curious about our situation. >> plus supreme showdown. the high court takes on the president's health care law and is all the pressure getting to rick santorum. >> stop lying. i said he was the worst republican to run on the issue of obama care. quit distorting our words. if i see it, it's [ bleep ]. come on, man. what are you doing? >>. >> and good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in this historic square in front of the cathedral here in havana. the supreme court has just completed the first of three days. six hours of arguments on obama administration's historic health care plan. and the stakes could not be higher. both for the president and, of course, his republican challengers. chris cillizza is the msnbc contributor and managing editor of post politics.com and mark halperin is, of course, an nbc

senior political analyst and "time" magazine's editor-at-large. both join us for our daily fix. first of all, rick santorum going to the supreme court today trying to make his case and at one point being drowned out by all the protesters. we'll show you just a bit of that to set up our daily fix. >> there's one candidate in this race who can actually make the contrast that is necessary between the republican position and the conservative position and one that is an overwhelmingly supported by the american public. >> chris, clearly, santorum, rick santorum is trying to make the case that the contrast between him and mitt romney over health care could not be greater. and that the supreme court case is the great context for that. is he making the argument? >> well, look, andrea, he takes a calculated risk when he goes to the supreme court to make the argument. he knows it will get attention but also knows that he is going to face the protesters and this

isn't going to be a perfectly managed environment. unfortunately for rick santorum, the horse is kind of out of the barn. i do think health care is problematic for mitt romney. we've thought it was problematic for him in a republican primary throughout, but at this point with the dels where they are, with the money where it is, if rick santorum hasn't made the case to voters that mitt romney's position on health care makes him a weaker general election nominee, i don't see how he makes it now. >> and what about all the pressure of this campaign and what many have said has long been a hidden factor of rick santorum which is his temper. it's why many people who serve with him say he's an edgy guy who doesn't have a lot of endorsements if any from those who served with him in congress. mark, let's play a little bit of rick santorum taking on if anyone could be more soft spoken, it's "the new york times" jeff zell lanny, a rope line quell just yesterday. >> you said that mitt romney is the worst republican in the

country. is that true? >> what speech did you listen to. >> right here. it's right here. you said he's the worst republican. >> stop lying. i said he was the worst republican to run on the issue of obama care. would you guys quit distorting what i'm saying? >> do you think he's the worst republican to run on those issues. >> on the issue of health care because he fashioned the blueprint. i've been saying it at every speech. quit distorting our words. if i see it, it's [ bleep ]. come on, man. what are you doing? >>. >> what a setup for you, mark halperin. we bleeped it out. it's obvious what he said, a barnyard epithet. what about the candidate and the state of his campaign right now. >> i find jeff zell lanny incredible annoying. just kidding. >> only because he beats and scoops all of you. >> exactly. jeff was intrigued by a piece of rhetoric that i had heard in puerto rico right before the

primary there which is it sounded like rick santorum was saying he's the worst candidate we could nominate on any issue. clearly what he means is health care. he's responsible for keeping his words and rhetoric neat and clean. jeff was asking, worst candidate overall, worst person we can nominate in the country overall or worse worst on health care. senator santorum got angry and sort of corrected him. to chris's point earlier, this is one of the strongest arguments any of the republicans running against romney could have made, in the general election he would be defamed on health care because of the mandate in massachusetts. at the hurts himself when he loses his temper and he makes the argument and turns the argument away from mitt romney and more about his temperament. >> and chrysalis sysaliis cilli stakes for the president could not be higher. is there any argument to be made that if he loses this, he can fire up the base and say, see what the republicans have wrought or is this really all or nothing for the president on the

issue of health care? >> in politics, there's always an argument that can be made. i don't think -- i think if the white house has its druthers, they would like to see the constitutionality of the law affirmed. i think they could make a case that yes, could you say, well, this is what george w. bush in his an buttonments to the court have wrought. that's why we need to re-elect president obama so he can change this. you always want to be on the winning side. you want to have a that -- you want to have that affirmation, okay, what we did is the right thing. the white house is trying smartly to retake the offensive on the health care messaging debate. they clearly lost round one and probably two and three over the last two years. obama embracing the idea of obama care, that term, this is all of a piece to try and reclaim the offensive on it. i just think if the supreme court ruling goes against them, it complicates anything they're trying to do strategically. >> thanks to you, mark halperin

and chris sali za. it was the hottest ticket in town, but pete williams, our justice correspondent always has a ticket to the supreme court. everyone trying to get into the few hundred seats lined up for days. might as well as been a red carpet opening, pete. this is the first of three days. the first time in more than four decades they've had this importance of an extended arguments. first of all, any signals today although today was largely procedure url i gather. any signals at all as to how this deeply divided court may view president obama's health care reform and its challenge? >> no, only a very strong signal on this, that they will answer the question. let me go through what the four questions are. today was a question about a 150-year-old federal law that says you cannot challenge a tax before it goes into effect. if you don't get health insurance, you have to pay a penalty on your income taxes collected by the irs based on your income. so the first question was, is

this a tax and if it is, do the parties have to wait a couple years before they can challenge it. tomorrow the main question is the mandate itself, and then on wednesday, two other questions, if the individual mandate is unconstitutional, can the rest of the law survive. and then a challenge from the states to the additional medicaid coverage they have to provide. so those are the four questions. now, on today, it seemed abundantly clear that even if any members of this court thought that that 150-year-old federal law would take the jurisdiction of the court away in tax cases, none of them seemed to think that this is a tax. so we're going to get past that very quickly. it's clear that the supreme court is not going to view that as any kind of showstopper that they will go ahead and get to the main issue. andrea, if any of the justices thought, boy, we sure don't want to be deciding this case in an election year, this would have been a convenient dodge, a convenient off-ramp. none of them seemed to want to take it. so they're going to say i would say it's obvious they're going to get to the merits tomorrow.

>> when they get to the merits, what is the first day's challenge in terms of the arguments that we're going to see tomorrow? >> well, it's a very simple question. when the constitution gave congress the power in the words of the constitution to regulate commerce, how broad is that? the challengers is say that if somebody doesn't have health insurance, they're not engaged in commerce. so they can't be regulated. if you're not engaging in commerce, there's nothing to regulate. the obama administration says we're not regulating insurance, we're regulating all of health care. there's no such thing has t as someone who doesn't get involved in health care whether voluntarily. they're walking along the street, they're lit by a bus, they come up with a decease, whatever, the administration says no one is truly outside of the health care system which they say is after all, 17% of the economy. that's commerce. that's the government's argument. so that's the heart of it. that's what will be argued tomorrow. >> pete williams at the court.

the best seat in town. thanks so much, pete. thanks for filling us in. joining me now from washington, nbc vatican analystis george weigel. george, great to see you. the pope is on his way here from mexico. this is the first time of course, that the pope, a pope has been to cuba in 14 years since john paul ii. and what pope benedict xvi said flying from rome was very interesting. because he said marxism has lost its legitimacy. do you interpret this as a direct challenge to the castro regime? >> it's not a surprise that the holy father said that, andrea, 25 years ago, he talked about the "impossible come proize between christianity and markism." pope benedict knows that cuba remains today a police state, a police state that has a very nasty edge to it. that edge has been revealed in

recent weeks as catholic disside dissidents, catholic protesters against the regime have taken to churches and to the streets. soapy think he's going to continue in cuba the theme of religious freedom that he sounded in mexico these past two days. and he will do that, i suspect, both publicly and privately in his meetings with both the cuban government and with the catholic bishops of cuba. >> at the same time, he has said he's not going to meet with dissidents. but the pope has obviously authorized what cardinal ortega has done here which is historic. in 2010, cardinal ortega negotiated with raul castro the release of those 130 political prison prisoners. there has been criticism because most of them went to spain so they were in effect exiled. that was the first time there was this kind of negotiation. it seems as though the church is

stepping up and filling in on economic and social welfare issues with much more legitimacy. is there any concern, do you think, that the vatican will be conferring legitimacy on this government, or is there a way to walk that very careful balance, help people here in social welfare, help people economically, give them more religious freedom, take some stands on political issues, but not go so far as to endanger the church near cuba? >> there's been some modest progress, underscore modest in religious freedom in cuba since john paul ii was there and benedict xvi will certainly want to keep it in mind and protect that. at the same time, he knows that it's catholic dissidents like the ladies in white, like dr. oscar bichet who was in jail for over a decade who are the emotional heart of civil society in the cuba. and i would personally find it very surprising if this man who

is at heart eight pastor would not find some way in the course of this visit to recognize and acknowledge those members of his flock who can have shown enormous courage in standing up for freedom, for justice, for the rights of the church and for the church's right to serve the society of cuba. >> you know, george, john paul ii who you referenced was beloved. he was the pope who had so much empathy and who communicated that. pope benedict has been much harder to read. we saw him in mexico in his pope mobile putting on a sombrero. that was wildly popular in mexico and around the world. does that show he is trying to reach out, show more personality? >> i thought that was an extraordinary picture when i saw it this morning. >> so did i. >> i think it shows a side of this man that i've known for almost a quarter of a century. he's a wonderful human being. and when people see him in

person, i think they will respond to him with the warmth that he extends to them. i'm not sure what the cuban equivalent of a sombrero is. but he will certainly make clear that he comes to cuba as a pastor who loves and cares for people who have had a very hard time for the past 50 years and who are still struggling for free space in their society. >> and it's very significant that this was negotiated, that it's possible for the pope to come here. he would obviously is being welcomed by a regime that for decades and decades outlawed the catholic church. >> well, the regime is seeking, as it has sought for five dak decades, international legitimacy. it's undoubtedly a factor in this visit today. the pope is no fool about these matters. pope knows exactly what the game is that's being played from the

regime side. he's there to strengthen the faith of the catholic people of cuba and to open up insofar as he can. more space for those people as individuals and more space for the church as an institution to serve the society through charity, through social welfare work, and through preaching the gospel. >> george weigel, i hope you can be with us all week to take us through this. your expert advice much appreciated. thank you. >> thanks, andrea. >> as we all anticipate the arrival of the pope. cuba's closed doors are now beginning to open. next, my conversation with a group of american college students who are spending a semster in havana. that would not have been possible 0 more than a year ago. you're watching a special edition of "andrea mitchell reports" live from havana. [ male announcer ] if your kid can recognize your sneeze from a crowd...

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a year ago, president obama relaxed some of the travel rules under the u.s. em bar negotiation the rules tightened by the bush with white house. now american college students and other cultural tourists are able to come here to havana and study, spend a semester. i had a chance to talk to some of those students about their initial impressions. here's what they had to say. all the generalizations i've heard in miami have been erroneous. there aren't thanks going down the street or people marching in green uniforms with intimidating weapons. my grandmother was worried people would indoctrinate me here with the marxist and communist and socialist party. it's not true at all.

people here are just like people in the united states. they're -- you would probably find that you are a lot like them more than you probably thought you are. and the political culture i feel like it's people talk more about the political culture in miami than they will do here. >> there's an incredible sense of privilege when it comes to the internet as well as our access to being able to afford things like eight or $14 an hour for internet when the ample salary here is $15 a month. there's just that dichotomy. >> i'm surprised how welcome people are. i thought there would be more of a stigma. people are welcoming and really interested and actually know more about it than i thought they would. there's a little more access to american culture like in this generation especially and more interest in american culture than i thought there would be or was given the impression that there would be. and i guess i'm also surprised by the amount of ice cream they eat here.

every hour of the day. and it's -- i mean, again, it's really beautiful. like, it's more beautiful than i could have expected it to be. >> it's just interesting to me for us, like having that access to information is what they have to get by word of mouth or physically like i was saying. so things like news, it's so much harder to distribute to disseminate, but still things like the music and culture, i'm amazed they have access to like movies and the music that we get. there was a guy that had the lady gaga album before i did. >> does it concern you at all that sounds here don't have access to the internet, to a free flow of information. >> there's a 99.8% in cuba. that's unheard of in the united states. so sometimes there's difficulty with the access to the books themselves but everybody knows how to read. that's incredible. >> how much do you think that the ability to slow down is

because they're not always on devices. they're not going a million miles an hour, they're not of the twitter world? >> so it's just like there's just a lot of life on the street. so you just don't see people like back home, everyone's on facebook and you could be in the -- within the same area but because you're in different rooms, you're like chatting or something instead of going upstairs or something and just talking face to face. here people don't have that and spend a lot of time on the streets talking and interacting with each other. i really like that. i hope to bring that back with me when i go to the u.s. being more of a bern, you know, not just being like a machine that can just talk to people. i'm not letters or anything. i'm like a human being. >> some of our conversation with american students, exchange students here for a semester at the university of havana. with pope benedict expected to arrive in cuba in just a matter of hours, what can we expect from this important visit?

i'm joined from josephina vidal. what is the importance of the pope's visit? what does cuba expect and want from the pope. >> i think the pope's visit reflects the positive relationship that will exexists between the cuban government and the vatican and also between the cuban government and the catholic church in cuba. but it also reflects in my view the positive environment that exists in cuba for religion practice and religious freedom. >> there was a protest, the women in white, the ladies in white. and there are some catholic dissidents who have not been either able to visit with the pope or have not been able to express their views. >> you see, andrea, we have seen in the last few weeks and the cuban government has been open about it, some attempts to disrupt the pope's visit in cuba. but i am sure that these

attempts will fail in front of the civility and the respect that the cuban people i'm sure will show to the pope. >> what about the role that the church is playing in social welfare and comreconomic polici? there are church charities, there are nutritional programs. how important is it for the church here in cuba to work with the government to try to offset some of the impacts of the u.s. embargo? >> you know, the cuban model has been based always, the model we have been trying to build for more than 50 years has been based on the most advanced ideas of humanity, of social justice. so i see a coincidence in the ideas that the cuban government defends of social justice, on the limitation of the differences between people and the ideas of the church on that

regard. >> now, there have been real impacts of the embargo, and very little chance that that is going to change in an american election year. what economic reforms has raul castro tried to put in place in the last couple of years? we've seen private property. -- >> changes in our economic model to make our economy more efficient, to cope with the problems that is represent for cuba the current international financial and economic crisis, and this is a process we are developing now. this is the process that is aimed at a downsizing the state, the size of the state. of downsizing the state labor force, of increasing the

so-called private sector in cuba. but it goes beyond that. it goes also it has the purpose of improving the agricultural production, of giving more land to the people, of improving the investments in cuba to increase our tourism in cuba, to reduce the charge and the burden to the state of social progress we have in cuba. >> at the same time, there are political issues, the five cubans who have been imprisoned in the united states have been a huge issue for the cubanen government. and you have failed to get response. but one of them is being releases, has been released for humanitarian reasons because of illness here to go back, of course, to prison, but it's not resolved yet. what about the case of alan gross, the american similarly asking for humanitarian release because of his mother who has -- is very, very ill with cancer?

is there any chance that alan gross would be released in the state department contractor who has been in prison here to visit his mother? >> you know, renee gonzales who is one of the cuban five served totally his sentence. and he was released after 30 years in prison. he's under supervised release under supervised freedom and there is nothing in the conditions of his supervised freedom that impedes or limits him from the ability to the ask for permission to travel. and the case of alan gross is different. he is serving his sentence. >> is there any chance that he could be released on humanitarian grounds at least he's ailing and to visit his mother? >> on that specific issue, we have conveyed to the united states government our willingness to have a dialogue to look for a solution on this

case on humanitarian reciprocal basis. and we are waiting for a response. >> waiting for a response from the obama administration right now. >> yes. >> thank you very much. >> it's my pleasure. >> thank you. >> good to have you here back in havana. >> great to be here. we do love havana. and the wife of the american soldier accused of slaughtering the afghan civilians speaking out for the first time exclusively to nbc news. that's coming up next. you're watching a special edition of "andrea mitchell reports" live from havana. eat good fats. avoid bad. don't go over 2000... 1200 calories a day. carbs are bad. carbs are good. the story keeps changing. so i'm not listening... to anyone but myself. i know better nutrition when i see it: great grains. great grains cereal starts whole and stays whole. see the seam? more processed flakes look nothing like natural grains. you can't argue with nutrition you can see. great grains.

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[ doctor ] enbrel, the number one biolog medicine we have two car insurances that we're going to have you taste. the first one we're going to call x. go ahead and take a sip, and then let me know what the baby thinks of it. four million drivers switched to this car insurance last year. oh, she likes it babies' palates are very sensitive so she's probably tasting the low rates. this is car insurance y, they've been losing customers pretty quickly. oh my gosh, that's horrible!, which would you choose? geico. over their competitor. do you want to finish it? no. does the baby want to finish it? no. i don't believe that my husband could do this. not the person that i know. >> tell me what you believe. >> i just -- it seems to me like i just don't think he was involved. >> so you think this is all mistaken identity?

do you think this is -- is he being made a fall guy for someone else? >> i don't know. >> 17 people were killed. >> right. i don't know enough information. i -- this is not him. it's not him. >> that was the wife of staff sergeant robert bales speaking exclusively on today with matt lauer. trying to reconcile the man that she married with the man accused of slaughtering 17 afghan civilians including nine children. former defense secretary can william cohen is chairman and ceo of the cohen group and joins me now from washington. hi, bill. let's talk about this tragedy, the impact on our policy. what we learned from his wife is this disconnect between the families back home and someone who is accused of doing something that is really beyond belief. >> right. >> is it fair to blame this potentially on combat duty, on

ptsd, on repeated tours? or on the chain of command, not recognizing problems within the -- among the troops? >> well, there's a reason why they say that war is hell. war changes people. it can take a very normal, stable individual, put him or her into an environment in which he or her are on guard every moment every second of their life for fear. the very people they're defending could turn around and take a knife and cut their ears or head off during the course of an evening. so living in that kind of environment and then having repeated deployments, coming home, trying to adjust to family life, going back into the war zone to kill again, that can change any individual and so this raises the entire issue of whether or not we should be supporting multiple deployments to areas like afghanistan where war really is hell and you don't know who the enemy is at any given time and you're always on guard of being killed on any --

at any moment. so it does change people, and the individual that this young woman, her husband is not recognizable from the individual that is alled to have committed these atrocities, i think it happens perhaps more than we're aware of. it does involve a chain of command. but you're putting people in an environment in which this is going to change their penalty and you do have to have very strong leadership to make sure if there are any signs somebody is starting to lose a grip on reality and is starting to engage in behavior that could result in what we've seen take place here, it's a responsibility of those in charge and in that chain of command to make sure they take that individual out of the operation. >> and meanwhile, in korea, the ez was meeting with russian president med dev vev and was signaling during the photo opportunity that he would have more flexibility on their

disbeauty between the united states and russia over missile defense after the election. so to send a sig fal to vladimir putin when he comes into office that he'll be able to negotiate more flexibly after the election. does this cause problems, political or diplomatic for the president? >> it shouldn't. he's speaking the truth. the fact is that we're in the middle of a presidential campaign. any issue of great substance is not going to be decided or debated for the president to try and raise a reduction in arms at the strategic level during the course of this campaign would be attacked immediately by republicans. and there's no chance really of ever moving forward on it. so sending the signal that yes, we do want to the continue to negotiate with the russians. we have a better chance of doing it next year rather than this year. if president obama is re-elected, he'll have some flexibility to negotiate it, but remember this, republicans are still going to have a very snist

number in the senate, perhaps even a majority. the president won't have a totally free hand. if a republican president comes into office, they have to start all over again, but then you'll have a republican president who will want to negotiate, as well. president george w. bush had called me during the time that he was president elect and indicated that he wanted even more substantial reductions than president clinton had achieved. so i think whether it's a republican or a democrat, we're going to want to continue to negotiate with the russians and bring those numbers down. >> very briefly, i just wanted to ask you about cuba policy because it's really the same deal. i was talking to top white house officials, top members of the senate who are telling me there is no chance in an election year and an election year where a cuban-american bob menendez is running to hold his democrat seat in new jersey and where you have an ardent anti castro member of the florida delegation

heading the house foreign affairs committee. there is no chance the white house is going to make a move on the trade embargo, certainly not till after the election is decided. is that your take as well? >> i think that's true. any issue of substance is unlikely to be addressed unfortunately. we have big issues that are out there. the size of our debt, the annual deficits. we're not going to see much movement on them until next year. that's going to create a real crisis come december when the bush tax cuts expire, when the sequestration cuts go into effect, all of that comes to bear between november and december and i think it will be very difficult for a lame duck congress to address either of those issues. we're going to see very tense times come november, december. >> former senator, former defense secretary bill cohen. thank you very much. thanks for joining us today. and coming up next, former vice president dick cheney recovering today in a virginia hospital from a heart transplant

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[ male announcer ] aarp is bringing the conversation on medicare and social security out from behind closed doors in washington. because you've earned a say. former vice president dick cheney is recovering from heart transplant surgery today. the 71-year-old cheney underwent the surgery over the weekend after spending 20 months on the waiting list. and, of course, having had five heart attacks, joining me now to discuss this is the white house correspondent from politico, joe williams. joe, the former vice president was wearing an external pump which is supposed to be a transitional device. he's 71 years old. at the upper range of when it's even possible to get on the list for a heart transplant. what do we know about this, and what are we talking, what are people talking about today as he continues his recovery? >> sure. well, what we know is that for critically ill people who need a

heart transplant, getting one is sort of like qualifying for the lottery. it just so happens that dick cheney had the winning ticket. he is in reasonably good health despite his age. he had been on the critical waiting list for about 20 months which is roughly longer than ample and he was in qualified position to get a heart when it became available. now given the fact that he's such a polarizing figure in american history, arguably the most powerful vice president we've ever had, a lot of questions get raised whether or not he received special favors, jumped ahead of line, maybe qualified when he probably shouldn't have. and the answer so far we've been able to determine is no. >> in fact, he is controversial so there's obviously going to be a lot of talk about it. but as you've delved into it with politico, he was qualified, he waited 20 months. he got the heart and i think at this point, everyone's going to wish him good health. >> i think that's the only thing you can say at this point because again, he had been in

critical condition, his number came up and that's the way it goes. sometimes the heart transplant procedure is unregulated and kind of a free commerce market where one person qualifies and another person doesn't and it all seems somewhat arbitrary but what also is interesting is that he does get this medical procedure on an eve when we're talking about national health care for all and determining who gets access to health care and who doesn't. so that's one of the ironies entering into the conversation as he recovers. >> an irony that is coincidental. that is the larger context of the health care debate in this country. thank you very much. thanks, joe. one month after trayvon martin was killed, shot and killed, his parentses are expected to speak at any moment at a rally in florida. as the national outcry continues to grow. that's next coming up right now on this special edition of "andrea mitchell reports" live from havana. [ male announcer ] this is coach parker...

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hi, everyone. coming up on "news nation," any minute now we are expecting to hear new comments from have a von martin's parents ahead of tonight's big rally in sanford. they'll respond to new details released by police as well as respond to a new report out of miami that trayvon martin had been suspended from school and that's why he was in sanford. the relevance of that will be discussed by his parents. and tourre will talk about how some people are trying to blame the hoodie for what happened to trayvon martin. also, i'll talk to former u.s. attorney in florida, kendall coffey about george zimmerman's campaign to win over public support. zimmerman's attorney has released a new picture of him, not the mugshot we've seen for so many days to you. just in the past hour, we're

getting the first audio in from the supreme court arguments over health care. a lot coming up in the next 15 minutes. now back to andrea. >> and developing right now, as tamron was just saying, trayvon martin's parents with expected to speak at a rally in edenville, florida, this later tonight, the parents are going to be marching in sanford and delivering a petition with 2 million signatures calling for justice. joining me now nbc's ron allen who has been reporting there throughout. we're hearing all of these new details, a lot of lawyering going on, but basically, the parents want to see something happen with george zimmerman. they at least want an arrest so that he can be interrogated and from their perspective, that we can move onto the next stage. >> reporter: exactly, andrea. they've also just confirmed the detail that we've always wanted to know why was trayvon martin suspended from school. they have confirmed that he was

suspended for a period of time because he was found with an empty bag of marijuana that once contained marijuana. and that's why he was suspended from school. they've confirmed that. it's one of these details suddenly appearing in the press here and that zimmerman's attorney and a friend of his making the rounds in the public media are suddenly emerging about trayvon and about what the zimmerman camp insists happened that night. there's also a story in the orlando sentinel that will describes a violent encounter where zimmerman told police that is he attacked him from behind, that he knocked him down, broke his nose and jumped on top of him on the ground and banged his head on the ground several times causing him severe wounds in the back of his head, that he was bloodied on the ground and that's when apparently zimmerman pulled out his gun and shot trayvon martin in the chest in self-defense, his supporters claim. we can't confirm any of these details. the police are not releasing any

details. they had a press conference, refused to answer any question. all these details are emerging from the lawyer, the friend and leaks into the press. that's what's happening here now. there's a very vigorous defense being put up by the zimmerman camp claiming he acted in self-defense. >> and, of course, many people would argue that if the police had handled this differently, there would be forensic evidence from the george zimmerman from his clothing, evidence that no longer will be available because the month that has elapsed. ron, thank you very much. i know you'll be on top of that story throughout the day. what other stories are making headlines? that's coming up in the next moments here on "andrea mitchell reports," a special report from havana, cuba. ♪ when your chain of supply goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪

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for a special edition. looking at what will be in the news next 24 hours. the president signaled to the russians that he could be more flexible on missile defense after the election. this is what romney had to say. >> this weekend the president happened to be somewhere where the microphone was left open. you may have heard that. it can be revealing. in this case, it was. when the president of the united states is speaking with the leader of russia saying he could be more flexible after the election, that is an alarming and troubling development. this is no time for our president to be pulling his punches with the american people. and not telling us what he is intending to do. >> well, chris cillizza, we'll be forward to the supreme court's argument, the audio from the first day released very

shortly. we have a lot on our plate politically in the next 24 hours. >> i think what the health care debate in the supreme court as well as, look, quickly with romney. this is pure politics. if mitt romney was the president and had an open mike moment, whoever the democratic nominee would say the same thing. what both these things suggest is the fact that there are a lot of intangible x factors. what the court decides. this is not an example of a big open mike gaffe but these are the things that happen in the course of a campaign. rick santorum losing his temper is another one, that can change the course of an election. so everyone today who is predicting who is going to win and why, i would just say, things happen. it is what makes covering politics, interesting, intriguing and unpredictable so let's cover it day by day rather than fast forward to november and say who has already won. >> since i'm in cuba and you're not, i wanted to give you a

taste of what you can have if you were here. because with the trade embargo, we could not bring these cigars back. it is against the law. but these are the famous cigars. if you were here, you could have one. >> i love these signals where the kids in school said people eat ice cream at all times of day. that's my kind of country. the ice cream comes from venezuela, a lot of it now. thanks very much. another thing you can't get in the united states, i would bet. we'll talk to you again from havana tomorrow. my friend tamron hall is live now with "news nation." i wish you were here as well but we'll be about trayvon martin, about cuba, the trade embargo, the pope, and all those other wonderful things. >> absolutely. you've done a wonderful job there. we look forward to seeing more of your reports. as andrea mentioned, we are waiting to hear new comments this hour from trayvon martin's parents.

they are expected to talk about why their son was suspended from school. this revelation coming after a report in a local florida newspaper. what relevance does this have to the case if any? plus, i'll talk with joy ann reid who is on the bus heading to the big rally in sanford. it's been one month today since trayvon martin was killed. and former u.s. attorney in florida, kendall coffey will join me to talk about the public campaign to defend his client, including this new picture that was released to downer that mug shot that we've seen now for nearly 30 days. and just in the past hour, we are hearing the first audio from inside the supreme court arguments on health care. we will play that audio for you in a live report. [ male announcer ] this was how my day began. a little bird told me about a band... ♪ an old man shared some fish stories...

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