previously not been in favor it. she held a press conference to announce she had a change of heart. and now the state is on the path to recognizing them. with that speech from maureen walsh after all the really bad post primary speeches we've been suffering through the past couple weeks that, speech from her renewed my faith in political speeches. democrat and republican. best new thing in the world today. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. >> great news for the country today. the number of people seeking unemployment assistance hit a four-year low today. so now the republicans can start yelling about what they hate paying for even more than they hate paying for unemployment compensation, birth control pills. >> remember when we talked about

jobs? >> the culture war, they seem to be driving santorum's surge. >> for days republicans have been bashing the president on birth control. >> can social issues eclipse fiscal issues? >> this is not even about contraception for me. >> this is not a women's rights issue. this is a religious liberty issue. >> they may alienate catholic voters. >> this is my plea, just own it. >> whether the dust settles here, it's this president who is standing with women. >> the republican canned datsdie battling. >> what's wrong with mitt romney? >> mitt romney lost his mojo. >> my father never graduated from college. 'prenticed as a plaster carpenter. >> obviously, you know, he's trying to humanize himself. >> he sounded like a clinical psychologist describing the

effects of unemployment. >> his speech between a key conservative gathering tomorrow known as cpac. >> cpac starting up this week. it is big. >> conservatives seem to only want rick santorum. >> governor romney on that vitally important issue of obama care is, is in fact the weakest candidate we can put up. >> santorum won by five points in colorado, 18 points in minnesota and 30 points in missouri. someone got some no frills missionary position sex last night. >> republican rage against the pill continued today. republicans could not stop talking about the provision in the president's health care reform law that requires all health care plans to offer coverage for birth control. kind of makes you wonder what they would have been talking about this week if this regulation hadn't come through on time.

>> what's at stake is our first amendment right and a fundamental american value that stood for two centuries. we're going to hand this will openly and deliberately. so that every lawmaker can have their say and the voice the people can be heard. one thing's for certain. this attack on religious freedom cannot and will not stand. >> what this white house is now saying is that federal government will impose a fine on catholic institutions for no other reason than that the religious beliefs of catholics happen to run counter to those silting president. >> we'll fight this attack on the fundamental right to religious freedom until the courts overturn it or until we have a president who will reverse it. >> on the campaign trail today, birth control pills are making rick santorum want to take us back in time. all the way back to the french revolution. >> we have this constitution and you give people the ability of

self government and you have nobody -- no rights they have to respect other than ones in which they give each other. we have a government that thinks they should force you to conform to what they believe. >> it's the catholic church first. it won't be the last if they get away it with. >> some candidates run ago way from the president's position, harry reid took to the senate floor to say he couldn't understand what all the fuss is about. >> this debate that's going on dealing with this issue, dealing with contraception is a rule that hasn't even -- hasn't been made yet. there's no final rule. let's wait until there's at least a rule that we can talk about.

are there discussions going on as we speak? there's not a rule. everyone should calm down. >> yeah, that calm down thing always works in the senate. today, vice president biden who argue ed against this rule in t internal deliberations before it was set told a radio station -- >> i'm determined to see that this gets worked out. and i believe we can work it out. there's going to be a significant attempt to work this out and there's time to do that. and as a practicing catholic, i am of the view that this can be worked out and should be worked out and i know the president feels the same way. >> joining me now, host of "up with chris hayes" and alice wagner. thank you both for joining us. suddenly the title "the last word" is feel very bulky. the short syllable one word things. >> one word. >> what's happening? >> as long as you're covering

religious wars. >> even cooler. >> chris, are we hearing in both harry reid and joe biden the first steps of some kind of retreat? or is that actually what makes sense to say at a time like this because there actually is a significant period of time before this rule goes into effect? >> i'm concerned in the words of margaret thatcher that they're going wabbly. i think this is an issue in which there is always, i think, a generational understanding of the part of democratic politician that's whenever a culture issue like this comes up, they're going to be on the losing side of it and they should be scared of it. i saline into it. you're on the right side of this. >> lean forward. >> lean forward. sorry. >> toward it. >> you're on the right side of this on substance. we can talk about what the eeoc talked about title seven of the civil rights act. but you're right on the

politics. i think ultimate think is a political winner for the democrats. and i think what you -- what will guarantee political defeat is to take all the flack and negative attention from issuing the rule and then walk it back. because then who will be happy? i think don't go wabbly. >> david boys sat in that seat and told the world, it's constitutional. there is no constitutional issue. i mean i learned a lot actually listening to him. it sounds like there might be. and he says this is just labor law. they have to comply with the minimum wage, all sorts of things. but the substance of it seems to make clear sense. the politics of this, i don't think there's any easy calculation to say here's what happens to your vote if you're here and here's what happens to your vote if you're there. because the polling indicates that there is a lot of support for this position in some ways. >> it's two sizes of the electorate that obama has a hard time with or questioning in terms of their support for him going into 2012 which is to say

the working class joe biden catholic blue collar workers and those that to whom the allegations of religious war and war and faith maybe resonate and then there are independent women, a sector that obama wants to win, the obama independents. they tend to be younger. they tend to be less white. they're a quarter minority. they are the ones to most likely depart from him and go to republican. their true swing voters in 2012. certainly making the push for contraception and making it more available and making employers cover it works in, you know, in favor of getting the votes whether, you know, stops them from getting blue collar joe biden work se biden workers is another question. >> this broadens into what is going on here? there is the side that says this is a war on religion which it isn't. then there is the statement that there is a big war on contraception. in fact, we can't even find out how many people are employed by a catholic employer in the

united states. we don't have an entity that seems to know the answer to that question which tells you it's a wicked small number. and so we're not talking about, you know, taking birth control availability through a health care plan away from anyone else except that. the numbers on that get -- let's look at the poll onz this. i have a big, big graphic worked follow up tore tonight over here. here's the poll that everyone talks about. americans generally in favor. this but at 55% which is not some overwhelming majority. it's a workable majority. catholics, the idea that an employer has to provide birth control within your health sppl is supported by more catholics than the population in general. once you focus to the actual issue that they're looking at now which is what about a catholic employer, an constitutional hospital? what do they have to do? and this is just schools. it's not churches. right away, american support goes to 39%. all americans.

on catholics, which includes a lot of nonvoters, it will go to 52% to be a little bit higher than all americans. but way over here, this is the biden issue. the harry reid issue is right here. you have catholic voters. only 49% of catholic voters support catholic institutions having to supply this kind of contraception exactly like all americans, only 49%. and you get more resistance than you get from all americans. you get 52% resistance. and so the political question, electorally is just where do they live? you know? and are they in pennsylvania? >> i think it's also a question of -- i think it's important that we're in the midst of this conversation in which this has high sail yens now is tease apart preference and salience. how brightly will this burn? >> is it a single issue? >> the margins -- >> is this the only thing i'm on? >> i agree with you. >> and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 points.

so really it's a tossup. >> but what you're looking for in re-election politics, you're looking for numbers that are on your side are up here somewhere. these are very, very uncomfortable levels, 49%. alex, what about women on this? is there a benefit in the polls if the president sticks to his guns with this on women? >> i think. so look, he listened to kathleen sebelius on this. he's a father. he's a husband. contraception is very -- it's a very personal issue. every woman has made some choice about it after a certain age. i think the question is whether the white house can get the message out clearly on this. i do think there is a huge amount of confusion. >> they wish this number was 74. here's american women supporting this position. american women, religious institutions providing birth control for all their employees. it's at 54. they would be much mappier if

that was at 64 or 74. you have this up in right here, too. >> but i would say, lawrence, a lot of the women that i have talked to who are -- do not work for msnbc but are out in the world and so forth, are confused. t the right has done a good job making this an abortion issue. >> it sounds like an overall threat. >> i think confusion -- there's a way in which confusion can help the president which is this. tying this together to a broader war on birth control, right, basically saying this fight is being picked by certain element that's really don't want birth control. they don't want you to have your birth control. that is an incredibly unpopular position. the question is, does that get tied in with the broader view of say rick santorum who says it's not right when referring to birth control. >> right. look, the polling -- we're going to have more polling on this. there is another poll that came out today that was done by democratic pollster who asked a vaguer question about, you know,

are you -- do you find this argument convincing? and so it's somewhat weaker. but i don't think there is polling -- wla don't see is the thing we were just talking about, show me the poll that this turns your vote. >> right. >> because you can't really get those polls, that's what makes joe biden nervous, harry reid nervous, probably president obama's a little bit nervous. >> but they con flated this with the larger issue of the government getting involved in your backyard and overreaching the government. >> whether you look at that poll, without conflating ning, you're still at 49% support. but here's the other part, the poll, the people never heard the argument. you might hear this argument. that number might go up. >> right. i think one of the things the white house can do a better job of, i had to read this today is that the eeoc found in 2000 basically that civil rights act of 1964 essentially required something very similar to this already and the bush administration did not object to it. it was a letter from the eeoc to

dupaul university that prompted them to start covering birth control. >> or 28 states already have this -- >> we're going to talk about the 28 states next and big surprises on that, it turns out it's not what it appears to be. i actually studied the eight states that are supposed to have no exemption. we need to dig into the states much more. we're going to do that next. chris hayes, host of "up" and alex wagner host of "now," thank you for joining me tonight. coming up, the states that already have laws similar to the administration's contraception rule, how do the catholic institutions in those states handle it? and do any of those states really have no exceptions to their rule? you've heard that eight states have no exceptions. not so sure about that. do you remember what your dhog time four years ago? if you said i think i was watching mitt romney drop out of the republican race, you'd be

right. the people he's trying to win over are meeting in washington, the conservatives at cpac. we'll talk about that. and nancy brinker has finally apologized for the planned parenthood funding flap. but a former komen affiliate board member and major fund-raiser says that is not enough. she thinks brinker has to resign and she's going to join me later. planes since i was a kid. [ mike ] i always wondered how did an airplane get in the air. at ge aviation, we build jet engines. we lift people up off the ground to 35 thousand feet. these engines are built by hand with very precise assembly techniques. [ mike ] it's gonna fly people around the world. safely and better than it's ever done before. it would be a real treat to hear this monster fire up. [ jaronda ] i think a lot of people, when they look at a jet engine, they see a big hunk of metal. but when i look at it, i see seth, mark, tom, and people like that who work on engines every day. [ tom ] i would love to see this thing fly. [ kareem ] it's a dream, honestly.

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the diamond store. take an extra 10 percent off storewide now through sunday. maternal and infant health care are greatly improved when women have access to contraceptive supplies to prevent unintended pregnancy. many americans hope to complete their families with two or three children. many women spend a majority of their reproductive lives trying to prevent pregnancy. research has shown that 49% of all large group insurance plans do not routinely provide coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices. while virtually all health care plans cover prescription drugs generally, the absence of prescription contraceptive coverage is largely responsible for the fact that women spend 68% more in out of pocket

expenses for health care than men, requiring insurance coverage for prescription drugs and devices for contraception is in the public interest in improving the health of mothers, children, and families. all the words i just spoke were actually written in a state law. and, no, it wasn't some northeastern liberal state. a southern state. a southern hard core republican state. those words appear in the georgia state law that mandates birth control coverage in employer provided health care policies. now you've heard many, many times in the last couple days that there are now 28 states that have passed laws similar to the regulation and the obama health care law and that has -- all of that has become so controversial. you've also been told, and i've been told repeatedly on television, that eight of those states have absolutely no

exemptions to the law, none. no religious xelttiexemptions, out for catholic churches, schools, hospitals. they're stuck. and i got to tell you when you heard that, just didn't sound right to me. and whenever i hear people in washington or new york telling me what's happening out there in the states in some state law in a place where they've never been, i just don't believe them. you shouldn't either. and so in the last word exclusive investigation, we spent the day to day studying the statutes in the eight states that everyone is saying provide absolutely no exemption. the other 20 states, everyone agrees, provide bigger, more comfortable exemptions for the catholic church including massachusetts which has falsely been reported as being identical to the provision inserted in the federal law. in all of those other 20 state laws, there's an exemption big enough for the white house to drive through.

let's look then at the georgia law which you've been told, and i've been told repeatedly has absolutely no exemptions. and does have that astonishingly liberal sounding prose introduction. the georgia law actually says, this code section should not be construed to require coverage for prescription coverage benefits in any contract policy or plan that does not otherwise provide coverage for prescription drugs. and there is the huge exemption to the georgia law. you are exempt from it if your policy simply does not provide for prescription drugs. and so all the religious institutions have to do in georgia is to avoid the requirement to providing birth control pills is to just not provide any drug benefit in their policies. which is true of an awful lot of health insurance policies out there anyway. joining me now is margaret

carlson of bloomberg news. margaret, thank you very much for joining us. you know, listen, i want you and other reporters to go out there and dig into the state laws. i just did a quick read of them and the ones that say there are no exemption, can you find the very easy exemptions. the obama administration, i think, was led to believe or believed that they were doing something that actually been done in 28 other states. my reading of the law says at this point the obama administration with its definition of the exemption is on its own with the narrowest exemption out there in law. >> well, i'm not as good on the areas you are, lawrence. i called a couple hospitals to day where i knew someone and could get some information because i called the huge hospitals, catholic hospital association, the long island catholic hospital group, and i kept being referred to the diocese. so the two hospitals where i called which are catholic

hospitals, they do provide prescription drug coverage. i was told that they have to provide contraceptive coverage because it would be discriminating against a class that is child bearing women not to provide it. now to my mind that says, well, there's a countervailing law out there already from 2000 which says that you have to provide these drugs equally. >> yeah. there's a lot of confusion about this. i've been talking to a lot of people about it. we checked in colorado which is one of the states where they say absolutely no exemption. you know, the catholic institutions have to cover it. when i read the colorado law, it didn't look like they have to cover it. it looks like an exemption in there to me. as it turns out, we got had this message from the head of catholic charities of central colorado. under colorado state law, catholic charities is not

required to provide contraception and sterilization coverage to its employees. and so it's not true that colorado has no exceptions. and that seems to me to be where president obama advised now by vice president biden who we know in the deliberations before was telling him to go in a looser direction on the exemption. it looks like they're going to try to go into the definitions in that exemption and possibly talk about maybe broadening them a little bit more. is there any version of compromise that you think can work for the president given the two different interest groups on this? >> well, the secular socialist certainly thohas to do somethin. it reinforces that image of him. he cannot be at war on religion. when you read colorado it said not required to provide it. when i talked to one of the hospitals today, they said they

did provide it as a way of hiring people because it is so hard to find people to do, you know, some of the unpleasant work that you're doing in a hospital. so while you may have this exemption, you may still provide it as part of your prescription drug coverage if you're going to make the leap to prescription drug coverage. so, you know, the president could probably find something like maybe the hawaii plan although i'm told by talk together trade associations, it's an expensive to get a rider or parallel insurance to go somewhere else because of adverse selection. the only people that are going to buy that policy rider are the ones who actually need contraception. so it's going to be so expensive you can't do it. i know they can find something in between hawaii and one what hospitals are already doing. it's like catholics are already using contraception.

how is catholic hospitals are already providing some policies that cover this. >> you make a very good point. in the free environment of it, it's up to them. there are many catholic institutions that have already made the decision for a variety of reasons including attracting medical personnel who are basically being competitively bid on and you've got to say to them, yep, we've got the same health care policy as that other hospital you were thinking about working at. and so the real question becomes how many people really are affected by this which remains? without a journalistic answer. nobody really knows how many people would be affected about think rule. margaret carlson of bloomberg news, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. >> thank you. coming up, the perfectly legal way for people to buy guns without ever going through a background check. that's in tonight's "where he write." later, the head of the komen foundation apologized. that's in and out enough for eve ellis, a major fund-raiser for

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the cpac is meeting this week in washington. this is the time and place that mitt romney dropped out of the presidential race four years ago. this is the same time and place where exactly one year ago ann coulter said this. >> if we don't run chris christie, romney will be the nominee and we'll lose. >> even though ann coulter had since tried to recant that comment and has now got in line with the republican party's support for mitt romney, it's as if her words still haunt everyone at cpac. >> i think the republicans decided they're going to go with electability instead of issues. if electability is your case and the electability is base the on i can fix the economy and the economy fixes itself, then why do we necessarily need a nominee who the obama campaign is going to spend millions of dollars on to make unlikeable?

>> the wall street journal spent hundreds of thousands of words covering the republican primary and then encouraging the candidates. but if you arrived from another plan tote day, "the wall street journal" summed up the entire campaign in one sentence. conservatives don't trust mr. romney in part because he gives them little reason to do so. joining me now is the washington bureau chief of mother jones magazine and msnbc political analyst david corn. david, cpac is a place where republicans really let their hair down. tell us what they're really thinking. as always, there is always something. >> i feel their pain. they're being force fed mitt romney. he's going to give a big speech there tomorrow. it's not going to have applause lines. you just can't make the deal. you and others, we've been talking about this for months. the whole campaign narrative has been who's the nonromney? romney is just not in siync wit

the deep conservative anti-obama hating fervor of the republican primary base. and, you know, listen, he's not a good enough politician to fake it. and his flip-flops ideologically on abortion rights and gun control and everything else have been too transparent over the years. he hasn't done that with a depth enough hand. on top of all those liabilities, he's like not the 1%. he's the .0001% at the worst time for any candidate to come across as being that elevated above the rest of the 99%. so there are all the lie anlts. ann coulter she made a decent point that a lot of people believed last year and now they see well, you know, we're going to have to eat this spinach. it's not exciting the base. i can't see too many rouse aing

applause for him tomorrow. >> and ann coulter got a huge nomination saying if we nominate romney, we will lose. >> i'm sorry, the interesting thing tomorrow is going to be how santorum, even gingrich are received. i mean, you know, these people can speak more to that conservative anger that's out there and what they keep doing is they keep pulling, you know, pulling romney to the right and putting off by a week by week, month by month his inevitable pivot to the mid toll try to reach more sane middle of the road voters. >> but david, what he tried -- if romney is to be the nominee and if he tries to make some pivot away from the direction he's been going, the obama campaign is going to be standing there ready and they're going to have every word he said pandering to the right-wing during the republican primaries. i just don't see -- >> and every word newt gingrich

said about having no principles. you're right. >> the ads for the democrats on this, i can't think of them being more destructive to the eventual nominee, presidential primary process we've seen in recent memory. >> you've been around. i've been around a couple years covering this sort of stuff. every year they always say this, the primary fight is going to damage the nam knominee. it usually doesn't happen. obama and hillary clinton got together finally after that long drawn out affair. and i felt the fight ended up being good for barack obama. but this may be the case where we see that, you know, all this baggage coming at mitt romney from, you know, both sides actually may come to haunt him when he runs against barack obama. because he hasn't created his own story. most of the story of this campaign has been people on the outside defining it for him. >> and meanwhile, the president

in the daily poll of approval moved solidly into a positive approval, approval higher than disapproval. and so while every day the republicans campaign, things seem to be getting better for president obama. >> well, you know, he's been on a roll since, you know, he got through the debt ceiling crisis. and he stopped negotiating republicans. he thought he had to because he was in a hostage situation. he came out with a jobs bill. republicans didn't pass it. he started taking the fight to them and talking about jobs, jobs, jobs. you know, he had that tremendous win over the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut which is going to come up again in the next few weeks. and he actually got the pub lib public to consider him more responsible when it comes to raising revenues to close the gaps than were the republicans who refused to come up with a decent compromise. so all this is sort of flowing together for him and, you know, decent job creation numbers, you know, those can go up and down.

but he's positioned himself as the reasonable fellow next to the republican clown show with these candidates pandering or, you know, just trying to appeal to their base. but it's a base that i think is pretty far away from middle of the road independent voters at this point. >> david, mitt romney found reassuring words for republicans about why losing is okay. and why they shouldn't worry about his win-loss record so far. he tried it out tonight on fox news. let's listen to this. >> you don't win them all. and so i expect i'll lose a number of states before we actually get to a point write get the 1150 delegates i need. >> he talked about, you know, john mccain. he said john mccain lost 19 states on his way to the nomination. don't you want to pick maybe a guy who actually won the presidency as your model? >> what's he going to say at this point? you know, he just lost three, you know, whether they were

significant or not, this is going to be a long slog. part of the reason is there is proportional alotment of the delegates. so there are not a lot of winner take all states. if they come in second or win some, they're going to be he massing delegates. i talk to michael steel yesterday, our fellow msnbc colleague. he helped write the new rules that they're playing under for the republican primaries. he said his goal back then was to have a brokered convention. that may be possible. but if it doesn't happen, you're going to have this long destructive damaging slog towards 1144 delegates, the number you need. >> brokered convention, thank you mr. michael steel. could not be more grateful. david corn of mother jones, thank you very much for joining me. >> sure thing. >> coming up, the head of the komen foundation apologized to day but a major fund-raiser and former board member thinks that's not enough. she's going to join me later. and we'll show you how easy it is to buy guns on the internet. we've got some really scary

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now it's time to "rewrite" our understanding of how easy it is to buy and sell guns. jeff rossen found out. and it is frighteningly easier than i thought. >> reporter: they are some of the most lethal weapons out there. and we were able to buy all of them in a single day with no background checks, no questions asked. it's this easy, hundreds of thousands of guns for sale on hundreds of web sites. we responded and set up meetings at popular shopping malls. >> how much was that we agreed on? >> $500. >> we bought everything from had police grade pistol to this semiautomatic assault rifle. we did it over and over again. our buyer even hinting he's kranl. >> no paperwork, no background checks. probably could have passed the darn thing anyway. >> within hours, we bought eight

guns. remember at a gun store a background check is required. but online, nothing. and believe it or not, in most states, it's completely legal. >> is this like a candy store for criminals? >> yes. it's a weapons bizarre for criminals. >> reporter: in fact, 34 people are murdered every day in gun violence with many of the weapons traced back to private sales just like these. >> no one should have to die like that. >> reporter: these two women lost their best friend killed by a stalker. this canadian man, who crossed into the u.s., bought a gun online in seattle and then shot her 11 times as she got into her car. >> no legitimate gun store would have sold this man a gun. he's not a u.s. citizen. he wouldn't have passed a background check. yet, he was able to easily buy one online. >> there's not a doubt in my mind had this man not been able to buy a gun online, she would still be here. >> reporter: so what kinds of

dangerous weapons could we buy? to find out, we went online and responded to gun ads in phoenix, arizona, one of the many states where it's legal. within minutes, we had meetings set up. our gun buyers, two arizona security experts we hired. posing as husband and wife. >> this is a great gun. >> this man is about to sell is a tactical assault rifle modified to use bullets fon an ak-47. >> come over here and i've gu the money. >> we were watching from nearby vans as our buyers paid cash for the guns number questions asked. >> jeff rossen from nbc news. you just sold an assault rife toll people who you have no idea who they are. does that ever weigh on you? >> it does. but at the same time, too, i'm not going to be responsible for what they choose to do it with. >> reporter: so for our next meetings, we took it up a notch, telling the seller point blank we probably can't pass a background check. will they still sell us the guns

then? we're about to find out. this man is pedaling a glock 23 about hallow point bullets made to inflict serious internal damage. >> so we're not doing do any background checks or anything? >> unless you want to. >> i probably couldn't pass one anyway. >> yeah, right. i appreciate everything. >> absolutely. >> they shake on it. and that's our signal. >> he told you can't pass a background check. did that raise any red flags for you? >> slightly. but in this economy when you need the money, you need the money. >> so it's all about the cash. people can get hurt though. doesn't that matter? >> yes. >> it didn't matter to you. >> i need the money. >> but the most scary transaction of all came after dark in this pharmacy parking lot. the online ad was nor 50 caliber sniper rifle, the most powerful gun legally sold in the u.s. bullet range, five miles. it can pierce armored vehicles, even bring down a helicopter. >> this is set up --

>> but the selcer so laid back you think he is hocking a used bicycle. zbl . >> enjoy it. >> once he got the cash, the gun was ours, no questions asked. but we had some for him. this is the gun of choice for the drug cartels worldwide. i mean this gun can take down a helicopter. >> it can take anything. it's a 50 caliber. i understand. >> you know how powerful the weapon s doesn't it concern you that you have no idea who these people are? they could be dangerous felons for terrorists? >> no, i never thought about it. >> reporter: so what's the government doing about it? turns throughout is a bill that would close this loophole and require background checks for all gun sales, even online. but that bill has been sitting in committee for nearly a year. >> maybe your report will cause people to account. >> reporter: chuck shumer is sponsoring the bill. >> reporter: with all due respect, as congress continues to debate this and play politics, authorities say rinls, dachg us are criminals in many

cases are buying guns online. >> the nra is one of the most powerful lobbies in washington. despite the overwhelming evidence that we should do something which your report confirms, the odds of us being able to do something is not high. >> reporter: the nra opposes the bill because it had many serious flaws. but wouldn't comment about online gun sales. in the past, the nra has fought background checks for any private sales. but victims say until the law is changed, more innocent people will die. >> all they care about is profit. profit over lives. and it's wrong. [ tom ] we invented the turbine business right here in schenectady. without the stuff that we make here, you wouldn't be able to walk in your house and flip on your lights. [ brad ] at ge we build turbines that power the world. they go into power plants which take some form of energy, harness it, and turn it into more efficient electricity.

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the founder and ceo of susan g komen for the cure foundation is making her first public statement and apology after

reversing the decision to halt all grants to planned parenthood in an open letter to "the washington post," brinker writes, we in women's health organizations you some be absolutely true to our core missions, and avoid even the appearance of bias or judgment in our decisions. i made some mistakes. in retrospect, we have learned a lot. and must now rebuild the trust that so many want to have in us. i apologize to all who are disappointed in us and will work hard to restore your trust. brinker was responding to an open letter by "washington post" religion columnist sally quinn who called brinker's explanation for defunneleding planned parenthood contradictory and confusing. joining me now for an exclusive interview is eve ellis, a former board member and fund-raiser for komen's new york affiliate who left the organization last week over the controversy and thinks brinker should resign. this has been an amazing saga

from start to finish. you wrote last week it is with a heavy heart and angry mind that i have raised and donated my last dollar to komen. what does this apology today do to what you said last week? >> well, actually, the apology doesn't change what i said last week. and in this past monday i sent out to my family and friends, i actually wanted to just say i'm just representing myself and my family and friends who have been so supportive over the years as i've raised money for komen. and it's a successful grassroots raising and successful grassroots organization. manufacture the people contributed small amounts. and the apology to me seems hollow. nancy brink der not say that she apologizes to those underserved women who would the be getting breast cancer treatment as a result of komen's initial decision. i don't know what the mistakes have r. that she thinks she

made. i know you've often been saying that komen needs to be truthful and i think that would be a really good positive step in the right direction. i'm not sure that we're ever going to get that. i'm really calling for two things. i think nancy komen has to resign as ceo and i think the board needs to be replaced. i want to get back on the team. but not with this hollow apology. >> is there any kind of momentum that can be developed to force a resignation at this point? >> i think there can be. i mean i've been hearing from so many different people. they want to know what they can do. and i think they really can be vocal. one way to be vocal is there is now a petition up on chnge.org that activists put up on the website today. and people can good and ask for this resignation of both nancy brinker and the board and really clean house. >> knowing the institution as you do, how do you expect them to behave? you have a petition at change.org for her resignation.

we'll see the signatures pile up on that very, very quickly. but there is a nixonian quality like. this the mistakes were made sort of language. that seem like we're not going to say anything more about this or do anything more about this. >> well, i know that there are people behind the scenes working to make komen strong as it once was. and to make komen accountable and transparent and to really change -- >> what would have to happen for you to krnt? >> nancy brinker needs to resign. the board needs to be replaced. i think the affiliates, local affiliates around the country can become active in deciding who should be on the board. so that we feel there is good representation. and really so that there is a respect for a 501-c-3. this should not be about partisan politics. really, the step that would get me back on the team are those two. the third piece i want is for carol