coming. rush limbaugh says liberals made him call sandra fluke a slut and a prostitute. >> rush limbaugh is on the defense. >> the apology to her over the weekend was sincere. >> rush limbaugh has apologized. >> apologizing this weekend for calling a georgetown student a slut. >> i don't think that a statement like this changes anything. >> his apology was a nonapology. >> he's under significant pressure from his sponsors. >> aol is now suspending its advertising. >> that makes a total, if you're counting, of nine advertisers. >> the rush limbaugh debacle last week was incredibly damaging to the party. >> many americans perceive rush limbaugh as the face of the republican party. >> let's talk about women. >> independent women may be the key swing group in this election. >> let's look at some of these numbers. >> oh, my, so many numbers to unpack. >> the new nbc/"wall street journal" poll. 40% have a less favorable opinion of the gop.

>> where is mitt romney in all of this? >> 39% of americans have an unfavorable view of women. >> maybe he should stop talking about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees. >> maybe even a bit of a muppet. >> a net loss of 11 points. >> he's lost control of his public image. >> the president reads romney six points. >> his approval rating is 50%. >> 50% of americans now approve of how president obama is doing his job. >> this race has really hurt the republican brand. >> look at the front run are, mitt romney. i know romney looks like a president, but we don't always get the job we look right for. if we did, i'd be the king of the snakes! good evening from washington. with advertisers fleeing his radio show over the weekend on saturday, rush limbaugh did something he absolutely never does.

he issued a written apology. this time to sandra fluke, the georgetown student he called a slut and a prostitute on his show last week, realizing that that wasn't good enough to preserve his advertising-driven income of more than $50 million a year. rush limbaugh began his radio show today with an explanation and his version of an apology. >> this is the mistake i made. in fighting them on this issue last week, i became like them. against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything i know to be right and wrong, i descended to their level when i used those two words to describe sandra fluke. that was my error. and i again sincerely apologize to ms. fluke for using those two words to describe her. >> the advertisers' stampede

away from rush limbaugh is now up to 12, and at least two radio stations have announced they'll stop airing his program. today limbaugh pretended to be unconcerned about the lost advertisers. >> those advertisers who no longer want your business, fine. we'll replace them. it's simple. really, advertising is a business decision. it's not a social one. only the leftists try to use extortion, pressure, threats to silence opposing voices. we don't do that. >> limbaugh's written apology on saturday and the apology he gave today on his show were directed to sandra fluke who became a public figure only when republican darrell issa prevented her from testifying at a congressional hearing. there is, really, only one reaction to rush limbaugh's apology to sandra fluke that matters.

this is her reaction to the apology on "the view" this morning. >> i don't think that a statement like this issued saying that his choice of words was not the best changes anything. and especially when that statement is issued when he's under significant pressure from his sponsors who have begun to pull their support from the show. >> limbaugh's apology may not have been good enough for sandra fluke, but it was good enough, and it was accepted by someone who limbaugh did not even apologize to. >> i certainly accept rush's apology. not on my behalf, but i accept it as being what he thought was the right thing to do. i have no disagreement with him on that. >> not surprisingly, a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll finds romney trailing 20 points behind obama, president obama at 55% and romney at 37%.

joining me now are "washington post" opinion writer and nbc political writer e.j. dionne and former communications director and an msnbc political analyst karen finney. thank you both for joining me tonight. e.j., you have breaking news from one of the advertisers who has dropped rush limbaugh. tell us about it. >> i didn't think it was breaking news, but i happened to be at a dinner tonight. and david friend of the carbonite company, one of the companies that dropped -- >> longtime -- i've been listening to rush for years, many, many years. carbonite's been with him for at least ten years, maybe more. >> you know, we tend to, when we talk about this, to make it all about politics. and i asked him the simple question at dinner, why did you drop your advertising? and he said, i have daughters the same age as the woman he attacked. and i think that the reason this was different -- i mean, rush limbaugh has said a lot of outrageous things about a lot of people over the years.

we tend to let it go by when he says it about public figures. and in fairness, some people on our side have said outrageous things about right-wing public figures, but this was a young woman who just chose to stand up on a particular issue, we wanted out there, could be a lot of people's daughter. connie schultz, just before your show, was on "rachel maddow." and she talked about her daughters. i think this connected with people in a personal way, and it created a problem for him like he's never had before. >> but it could not be rush limbaugh's daughter because in his four marriages, he has never had a child, a daughter, son. he had a lot to say today, karen. he went on and on, was rambling in all sorts of directions. i want you to listen to this other excuse he wandered into where rush limbaugh compares himself to rappers who win grammys for mean things they say about women. >> oh, my. >> you're going to have to hear this. let's listen to it now. >> okay. >> fewer and people and fewer and fewer businesses and fewer and fewer institutions actually

have a moral core, or they're not willing to stand up for their moral core. and you talk about the double standard. one of the greatest illustrations of it is that rappers can practically say anything they want about women, and it's called art. and they win awards for it. >> i don't even have a question. go. >> rappers can say anything they want about women, and you know what? we don't have to buy their product just as advertisers can say, you know what? we're not going to advertise on someone who talks like that about women. i mean, but here's the thing i want us to not forget. it's not just that he called her a prostitute and a slut. he said, if i'm going to pay for you to have sex, i want to see the video. i want you to put up -- i mean, it was more disgusting than just two words. and if -- her story wasn't even about having sex. and even if it was, who cares? it's not his business. this kind of slut shaming, his crystal ball has called it, this

kind of objectifying and making it about sex is really disgusting, and that's what people are reacting to. i think a lot of women appreciate the fact that men are coming forward on this as well because, you know, for mitt romney, i mean, i'm sorry, he has granddaughters. he's got sons who are married to women. he's married to a woman. he missed the opportunity to do the one thing that has eluded him all campaign. that is to get respect. if he would have stood up to rush limbaugh, i guarantee you people would respect him for that. he's too much of a coward to do it. >> just on the rappers thing, i've written a couple of columns criticizing rappers for misogyny. presidents don't go on the grammys. >> also, rappers don't attack individual college students, you know, with their art.

they don't use the platform that they have to attack individual people in such a vicious and disgusting way. >> let's listen to what george will said yesterday, his reaction to how republicans in general reacted to limbaugh. let's listen to that. >> what it indicates is that the republican leaders are afraid of rush limbaugh. they want to bomb iran, but they're afraid of rush limbaugh. >> it is as simple as that, e.j. >> god bless george will. that's exactly right. and you're talking about, what, 12 million listeners? and the assumption is most of them vote in republican primaries. and so there is this fear. but what's also striking is karen mentioned that he said she should make sex tapes and make them public. this whole thing about contraception is supposed to be a defense of traditional values, and then we have rush limbaugh saying something like that? i mean, george will is a real conservative. he's offended by stuff like this. >> karen, to your point on romney, how easy would it have been for him to say, this is a

horrible thing to say. what he came up with is, i wouldn't have used those words. when you say i wouldn't have used those words, you're saying i completely accept the concept all the way through. >> absolutely. and i think as the poll numbers show, women know that code. we know that code when you say, you know, humina, humina and don't really have an answer. i want to take this to a personal level for a moment. yesterday i was in selma on the bridge with john lewis. and one of the things when you talk to the people who participated in the civil rights movement is the courage that it took to stand up and speak out, whites, blacks, jews, christians, you name it, all across this country. so the cowardice of this republican party is really stunning. and i really hope that certainly people in my party do not let them get -- that was not an apology. you see the right wing now coming to, you know, his defense. everybody from bill o'reilly to, you know, red state. and it's really disgusting, and

we cannot be silent. and the republicans who are staying silent are endorsing that behavior the same way that when they were silent, they endorsed the birther controversy, for goodness sakes. >> i think it's worth noting the republicans do speak out, one of them was john mccain. he used some very strong language today. and i think more of them have to do it. >> let's listen to what romney said about this to sean hannity. >> i do think the language that comes from the left has been, in many cases, simply outrageous. frankly, i find it just very, very disspiriting, and i wish our president would pay as much attention to people on his side of the political spectrum and tell them, hey, rein it back, guys. this is not the way that we ought to be working with each other in this country. >> okay. i'm open to mitt romney to tell us exactly who it is who he wants the president to say, stop saying what. what is he talking about? >> stop defending that young girl.

i mean, is that really what he's trying to say? you know, look. e.j. made a really great point. there have been times when on the left we have criticized sarah palin and michele bachmann earlier this year because of her migraines. i personally and other women that i know who are democrats actually defended that because, again, the point is, none of this is acceptable, republican, democrat, what have you. again, who is romney talking about? you know who he's talking to is those right-wing conservatives. they're not going to vote for him anyway. he had a shot to actually gain some votes, gain some respect, and he passed on it. >> e.j. dionne and karen finney, thank you both. in studio in washington. good to have you here. coming up, the republican primary is hurting republicans, and new polls show it is helping president obama. and in "the rewrite," the very big lie that mitt romney keeps get ago way with in every republican presidential debate. and later, someone compared it to the super bowl. last night in washington to raise money for the kind fund, i

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so mitt romney's five adult sons, why should people get excited and not terrified by your presence on the campaign trail? >> well, we connect with the younger voter. our average age is 36 while our median age is 35. and we like the same things as young people such as sport, cinema and doo-wop. see? we're just like you, america. >> all right. our thanks to stephen king for creating those boys. [ coughs ]

what is this shorty? uh, tissues sir, i'm sick. you don't cough, you don't show defeat. give me your war face! raaah! [ male annou a pep talk ievery.

president obama will hold his first press conference of the year at 1:15 eastern standard time tomorrow, just hours before the its focus on the ten states that will cast votes for the republican presidential nomination on super tuesday. new polls today are showing that the republican nominating process cannot end soon enough for most republicans in the republican party. according to a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, four in ten americans say the republican nominating process has made them feel less favorable toward the republican party.

only 12% say the republican nominating process has made them feel more favorable toward the republican party. "new york post" conservative columnist john spoke for the republican establishment in his latest column. "maybe, just maybe, if romney does well, by which i mean he wins or all -- all but wins -- all but wins in ohio and tennessee, the two most important states to watch -- we can get out of the political doldrums in which we have been trapped for months and months and months, and months and months and months, and move on. this would come as a relief to me and countless others like me frankly because i can't take much more of it." ohio polls out today show that mitt romney and rick santorum are running in a virtual tie in that state. a suffolk university poll has santorum ahead of romney by four points which is within the margin of error.

a quinnipiac poll has romney ahead of santorum by three points. also within the margin of error. and in tennessee, a robo poll has santorum up by five points. "red state" editor in chief eric erickson has given up on the republican field and today chose some very bitter words to essentially say, president obama is going to win re-election. there are people like me who are pretty sure that as much as romney will struggle against the president, why, yes, rick santorum would be post, too. we are going against the second coming of jimmy carter battling to find the tallest midget to put up against him." joining me now, obama campaign national co-chair and california attorney general carmela harris and "the new yorker's" washington correspondent ryan lizza. thank you for joining me in studio tonight.

you've just flown across the country from the single biggest delegate catch in -- i mean electoral college catch in the general election. >> great golden state. >> which, of course, is locked up for president obama. when you look at what's happening in michigan and ohio in these states that the republicans have been campaigning in and in swing states that the president has to win, it seems like the republicans couldn't be paving a better road to democratic victory. >> i think that's right. but i think it's not without merit that you see these poll numbers. the president has been working very hard through this, his first term, in the midst of great challenges. and he has seen success. and i think the american people know it. and as we get closer to the election, the numbers will continue to reflect that he is the fighter for middle-class values. he is the one who has cared about the need for all of us to have meaningful health care. he is the one who cares about the middle class on the foreclosure deal that we just completed. $25 billion for the united states.

and so i think the right thing is happening, but based on merit. >> and he's also not the candidate who's driving the campaign discussion off into very strange territories like contraception and such. i want to take a look at some of these factors in the new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll showing president obama versus romney head to head here. we show him leading independents in this poll 50-44. we show the president leading with women voters 55-37. midwest voters, let's see, it's up there now. midwest voters, 52-42. ryan, in your latest article, it's numbers like that that you think are scaring establishment republicans, and you think there might be some who are actually hoping that the primary process does not deliver a fixed nominee to that convention. maybe they can sort everything out at the convention.

>> well, what i tried to argue is that, you know, primaries don't necessarily deliver a consensus candidate. primaries are a relatively recent invention, and it's not a guarantee that going from state to state when you have two candidates representing different factions of the party, that you'll get -- that you'll get a process where everyone comes together at the end. you know, you need sometimes what political scientists refer to as a consensus-forcing institution. and you don't have that anymore in politics. and so the argument i threw out there was, you know, perhaps a convention where you get -- where you have all the factions of the different party represented, on board, and you have that consensus-forcing institution, help them come together, if it's around romney or something else. it will likely be around romney. right now you have romney as the 40% candidates. that's how many votes he's won so far, 40%. and you have a sizeable faction of the republican party, mostly evangelical voters. romney has lost them by between

9 and 24 points in 7 contests with entrance or exit polls. 9 and 24 points. you have this big chunk of the republican party that is withholding support of this guy, and he's going to have to do something to bring the party back together. >> let's listen to what harry reid told me today about what he thinks mitt romney's problem is connecting with voters. what is the romney lesson about the tax code? >> first of all, i have nothing against rich people. i think mitt romney is a very fine man. but look. in the past, rich people have fared pretty well running for president. mitt romney has obviously been a rich person his whole life. he can't identify with regular people. he can't identify with people in nascar. he can't identify with the people putting those automobiles together that he didn't want them to be able to put them together. he said, i gave a few speeches last year, didn't make much money. it was $340,000 he made.

his tax rate is far less than warren buffett's secretary which the buffett rule certainly comes into play here. so he doesn't identify with regular guys and women. >> kamala, we've seen rich republicans self-finance, meg whitman go against jerry brown, couldn't do it. we've seen rich republicans struggling as candidates. >> well, listen, i think harry reid is right. today in sacramento, the capital of california, at least 5,000 students converged on the state capitol. they occupied the dome. and they were there protesting because they want access to affordable education. and this comes in the midst of statistics that are telling us that for the average california family who has an income of $100,000, it would be more expensive to send their child, the student, to the university of california system or the state college system than it

would be to send that child to harvard or princeton or yale. this is where we are now as a country. and young and old want to know that we have people who understand with, empathize and identify with the middle class and the need to support the middle class if we are going to support the future of our country. >> ryan, what are you expecting from the president tomorrow in this news conference? is there anything he can credibly say about what he hopes to accomplish governing between now and election day? >> no. i mean, what the obama white house and campaign has been very effective at doing during the republican primaries is every once in a while inserting themselves in at opportune moments to play up this extreme contrast between a party and a presumptive nominee, going after the right wing of his party, constantly moving to the right, and a president who's sticking to the middle, running a general election campaign. the most recent thing they did,

of course, was call this young woman to buck her up, to really get the obama versus rush limbaugh thing. what they're trying to do, they can't run against romney now, so they're trying to run against rush and some of the extreme right. that's why they're doing a press conference on super tuesday. >> kamala harris, you're my attorney general in california. we both live in california, and the only way i see you in the same studio is that we both have to come to washington. >> i'm here meeting with the national attorneys general. so welcome all 50 of us in town right now. >> thank you very much. ryan lizza, also thank you very much. thank you both. coming up, my interview with senate majority leader harry reid on everything from rush limbaugh to the 2012 election. and later, last night here in washington, i debated ann coulter at george washington university. we'll give you a fair and balanced review of the great debate. ouncer ] with six indulgently layered desserts, all at 150 calories or less, there's definitely a temptations for you.

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if mitt romney becomes the republican nominee for president, he will not be able to get away with the lie that has carried him through the republican debates. if he tries that lie in a debate with president obama, mitt romney will get burned. that's in "the rewrite." but first, my interview with senate ma jord leader, harry reid. what he thinks of rush limbaugh and what's at stake for the campaigns in senate this year.

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the republican nominee, whoever it is, and say, we have a better chance of maximizing the real objective, which is to stop obama by getting all the gavels in congress, all the committee chairmanship in republican hands. >> in the spotlight tonight, a last word exclusive. with republican opinion leaders like george will and eric erickson giving up on winning the presidency, energy and money will increasingly be aimed as seizing control of the united states senate. i met with senate majority leader harry reid today at the capitol to discuss what's at stake in this year's senate campaigns and, of course, the limbaugh factor. senator reid, the last vote you had here in the senate was the blunt amendment. 51-48. it was a close vote. senator schumer has pointed out that if the republicans were to take over the senate this this election, they would pass the blunt amendment. this is something, among many other things, that the fight for the senate is now all about.

>> that was really a memorable vote for me because it brought back a lot of memories of what i had worked with senator snow 15 years ago. it was me and senator snow that started this contraceptive issue. we believed that back then if you were going to stop the number of abortions, look at the cause of half of them, and that's unintended pregnancies. so we brought this up. we had -- there was a little controversy, but we passed it. if you were a federal employee, your insurance would cover these contraceptives, and that paved the way where we are now. and senator schumer is absolutely right. that vote was very, very close, 51-48. slight change, and i don't think it would be a good day for women in america. >> well, that's why rush limbaugh is saying today on his radio show that that vote on th blunt amendment is proof why you need to be defeated. that no one should ever think about compromising with democrats in the house and

senate, we should onlydefeating them. >> well, rush limbaugh is someone who has learned that you -- even in the rush limbaugh world, there's certain things that you can't say. and what brought his attention to this is lots and lots of sponsors of his program said no more, you've gone too far. rush limbaugh, each day that goes by, has become less credible with the american people. >> what do you say to -- how do you get a message out to people who are thinking about coming up to the hill to testify in the senate and the house after something like what we've seen with limbaugh. a law student, democrats invited to come up to the house of representatives and offer testimony, and she gets called a prostitute. she gets called a slut repeatedly on the biggest national radio show in the country. what do you say about -- to witnesses who say, i don't want

to have anything to do with what you do up there, because i'm afraid of what might happen to me if i do? >> the world of washington has changed. when i first came to the senate, there was a lone woman who was the democrat. now we have 12 women, and after this election, with good fortune, we'll have 6 or 7 additional women. we cannot have something like this take place. it's embarrassing to our country. it's embarrassing to the congress to have a woman who had something to say. she was invited to testify and was disinvited by an all-male group of people. washington has changed. you can't do that to women in america anymore. >> many people have responded to what they've seen appear, calling it a war on women. is that politically a fair characterization for what's going on?

>> lawrence, i don't know about a war on women. i do know this. we were trying to hold a position we think is pretty important. and that is that women are entitled for contraception, contraceptives of their choice. that's what this is all about. >> others are concerned now, are focusing on the senate and the house elections. george will, a much more sane republican voice than rush limbaugh, is also concentrating here -- he said yesterday he's almost given up on the hope of a republican coming out of this crazy republican presidential primary and winning the presidency. so he is saying, it's time to start focusing on the senate and winning back the senate. do you fear that this failure of the performance of the republican presidential candidates will, in fact, focus real republican energy on trying to take away your majority leadership?

>> people around the country, republicans around the country, are not like these people here in the senate that are republicans. or in the house. when i came to washington, we had many, many moderate republicans. you know their names as well as i do. danforth, an episcopalian minister from missouri, hatfield and packwood. we had john heinz from pennsylvania, jon chaffee from rhode island. and on and on. you could count up to 20 moderate republicans. >> it wasn't limited by region, the midwest, the northeast. >> no, that's for sure. mainstream republicans don't accept all this crazy stuff that you see taking place within the republican run for presidency. but the sad part about it is the house of representatives, we all know, is dominated by the tea party. what people don't realize is the senate, about 40% of republican senators are tea party folks.

look at what happened -- we have a moderate republican elected from missouri. he had had experience in house leadership, roy blunt. he runs for a spot here third or fourth down the hierarchy of republican leadership. he damn near got beat because he was running against a tea party guy, johnson from wisconsin. so the american people aren't going to accept what the republicans have been trying to do on the presidential level, with these people, with this -- i mean, this is so absurd what they're doing in the presidential elections. but they're still doing it in our ngressional elections. what we need is the republicans to get back where they were, to get back to being a jon chaffee republican, to be a john heinz republican. you know, my congress represents america. i have bernie sanders who, who he was first elected, was a socialist.

he's an independent. i have barbara boxer, one of the most progressive members in the entire senate. but on the other side, i have mark prior from arkansas, a very moderate man. i have claire mccaskill from missouri. i have ben nelson from nebraska. so my caucus has these extremes on both sides, but it has also the mixture that gets us to where we are. and that's why we're able to stick together and do things that we believe are right for this country. we want to work together. we understand legislation is the art of compromise, consensus building. nothing wrong with that. and republicans throughout the country also believe that. but they don't have republican leaders that are leading them down the path that we used to have to bring about good things in our country. >> harry reid, thank you very much. >> you bet. still to come, my evening with ann. it is impossible to prepare for a debate with ann coulter, as i

discovered last night here in washington. there is just no way of knowing what she's going to say next. we'll get the reaction from some people who were there. and later in "the rewrite," if mitt romney becomes the republican nominee for president, president obama will trap him with the lie he has been getting away with simply because he is running against the most incompetent republican candidates ever. been pushing fd to make it look like i ate it since before i could walk. [ sigh ] if only mom knew about kraft homestyle macaroni & cheese. i can dream can't i? [ male announcer ] kraft macaroni & cheese. you know you love it. no, i wouldn't use that single miles credit card. nice ring. knock it off. ignore him. with the capital one venture card you earn... double miles on every purchase. [ sharon ] 3d is so real larry. i'm right here larry. if you're not earning double miles...

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i've lost their respect. oh who's laughing now!? gazelle!! [ male announcer ] personal, portable mio energy. [ gazelle laughs ] in tonight's "rewrite," mitt romney and the individual mandate. nothing has animated the tea party more than the mandate in the health care reform bill passed by the democrats and signed by president obama requiring individuals to purchase health insurance. it is identical to the mandate that the front-runner for the republican presidential nomination signed into law in massachusetts. it is very hard to think of a greater insult to the tea party, a greater republican insult to the tea party, than having a republican nominee for president who signed an individual mandate into law years before president obama did. and mitt romney knows exactly how insulting that is to the tea party, which is why he handles that problem with typical romney dispatch. he lies about it.

mitt romney has lied in every debate about the individual mandate and gotten away with it. he has gotten away with it because he's been campaigning against the most ridiculous set of republican presidential candidates ever. here is mitt romney's big lie. >> speaker gingrich said that he was for a federal individual mandate. that's something i've always opposed. what we did in our state was designed by the people in our state for the deeds of our state. you believe in the tenth amendment, i believe in the tenth amendment. the people of massachusetts favor our plan 3-1. if they don't like it, they can get rid of it. that's the great thing about democracy where individuals under the tenth amendment have the power to craft their own solutions. >> a federal individual mandate, something i have always opposed. that's the sound of romney lying. when romney tries that same lie in a debate with president obama, he will not get away with it, thanks to this "meet the

press" video from june of 2009 in the thick of the debate over the obama approach to health care reform. >> the right way to proceed is to reform health care. that we can do, as we did it in massachusetts. as they're proposing doing it at the national level. we can do it for the nation. we can get everybody insured. >> the way we did it in massachusetts. and there's mitt romney endorsing the widen-bennett bill. the key provision of that bill is the individual mandate complete with a tax code-enforced fine, just like the obama individual mandate and the romney individual mandate before it. senator bennett explained that his support for the individual mandate began in 1994 when it was an entirely republican idea. >> i first got involved in it

when mrs. clinton, as the first lady, started putting forth some ideas. and at that time the conservative approach to which i gravitated quite naturally was to have an individual mandate. now i am condemned for supporting the individual mandate. i still do because if you are going to take the position that we do in this country that if someone is ill, we will take care of them regardless of their ability to pay. someone shows up in an emergency room bleeding, we don't say, if you don't show me an insurance card, we're going to throw you out in the snow and let you bleed to death. >> did you catch the part about him being condemned? you just heard senator bennett say he was condemned for supporting the individual mandate. how condemned was he? a tea party challenger defeated the incumbent senator in a primary campaign in utah for the republican nomination for senate.

senator bennett, incumbent senator, actually finished third in that republican primary because he supported an individual mandate in health care. mitt romney followed his utah friend's tragic political demise over the individual mandate very closely. mitt romney's tactical decision on how to avoid the political fate suffered by a far less prominent proponent of the individual mandate than mitt romney himself has been to simply lie about it. the media has, for the most part, let that lie slide, and the incompetent republican candidates romney has been running against don't even know it's a lie. but it's one of the many lies that the obama campaign is hoping, just hoping, romney tries to get away with on a debate stage later this year because they know that if mitt romney tries a lie that big in a debate with president obama, the president will crush him.

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what we aim at doing is just bringing in two people who are very passionate about their political ideologies. it's not like this is something comparable to a super bowl. >> that was joe, president of the college democrats at george washington university, doing what show promoters must do, exaggerating wildly my debate with ann coulter at george washington university was nothing like the super bowl. there was no halftime show. madonna wasn't there. m.i.a. didn't even show up. but here is some of what the audience was hoping to see. >> i'm here to watch lawrence o'donnell decimate ann coulter. >> well, the economy and jobs for sure, health care, always. and education are my major

issues. i am pretty sure -- i'm certainly hoping that all this moron women stuff that's been happening the last few weeks comes up. >> the debate was freeform, no timekeeping, no scorekeeping. and so each member of the audience could keep their own scorecard. >> he was reasoned. he was funny. took it seriously but not too seriously. >> know your audience. and i'm not sure how ann coulter missed that lesson, but to say in a roomful of college students that, number one, you should not have the right to vote until you're at least in graduate school or beyond because she believes that voting age should be 26. and number two, in a roomful of at least 50% women that women should never have the right to vote was shocking to me. >> afterwards, i heard a lot of people talking about, i'm republican, but -- >> immediately after the debate,

i received this tweet from will healy. i'm a republican at gw, and after that debate, i felt i was sitting on the wrong side. joining me now, will healy, a freshman at george washington university from long island. will, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> i got that tweet. i said to myself, i wonder what will's doing tomorrow night. so you went in there, ready to cheer for ann. so what did you hear that made you think, hey, i wonder if i should maybe be slipping over that way? >> well, i feel more socially liberal. i feel i'm much more libertarian. and throughout the debate, she just said things where i just looked at her like she was a crazy person. >> are you a ron paul-leaning republican? >> i'm a ron paul-leaning republican. >> and by the way, i don't quite get party affiliation in college. when i was in college, students

didn't care about party. they kind of grew into it way later. and so i was surprised to see so many democrat -- and by the way, let's just acknowledge, the room was overwhelmingly democrat. >> yes. >> sort of like 4-1, something like that. >> it was. >> so ann went in at a real disadvantage with the audience. but when i discovered somewhere earlier in the week that she had said that the voting age should be 26, i had this feeling i was going to do very well with the college crowd when i pulled that one out. that kind of set her back. >> yeah. >> but she stuck to it, which is what i loved about it. she didn't try to back off from it at all. >> yeah. she just said things -- she's in a debate with college students, and she says that people under the age of 26 shouldn't be able to vote because they're too stupid. and women shouldn't be able to vote. that way a republican can be president. i don't think you should be able to push somebody down and keep them out of voting just so a republican can win. >> so what was the reaction afterwards among -- because you were on the kind of coulter side of the room. what were you hearing on that

side of the room? >> i talked to a few people, i was sitting with somebody else who also agreed with me that we felt we were sitting on the wrong side. we were definitely cheering for you more and clapping at what you said and kind of looking at her dumbfounded throughout the debate. there were definitely people who agreed with a lot of what ann said. and i don't think she represented a majority of the republicans or republicans in general. and she was mainly there for shock value, i feel, especially with what she said. personally, i didn't talk to many people. i kind of got out of there as fast as possible. >> yeah, your tweet was at 8:32 p.m., and it was over at 8:28 p.m. >> yeah, exactly. exactly. i tweeted that as i walked out the door on my phone. >> i've known ann since she worked at msnbc going back to 1996, '97. and i do know that she feels underappreciated as a comedienne. she delivers some of those truly audacious lines, thinking that

there's a laugh line there, but they don't always work that way. >> well, she seemed to believe what she was saying. she was doing it for the shock value. she did it for the shock value. she believed what she said. she stuck to it, as you said in the debate. good for her for sticking to her guns. she's in a debate, though, and you don't really say that stuff ever. >> we raised $18,000 for the kind fund. about 1,000 kids. that's about how many kids in malawi will have desks in school, and those desks will last for years. so thousands and thousands of kids benefited from the fund we had last night at gw. and i just got to tell you. i loved being at gw last night. it was really fun. thanks. thanks for being there last night. you can link to the kind fund through our website at lastword.msnbc.com.