good morning. i'm chris jansing. after 18 republican debates and a barrage of attacks from the campaign trail, tonight president obama fires back. with an audience that could hit 50 million, the state of the union will be his best chance to make his case for a second term. he'll do it with a theme of income inequality, and it comes just as mitt romney releases his tax returns, almost $22 million in 2010, nearly $21 million last year. not a penny of it, by the way, from wages. meantime, new controversy over the wages newt gingrich took from freddie mac. a contract that paid him $25,000 a month even though it's not clear exactly what he was paid

to do. the democrats see a big opening. >> we want an economy that's based on everyone doing their fair share, everyone getting a fair shake, and everybody playing by the same set of rules. >> a lot to get to this morning. let's start with "washington post" columnist danny millbank. good morning. >> good morning. >> obviously the president isn't going to talk about mitt romney or newt gingrich and all their money, but is that the subtext? it plays into his message of fairness. >> well, it's true, chris, in a way. the president hasn't had his chance to speak to the nation while the republicans have been having all these debates, but in a way the republicans have been making the president's case for him. we have new polling out today that shows president obama's favorability numbers are rising while mitt romney's are plunging, and newt gingrich's remain sort of in the bottom basement where they've been all along. and this is not because the president's done anything phenomenal, not because the economy is soaring or there's been some foreign policy

triumph. it's because they're now seeing the alternative in the republican race and it is so ugly as typified by that debate last night, that they have left the field open to the president here to make his case, particularly on the economy and inequality. >> you have got mitt romney releasing his tax returns, and we were showing some of the numbers. supposedly they wanted to get them released today to bury them under the message of the state of the union. but it just sort of somehow seemed to more emphasize the president's point. mitt romney making i think it works out to 530$57,000 a day f the last two years. >> that's a lot of money to bury, even on the state of the union day. and i don't think it's the amount of money on the tax return that is going to ultimately prove problematic for mitt romney. americans don't resent wealth. the problem is that it's not, as you point out earlier, wages. this is money from investments,

and it is such an extraordinarily low tax rate. that's not mitt romney's fault, that's the way it's structured, but it tees up the president's system perfectly, that the system is rigged, rigged for the 1%. obama is a very wealthy man, but he's paying double the tax rate or something like that. >> double the tax on far less income. >> yes, of course, and those of us who earn even less than that, imagine that, are paying a higher tax rate still. so you can imagine the resentment that this sows in the country. the president doesn't have to work very hard to make this case. it's becoming abundantly obvious. >> what's the headline going to be tomorrow out of the state of the union? >> well, look, you never know what headline is going to come out, and very often these are just set piece speeches that don't actually generate a whole lot of news, but i think you're going to basically what we're going to get out of this is the president with some more hot rhetoric, more of the 99% versus

the 1% rhetoric, and i think, you know, this is really the unofficial launch of his re-election. >> yeah, it really is now. it is, isn't it, that the battle lines are drawn. we had a sense of where we were going with this, but this 99%/1%, this income inequality, the president has an opportunity without naming names tonight to really clarify where he is versus them. >> he doesn't need to name names. in fact, newt gingrich has done him a great gift by doing a lot of the dirty work for him and exposing mitt romney here. look, the economy is very poor. the unemployment rate where it is would indicate that this president has no business being competitive for re-election right now, and the fact of the matter is that he is, and he has been able to transition from this lousy economy or this unpopular health care reform to a sense of justice and inequality. if he can fight the campaign on those terms over the next

several months, then he's in a very strong position where nobody expected he would be. >> we're showing a picture now, a still photo, we literally just got. that's the president with one of his speech writers obviously going over the fine points of the state of the union tonight. dana, stay with me. what do you think about the amount mitt romney pays in taxes? tweet me @jansingco. we will use the best ones later for our tweet of the day. i want to bring in congresswoman loretta sanchez, democrat from california, and congressman michael grim, republican from new york. happy state of the union day. good morning. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> okay. are you ready for this? i want to play a clip of the two of you. this was one year ago today on this show. take a look. are you telling me you don't have a prom date yet? >> well, you know, as when i was in high school, no prom date, no prom. my mom wouldn't let me date. >> congressman grimm, let me ask you, are you going to be part of this bipartisan? are you going to be sitting next to a democrat? if not, maybe we can hook the two of you up.

>> well, i'm already spoken for. >> darn, darn, darn. >> i'm sitting with congressman meeks. >> all right. we had a lot of fun with that last year, but this year you are sitting together and so are a lot of other members of congress, but optics cannot make up for the fact that congress remains deeply divided. voters are fed up. you have seen the polls. congresswoman sanchez, is this all just for show tonight? >> well, you know, there is a lot more work being done between members, even some members of the opposite party with respect to some policy issues. we are actually, many of us, getting some things done. i think what happens is that you see the two extremes on the television all the time, so the american people think that somehow we don't get along, but we do. it's not as good as 15 years ago when i arrived here, but some of us still get along. >> let's talk about one of the core messages we expect to hear from the president tonight, and that is basic fairness. he is expected to call again for higher taxes on the wealthy. so, congressman, is that fair?

>> well, i think it's a much bigger picture, this whole inequity or the inequality issue, i think it's a dangerous issue for the united states as a whole. when we start dividing americans against americans and start saying someone that's wealthy it's not a good thing or -- >> is it saying it's a bad thing to be wealthy if you're asking them to pay a fair share? if fair for somebody who makes a lot more money and you have heard the warren buffett -- we just learned in the first lady's box tonight is going to be warren buffett's secretary because he's made the point that he pays taxes at a lower rate than his secretary. is that fair? >> well, actually there's two different questions. number one, the wealthy pay the vast majority of taxes in this country. is our tax code correct? absolutely not. i have been one of the republicans beating the drum with many others saying with he need to change our tax code. it's broken, but that's not because of the wealthy.

that's because we have a complicated broken code that should be fixed. that's a completely different question than whether the wealthy should pay more. we should fix the tax code so it is fair. >> chris, listen, many people have to pay more taxes. that's the only way we're going to get our country back together. but with respect to their lifestyle, the fact that they're going to pay more in taxes is not going to affect their lifestyle. what's the difference between you making $48 million a year or $46 million a year? your lifestyle doesn't change that much. >> mitt romney says what you're preaching is the politics of envy. >> no, no. i love successful people. i love all of us to be successful, and i think the united states is about success. when i have talked to people who have been successful, and i agree with the people who have been successful when they say i'm willing to pay more, loretta, just don't beat me up every day about it. don't make me the bad guy. and i agree with them.

i have not ever gone on and said, oh, these people are bad because they're making so much money. in fact, i said, i think most of them if we really approach it correctly would be willing to pay more money. that's what warren buffett has said. that is what bill gates has said. many people have said that. so we need to stop beating up on people and instead we need to be saying, listen, you are part of the solution that makes all of america strong. >> but you do agree -- but you're saying the democratic position is we need to raise taxes on everyone. is that not true? >> what we are saying is let's do tax reform. >> okay. >> what we're saying is let's be more equitable. >> that scares me. i think we're dividing a nation putting americans against americans and we should be coming together. if the tax code is broken, let's fix it, but let's not punish those for doing well. >> well, you know, both sides

agree it needs to be fiked and i think anybody who is watching this is hoping that the two sides can find some common ground on that. two great people, we love having you on the show. comingwoman son chez, congressman grimm, i hope we see you soon. enjoy yourselves tonight. >> thank you. >> i want to bring dana back in. when we talk about this whole idea of income inequality and mid-romney and paying 15% taxes. is this basically a news cycle or is it something more serious for him? i noted that in the volume lumous e-mails that his campaign puts out every day, this morning he put out an interesting one, a statement from a former irs commissioner saying mitt and ann romney have fully satisfied their responsibilities as taxpayers, as if they're worried that people will have a takeaway message that somehow they did something wrong or illegal. >> right, and there are many admirable things to be found in these returns. mitt romney gives an extraordinary amount of money to charity. he's following the law. the problem is not mitt romney.

the problem is the tax law that allows really wealthy people to pay a far smaller proportion, particularly if it's investment income. that's precisely why it's a problem for mitt romney, not because he looks like a bad guy here, but because he looks like he is the guy defending this system that is just manifestly unfair that i think because of this economy more people are realize something unfair. and it's just sort of a stark reminder. that's why i don't think the issue goes away. the issue goes away in terms of whether mitt romney has paid his tax obligations. i don't think that was ever in doubt. it becomes is he the guy out there saying corporations are people. the guy who says he enjoys firing people. are those stray comments or is this, in fact, a guy who is representing a system that is trns parentally unfair? >> we have newt gingrich out there live at the tick tock restaurant in st. petersburg. you see calista with him. he released that contract.

he was paid by freddie mac, what is it, $25,000 a month, and yet we don't really know for what. are there still a lot of questions lingering there, dana? >> well, sure. i was listening to romney's side push back against this yesterday, and i think they have a reasonable point, that this guy is saying, you know, he's the outsider, he's the insurgent in this race, and he's very much the epitome of the washington system of building up a power base here and then making money based on that power. again, to go back to the earlier point, americans don't resent people making money. they may resent the people who make money who are treated more favorably or in newt's case they may resent he used the power that the people gave him with their votes to trade that power in for money. >> dana millbank, always good to see you. thank you. be sure to catch msnbc's special coverage of the president's

state of the union address at 8:00 p.m. eastern. tonight we will have not one but two responses to the president's state of the union. former presidential candidate herman cain will give the tea party response after the official gop response by indiana governor mitch daniels. last year remember the tea party was from up and coming congresswoman and former presidential candidate michele bachmann. ello. it's water from the drinking fountain at the mall. [ male announcer ] great tasting tap water can come from any faucet anywhere. the brita bottle with the filter inside. 8:00 p.m. eastern. congresswoman and former [ le a] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. 8:00 p.m. eastern. congresswoman and former so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows.

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a big-time casino magnate is writing another big check to newt gingrich. sheldon and miriamed aelson giving newt $5 million. adelson made his money in the gambling business in vegas. another boost for gingrich, he picked up the endorsement of

former senator fred temperature. "the law and order star" says newt can articulate what america is all about. the boston bruins honored at the white house yesterday for their stanley cup victory. they even gave president obama a jersey with his name on it. but the stanley cup mvp goalie, tim thomas, skipped the event because he says federal spending is out of control. however, he blames both political parties. and senator john kerry didn't skip the celebration but he looked pretty beat up. he shows up at the white house with a couple black eyes. his office says he broke his nose playing hockey. he's 68. ♪ i'm so in love with you >> well, if you like the president's singing at a fund-raiser the other night, maybe you want to hear it more often? you can download obama singing al green for free and set it as your ring tone opinion i thought

he sounded pretty good. the tone of last night's debate got pretty aggressive. big stakes one week before florida votes. mitt romney and newt gingrich going at it for long stretches. clearly a two-man show. it almost seemed like the debate was over their jobs, romney working for bain capital, and gingrich for freddie mac. >> on this stage at a prior debate you said you were paid $300,000 by freddie mac as a historian. they don't pay people $25,000 a month for six years as historians. that adds up to about $1.6 million. they weren't hiring you as a historian and this contract proves you were not a historian. you were a consultant. it doesn't say you provided historical experience. it said you were as a consultant and you were hired by the chief lobbyist of freddie mac. >> kelly wallace is chief correspondent for i village and dave wiegel. good morning to both of you. >> good morning. >> how do you think mitt did on the attack?

>> some of our ivillage community members described it as an episode of "divorce court." others said it was almost an episode of "the bachelor" and no one would be getting a rose. no question, chris -- >> i love the curl referenc -- references. >> don't you? the question is will it backfire. does it seem like a desperate ploy to go on the attack and bring newt down and does gingrich score some points by trying to seem above it all. we don't have the answer yet. >> and, you know, i think that newt won south carolina with a couple of real debate moments, but take a look at newt from last night. >> we'll have a site newt.org by tomorrow morning. he said at least four things that are false. this is the worst kind of trivial politics. i mean, he said at least four things that were false. we have an ad in which both john mccain and mike huckabee in 2007, 2008 explain how much they

think governor romney can't tell the truth. >> so he's directing people to a website, no real biting attack there. i don't know, dave, did someone say, newt, it's time to act presidential? >> well, i don't think it was that, it was that he had no audience to feed off of. the campaign was a little bit annoyed yesterday. they didn't really complain about it but they annoyed unlike previous debates the speaker couldn't feed off the energy of the crowd. he needs that to get rolling. he didn't have it this time. romney, who has never quite managed to do the same thing, he never touches the special nerve in the middle of the room the way that gingrich does, was successful because they lacked that. i saw that this morning on a local tv interview i just caught on the way here, gingrich said in the future debates he doesn't want that to happen again. he has a debate on thursday where he will try to reverse that polarity and make sure when he zings he can get positive

reinforcement. >> do you think newt missed out on a golden opportunity? obviously he's on a roll from south carolina but there wasn't that moment really there. >> there really wasn't. he's had it in those past debates, and if you look at people, the undecideds who made their decisions at the last minute, they said part of it was his debate performances, hi ability to signal the outrage the american people are feeling. he seemed like he wanted to be presidential and it also raises a question which we've all talked about, which is newt gingrich seems to be a little better when he's on the offense, right? he's not as good when he's in the lead and he's playing a little defense. i think we saw a little of that last night as well. >> they did not agree on much. they couldn't even agree on what will happen when castro dies. listen to this exchange. >> well, first of all, you thank heavens that fidel castro has returned to his maker and will be sent to another land. >> brian, first of all, i guess the only thing i would suggest

is i don't think philadelphia de -- fidel is going to beat his maker. >> you had beet shuugar, and ca sugar. terri schiavo, i was surprised that came up. there was a weird retro vibe. >> gingrich more than anyone else has tried to localize, you know, sorry, not localize, but pick up local issues that one part of the state one considers a success with. romney has been trying more to talk generically about foreclosures, talk about what a problem they were in florida. romney's goal was to do as close as he could, approximate, what gingrich has done, prove to a debate aience he was incredibly aggressive, get them to imagine him going up against barack obama and dismantling him. if you talk to voters, there are

any number of verbs to describe what they think newt gingrich can do. in a debate with barack obama, it's unlikely we will get sugar beet questions or zom beebe fidel castro questions. >> thanks to both of you. how much of what they said last night was trooul -- truthful? >> good morning. >> gingrich defended his record as spooe speaker of the house. >> when i was speaker we had four consecutive balanced budgets. most people think that's good. >> four consecutive balanced budgets. sounds good. >> but it didn't happen when he was speaker. so we rated that false on our truth-o-meter. we have heard this many times. he actually made this when he

announced he was running for president, but he's referring to two years when he had already resigned, 2000 and 2001, so he gets a false on the truth-o-meter. >> mitt romney criticized president obama's jobs record. let's listen to this. >> this president came into this office saying he would turn this economy around and everything he has done has made it harder for the people of florida. we have 25 million americans out of work. >> 25 million americans out of work. where is that number from? >> well, we gave that a half true on the truth-o-meter. the official number is about 13.1 million. it's only about half of what romney said. the number he's referring to appears to one that economists call the u-6, which includes people who have gotten -- who have basically given up looking for work and also people who are working part-time but would prefer to be full-timers. so he's using a number but

overstating what it is so he gets a half true. >> and bill, last night newt gingrich tried to downplay his work for freddie mac. here that is. >> the fact is i offered strategic advice, largely based on my knowledge of history, including the history of washington. government sponsored enterprises include telephone cooperatives, rural electric cooperatives, federal credit unions. there are many different kind of government sponsored enterprises and many of them have done good things. >> how does that do on the truth-o-meeter? >> not well. it gets a pants on fire. gingrich needs to brush up on what a government-sponsored enterprise is. there's only a handful of them. he's trying to make freddie mac sound benign. sound as warm and loving as your local credit union. credit unions are not gscs, very different kinds of things. pants on fire for that one. >> poll lit fact.com editor, bill adair. thanks for coming on. >> thanks, chris. mitt romney may be trying to

take some attention away from his tax return because he's about to deliver what he calls a prebuttal to president obama's third state of the union address tonight. how aggressive will he get? progresso. it fits! fantastic! [ man ] pro-gresso they fit! okay-y... okay??? i've been eating progresso and now my favorite old jeans...fit. okay is there a woman i can talk to? [ male announcer ] progresso. 40 soups 100 calories or less. forty years ago, he wasn't looking for financial advice. back then he had something more important to do. he wasn't focused on his future. but fortunately, somebody else was. at usaa we provide retirement planning for our military, veterans and their families. now more than ever, it's important to get financial advice from people who share your military values. for our free usaa retirement guide,

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♪ while meditating like a true playa ♪ ♪ now when he's surfing down in chile'a ♪ ♪ he can see when his score is in danger ♪ ♪ if you're a mobile type on the go ♪ ♪ i suggest you take a tip from my bro ♪ ♪ and download the app that lets you know ♪ ♪ at free-credit-score-dot-com now let's go. ♪ vo: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com™. any minute now mitt romney is expected to give what his campaign is calling a prebuttal to president obama's state of the union address speaking to voters at a local company in tampa, florida. let's bring in nbc's peter alexander who is covering the romney campaign, and i guess he's got a new slogan that he's going to be unveiling? >> reporter: yeah, chris. in fact, we are seeing that sign behind us. it reads "obama isn't working." it's the first time he's rolled out this banner. we heard him focus on the line before, but this is the backdrop for this important speech he's expected to make a short time

fro n from now. his focus is expected to be jobs and the economy. and the backdrop he selected right here along tampa bay is a manufacturing plant that for years produced drywall but has been shuttered for many years. mitt romney and newt gingrich appeared to have a role reversal of sorts with romney going on the offensive referring to gingrich as a washington insider, that he was peddling influence around washington, d.c. this challenge in the pivot mitt romney has been trying to make recently, for so long on the trail he had been focusing almost exclusively on president obama, but recognizing what happened in south carolina where that combative tone of newt gingrich really resonated with the base of the republican party, mitt romney is trying to focus on his opponents in the race. today again his focus returns to the president of the united states. >> nbc's peter alexander. thank you so much, peter.

we're keeping our eye on that event. also keeping our eye on nearly a quarter of the voters in florida, and that is the latino vote. we'll talk about it coming up.

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geico. ah... fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent oh dear... or more on car insurance. florida, florida, florida, and we are waiting for mitt romney now to start speaking giving what his campaign says will be kind of a rebuttal before the fact to president obama's state of the union address. voters at that local company in tampa, florida. we're keeping our eye on that for you. but it is ground zero in this president campaign, florida. and more than 22% of the population is latino. you heard it in the debate last night, the talk about cuba and immigration. mitt romney softened his stance a bit on a path to citizenship saying he would support it for military veterans. he also said he would not round up illegal immigrants. >> the answer is self-deportation, which is people decide they can do better by going home because they can't find work here because they don't have legal documentation

to allow them to work here. >> that must have been the most twitter-friendly phrase of the night, self-deportation. richard lui here. big fight for the latino vote. >> the vote not that simple either. good morning to you, chris. the first latino primary some say in seven days, florida. the challenge, 73% of latinos say the gop ignores or is hostile towards them, and latinos are losing interest as well says a new latino decisions pole. enthusiasm a has dropped to 44%. candidates want to change that with new ads in spanish. [ speaking spanish ] >> there's a ron paul spanish site as well, part of some efforts to off set negative perceptions on their stances. like mitt romney's hardline on immigration, promising to veto the dream act. nut gingrich may have it tougher. he linked spanish with living in

a ghetto in a 2007 speech. >> we should replace it with immersion in english so people learn the common language of the country and the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto. >> the next 40 days, the mother load of latino votes, florida almost 1 in 3 latinos, nfevada, arizona, and colorado. and they differ. florida's pruerto rican americas tend to be democratic. cuban americans tend to be republican and in south florida. it's not social issues latinos focus on necessarily. 75% say the economy, jobs, and taxes are more important. only 14% say moral or social issues are more important. in florida latino registered voters are shifting as well. in 2006 there were more latino

republicans, but during the last presidential election, latino democrats took the lead, and that lead has grown. now over 560,000 in number. the candidates' choices now, not if they need the latino vote, chris, but how to get it. >> let's look deeper in this battle. thank you, richard. susan mcmanus is a professor at the university of south florida. good morning. >> good morning. >> is this as richard laid out essentially a battle between cuban american republicans and puerto rican democrats. >> it's not really quite that simple. certainly their leanings are quite different. you have to say that the hispanic republicans are largely dominated by cubans. they make up about 11%. hispanic republicans of the voters coming up in this primary. but generically we've seen that the puerto rican vote is largely contingent on whether they come straight from the island and they tend to be very up for grabs or if they come down to

the orlando area where many are concentrated from another state like new york, massachusetts, or the northeast depending on their port of entry or their family's port of entry. and so you see that the outreach to the groups, even within the puerto rican community, is very different, and in that community especially the attendance at fiestas, at the catholic churches, being able to speak spanish, appealing to them is very critical. and as to the cuban vote, it is split very much generationally. so the older cubans are very anti-castro oriented, very focused ob foreign policy. the younger cubans are focused on domestic policy and are a little more up for grabs. >> let me ask you about that, the whole idea of the competition for that vote because obviously it's one thing to look at the general election. another thing to look at this primary vote. what's going to be the battleground in this primary in the next seven days?

what's going to be key to the republican latino vote? >> again, jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs that latinos can get and jobs that have better health care benefits and a little more security. many latinos were very much hurt by the housing burst. they were largely employed in the construction industry and tourism industry. when tourism, you know, declined a bit because of our recession. so service industry, construction industry jobs, and that all ties in with education because latinos are very, very key in having a better education that let's them get better jobs. it's linking those two, jobs and the economy and education that i think will be the way to reach these lahtino voters in florida and to soften the stance on immigration will help. there's a long memory among some about statements each of these have made in the past. >> professor susan mcmahon mis,

good to see you. thank you so much. >> the president has done some courting his own using the extensive white house social media network to engage a massive audience they hope for tonight's state of the union address. the speech will be streamed live at white house.org and after the speech viewers can post questions during a live 45-minute hang out with president obama. patricia caesar can the marketing and digital director with black enterprise. >> glad to be back. >> it's unbelievable the number of social media followers for the president. 15 million on the white house and campaign twitter accounts. his facebook page has more than 24 million fans. his page on the newer google plus already has more than a quarter of a million followers. so how critical are these numbers to this campaign? >> well, they found great, and i think that if the president leverages his influence, then it's going to work for him. those numbers -- >> that's kind of a social media phrase, leverages his influence.

>> it means you're building a conversation with all these folks. if you're not figuring out a way to resonate with them in a way that's going to make them do, whether it's fund-raising or actually going to the polls and voting for you, those numbers don't really mean a whole lot, and they have done a great job of it so far really building a continuous conversation and connecting with voters in a way that i don't think we've ever seen previously. >> and continuing it tonight with this 45-minute hangout with the pres. who doesn't want to hang out with barack obama. >> or be retweeted with him or have any of their comments liked or mentioned on facebook. what he's doing is validating his constituents. it gives folks a feeling they're being part of an experience, and so they're happy to participate and collaborate and build this sort of marketplace of ideas and consideratio conversation. if he does what he's supposed to do, it will be a relationship vote rooted in taking the next step. >> what his campaign did in 2008 was absolutely unprecedented. >> absolutely.

>> the number of people who are involved in social media since 2008 has grown exponentially. their sophistication has grown exponentially. how different is it now than it was in 2008? >> 2008 it was really about e-mail targeting. it was a great push out of messaging. folks were finding they were able to share a lot of that content, but participating wasn't really as much of an option as it is now, and there wasn't so much of a transparency as there is now. so the number of networks have grown. he's now, as you mentioned, on google plus. folks are finding they're able to interact with the president via a live video chat in a way they've never been able to do and they can take those conversations and share them across a number of different networks. so in that the networks have grown and it's no longer about just pushing out content, you're finding folks feeling the dynamic to be more collaborative which is conducive to a viral effect. >> it's fascinating. patricia, thanks so much for coming in. >> thank you. well, just a short time ago we got a new state by state snapshot of the job market.

courtney reg sentence here with what's moving your money. >> the headline is while the national unemployment rate is 8.5% in december, which is lower than what we had seen, that state by state unemployment rate really varies quite widely and it fluctuates quite often. i mean, overall unemployment rates did fall in 37 states and washington, d.c., for the month of december. south dakota racks up the biggest percentage increase in employment followed by its neighbor up north, north dakota. ten states saw no change in unemployment rates from november to december. and, unfortunately, three states saw the unemployment rate increase in december from november, but by the numbers nevada saw the largest percentage decline in employment followed by alaska. so the good news is that 46 states saw the unemployment rate fall from a year earlier. so we are making some strides. california and nevada though still struggling. the highest unemployment rates at 11.1% and 12.6% respectively.

north dakota the lowest at 3.3% followed by nebraska at 4.1% and south dakota at 4.2%. the midwest is doing a little better than what we're seeing on the west coast. >> thank you so much. we were just talking about president obama's social media push, and just to show you the power of the internet, on an average day people around the world watch 4 billion, that's billion, videos on youtube. 25% increase from just eight months ago. what's behind the jump? well, parent company google is making a push for youtube to go beyond the computer. sending more videos to televisions and on the go to your smartphones.

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prefrontal cortex which regulates emotion and self-control. if you feel stressed during your normal day, don't worry, only extreme stress such as being held at gunpoint was shown to shrink the brain. there is a push for more scrutiny of the tsa. rand paul set off an alarm at the nashville airport and refused a full body pat down and they wouldn't let him get on the plane. >> i'm a little confused by the rules myself to tell you the truth. i was on a plane two days ago and the scanner went off and i asked to go back through the scanner and they let me. the rules are different in different airports. they say the rules are the same everywhere but people are interpreting them different. someone has to have some discretion. the whole airport of nashville, no one was able to make a different ruling. they finally called washington and then they did take me back through the screener. jo join. >> joining me is congressman

john mica. the tsa says when an irregularity is found during the tsa screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport. passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling. and obviously senator paul made the decision he didn't want a full-body pat down. who is right here? congressman? >> yes. your voice went blank. >> who is in the right here? >> well, let me just say this, when tsa cannot differentiate between a u.s. senator and someone who poses a risk, we have a problem. and i don't want to say that we should have different set of rules for u.s. senators, but we have seen the same thing just recently with an 85-year-old

grandmother. we've seen tsa tackling babies and children. this is not a thinking agency, and then you've heard also the discrepancies from airport to airport as the senator found out. so this is an agency that really needs some reform. we're spending $8 billion and they have this huge bureaucracy, 14,000 administrators, 4,000 in washington making over 100 -- $104,000 a piece. all sitting around not knowing what we should really do as far as security, and this is just another example of it. >> look, i don't know anybody who hasn't been frustrated by this or doesn't have an opinion. i said yesterday that just this weekend i saw people going through screening multiple times when they set something off. so we've all seen it. on the other hand, if you're the tsa and you're the one who doesn't follow what you believe the rules are, then you're the

one who gets criticized if there's a suggestion that someone wasn't properly screened. a lot of these agents in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation? >> again, it comes from proper direction. setting the proper protocols, putting in place things that really do make us secure, and then a risk-based thinking system that's focused on people who pose a risk. stop and think of the waste of time, the hassle for a u.s. senator, an 85-year-old senior citizen, veterans, and then little children. they can't think. we've tried to get them to adopt an israeli model. we've tried to get them to put in place procedures and protocols that make sense and our risk-based. >> if you're right, if this isn't making us safer, if there's a problem with this, what are those of you with oversight doing about it? what can you do about it? >> we have done incredible oversight. unfortunately, tsa was taken

from the transportation committee after we created it, put in homeland security. so it's in an agency that gin combines 22 other agencies and they have an army that's built to 65,000 people, bigger than cabinet agencies. you have a lot of bureaucrats trying to justify their existence, not wanting to reform the system and make it risk-based. i'd love to tell you and i can tell you that classified results of the pat-downs or this new equipment, and i would defy tsa to release some of that information as it becomes dated and isn't a security risk, and then people would see what security theater and what a charade is going on at great public expense. >> congressman john mica, thank you so much. >> thank you. earlier we asked you what you thought about the amount mitt romney pays for his taxes. today's tweets of the day come from you. tom writes, i am more concerned. i pay over 30% tacks.

romney pays 13.9%. outraged. tish tweets, i wonder why he acts so cagey about the thing and why he won't follow his father's example. seems like he is hiding something other than the tax rate he pays. and from bernard mitt's income tax bracket is the gift that keeps giving. obama need not say anything, we get it. the system stinks. as someone who uses insulin, i'm always looking for new ways to help me manage my diabetes. take a look at this. freestyle lite test strips? they need just a third the blood of onetouch ultra.

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