 55 guns per 100. yet given these facts, for some on the other side, the idea of gun control is a joke. >> i'm actually for gun control, use both hands. >> i'm a concealed permit holder. >> i like my guns and bible. >> gun control is hitting what you're aiming at. >> it's not funny to me because i don't care how many guns you have, how do you defend yourself

if you're a woman being a human shield to protect an 11-year-old child and other children? no matter what gun she would have had, she couldn't have protected herself from this kind of gang violence. i went out to see that family today. i'm going to preach her funeral. but i also want to say to young people, they cannot live where they feel they have to join a gang to be protected because society can't protect them from the wrong people having guns. watch this this morning. we are sending a signal to our young people that we can't protect them, they've got to join a gang to get protection. and maybe this senseless act can wake this city up. we've got to wake the city, the nation, we've got to get guns off the street and we've got to give alternatives to young people. joining me now, representative carolyn mccarthy, a democrat from new york. she became a leading voice for gun safety after her husband and

son were shot during a mass shooting here in new york nearly 20 years ago. and you have been unyielding in this fight for gun control. yet it keeps coming back, haunting us and it seems that a lot of people don't get it. congresswoman, what can we do to deal with this problem of guns in our streets all over the country, every region of the country? >> to be very honest with you, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk to the american people, what we can do about it is the average american person can speak up. right now, we've got a bill going through congress which will probably be up on the floor for a vote which is going to pass, unfortunately, hr-822 that will have concealed weapons be able to go into any state. as you know, new york has good gun safety laws and yet our governor will not be able to control that. anybody from any other state can come into our state with a

concealed weapon, putting our citizens at risk and certainly our police officers at risk. >> let me show people exactly what you're talking about, this law is hr-822. it says residents of states with lax requirements for acquiring a concealed carry permit could use their permits to carry a concealed weapon in states with stricter requirements such as new york. so this is going to increase the flow of concealed weapons coming into states that even have strict gun laws? >> but i'll be honest with you, there's no reason to even have this piece of legislation going through. mainly because states that already have these laws, they have chosen to partnership with other states and other states they did not, mainly because they were too weak. so this is something as far as i'm concerned is a states rights issue. they're always painting people like us, trying to do gun safety

issues, that we're trying to take away someone's right to own a gun. that is not true. we have never tried to do that. but with that said, the supreme court said the states and local cities like mayor bloomberg can put laws in place to protect their citizens. and that's what we're trying to do, keep people safe. >> how do you respond, congresswoman, to people that argue, it is not guns that kill people, it is people that kill people. those that don't understand that you have a lot of young people that have no idea of what to do and how to deal with a gun. you have a lot of gang violence. then you have people that -- like who congresswoman giffords was victimized by who are just out of their mind but have easy access to guns. >> that's the whole problem, easy access to guns. we know that we have tried to pass legislation to have better background checks and yet that is always being struck down. we have legislation where we try

to get rid of the large magazines that were used in gabi giffords' shooting. there's no reason to have something that has more than 15 bullets and one in the chamber, up to 30 bullets, 40 bullets. we don't need those kind of things. people want to go out hunting, that's fine. but with that being said, you're also putting the average citizen at risk. as you had mentioned, over 70,000 people have been injured by gun this is year. that's costing this country over $1 billion a year to take care of those that survive and those families and the victims. the woman that you had just talked about that was shot and killed on friday, she has 14 children. who's going to take care of those 14 children? they are going to have to be taken care of. this is happening every single day. you asked me earlier, too. what can we do? right now, i have a website going up, it's called stophr822.com.

let's get a petition going. let's show these people down in washington that there are other voice out there to stop this kind of violence out there. >> when i left the grandmother who now has to raise her daughter's children with the memory of having buried two other of her children from gun violence and then when i think of what is being said on the other side who has no sensitivity to this, it is frightening. they act as though this is meaningless and it's not. give us that website again, congresswoman mccarthy. >> it's stophr822.com. >> congresswoman mccarthy, thank you for joining me and thank you for keeping up the fight. >> thanks for having me. i'm not giving up. ahead, just when you thought republicans and their race couldn't get any worse, rick perry goes birther. and willard's doing everything he can to escape the good thing he did -- the one good thing he did in his political career.

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poor willard. no matter how hard he tries, he just can't get away from the health care law he signed in massachusetts. such a compassionate and effective program, only gets him in trouble with republican voters. no matter how hard he tries to sweep it under the rug, romney

care keeps coming up in conversation. >> when government tries to tell us what kind of health care we have -- >> romney care, their shouting. and now willard's running even further from his plan. the "los angeles times" reports that under romney's law, undocumented immigrants can get free medical care. residents don't need to prove their legal status to get treatment at public health clinics and hospitals in massachusetts. now emergency rooms can't turn down anybody. so letting undocumented immigrants get preventive care is meant to drive down costs in the long run. but romney doesn't want to take credit for that solution. his spokeswoman says, quote, if illegal immigrants are getting access to additional health care in massachusetts, it's deval pa.

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and now my favorite old jeans...fit. okay is there a woman i can talk to? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. welcome back to "politics nation." just when you thought the republican reality show couldn't go further off the deep end, the birthers are back. that's right.

rick perry was asked if president obama was born in the united states. he said, quote, i have no reason to think otherwise. not exactly a definitive answer. so the reporter pushed harder and perry said, quote, well, i don't have a definitive answer because he's never seen my birth certificate. does that make sense? what does rick perry's birth certificate have to do with it? this is so sad it's funny. with this kind of extremism in the gop is nothing new. and it's not just rick perry. here's the crew in iowa giving the tea party crowd what they want. >> we will not differentiate what is a legal and biological fallacy, that a human life is not a person. >> 50 million have died because america has not guaranteed the right to life expressly stated in the declaration of independence. >> i would immediately move to

defund planned parenthood and take that money and devote it to adoption services to create an alternative to abortion. >> life from conception, no abortions, no exceptions. >> not exactly a way to create jobs, but they're playing right to the iowa caucus voters. a whopping 50% of them support the tea party. and we're learning the tea party still doesn't have a favorite. so they're all jockeying for that vote. >> we have a department of education, but how did we get there? the constitution says -- gives no authority for the federal government to be involved in education. >> there are 59,000 other than mexicans who come across america's borders every year. this is a national security threat. >> if i could have reversed one energy-related policy -- i would

have allowed the american people to decide what kind of lightbulb they want to put in their homes. >> lightbulbs, getting rid of the department of education? the tea party might be happy, but can this talk actually win? joining me now is nia-malika henderson, a political reporter for "the washington post." and dana milbank, a national political reporter for "the washington post." thanks to both of you for joining me tonight. >> good evening, reverend. >> dana, is playing the birther card political suicide? >> well, you know, rick perry was originally doing the secession card. i think if at first you don't succeed, you go with the birther movement. i thought that this had been put to rest in the springtime. pretty much everybody else backed off of it. rick perry has chosen to march

to a different drummer in this campaign. i think he's, in fact, gone farther even than the original birther, donald trump, himself. so even a lot of tea party folks at this point say, don't associate us with the birthers anymore. >> to prove that, nia, let me show you this, no one less than karl rove said this about the birther rick perry incident. >> look, you associate yourself with a nutty view like that and you damage yourself. there's a simple answer. yes, he was born in the united states. yes, he is eligible to serve. and don't associate yourself with sort of this nutty fringe group. >> i mean, karl rove seems to be annoyed because i think he knows this can't win a general election, nia. >> that, and he's certainly no fan of rick perry. but he's exactly right. this is a movement and dana's right, too, that even the tea party, a lot of the folks who were flirting with this whole idea of barack obama being born

elsewhere have really dropped that card. and you saw barack obama obviously come out in the spring and release his long form birth certificate. what seems to be happening here with rick perry is he really is trying to be the biggest anti-romney of this crew of six or seven other anti-romneys. he talks about mitt romney being a person who would campaign in pastels and him being the person who could campaign in bold colors. this seems to be what he's doing there. obviously in some ways playing into the whole idea of donald trump and donald trump being an important endorser, i don't even know if that's the case. it seems like in some ways he's blowing a kiss to donald trump with this and trying to get his endorsement. >> dana, karl rove in saying that not only nia says he doesn't like rick perry, but he doesn't seem too crazy about herman cain either. let me show you his critique on mr. 9-9-9.

>> cain has add a number of misstatements. we've had abortion, we had earlier this year that he didn't understand what the right of return was, the palestinian demand for the right of return. he krirecently said he didn't understand what neoconservatism was when it came to foreign policy. he doesn't know what afghan policy is. the whole effect of this is not to create an image of him as being a filip floperip-floppers it's that he's not up to the tax. that's deadly for a presidential candidate. >> dana, i think the problem is that when karl rove says you're not up to the task, that's probably more of an indictment than saying you're a flip-flopper. >> karl rove is exactly right. he is fighting for the -- what's left of the republican

establishment here and saying, people, try to focus on what we need to do as republicans to win the election next november. let's not get distracted by these issues. and unfortunately for the republicans, the party is doing nothing but getting distracted by the issues, the social issues of god, gays and guns, the birther issue, immigration. and this is being accentuated in iowa which cares about the social conservatism. and the rest of the country is talking about the economy and the republicans are having trouble focusing on that. >> nia, there is a method to this appearance of madness because when you look at the polls in iowa and you raise the question to iowa republican voters, what is the main concern when they choose who they're going to support? 30% say a candidate with shared values with them. 29% say it's their position on issues. only 20% are worried about their

electable. 17% on experience to govern. so 59% of the republican voters in iowa want to know your shared values and position on issues more than whether you're electable or whether you have experience in governing. so they're playing to a crowd that says, i don't care if you win or not, i want to know if you believe what i believe, i want to know if you stand with me on the issues and maybe that's why we're seeing this kind of craziness that appears politically crazy to us. >> well, they are certainly playing to the crowd there in iowa. i think the problem with iowa is that it hasn't always been a good springboard to the presidency or even the nomination. you can ask president dole that, you can ask president huckabee that as well. that's the problem. they're obviously going for the far right and going for this january 3rd vote where 60% of the people who vote up for that iowa caucus will be evangelicals. and among evangelicals, the main

issues are abortion and gay marriage. that's why you hear all of these folks who are really trying to be the anti-romney stress those issues. i think for herman cain, he's going to have a real problem out there. he's riding high in the polls now. but he articulated a real pro-choice view earlier in the week last week and he's going to have a real problem trying to walk back from that. >> now, dana, he certainly -- in very clear language, stated that it was someone's choice, the parents' choice. he's walking it back, which gives him a problem with this crowd who, as nia said and you've concurred deals with these kind of issues. the other problem is once you come out of iowa and face the rest of the country in the republican primaries and then the ultimate winner, how do you sell that to the american public? >> well, that's exactly it. and i think that's why you see mitt romney downplaying iowa.

you see jon huntsman avoiding iowa entirely in favor of new hampshire which they think is much more representative of the country as a whole and much more capable of turning out a winner from the republican party. so iowa is just a game of who gets to challenge mitt romney in new hampshire. mitt romney does not want it to be rick perry. i think he'd be very delighted to have herman cain there. as we've seen, herman cain has trouble understanding the questions he's being asked. either that or he just has trouble answering them. >> he's going to be the first president in the history of the country that signed a constitutional amendment, according to him. thank you, nia and dana. thanks very much for joining me this evening. ahead, this 96-year-old fought back against a vote of suppression. but the story shows how widespread the problem is. and republicans just can't seem to give president obama any

credit, even when he's bringing the troops home in time for the holidays.

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all of them. >> president obama at a democratic fund-raiser today getting a standing ovation for his decision to end the war in iraq. when it comes to foreign policy, the saying goes, politics stops at the water's edge. so with the iraq war ending, the gop candidates got behind the president, right? >> we've lost in many respects control and lost the war in iraq. >> was the president's administration outnegotiated by the iraqi leaders? >> the last thing that you want to do is put those men and women's lives in peril. i think that's what the president's done. >> i guess not. okay, okay. but certainly the republicans on the armed services committee will give the guy some credit, right? >> it is viewed in the region as

a victory for the iranians. i don't think there is any doubt there is. >> not being able to close the deal in iraq is a very serious mistake. celebrating leaving with no troops behind is a serious mistake. they're dancing in the streets in tehran. >> let's be clear here. the timetable for pulling out was president bush's timetable. and no matter what it is, republicans flat-out refuse to give this president any credit, not for killing osama bin laden, not for saving lives in libya and not for ending a war that never should have happened in the first place. why? because their number one priority is to defeat this president. their motto is, don't give credit where credit's due. joining me now is bill press, host "the bill press show" on sirius/xm radio.

bill, what will it take for the republicans to give this president credit? >> yeah, you know what, reverend al, as one of my callers said this morning on my show, the republican party is like some of the banks down south, right? they refuse to give a black man credit, period. he could carry their mother out of a burning building and they wouldn't give him any credit. and you know what i think the problem is? i think because his success in the foreign policy realm -- and we'll go through the record, i'm sure -- it exposes the folly of george bush's policy. it shows that bush was all talk. obama's all action. bush was wrong and obama's doing it the right way and they can't stand it. >> well, look at what secretary of state hillary clinton said yesterday on "meet the press" -- >> president obama has passed with flying colors every leadership challenge. look at what he has done. just to name a few things, we were looking for bin laden for ten years.

it was under president obama's leadership that he was finally eliminated. >> now, you said promises made, promises kept, bill. let me show you something. senator obama in running said this as mccain called him naive. watch this -- >> if pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin laden and take him out, then we should. >> the best idea is to not broadcast what you're going to do. that's naive. >> the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin laden, the leader of al qaeda. >> well, bill, who is naive and who delivered? >> exactly. by the way, you could add certainly to osama bin laden anwar al awlaki, he's gone, moammar gadhafi is gone. the operation in libya, huge success, seven months, ending the iraq war, which by the way, candidate obama also promised to do, finally ending that, bringing all our troops home. in addition to that, i checked

out the numbers. on theseoç of the policies. >> i have to tell you. some of my liberal friends, reverend al, are saying they think obama should give back his nobel peace prize because he's been so tough. they were planning to run -- their whole thing was they were planning for 2012 to run that 3:00 a.m. ad -- remember the

hillary ad against president obama in the campaign. they can't run that anymore. that issue is off the table. president obama has delivered. he's got a record unparalleled. he's the real deal when it comes to the war on terror. >> bill press, thanks so much. we'll be right back.

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one of the biggest fights these days is a against voter suppression laws springing up in states around this country. in the last year, 34 states considered radical photo id laws for voters. those laws are in effect right now in 14 states and could impact more than 5 million voters. as we reported, there have been some victories along the way. in tennessee, the law almost did what they couldn't do to this woman. she refused to give up and has

been told she can vote after all. but there's still a long way to go. meet virginia lassiter. she's one of 126,000 eligible voters without an id in tennessee. she's been voting for seven decades. but as of now, she's only able to vote with an absentee ballot. long lines and lack of seating at driver's license centers were too much for her at 91. so she left before getting her photo id. her son, richard, says it reminds him of the jim crow laws. >> the notion that you should not have fraud in elections is probably a good thing. but if your solution is to disenfranchise 100,000 people or more, that's a flawed solution and shouldn't prevail. >> people marched, went to jail, suffered and died to give all americans the right to