hill for us and is the sage of nbc for all things political. luke thanks for being on the show. >> good afternoon, alex. >> i want to start with the spat between nancy pelosi and newt gingrich over his ethics violations. what is the latest on that and how much could those ethics violations hurt him in the long run? >> it seems like we're reliving the 1990s all over again, a time when i think we said before you and i couldn't even vote when all this was going on. >> we weren't yet born, luke. just kidding. >> we were born. >> show over. >> continue. continue onwards. >> but nancy pelosi a few days ago said in an interview up here and sort of a tongue in cheek way talking about the possibility of newt gingrich being the republican nominee, how a lot of democrats would welcome that because of all the ethical baggage he had in the 1990s. she was a member of the ethics committee that investigated newt gingrich back then. it started in 1994, went through

1997. it was about whether or not newt gingrich improperly used a tax deductible dollars for political purposes, specifically teaching a class at georgia college that had some political overtones for a pac that he was associated with and then lying to the house ethics committee about whether or not he had actually done this. and what pelosi and the investigators found he had broken house rules by filing false statements. it went to a vote before the whole how. in a 395-28 vote newt gingrich was ordered to pay a $3,000 fine. he was reprimanded to pay back the house ethics committee for the 3 year long investigation. so when nancy pelosi was saying she was locked in a room for a year, was around all the documents of newt gingrich she really is telling the truth. newt gingrich kind of went back and said that's a great early christmas present that nancy pelosi is giving me because it shows how political the ethics

committee process is. i went back and did research, alex. you can see some really interesting quotes from people like mark sanford, a representative from south carolina at that time talking about newt gingrich's actions did not reflect real leadership values. >> mark sanford talk about morality. it's a thick slice of irony there on capitol hill. >> the long story short, pelosi saying that possibly she would let these documents out later on. her spokesmen have said what she's referring to is stuff in the public record. if there is one person who if gingrich became the nominee could speak about things in the public record, not a back room deal that needs to be kept private for legal reasons, nancy pelosi would be the one that could actually point to the public record and say, paragraph 8, section 2, right there. >> she has the enpsy -- the mem. chatter on the hill, gingrich has a long and storied career

here. we have george nethercutt said he feared that newt would doom the republican party. people have certainly not been parsing words in terms of their true feelings about newt. i want to bring in our panel here. we have former congresswoman susan molinari who had her own experience with newt gingrich. but what is the emotional bead on newt gingrich? >> most of us are terrified to death he will become the republican nominee. we know that he has these visions of gravision visions of grandiosity. those of the class of '94 that he made the majority are coming out saying -- they may say this is the guy i owe my political future, to but i'm not supporting him. look. as we started to see his speakership unravel because of his imbalance, we've started to lose more and more house seats and senate seats.

and republicans are saying, not just whispering behind closed doors, we're afraid if he's the nominee, not only will we not win the presidency but we're going to start to see what we saw in '96, less republicans winning the house and us throwing away the opportunity to win the united states senate. >> i guess i would ask you, susan, why do you think gingrich has surged the way he has given he is so polarizing, all this stuff in the record. a wealth of material on him that's going to come back to haunt him. but he's a 30% and more in the polls in iowa. looks like he could win iowa probably going away at this point unless he stumbles. what is wrong with mitt romney that has led to this surge? >> i don't know. i think part of it is because he did have some amazing accomplishments. look, he along with a person i know named bill packson helped to bring the republicans to the

house majority for first time in newt gingrich. under newt gingrich we did balance a budget for the first time in generations. welfare reform. there are concrete things he was able to do. you do have the good sane newt and then all of a sudden the man who a week ago said he was on the front lines fighting communism. >> luke, i want to bring you back in here. what about the next generation of congressional representatives? i mean, those who did not serve with him who sort of don't have the institutional memory. what are they saying about gingrich's surge? >> well, it's interesting, alex. it really depends who you talk to. in terms of the next generation of leaders, john boehner, the house speaker, he was actually one who had to lose his leadership position in the 1990s when he attempted a coup against newt gingrich that ultimately was unsuccessful because bill packson thought to take over as speaker and dick army said no it's my turn basically fell on the sword for that. it's well-known around here john

boehner is not the biggest fan of newt gingrich. not would be said publicly but folks on the inside would tell you that. >> one more thing that's been welling up inside me. >> in terms of the new generation, real quickly, the new generation of leaders here on capitol hill in regards to that, a lot of them sort of have seen newt gingrich come up with really kind of the fox news effect. he's been very much a published author. he's spoken at sort of retreats. so they see him in that realm. they don't really see him as the sort of executive leader, if you wilks that he was when he was here in the legislative body sort of running the house. they never really saw that side of him. they see him a lot more as the author and the conservative sooth sayer if you will. so amongst those folks the opinion is still very much up there in the air, if you will. they could come around to him towards the end from conversations that i've had. but the guys who have been here a long time, almost to a man most of them are not the biggest fans of newt gingrich as a presidential nominee.

>> luke russert specializing in understatements about newt gingrich. maybe it's a good thing that newer generation doesn't remember his speakership. >> maybe it's a good thing. but they're going to be reminded or learn very quickly about newt gingrich. what they can do is read the column written by a certain individual who uses this same studio earlier in the morning, joe scarborough, who wrote a piece that basically damned newt gingrich with scant praise. i won't even say faint praise but scant praise. you get to the very end of his column and he says, who the hell knows what's going to happen to the republican party if this man gets the nomination? we're looking at a guy who i think is rising in the polls because one, folks already know his baggage. >> the skeletons are already out there. >> so they're used to it. and, two he's very, very blunt. as we heard what he said about really poor kids in really poor neighborhoods and lots of other examples of newt being very blunt. what we've seen over this

primary process is that the folks who rise to the top have been the people who go right at the president, who are very forceful. and mitt romney hasn't been that person. so i think newt gingrich luckily for him after his campaign imploded he is now riding this wave maybe a little too soon but perfectly since the iowa caucuses are january 3rd. he could stay the flavor of the month. >> and nancy pelosi attacking him only serves him. >> absolutely. >> people are calling him evil. i mean, literally -- >> that was my father. >> they're getting as good as they've gotten. >> to the degree that newt gingrich has become sort of a villain on both sides of the aisle i think is pretty marked. >> i don't think newt gingrich is evil per se. i hi he's a disgraced former member of congress. i think he was censored or whatever the punishment was by his own party. >> sanctions. >> reprimanded by the house of

representatives for lying. let's not even talk about his adultery because it's really irrelevant, frankly. he lied to the house of representatives. and he got reprimanded for it. what i do know is this. newt gingrich is someone that everybody in america pretty much knows. whether you're young, medium, middle-aged or old. you know who he is, right? so he is in a way name recognition, he is like the word guy. but when it comes to whether you put that person up, a habitual liar against barack obama? i welcome newt gingrich. what do you do when a train's going to hit the wall? you get out of the way and you watch it. i can't wait. >> i would say one thing. the biggest problem for gingrich we know his baggage. everybody inside washington knows his baggage. but the general american public doesn't really. and if he gets into a general lexaelectio general elections they'll remember he was the speaker and

a little crazy and he left. >> not necessarily baggage, recogniti recognition. we'll keep this conversation going after the break and ask that question, do nice guys finish last next on "now".

according to a new study, the more disagreeable you are the more money you make. i should insert a joke here. university researchers have plotted it out. men who are less agreeable make $9,000 more than their friendlier counterparts. so if nice guys really do finish last, what does that say for 2012? who is meaner or less agreeable? mitt romney or newt gingrich? >> i disagree with everything you said. >> jimmy would agree with you.

>> it's just my nature. >> i think that newt gingrich is publicly mean. but we know he's mean. but mitt romney is that secretly mean guy. you say something mean to him maybe over the phone at 9:00 in the morning, you leave your house, go to work. you come back, your house is gone. your family's disappeared. you have no idea what's happened to your life. it's more than your locks have been changed. >> right. >> dramatically alter your life. when he gets asked tough questions, questions he doesn't like he gets really prickly. he does not like it. he gets angry. i don't think that bodes well for him in the general elections. with newt he has the mean side where he'll chastise the media or whoever whatever, but the overyal, nicer, friendlier site to newt than myth. >> i've never seen the warm, gentle fuzzy mitt romney. >> i think we have to have this conversation in a broader

context with a republican here about how does president obama fit in with all of this. i think there have been times where there's been some retribution paid. just yesterday when he stood up trying to pass the payroll tax, couldn't do it, asking for us all to unite and play well together and takes his back-handed swipes at republicans every chance he gets. not very conducive to can't we all get along. >> i think emotional sort of elasticity is relevant to this conversation. if we're talking about who can beat who in this horse race that seems to be developing between romney and gingrich, who's going to give it up. i think we have the sense they're both mean enough or disagreeable enough to try to come out on top. luke, i want to bring you in. we were talking a little bit about john boehner versus newt gingrich also during the break when all good things happen. to what degree boehner and establishment folks on the hill are going to work behind the scenes to ensure that gingrich isn't the nominee. >> well, they've said from the beginning that they're really

not going to involve themselves in the 2012 process. but i would -- obviously you take that with a grain of salt. i think the person to look at here is someone like halee barber. someone who has such a control in terms of really operatives on the ground and what they can do. someone like that. you know barber talks to boehner and cantor quite a lot up here on capitol hill. ner the same realm of communication. obviously right now i think a lot of folks are kind of seeing this from the leadership side up here as your usual kind of surge. they saw this with michele bachmann, herman cain, with rick perry. so there's not a worry right now that gingrich actually could be the nominee. if you see a scenario though, alex, where he wins iowa and then maybe pulls off a miracle in new hampshire, finishes a very close second and then wins south carolina, every single gop nominee has won south carolina, then i think you'll start seeing

some of the super pacs, phone calls, money start to coalesce we got to rest kai romney here and push him across the finish line. they're worried about not losing the presidency? the house could be in serious jeopardy. >> part of the point, luke, is once you have a nominee you work with your party on the hill to send out message points, to craft legislation if you're in the majority -- >> the paul ryan budget which is the censure piece, newt gingrich came out against it saying that it was social engineering. that did not sit well with a lot of people. >> or else that piece of legislation that's going to teach all those kids in the housing projects to work. dissension as we know is not easily for gone the. when we come back, which gop candidate agrees with president obama on the payroll tax? that is next. when you have tough pain, do you want fast relief?

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while lawmakers on capitol hill debate whether to extend the federal tax cut, a new article in the chicago tribune describes the evening ritual for thousands of local families. returning home after working one or two jobs they hope they still have electricity as they flip the light switch. we're talking about people living paycheck to paycheck. and i think we have these new census numbers out that show one in three americans, which is a staggering number, is living at or near poverty. meaning one bad bill, one car accident could just bottom them out. if we're talking about the war, the messaging war on this payroll tax cut, the white house has obviously gone very aggressive. the president speaking about it later. there is now a countdown kloss on the white house.org showing how many days until the payroll tax cuts expire. i feel like the democrats have done a remarkable job in terms of getting the message out on this and actually getting

republicans over to their side of the aisle. >> democrats have done a terrific job. the president's been infinitely more focused on messaging and tactics and strategy since his joint session speech on september 8th. but i also think he's been aided and abetted by republicans. and the pledges that they've taken and the pledges of tax cuts must be paid for. i think they've boxed themselves in in allowing themselves to be used this way by the president. successfully so. >> the theory of tax -- i don't think i said this last week on your show, alex, the theory of tax cuts being paid for is absolutely a brand-new theory rum mate by my friends on the gop side. not once in my 19 years on the hill heard a republican offering a paper on a tax cut. >> on an economic level it makes no sense to allow taxes to go up on the middle class and people trying to get into the middle class. 50 bucks, 100 bucks a month makes a difference to paying bills. to somebody like me. i'm not making a zillion dollars

a year. i would notice that. i think a lot of people would notice that. the idea that republicans all of a sudden have this gospel on paying for tax cuts when we didn't pay for the bush tax cuts. the idea behind tax cuts if you are a supply side republican is they a they are stimulative. >> that's why you have mitt romney saying he's previously referred to them as little band aids and then yesterday said he supports a payroll tax cut of some sort because "families are really feeling the pinch right now". >> i think there's no doubt the democrats have played this smartly. i think the republicans made their first mistake when they didn't enendorse the payroll tax cut as an idea and it evolved with how are we going to pay for it. you had to enjoy in the initial conversation that says this is something we want to do. they were very late to that and

gave the democrats ample time to appear as if they were the only ones concerned. >> there's also something missing on this issue. the theory that okay the current law which expires december 31 is that employees only get the tax cut. so obama came out and said, why don't employers get it up to 2%. i asked small business owners across america, what is the one thing they worry about most about and that is having to pate payroll tax. give them that, pay for it or not. i don't care if you pay for it or not. but that's smart policy. >> luke, i know you're still with us on capitol hill. what is the latest in terms of this battle and the payroll tax cut package? >> oh. there's all sorts of ideas going on now, alex. it seems every senator or representative wants to kind of get behind an idea. but we expect to hear the house republican plan later tonight. they would pay for the payroll tax cut extension by freezing federal workers' salaries, possibly all the way up to 2015. that's where the bulk of the

money would come from as well as restructure their benefits there. there's also talk of susan collins and claire mccaskill, two senators, one republican, one democrat, they would actually ichbt dues a plan that would still have a millionaire's sur tax but put down the payroll tax holiday, keep it at 4.2% where it is right now, not the 3.1% where the president wants to go to so it wouldn't be expensive. there's a whole plethora of ideas out there. what's really going to happen, the payroll tax cut holiday needs to be extended, unemployment benefits which need to be extended by the end of the year. medicare doc fix so doctors don't see a 28% cut in how much medicare pace them. the best idea on capitol hill -- they're going to get coupled together in some sort of package, painstaking negotiations going on between boehner, reid, president obama, 11th hour. >> luke one of the ideas you just mentioned one of the ways of paying for this is to freeze federal employees. does that include my former colleagues on capitol hill?

>> it does. >> does that mean that speaker boehner's going to freeze his staff until 2015? if duck durbin had done that to me i'd be i'm out. >> maybe luke can speak to this. >> $174,000 is the salary. in the current structure they would actually freeze the salaries of members of congress as well. it would look terrible if you said look i'm going to freeze joe smith federal worker and then we're going to continue to keep our salaries and could grow over the years. >> certainly, luke, a situation that continues to develop. thank you for your latest dispatch information and sage views as always. the occupy movement is seeking to liberate the foreclosure crisis based on what they've accomplished with wall street. what can we expect for housing? that's next.

occupy wall street kicks off an occupy our homes campaign today in 20 cities. the point is to bring more attention to the growing foreclosure crisis in america. if that's news for you, here's your crib sheet. 4.29% of homes in this country are in foreclosure. 12.22% are delinquent or in foreclosure. and 22.1% of homes in this country are underwater. i found these numbers staggering. >> i'm one of the 22%. my house is underwater. by the way, i think that number's wrong. i think the number's higher to be honest with you. if you look at that number when it comes to minority communities, latino communities and african-american communities, i bet the number's 50, 60%. guaranteed. because those neighborhoods obviously will not garner the same prices that country club neighborhoods would. >> and it's worth noting that those numbers vary state to state. for example, in nevada 58% of

homes are underwater. florida is 44%. i mean -- >> highest unemployment rates there, too. >> i feel like the national conversation around the foreclosure crisis. >> states. >> it feels like the country of florida. >> but if we're talking about the foreclosure crisis it's also worth mentioning the foreclosure scandal which is that some lenders are accused of faking documents so they could predatory lending, the foreclosure mill scandal where people are pushed into foreclosure when they really shouldn't have been. i wonder to what -- >> gosh all those veterans who were off to war and had their homes foreclosed while they were away? >> but then you look at the number of meaningful prosecutions and angela mezulo from country-wide is the only person we can kind of name. there's been sort of almost like the financial meltdown redux in terms of culpability at the top.

>> these are the banks that took all of these loans, packaged them into complicated securities, sold them which in turn raised the price of houses. you had a bubble in house prices. we're not going to see this crisis get any better until house prices start to come back, a long term process. who's fault is it? to some degree people took on more than they could hand well their houses. if up you don't pay your mortgage you gett get kicked ou of the house. the banks have a lot of culpability in blowing up the bubble in ways they have not been prosecuted over. it's very legitimate anger. >> what we're seeing is -- i read this terrific piece in huffington post that talked about this this this wave. unusually you had people who took on and were also pushed into subprime mortgages and adjustable rate mortgages and things. then the second wave were people and which is going on now, these are folks who were paying their mortgages, playing by the rules but they lost their jobs. the economy turned on them.

and now they're being foreclosed on. so we're not talk about people who have been scamming the system. >> i would agree 100% with that. i think this is an awful story. and i don't understand why so many of our political leaders aren't discussing the housing crisis as a way to get this country back going. >> let's talk about that. >> i just have to say -- >> talk about it. do anything. >> what occupy wall street is intending on doing to me again another little crazy. this isn't the 70s. let's actually be constructive about this. we're going to go chain themselves to homes, stop foreclosures. >> i disagree with that. the major criticism i've seen lobbied against the occupy movement it's been sort of unfocused, plan of attack. today they're planning rallies or demonstrations in 20 cities across the country. >> demonstrations versus disobedience. >> they're picking a very specific issue. they've targeted communities. >> how does that differ from the tea party which goes out to vote, registers and kicks out --

>> tea party into more organized -- these aren't disruptions. these are intended to call attention to a very specific problem and ask for action to be taken by the government. >> disrupting foreclosure or fighting e evictions, some which are legitimate and some aren't. then they're going to be tar th arbiters. you can reg register to vote and -- >> the people they're trying to help can't wait until november 2012. we're talking about serious action right now. >> is this going to really bring it about? [ overlapping speakers ] >> we're talking about it now, right. >> we're talking about it. i'm not stopping someone from being homeless. >> let's stop and mention here that we have someone running for president in the republican party who is near the top of the ticket that's mitt romney who said only a few weeks ago, let's

actually go to the sound. i'll let him speak for himself. mitt romney. >> 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. >> this is a legitimate argument to make. all the band-aid efforts to try to keep people in the homes are prolonging the process of letting house prices hit bottom and go back up. i think you need to make the distinction between people who are doing their best and making payments and have hit certain problems, could use help, remodifications and stay in their homes. you want to help them as much as you can. it's the one who obviously can't and have mortgages way underwater on. at some point can't make the payments. you got to let that legitimate play out. all the mills has to be stopped. it's outrageous. >> there's a problem here. this is where i'm going after the obama administration. i'm a democrat, a loyal democrat and i'm going to vote for barack obama. lenny brewer went on "60

minutes" this past sunday and said we have not prosecuted any of the banks or any of the players in the mortgage fraud crisis. because only one of the tools we have to do this is sarbanes-oxley. honestly, i helped write sarbanes-oxley. angela mezilo, ceo of country-wide signed those statements. i don't understand why in god's name, lenny brewer, eric holder rmpbt going after him and putting him in jail. >> you have folks like the attorney general of new york, snyderman. >> lisa madigan and others. >> why has the administration not taken a firmer stance? >> i'll tell you why they haven't done it. it's easy. >> last thing the obama administration wants to be is on the opposite side -- they have a tenuous relationship. >> there's a good story in the "wall street journal" today talking to a former fbi prosecutor or investigator saying we're bringing civil

cases in a lot of these areas because it's very difficult to bring criminal cases based on stuff in the mortgage documents. maybe you disagree. maybe it is easy to bring the criminal cases. there are now people on the record saying we just made the decision to go civil enforcement. s.e.c. fraud cases. >> the administration should pony up at least one of two of these jokers and just take them to trial. don't have to win. take them to trial. >> we'll be continuing our talk about economic and financial instability. it's a crucial day for europe's economy. and america is sending in the heavy hitters. secretary tim geithner and vice-president joe biden. that is next on "now." [ male announcer ] notebooks, photo center prints and... two htc sensations from t-mobile. hey dad! hey son! i'm at study hall. that's great, you make me so proud. thanks dad. [ clatter, scream ] what's that? nothing... [ man ] game on! ♪ i gotta go!

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notice. joining us from washington, cnbc's amon javers. welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me. >> so amon, how bad are things when even germany gets called into the principal's office? >> you know, things are pretty bad. germany is sort of viewed as the economic bulwark of europe. if they're having trouble everyone's having trouble. the patient here is clearly sick. the question is going to be whether it's fatal for the euro in the long haul and domestically what that means for news the united states. >> but i wonder, amon, during the debt ceiling debacle we talked a lot about the s & p and how legit it was in terms of its prognosis or actually getting the stuff -- ringing the alarm bells at an appropriate time. and ben and i were talking about this, too. do we need to keep hearing from the s & p? >> you know, a lot of invests think we don't need to keep hearing from the s & p.

they downgraded the united states back in august. i think it was august 6th. financial markets had thought that would be a calamity. the american markets were able to shrug that off and say we don't really trust the s & p anymore after they got things so wrong in the runup to the 2008 crisis. a lot of ratings agencies had huge buy pushes on a lot of these stocks that completely melted down during the financial collapse. they lost a lot of credibility there. and now folks look at some of these downgrades and say hey wait a second. you guys are coming very late to the party here. you're not telling us anything we didn't already know. these ratings agencies don't have kind of a magic wand to know everything about what's going on here. we can do our own research and homework. >> i want to ask eamon my good friend and former colleague at politico, how confident is the administration right now that geithner is there that he can help shepherd this deal in europe to have a situation put in place where there are new controls on the outliers in

europe and their debt washington. then you have the ecb step in to help rescue -- >> that would be the european central bank. >> -- to buy up debt, get a final resolution to this. it's the biggest problem hanging over obama's re-election right now. if the euro craters obama loses. how are they feeling inside the white house and treasury? >> you put it exactly right. there's a lot on the line here. geithner notes going over there he doesn't have a lot of ammunition to bring this this fight. he can't come in with some sort of magical american bailou here. he doesn't have a t.a.r.p. program for europe politically in the united states and here on capitol hill where i am right now. that would be near on to impossible. so what he has to do is go over there and jaw bone everybody. it's got to make a persuasive case. when you're in one of these crisis situations it's very difficult to go into a room and say hey, guys, i need you all to do this pretty please. that's sort of where the united states is coming down to right now. they can make the case, look, you have to do this. here's all the reasons why.

here's all the contagious problems for the global economy. they're going to ask these europeans to solve a problem that united states has said from the white house podium, in fact, this is not an american problem, this is for europeans to ultimately be the ones to solve it. >> so fine, tim geithner goes over, jaw bones them, nothing happens. but is there anything that fed chairman, u.s. fed chairman ben bernanke can do since the fed is independent? does he have any bullets in his gun? whatever my metaphor is? >> whatever weapon he has. >> right. the fed is politically independent. they have a lot more leeway. and the fed has been working in conjunction with central banks around the world to try to send signals to the market that things are easing and that they are working together in order to make the situations go away. but ultimately what you're dealing with here is a european union in the eurozone where these members have gotten together under a common currency but they don't have a common

budgeting process. and so therefore you can see greeks and italians running up huge debts. and germans and french, folks being liable for the damages that those debts are creating. that's a structural problem that ben bernanke's not going to be able to solve sitting in washington, d.c. >> i want to talk, ben, you brought up the 2012 question, how much of this is going to affect president obama's re-election prospects. the idea we talk about kicking the can down the road. one of the things that congress and our political leaders tend to do is kick the can down the road whenever it comes to paying for it but long term solutions. the question is how much longer can we aford to do that? >> we can't in this situation. we're at the crisis point for europe. we've had multiple iterations to fix it. we're talking about italy and spain here, the amounts they have to pay goes way out. eventually they'll default if there's not a real deal put in

place. what has to happen by the weekend, the european summit needs to say we have agreed on a series of new budgetary constraints that everybody will agree to so they get their budget deficits in line. then the european central bank will say we have confidence you guys are going to make good on all the money you're borrowing. we're going to start buying up more european debt. we'll see the prices go down. the crisis will abate. but that needs to happen soon and for the obama administration. that is one thing that destroys the united states economy. we have everything else on tenter hooks. >> i don't think this is going to work. take the individual countries as opposed to states take them out of it. the european union is broke. the united states of america is broke. all this debt -- germany's not broke. all right, fine. so here's my question. you have all this debt. remember world war ii? remember the whole theory the marshall plan? remember the debt cancellation? what you just described, i'm not criticizing you or the theory behind it. that is nothing more than a

short-term fix. you have got to cancel a ton of this debt. >> i don't think you're going to cancel it. we need growth in other ways. [ overlapping speakers ] >> short term versus long term. cnbc's eamon js javers thanks for joining us. what new entry phrase caused the american heritage dictionary to add in a "offensive disclaimer". that is next on "now." i'm amanda mitchell. live today for "andrea mitchell reports "we'll talk to the opposition leader here in tel aviv, spokesmen for the prime minister. that plus israel's former top spy on what to do about iran. all that coming up next live from tel aviv on msnbc and hot cable tv in israel on "andrea mitchell reports".

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it's time for what now? the american heritage dictionary bow toss pressure and changes the definition of anchor baby. i will say the original definition was "a child born to a non-citizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil". the new definition says "offensive, used as a disparaging term for a child born to a non-citizen country in a to a mother -- >> it gives it perspective. >> shows us how downgraded this debate over immigration has become that we throw around anchor baby, politicize children like this. >> obviously a term used a lot now, now in the dictionary. >> i would like to remind people -- >> i knew we couldn't get through a show without that. the stars are aligned.

>> immigration is not some sort of new issue. this entire country is -- we're a member of the great american melting pot. this country is filled with a whole bunch of mutts. so the theory that somebody because it's not the same skin color as yours, they are citizens of the united states. >> 14th amendment. but it is i think a testament to how downgraded the term has become. we throw out the term "illegal" talking about revising the 14th amendment. next subject, is the russian election rigged? hillary clinton has criticized. >> gosh, really? >> what struck me though is just how brazen tactics where people are the ballot box stuffing, there's youtube video of people marking off ballots for vladimir putin's party, united russia. there's erasable ink in the pens in the voting booths. >> there's a group called chaos? >> how do you rig an election and cheat and still get less than 50% of the vote? how do you cheat that badly?

if you're going to cheat win by 80. 99% of the vote. come on. >> you know what it also might mean? if only putin had walked around with his shirt off yet one more time -- >> please don't encourage that kind of behavior. >> the russian government has called our comments about the election being rigged unacceptable, there is some blowback. we may see some tension in our relationship. >> the cold war is on. >> let's go to our third topic, the u.s. law enforcement is ramping up use of excessive force. we have marijuana raids in spring of 2010 that involved battering rams on doors, the family dog has been killed, drug warrants are served 150 times a day swat raids have jumped 100% from the 1980s to the 2000s. >> you have the war in court in the 60s which issued a series of opinions that were remarkably clear. you want to go into a house, you got to have reason. today the roberts court and then

through the previous court, the rehnquist court, 5-4 decisions, time and time again said no, actually if you go in because you have a suspicion of this then yes, you can say to them i found cocaine in your house therefore i'm going to bring you up on cocaine charges. come on. i mean, there used to be a point in time where we looked at our cops and our law enforcement professionals and we said you're there to protect us. now you're scared of them. that is not a good thing. >> the majority of people in this country still look at cops and say you are there to protect me. >> ask a black man driving down the street if they think that. not this one. >> none of us are in the job that they are where they have to knock down doors and actually have uzis coming out against them. there are actually drug traffickers inside there. these cops don't know half the time when they're knocking on doors. >> i don't disagree with that. >> talk about the militarization of the police force. >> that's what i'm saying. this is since 9/11. >> i go back to this because i think it's so brazen, we talk about the border fence and when

herman cain was in the race having alligatorsnd and electrified border fence and idea of security and what is appropriate. >> i would think there would be some middle ground here in the political process on this. you've got democrats obviously who are not happy with the gestapo tactics. but tea party movement is not a pro government in your face movement. it's not like big brother looking over your shoulder, knocking down your door. i would think the pendulum would swing back at some point, coalition of people saying we got to rethink how much we're allowing the government to bust in our doors. >> that is something we'll be talking about for some time to come. thanks again to jonathan, susan, jim and ben for an excellent panel. that's all for you. i'll see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern. until then you can follow us on twitter @now with alex. andrea mitch em is next. she is live in tel aviv, israel. hello, andrea. >> hi there. thanks so much, alex. coming up next live from tel aviv where we are now on the air on hot cable network as well

we'll be talk about iran and israel, u.s.-israeli relations. we'll have the opposition leader back plus the arab awakening. tumultuous changes in the region and how it's affecting this country. all that coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports live from tel aviv". with crest 3d whe professional effects whitestrips. it penetrates below the enamel surface to whiten as well as a $500 dentist treatment. the secret's in the strip. crest 3d white professional effects whitestrips. life opens up when you do. we get double miles on every purchase. so we earned a holiday trip to the big apple twice as fast! dinner! [ garth ] we get double miles every time we use our card. and since double miles add up fast, we can bring the whole gang! it's hard to beat double miles! i want a mace, a sword, a... oww! [ male announcer ] get the venture card from capital one and earn double miles on every purchase, every day. go to capitalone.com. i wonder what it could be?! what's in your wallet?

>> republican candidates accuse president obama of abandoning israel as they put more pressure on the jewish state. >> just get to the damn table. just get to the table. you know? [ applause ] >> the problem right now is we can't get them to the damn tabl >> plus is israel getting ready to attack iran? and how will israel be affected by the dramatic changes in