gingrich on a quest to prove he can take his wild and wholly condition test all the way to the convention and defeat mitt romney. in a contest that seen favorites rise and fall, gingrich says all he has to do is grab onto the anti-romney vote. >> this will be a straight out contest for the next four or five months. it's likely that the convention, there will be a non-romney majority and a substantial one. my job is to convert that into a pro-gingrich. >> that's newt's friendly way of saying nice try rick santorum, get lost. for mitt romney it's code for you're going to lose as he told reporters after tossing out bags of chips on his campaign plane. >> that's an indication of

you're going to lose saying i'm going to go on no matter what happens. it's a good sign. i'm hopeful to get the delegates on i need. >> he must be feeling good. newt's already making debate policy for when he's the republican nominee. reporters, look out. >> as you're nominee, i will not accept debates in the fall in which the reporters are the moderators because you don't need have a second obama person in the debate. >> and has the florida race turns personal, it's no more mr. nice mitt as romney still be beaming from his florida debate triumphs compared gingrich to goldilocks. >> he said that threw him off that the audience was quiet. the next audience was very loud. he said that threw him off. he said he can't debate before a

real loud audience. it's like goldilocks, can't have it this way. it has to be just so. >> one fairy tale further in florida, this time courting latino voters by bringing up one of the three little pigs. let them eat pork says romney, but what about the jewish vote? >> he eliminated serving kosher food for elderly jewish residents under medicare. >> his fox pal sarah palin goes grunge suggesting he could annoy many, many more. >> rage against the machine vote, annoy a liberal, vote newt. keep this process going. >> liberals will be so annoyed

if gingrich were the nominee, motte. never fear, newt, it's not only palin who's got your back, that's right the cain train has rolled into a platform. herman cain making a last minute switch from endorsing the people to endorsing gingrich. i guess florida is known as the swing state. newt's big hope is to wage a one-man war on both parties. >> he's the only one that's got the guts, the integrity and the commitment to take the rnc on as much as the dnc. >> integrity and commitment. yes, indeed. let's get right together our panel now. karen finney, washington post

opinion writer, jonathan capehart and ken vogel. karen, i want to start with you. newt is clearly not listening to the republic establishment who says he's an inconsistent bafoon and should get out of the race. he is listening to the brain trust and sarah palin and herman cain. explain this to our viewers. >> he's also not listening to common sense that says maybe the weekend before a big election m and maybe that's the part you're not trying to emphasize and you're already losing with women voters. newt is free willing here. he's apparently calling the shots. he said a while ago, he fired campaign professionals and now he's doing it his way.

it's representative of the same kind of bizarre, erratic behavior that got him in trouble in the building right behind me. >> you have to admire his self-confidence. he says he was responsible for developing supply side under ronald reagans and led to the defeat of communism. he would like to take credit for the reconstruction of the great wall of china in 1368. this man has confidence. >> yes, he does. one of the reasons he gets so upset with the republican establishment telling him what to do is he considers himself to be the creator of that establishment. one of the reasons he is glomed on and willingly accepting the support of sarah palin is he will take the support where ever he can get it but there are no two people in republican party politics or in politics in general who are guaranteed to

get attention, get press, get camera, get reporters than herman cain and with sarah palin. with these two, he's got a double play. >> don't forget the donald. >> even if the attention is entirely negative. >> sure. this is where he excels at getting free media. he knows who will get the attention of the press. once people are focused on sarah palin and herman cain focus on giving their support to newt gingrich. think will go to newt gingrich to see what he has to say. it's all a boomerang effect. in this report newt gingrich is brilliant. >> make this rather implausible case he's an outsider because they in fact, were experts in their various times at the fore of the political stage casting

themselves as outsiders and the fact he had a more legitimate claim and they were expert practictioners of victimhood where they define themselves who were against them. to have them in newt's corner, newt can continue to make this rather implausible cause he's an outsider. the other thing going backing to what karen said about how this is newt at his most gingrich-y. look at the polls, he's getting crushed. >> despite his ego, the polls in florida are pointing in the opposite direction. a new poll showing romney opening a 20-point lead. does gipg ringrich have a point he says florida is a lost but he's doing better nationally. >> it's going to take some time for him to understand is that

people just don't like him. it's not because of the ads and the super pacs. it's not because of the audience. it's that they really don't like him. it's going to take him a while to figure that out. part of newt's strategy is, this is what happens when the races get drawn out, he's looking for any shifting rationale to make to voters. he was on a roll and i'm the anti-establishment outsider guy. in his own mind, he's got a an ongoing rationale why he's the guy and should be the guy. he will continue to use the numbers to receiself-justify hi world. >> do you think it's possible that at some point in the very near future, someone in the republican establishment,

perhaps carl rove will make a visit to newt's home on a cold dark night and tell him to stop running or face the consequences? >> yeah, but who is that person? it's going to have to be someone within the republican party h h high high high higherarchy to get out of the race. i think on the polls, the reason why newt gingrich is fairing well on the national in national polls and not so well in florida polls is because folks like newt gingrich in theory. once he lands in their state, they don't like him. >> thanks so much for joining us. next, the rnc chair who put his size 9s right in his mouth.

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we've heard the president called a socialist, a facist, a man who went on a apology tour of europe. now thanks to the man who is the face of the republican party, you can add disgraced ship's captain. >> in the end, in a few months this is all going to be history, and we're going to talk about our own little captain schettino. >> what did you call president obama? >> i called him captain

schettino. the captain that fled the ship in italy. that's our own president who's fleeing the american people and not doing his job and running around the country and campaigning. >> here is how the president's spokesman jay carney reported to that comment two hours ago. >> let me say this if you are so desperate for attention that you make an analogy that michael steele deems inappropriate, you know you've probably gone too far. >> this is hour chairman priebus responded one hour ago, doubling down and casting himself as the aggrieved party. >> people out there especially in the democratic side want to try to make hay of it. they're going to be able to do that. the reality is, it's fair analogy. i think it's awful. people died and our prayers go out to those people without a

question, but to take this comment and turn it into something that it was not, that's wrong too. >> joining us is dnc communications brad woodhouse. good afternoon. >> thank you for having me. >> this is about a disaster where the ship's captain has been accused of multiple manslaughter, 17 people are confirmed dead, 16 unaccounted for and the head of the rnc thinks this is an appropriate analogy to make about the president. >> it's incredible. it's disgraceful. not only did he make this inappropriate analogy, he chuckled about it. >> i think he was proud of his skill of analogy in drawing this. i think he was pleased with himself. >> he must have been. forget the disrespect that it shows to the office of the presidency, but consider how insensitive it is to the families, how insensitive to those that still have loved ones missing, those that lost loved

ones in that disaster and to make any suggestion that this president equates with that is just incredibly wrong. he should apologize. it's incredible that he's doubling down on it. i think jay carney has it right. michael steele is the most gaffe prone in history, if he thought it was inappropriate, then priebus crossed the line. >> republicans have questioned the president's place of birth, faith, they shout during his state of the union speech and they wag their fingers in their face. have they decided they will say and do anything, anything to this president? >> i do think they will say and do anything to get elected. when your party starts with extreme positions that we end medicare as we know it, round up

undocumented workers and mitt romney calls the dream act a hand out, that you double down on tax breaks for the wealthy while the middle class is struggling, when you start with such extremes position, maybe it's not so surprise that your rhetoric gets extreme when the american people are recoiling at the very thing you stand for. >> many republicans will say didn't democrats attack george bush in the same way. what's your response to that? >> i don't remember anything that equates from official democratic party. there are interest groups and people have their say, but i don't remember anything coming from democratic party about george w. bush being equated to a terrorist or being equated to somebody who has been accused of manslaughter. i don't remember anybody questioning some of the things about george w. bush that have been questioned about the president. i don't remember an opposing governor wagging his or her finger in president george w.

bush's face. the truth is the republican party starts from a core of extreme positions and it seems that lead to extreme rhetoric when things don't work out for them with the voters. >> how can politicians complain about a lack of civility in public life when they themselves embody discourteous and ruden s rudeness? >> i think you're right. one thing i think the president hoped he could do and one thing he continues to try to do, i think he extended a hand at the state of the union address saying we can have tough political battles. we can do it disagreely not with the type of language that we have seen. the president doesn't want to engage in that. i think we would all be better off. >> brad, thanks so much for joining us this afternoon.

>> thank you. stay with us. much more on the florida slug fest and this aftermath, straight ahead. >> fact is on big issues, he is for all practical purposes a liberal, and i'm a con sefbtive. that's what this fight will be about all the way to the convention. ♪ was unbelievable. what a bargain! [ female announcer ] sometimes a good deal turns out to be not such a good deal. but new bounty gives you value you can see. in this lab demo, one sheet of new bounty leaves this surface cleaner than two sheets of the leading ordinary brand. so you can clean this mess with half as many sheets. bounty has trap and lock technology to soak up big spills and lock them in. why use more when you can use less? bring it with new bounty. ♪ you and me and the big old tree ♪ ♪ side by side, one, two, three ♪ ♪ count the birds in the big old tree ♪

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and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ the president is obviously mindful of his re-election campaign, but he's focussed on the tasks at hand and facing plenty of collages here and abroad. let's go right to kristen wel r welker. john boehner said hay v they will try to provide approval.

>> reporter: it's a thorny issue. we will like lip see them try to get as much mileage out of this issue as they can. they make the argument that the keystone pipeline is a job creator so this allows them to paint the president has someone standing in the issue of job growth. jay carney said he wouldn't comment on this potential legislation except to remind folks that the white house did shelve the issue making the point that didn't feel they had enough time to investigate the environmental impact of that. that decision was seen through a political lens. even if this does have support in the house, at this point in time there's really no indication that it would have broad based support in the senate. this is dountedly a political football. we will see it tossed back and forth a number of times during this election year. >> indeed.

if that's the issue at home, there's also increasing concern overseas. we're hearing that the russians are going to block the un security council vote. did the president spokesman make any reference to how the white house might respond to the crisis in syria? >> reporter: he did make reference to this. we heard some of the strongest language yet that we heard from carney. he said governments that act to prop up the brutal regime will find themselves in small minority. really some strong words coming out of the white house today. it's not just words. it was also announce thad hillary clinton will be meeting with the u.n. security council the try to urge them to pass that resolution for a transition of power in syria.

martin, while i was repairing for this report, i wanted to update the death toll. it now stands at 5,400 people that will have been killed. united nations saying it's so murky in that area it's hard for them to get an exact count of the death toll. tension certainly mounting and the white house ramping up the pressure. >> thanks so much for joining up . mitt romney digging on swine in today's top lines. [ applause ] ♪ spread a little love today ♪

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midnight cowboy, law and order, the godfather and newt and mitt, of course. they're all stars in our top lines weekend recap. >> he is a liberal. conservatives are rejecting romney. >> look in the mirror. >> i'm the legitimate heir of the reagan movement. there was the huge wave of dishonest romney ads. >> it's like goldilocks, can't have it this way. >> the republican establishment believes it's okay and do virtually anything to stop a genuine insurgency from winning. >> vote for newt. annoy a liberal. >> time is not newt gingrich's friend. >> the level of hatred is

unbelievable. >> what did you call president obama? >> i called him captain schettino. the captain that fled the ship. >> obama believes in secular european socialist. >> who the [ bleep ] is linski. >> you may get into this thing afterall. >> i hereby endorse newt gingrich. >> governor romney is man of faith, honor, love and truth. >> it's to play mr. nice guy. >> i think what this is all about. >> there's no reason long campaign has to be a bad thing. >> let's get right to our panel now. dr. james peterson is an social professor and trey harding is a

gop specialist. newt gingrich's conduct is beginning to remind of the road to bazra. he's going to set fire to as much as the republican party as he can. what advice would you give him? >> i would give the advice of don't do it. choose the less selfish route and focus on the task at hand and that's unseating president obama in november, which there is a real chance to do. newt gingrich, this sb it for him. this is his political career. it's not surprising that he'sgoing down this way. he worked to recreate himself since his time as speaker. this is it for him. this is his last opportunity no his political career, so he's going down swinging. >> you sound as this is a man who is incapable of doing well. he's perfectly capable as that columnist said of pulling the

pin off the hand grenade and destroying himself. >> he's a polarizing speaker. newt gingrich will continue to fight another day. he has the microphone. the reason he has it is because he's newt gingrich. he's a very bright man. he can rekrit history probably better than a lot of history professors. it feed a desire of his to be heard. i anticipate he will continue to talk. >> notwithstanding what trey just said, but he did win south carolina. >> sure. in all do respect to the history professors out there, i don't think he can recite american history or world history than most of the professors i know. south carolina is a unique situation for him. he might be playing political

maneuvers, his critique of romney and his ability to galvanize conservatives is something that's very real. there's very real conservative people who do not believe he's conservative. p there are bheem are conservative and who are republican who do not want to vote for mitt romney. >> trey, republicans point to the 2008 battle between hillary clinton and obama and say it's comparable to the nastiness that's coming to this fight between romney and gingrich. at tend of the day, mrs. clinton and mr. obama worked together. can you ever imagine them sharing a house or an office? >> i don't believe newt gingrich is on the top of mitt romney's list for cabinet secretaries. sometimes a battle in a party is healthy. i would say for the republican party it's healthy as they have been trying to reidenti-identif

themselves. it's not working . it didn't work in '08. i don't think you can say john mccain was the most conservative candidate. the gop establishment is in this town that many of us are engaged in is about winning. that's what it's about. >> dr. peterson, newt got to roll out one of the most high profile endorsemented to date today. take a listen to this. >> shuky, ducky. my kind of crowd. you know, if i didn't know better, one could get the impression that you all like me. >> that's herman cain sounding a bit like sally field at the oscars. he's not exactly jeb bush?

>> no. jeb bush is the endorsement of choice that any of these candidates would love to have. i'm not sure how mr. cain's endorsement helps except the few tea party followingeiey followe with mr. cain. >> i guess they can console each other because one as been a serial adulterer and the other is accused of multiple affairs. if you look at the way women are voting in florida, they are appalled by newt gingrich's serial adultery. how long can newt drag this out for? there aren't really any newt pick ups until super tuesday. >> you're right on about that. if you look at the map there's nothing there.

i think maybe colorado, he has an opportunity. he's going to keep going because he's newt gingrich. he's going to have a microphone. he does not have the money or the infrastructure. to his credit he's been doing this all by himself with his two daughters, i believe. he is going to continue to travel in that bus. he's going to go on tv and try to speak to people. i don't think you're going to see much up on tv that much. i don't think -- i think you're going to be selective about where he goes. >> what is in this for newt now? he earns a pretty penny, but not as a lobbyist. what's the point of this? >> the point is to continue to establish his political brand. the people are sympathetic to his policies. these are folks that are more responsive to his nasty political maneuvering and his

critique of romney. remember, mr. gingrich has been successful at selling sifilms a making films and lobbying. his super pac money comes from someone that has a lot of money to have someone out there just to speak certain viewpoints. he's going to continue to do that. he may not be making money off of those things but the folks interested in his campaign and interested in the things he says will continue to support him. >> i have a feeling, sir, that newt gingrich will be around for some time to come. thank you for joining us. next, after mounting pressure by the obama administration, did iran just blink? stay with us.

in an unusual act of apparent conciliation, the

iranian president claims he's willing to restart talks on his nation's nuclear program. he says it's western nations that are not interested this talking. it comes amid reports that tehran is testing new battlefield equipment including drones while threatening to close the straits of hormuz. leon panetta did not mince words with what the united states would permit with regards to iran. >> the president has made this clear. he does not want iran to develop a nuclear we. that's a red line for us. if they proceed and we get intelligence they are proceeding with developing a nuclear we, then we will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it. >> so, is that promise combined with harsh new sanctions enough to get iran to back down on its

nuclear ambitions? good afternoon, mike. >> is there any reason to believe this is a genuine olive branch? >> your last question is relatively easy. the answer is yes. there's no doubt iran is feeling some pain. their economy is in bad shape. i think they are stunned by our collective success under obama's lee leadership and throughout the industrialized world on clamping down on their economy. i think it's been a fairly impressive effort. it's a delaying action or punitive policy. it doesn't prevent iran from getting the bomb, but raises the cause very high. i ran might have an interest in using talks for one of two reasons. one could just be to seem reasonable and try to convince countries like china not to go along with the further

tightening of sanctions that's scheduled for later this year. that's the most likely interpretation. they could be after a deal. >> let me play what mitt romney told a crowd in florida over the weekend about president obama's policy toward iran. listen to this. >> he wrote a little note to ahmadinejad high pressu ahmadinejad. he said could we get together for a little meeting. the foreign policy of pretty please is not working well. >> the that how you could characterize? >> a fan of governor romney. the letter was written about three years ago shortly after he came into office. in those first five months, obama did try to reach out a bit of a hand to ahmadinejad. that was one of reasons why he wasn't tough on the june

elections in iran that ahmadinejad stole. once he rebuffed that obama effort, ever since then obama's been tough and in fact, you could argue he's been more success at tightening sanctions because everyone knows he gave iran a chance and iran rejected it, which in some ways a necessary prerequisite to get countries like china to cooperate in tightening of sa sanctions. if they thought it was our fault, china would use their own economic interest to say we have no reason top go along with the tighter sanctions. obama showed he was willing to try a new relationship. he wasn't naive about it and he didn't do it long. he did it long enough that people have remembered. >> when you hear leon panetta say the u.s. will not allow iran to develop a nuclear weapon,

what do you think he means? what does he have in mind? >> i didn't think secretary panetta's words were perfectly chosen. i've seen him stumble over this before. they are trying to quote, unquote keep all options on the table. they have not said they will use military force. the president has not said that and there's been no previous administration official that has been that unambiguous. the bottom line is he can't get ahead on the president. the president hasn't decided what he would do under the circumstances that were debating here. the bottom line is be president has reserved the right to consider the use of military force if iran goes to the next

step of breaking out of its obligations. he has not promised that he would do so. >> mike, thanks so much again. >> thank you. coming up, the big business of winning the white house reaches new heights ♪ i wasn't eating well. she's a dietitian, and she suggested i try boost complete nutritional drink to help get the nutrition i was missing. now i drink it every day and i love the great taste. [ female announcer ] boost has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to help keep bones strong and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. and our great taste is guaranteed or your money back. learn more at boost.com. [ dad ] i choose great taste. i choose boost. [ sighs ] i can't wait till morning. wait! it's morning in china! ♪ [ male announcer ] it's sweet, it's nutty...

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the focus is florida as voters prepare to head to the polls and the battle in the sunshine state has been especially brutal over the past few days with newt and mitt kicking lumkick ing lumps out of each other and doing so in vicious tv ads. no less than $24 million has been spent on television there. almost $16 million of that by romney and his super pac. it does seem to be working as romney has taken a commanding lead in the latest polls. we're joined by michaeli isekof

cycle. the republican primary by 1,600%. so thank you citizens united? >> absolutely. the study by the wesleyan media group shows this election is a wash with negative ads. something like 30,000 in the republican primary so far. that's up from a comparable period of 2008 of about 1,600. and the predominant number of those are these outside super pa pacs. they are taking over. there's some really interesting numbers that we have computed here at nbc that are actually quite illuminating on this. when you look at the spending in florida right now, and this is

compiled on ad spending, the romney super pac has spent $8.9 million. that's outspending the romney presidential campaign. so for the gingrich super pac that sheldon adelson funded group, $2.8 million. more than twice the $1.2 million that the gingrich campaign is spending. so most of what viewers are seeing are coming from these outside super pacs, lightly regula regulated. they can get from corporations or from anybody. and that's really the ones that are dominating this election. >> and mitt romney doesn't know what they are doing he says. the super pac has arrived. so we're going to get a glimpse of what is giving what and how much. >> exactly. tomorrow is super tuesday for the super pacs. it's the first real full

disclosure we'll have from the super pacs covering the ad sp d spending. we're going to see -- we know because we have had reporting that sheldon adelson, the las vegas casino billionaire has been funding the gingrich super pac. but who is funding the romney super pac? we have had had one disclosure that only went up to june 30th of last year. obviously, the spending and the money-raising is much more than that. we're going to see the first full disclosure by midnight tomorrow. don't forget, there are other super pacs out there there. the obama super pac, priorities usa. where's their money coming from? who has been donating to that. we're going to see full dische sure of that tomorrow. it's going to be interesting to look at these names. >> today rick tyler, the master mind behind the newt super pac

acknowledged mitt's presence took a toll there. if mitt wins there and goes on to claim the nomination, he'll have to say thank you to his super pacs, won't he? >> absolutely. if you go back to the iowa caucus, gingrich was ahead in early december and then you had that massive ad buy of attack ads on gingrich by the romney super pac and it turned it around and dropped gingrich's numbers. gingrich came back with the adelson-funded super pac ads by him, and now the romney super pac has roared back. >> indeed. michael isikoff, thank you for joining us. >> a final note. i'd like to thank bill mahir for having me on this weekend. >> he hosts the martin bashir show. you weren't on today. i said where's martin bashir?

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it's time now to clear the air. and the air around these republican candidates is now thick with accusations of lying and slander. it's turned into an all out fight between gingrich versus mitt. they are not pulling any pinch punches. first, romney accuses gingrich of not telling the truth about his personal history. >> mr. speaker, you talk about all the things you did with ronald reagan and reagan revolution and the jobs created. i looked at the reagan diary. you're mentioned once. and gingrich launched an attack

against romney. >> you can't debate someone who is dishonest. you just can't. the people say i'm a good debater. i can't debate someone who won't tell the truth. >> the truth is on the issue of lying, they are both right because they both told lies throughout this campaign. but their most egregious lies haven't focused on each other. they have been aimed at the president. case in point, mitt romney said this about the president's overall management of the american navy. >> under this president and prior presidents, we keep shrinking the navy. the president is building nine ships a year. we ought to raise that to 15 ships a year. >> no. in fact, the nation is building 11 ships a year for the next five years and is moving ahead with a new generation of strategic ballistic submarines. so on the navy, mitt romney was

not telling the truth. and just a few hours ago, newt gingrich said this in florida. >> the obama administration is engaged in a war against religion. >> a war against religion. really? what possible evidence is there to support the absurd notion that president obama is spending any time at all focused on a war against religion. but that's just the point. mitt romney and newt gingrich will say absolutely anything about anyone. so we should probably take what they say with a pinch of salt. apart, of course, from the fact they both accused each other of lying. now that we can prove. thank you so much for watching. dylan ratigan is back from florida. he's here to take us forward. how are you? >> i'm well. how did you survive your bill mahir experience? it's not so much a show shs but a ritual experience of sorts. >> it was a privilege to be in