underwater cabinet meeting to here in our studio, mohamed n h nasheed. and lotto fever. wait till you hear. good day, i'm andrea mitchell back in washington in our dali fix today as more republican holdouts get in behind behind romney. a new poll shows rick santorum is in trouble in wisconsin which votes tuesday trailing romney by seven points among likely republican voters. down 40 to 33%. chris cillizza is managing editor of post politics.com and joins me on the set. hey, chris, first of all, thanks for holding down the fort this week. great having you here. >> i was happy to. >> talk about wisconsin, on to wisconsin and the fact is rick santorum there and then pennsylvania where he's already holding on to a narrowing lead in his home state over mitt romney. you get the feeling that this

thing is coming together if not numerically, the momentum. >> take the last ten days. the last ten days starting with the illinois primary and going to today. what have we seen? mitt romney convince by 12 points in illinois and then goes on to get jeb bush's endorsement, paul ryan's endorsement, marco rubio, george h. w. bush's endorsement. freedomworks says we're not opposed to mitt romney being the nominee anymore. it feels like it's coalescing. if that margin holds or gets a little bit bigger, i don't know if rick santorum is able to with stand what will be increased calls for him to get out and last all the way to where i think he would like to end his candidacy in pennsylvania on april 24th. >> and barbara bush and george herbert walker bush with mitt romney in houston, i never knew that barbara bush was a kenny rogers is fan. take a look at that the photo op. >> aren't you going to sing a song for us, you know when to

fold them? >> i do think it's time for the party to get behind governor romney and she was reminding me kenny rogers sung it's time when to hold them and fold them. i think it's time for people to get behind this good man. >> and then, he talked about his son the former president. and said, you know, have you talked to him? mitt romney said no, i haven't. has he endorsed you yet? >> it's a striking thing. >> that was striking. >> it's a striking thing as i said in the last ten days. the two members of the bush family have endorsed mitt romney, jeb bush, the former governor and a former president but not the last former president named bush. i bet you could count on one hand the number of times mitt romney has put his name and george w. bush's name in the same sentence in the last six months. even among republicans, george w. bush's name is still not sort of recouped imagewise in a way

that jeb bush's name has kind of sterling in the party. george h.w. bush though he lost to bill clinton is seen as a grand statesman. it's a remarkable testament, george w. bush is nowhere in this campaign. >> chris, thank you very much for setting us up today. mayhem in the skies. and the threat of cyberattacks. on that front, proposed legislation would require owners and operators of critical facilities to notify homeland security at the first sign of hacking. senator john mccain is raising questions of top intelligence officials about homeland's ability to handle the growing cyberthreat. >> do you greet that he secretary panetta and the fbi have said that cyberattacks may soon be the number one threats to the united states? >> absolutely, senator. >> so then what's the logic in providing the overall authority to the department of homeland

security? anyone who has been through an airport as i do regularly as most of us do have no confidence in the technological capabilities of the department of homeland security. in fact, as an example, nothing has changed as far as airport security is concerned since probably september 12th, 2011. >> joining me is janet napolitano. madame secretary, first, can you respond to john mccain's criticism at this armed services hearing just this week? >> well, i think it's unfortunate because it's wrong. the plain fact of the matter is that the tsa has managed to keep aviation safe in the decade following the attacks of 9/11 and technological improvements are being made all the time. moreover, i think that the senator didn't understand that the department of homeland security is already performing major functions in the cybersecurity arena. what we're talking about now,

however, is having the congress help d.o.d., dhs, the department of homeland security, all of us better protect the cybersecurity networks of the united states. >> there are competing bills in congress right now. senator mccain believes it should be voluntary. other legislation, the administration's legislation would be a requirement. there are concerns that have been raised about just the intrusive quality of those requirements on corporations. and also the privacy issues. >> i this i there's been a lot of misinformation about that. >> please clarify. >> the lieberman-collins bill is a bipartisan bill that the celebration support. if you in the kind of infrastructure everybody has to rely upon, you need to work with us to raise and vin certain base level performance standards. you could figure out how you meet them. that's left to the market to determine. but when you are in that core critical infrastructure arena, there are certain

responsibilities that need to be attained. >> now, i do also want to ask you about the a. let's also raise the question, i know it's the faa that is responsible primarily for the cockpit crews but there have been a number of incidents all of us who go through airports get you know, all kinds of screening fairly invasive screening. and we are checked. we take our clothes off. we take our shoes off. we carry little bottles rather than the more convenient sized bottles. we go through all of this and a co-pilot is able to have a complete psychological meltdown by all accounts without any kind of impediment to his being in the cockpit. that is a threat to the passengers. so that becomes a threat, a homeland threat. what more should be done regarding flight crews? >> in this instance, i think we can take some small comfort in the fact that this is a highly unusual occurrence and i think that's one of the reasons. >> there have been two

occurrences, madame secretary, the flight attendant. >> let me play the tape to sort of bring it home. take a look at what happened there because the extraordinary quality of that the struggle really brings home you know, just how close they came. if there had not been passengers trained, former police officers going to a security in las vegas, who knows who would have taken the lead. although more passengers seem to be willing to stand up to it. that is noteworthy and praise worthy. but who knows whether it's a small flight with elderly people, they said i've heard them say it was very, very difficult to hold that man down. >> right. >> for all the time they had to hold him down because he kept trying to break loose. >> that's right. so three things happened that were good there. one is the co-pilot got him out of the cockpit and the cockpit doors are armored. once they're shut, he can't get back in. >> that's a major improvement. >> secondly, flight crew training is much more robust than it has ever been.

from a security standpoint. and then third, and you mentioned it yourself, the passengers understanding. they have a role to play here and have played it in the past in other situations. think are to be congratulated for doing what they did. >> i want to ask you about tsa. are there going to be changes in the rules? are there ways we can not be taking off our shoes? >> there's no requirement in many foreign airports that people take off their shoes. it is a lot looser and maybe that's not a good thing but it does seem as though with summer travel approaching, there ought to be better ways now that we have more and more of these x-ray machines. >> right. a couple -- >> we don't have to go through this process. >> one is, first of all, not all airports in the world face the same threats we face. everything being done is because of constant continual attempts to try do something to the

united states and its aviation system. that's number one. number two, we are already moving to we call it risk based. we're trying to say look, children under 1, we don't have to worry so much about them. people over the age of 75, we're going to begin exempting them. we're beginning to pilot active duty military being able to go through. so slowly but surely those changes are being made. and in addition, people now are going to be able to sign up for global entry if they're international passengers or precheck if they're domestic. this is where you supply information ahead of time. you get a biometric card and it allows you to go through in a more expedited fashion. >> speaking of biometric cards, point where women have been calling me and writing to me and i have not experienced this personally, but women jokingly, debbie wasserman schultz at the gridiron the other night talked about her mastectomy, breast cancer survivor andsley said her new breasts are practically real as any tsa official can tell you

but a lot of women are complaining about the kind of -- the way they're handled. breast cancer survivors specifically at logan airport i should say repeatedly. people are writing to me, they're tweeting. there's a whole social media concern about the way breast cancer survivors, those who have had replacement surgery are handled by the tsa. >> i'm a survivor myself. i've had that surgery. i know what they're talking about. we've been working with the cancer groups and other groups of people who have, say, for example, colostomy bags or other medical devices or things that make the patdowns seem unusuallily intrusive or they don't want to go through the machine. you can always call ahead of time and arrange for a separate screening. you can always advise the attendant right at the gate about your situation. you have certain rights as a passenger. we're looking to put passenger advocates in the airports

themselves to work with passengers who have special needs. so we all understand the particular difficulties, the sensitivities here. we want to do the best we can with that. >> thank you very much. >> you bet. >> thank you very much for being here too. >> you bet. >> it's always a treat. and how to stop the slaughter that is continuing today in syria. david ignatius joining me next right here. his call for a soft landing. and monday on the show, my interview with secretary of state hillary clinton. from the summit on syria gathering in turkey this weekend. i'll be heading there. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ♪ ♪ what started as a whisper every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance.

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secretary of state hillary clinton met with the saudi king abdullah today. the first leg of her trip to try to stop the slaughter that

continues in syria. saudi arabia supports arming the rebels while kofi annan is calling to are a cease-fire by both sides. today more violence has erupted. the u.s. has been disappointed in the slow pace of defections from the assad regime. joining me now, "washington post" columnist david ignatius who has called for a more cautious approach than either the saudis or senators like john mccain would like. you know this area so well. you do not believe that the libyan model of arming rebels of intervening, of a multinational force is going to work. >> andrea, if i thought that arming the rebels could produce a quick transition and the removal of bal sharl assad and his government, i think there would be a strong an argument for it. the problem is that the syrian opposition is scattered. it's disorganized. contact of mine an the pentagon said once if you talk about the free syrian army, the only thing that's true is syrian. you're not going to free the

country and they're not an army. that's the problem. so pumping weapons into this very disorganized scatter shot militia almost town by town militia organization seems to the administration and to me like a bad idea. the problem is. >> why do you think that john mccain and others, clearly we're seeing what many say are war crimes. and we're seeing the spreading of the violence now to more vils and towns outside of even the major cities. so -- but why do you think john mccain and others on the hill believe this has to be done? >> the moral case for helping these desperate people who are being slaughtered by the syrian military is strong. and john mccain was never a manton shy away from an emotional moral argument. that's just the way he's put together. there are many in the white house who would love to be able to support him. they just fear that consequence of doing what's recommended by mccain, by the saudis will be

that even more civilians will die. so they're looking for some way that diplomacy can bring a resolution that will change the regime in syria without having a civil war. that's proving extremely difficult but the administration hasn't given up hope. >> meanwhile, you were privy to looking at some of the reporting, the intelligence reporting on osama bin laden, the final days. fascinating stuff. our own reporter in pakistan interviewed the wife's brother so this is the last wife who is now been talking to investigators. wanted to play a little bit of that interview. >> why are they still holding your sister? >> translator: to this day, i don't know the reason. i asked her, maybe they're holding you because of information you have. she said she's already told them everything she knows. there's nothing else to tell them. >> she and the other wives are being held there, about to be charged. she was injured because she was the wife who was actually in the

room with him when he was shot. fascinating stuff. what is your take away from having looked at the files? >> first, i saw the report. >> she's amazing, ama. >> it's terrific. i know her dad and she must make her dad very proud. so what i know from reading these documents is that in the final months of his life, osama bin laden was haunted by this -- by his recognition that al qaeda had failed that it had killed so many muslims that it had become unpopular. its image had been tarnished to the point that he wrote in one draft memo, we need to change the name of the organization. >> he wanted to rebrand al qaeda. >> we need to rebrand ourselves. he thought that president obama had rebranded the war on terror, stopped it calling it that. had called it the war against al qaeda and he felt on the back foot these wives including the one that anma interviewed were asked to take dictation by their

husbands. so he was furiously dictating. these memos go on and on, one of them 48 pages long. he was brooding. dictating messages, trying somehow to survive. >> fascinating stuff. i'm going to be interviewing her next week neck new york. thank you very much, david. good to see you. a new eyewitness casting more doubt on george zimmerman's claim of self-defense. eugene robinson and jonathan capehart joining me next on the controversy. >> plus, a programming note for you. this sunday on "meet the press," senator chuck schumer and presidential candidate rick santorum. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. how about both? with covergirl lashblast fusion our biggest brush meets our fiberstretch formula for a blast of volume and length. lashblast fusion. from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl.

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will be joining african-american leaders in sanford saturday at an naacp parnl for trayvon, all this as we are hearing more details from an unnamed wii witness. >> the then he was walking towards where i was watching. and i could see him a little bit clearer. see that it was a hispanic man and he was, you know, he didn't appear hurt or anything else. >> that was obviously to anderson cooper on cnn. joining me "washington post" post eugene robinson and jonathan capehart. what a lineup. both of you have been so strong and so personal. i just want to say the reason we wanted you here today is you have just led the pack of brilliant writing. jonathan, you've been taking apart zimmerman's defense point by point led by lawrence o'donnell and others on our air. what do you find most dispositive about the tape that

emerged, the police tape even though it is fuzzy and you don't see everything but he certainly does not appear to be terribly injured. he's walking. >> that's it. we had been hearing until this tape was revealed that he was in a life and death struggle, that they were rolling around in the grass, that his knows was broken, his head had been bashed several times into the sidewalk. and then out comes this video where he doesn't look like he was in a life or death struggle but someone who may have been arrested for illegally driving a golf carton the highway. his shirt is tucked in. he just looks unbelievably presentable. that will to me was literally eye opening to discover and to understand and to realize that the story that we had been hearing does not match the videotape that we are seeing. >> eugene, what is so profoundly disturbing beyond the obvious that we've lost the life of a young man? >> you know, i think the reason the story has struck such a

chord is that for so many of us, it's personal. i mean, it is literally personal. and i'm not sure i know a single african-american man who doesn't have some story of being assumed to be a criminal, being assumed to be dangerous or violent, being assumed to be up to no good when he was just going about his business and it could be pulled over by the cops, could be followed by security in a store. it's that assumption that you can't help but feel very personally and very emotionally. >> you met with the parents, jonathan. tell us about the parent and how they have carried this fight because this was a story that was not picked up by the national media. >> right. >> until several strong voices, yours included nationally began to follow the case. >> right. >> and it was really the parents

who persistently kept this alive. >> gene and i were both in that meeting. the national firestorm is only in its second week. and the first impression i had of sabrina fulton and tracie martin was the fact that they are wearing -- their grief is etched in their faces. these are parents who have not had time to grieve. their son was shot and killed on february 26th. here we are at march 30th but they came in march 28th. they are still grieving. sybrina fulton a couple times during our meeting had to stop talking because the emotion had just overcome her. these are folks who are fighting for not only justice for their son, they're just hoping that george zimmerman gets arrested but they're now having to deal with individuals, people unknown, unnamed forces who are now trying to in their words, assassinate the character of their son. so they're dealing with a whole

lot of battles and still grieving. >> do you think there's going to be an arrest, eugene? >> you know, i just don't know. i just don't know. i mean, i guess yeah, i kind of do, but i'm not sure. i, too, was really affected by that meeting with trayvon martin's parents. they have been fighting really all along for the memory of their son. they know they can't bring him back, but from the start to them, the story that was told didn't make sense. it wasn't their son. and that's really what they've been fighting to demonstrate and to tell people. and it was just -- as jonathan said a couple of times sybrina fulton had to stop talking and your heart just went out to her. >> uh-huh. >> eugene and jonathan, thank you both so very much. at the end of a week, an emotional week. we go into the weekend and this

is far, far from over. >> it is. >> thanks, andrea. >> and when we come back next, the island president mohamed nasheed on his fight to save his island nation from the sea. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. who you . you can part a crowd, without saying a word. you have yet to master the quiet sneeze. you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts. well, muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour 1 on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour 3. zyrtec®. love the air. claritin® doesn't start working until hour 3. [ whooping ] ♪ it was the best day ♪ it was the best day ♪ ♪ it was the best day ♪ 'cause of you we make a great pair. huh?

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and topping the headlines right now on "andrea mitchell reports," the attorney for accused afghan shooter staff sergeant robert bales is telling nbc news he is facing an almost total information blackout from the government. having what he called a devastating effect on his ability to investigate the case and prepare his defense. john henry brown says that the government is withholding key medical records and that the investigative file from the defense team. supreme court justices met behind closed doors today to tell each other how they would vote on health care. after hearing three days of arguments of course, on the president's health care law this week. today the justices met in a wood paneled room off of a chamber as they always do after arguments

to briefly share their first impressions but their final decisions will be hashed out in coming weeks. and could well change before they issue the court's final opinion in june. and america has lotto fever. millions of people in 42 states are now crowding convenience stores hoping to cash in on a 6$640 million jackpot. $640 million. that is a record. the tiny island country of maldives is both remote and beautiful. but for a country of just over 300,000 people, it is on the frontlines when it comes to climate change. rising sea levels could wipe out this chain of low lying islands in the indian ocean in a matter of years. even as the country faces huge political and security problems, details in a new documentary, the island president. >> he survived 30 years of brutal dictatorship, 18 months in solitary confinement and he is in exile. against all odds, he returned to

his country. and was elected president. but in a country that is barely above sea level. >> on this corner, we've seen almost five meters of beachfront lost. >> he faces a challenge that could destroy his nation. >> and mohamed nasheed was forced to quit the presidency under pressure last month he says at gunpoint. despite continuing threats he is continue the fight to save his nation from being wiped out as the oceans rise. the former president of maldives mohamed nash she had. it is such a pleasure to meet you. first of all, your crusade for climate change, you began this years ago. you began it in exile and took it to the united nations and to copenhagen in 2009. how severe is the threat to the country? >> thank you very much. climate change is a very real issue to the maldives. it's not something in the future. we already have 16 islands where

we have to relocate people. we have a number of islands where water contamination is a serious issue. the maldives is just 1.5 meters above the sea level. so any imbalance in nature, any imbalance or even a slight rise in the levels of the ocean can have a very serious challenge to the existence of the maldives. >> now, you've been forced out of office and you're in exile. you had previously been in exile. you had been in prison. you had been tortured, you went back and won the presidency. the human drama of what you're going through, what lies ahead for you in terms of the threats against you as you continue this effort? can you ever return to your country? >> well, yes, in 2008, after 30 years of dictatorship, we had our first multiparty elections. during which time i was fortunate to have been elected. and the dictatorship was beaten

through the vote. but now again, 3 1/2 years later, they have come back through a coup and the military and the police forced me to resign. the former dictator back in the maldives. what we are saying is that the maldives need to be back on tack and we have to have elections there as quickly as possible. it's not that i have lost the presidency. that is not the issue. the issue is restoration of democracy in the maldives and for that to happen, we have to have elections as quickly as possible. >> i know you're going to be meeting with the deputy secretary of state this afternoon i believe. and what are you asking for? what would you like the united states to do? >> we would like united states to impress upon the regime in the maldives the need for early elections. i understand that the united states have some concerns whether we have the capacity to have elections now.

yes, we had free and fair elections in 2008. we had parliamentary elections in 2009. we had local government elections intoelection s in in 2011. there is an independent elections commission appointed by the parliament and we can have elections even right now. we would be asking the state department to see how they may be able to impress upon the regime in the maldives to have elections as quickly as possible. >> you galvanized the world with your speech at the united nations leading up to copenhagen to the climate conference and then tried to broker agreements with brazil, with india, with china to try to break through all of the impediments to an agreement on climate change. here i wanted to just play a bit of your speech inform 2009 to the united nations. >> we did not do any of these things. but if things go business as

usual, we will not live, we will die. and our country will not exist. >> how can you get the attention of the world? how can the world save your country? >> well, i think it is very, very important that we have a legally binding agreement among nations on how much carbon people would be emitting. but we feel is that carbon contained in the atmosphere has to be not more than 350 parts per million. it must be the earth cannot heat over 1.5 degrees from the industrial revolution. and for that to happen, countries have to come around and sit down and agree on how much they be emitting carbon. so in 2009 in copenhagen, 25 countries agreed upon these measures. and in my mind what now remains

to be done is to get the details sorted. i hope that in 2015, which is what everyone is now aiming at, that there will be a legally binding agreement among nations. i also do feel that the u.n. process which is asking countries to limit carbon would also think about asking countries to invest a certain amount of money. renewable energies as much as asking people to cap carbon. they would ask countries to also invest in renewable energy. >> renewable energy? part of your effort also is, of course, to get the world's attention. the island president, the document trilt is clearly going to do that. it is getting a lot of attention. you were on david letterman the other day. let's watch a little bit of that interview. >> as i was watching the film, i thought to myself, maybe folks shouldn't have built homes on these islands. but when you tell me that the population has been there 5,000

years, well it clearly wasn't a bad idea to build there. >> no, it's actually best for birds. >> better for birds. >> it may be good for birds and it's certainly beautiful for tourists we're told. it's an island paradise in many ways. >> it's a very delicate country. it's very fragile. it's in the middle of the indian ocean. we're not only just talking about the maldives. more than a quarter of the world's population are living in coastal areas and what happens to the maldives today is definitely going to happen the same to everyone else. >> eventually it will be the maldives today, manhattan tomorrow. i mean, to get attention, you once held a cabinet meeting underwater i understand? >> well, the idea, you know, our means are very, very modest and we do not have all the funding to go into big advertising campaigns. what we wanted to do was to impress upon the international community the need to have -- take action as quickly as

possible. to do that, we felt that our cabinet going underwater would bring the message home to a number of people. >> it certainly did. we just showed the pictures. it was pretty striking. how con sender are you about your personal security? >> i'm very concerned about my security. it's only seven weeks ago they tried to murder me and they tried to mob me. and even since then, i've been beaten up twice on the streets of mali, the capital of maldives and i'm always hearing there are people trying to get at me because the regime in the maldives fears me and if there were elections in the maldives, they do understand that it would be difficult for them to win it if the maldive democrat party and if i am around. >> what about your wife and children? >> they are also scared but they are right now in the maldives and they've been away for a very

long time once in sri lanka and in india. i hope they would be safe in the maldives. why they are safe is because we have so much support in the country and people are in a sense protecting them. there is also international concern on what might happen to me and my family. so we have some sort of protection in that regard. >> well, we wish you safe travels and good luck with your efforts. and we will, of course, be following this for quite some time. thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much. and president obama here at home burned by that hot mick. you will not want to miss the rest of this new republican spoof. >> starring barack obama. as president flexible dmitry medvedev as dr. transmy cov and vladimir putin as is himself.

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nation," yet another development in the trayvon martin case. now the mayor of sanford tells reuters that police originally did not want to release that surveillance videotape we've shown so much. the pair said he overruled police say we are not here to hide anything. plus, i'll talk with the man who actually started the online movement to bring trayvon martin's killing to the attention of the world. and fleas a major warning for credit card holders about a big security breach. we've got those details coming up. is the republican presidential race as a finally all but over? let's bring in -- >> we are entering a phase where it could become counterproductive this drags much longer. >> we've got to the come together behind who i think has earn this had nomination and that's mitt romney. >> kenny rogers said it's time when to hold them, time to fold them. i think it's time for people to get behind this good man. >> and the headline out of there

was president bush's sox. let's bring in our panel, white correspondent major garrett. one very striking thing that happened there was also what president bush said about his son, the other president bush. first i want to mention marco rubio. in his endorsement of romney to the daily caller, he said there are a lot of other people out there that some of us wish had run for president but they didn't. i think romney would be a fine president and he would be way better than the guy who's there right now. well, that's hardly. >> kind of backhanded. don't you think? doesn't it feel that way? look, one thing that's interesting about this field, think about it this way. the last time that romney ran for a race in a general election and won was 2002. last time santorum did that was 2000. last time newt gingrich diagnose that was 198. these are not exactly successful current, contemporary coalition-building is successful

republican politicians. the one who are all passed on this race. that's one confident things raubiol is talking about. >> one of the interesting parts about the big endorsements over the last couple days is the two folks that made the most news paul ryan and marco rubio are part of the new generation whereas romney are from the republican party that is evolving and has moved on. >> paul ryan is going to be in wisconsin campaigning, already is in appleton, wisconsin, campaigning with that vote. and according to our nbc news mayor rift poll, romney is pulling ahead of santorum there. what about this very awkward moment where president bush, i think we can play a little bit of that tape, where bush senior turns to romney and says have you talked to george or talked to the president? let's watch. >> we'll see the rest of you on the trail. >> no questions? >> governor, have you met with j.w. bush while you've been here and sought his endorsement?

>> i haven't met with president george w. bush. we speak from time to time. >> so president bush, the elder says has he endorsed you? and mitt romney says no. you covered the bush white house. >> yes. >> major. what is going on there? are they holding back in does mitt romney not want to be embraced by george w. bush? >> well, i'm not exactly sure where romney is on that. i think eventually he will take it. what i clearly believe george w. bush has detected in all of this for every candidate is an arm's length at best and in some cases underlying notes of hostility about his presidency, about what it was and what needs to change. i'm not sure he's exactly eager to jump into this. and every president is hesitant to jump in unless they are sure it's wanted, south and sought.

a former president looking at a candidate saying no questions? what? no questions. >> romney wanted to shoo the president corps out there and have the picture and let it go at that. president bush was used to the photo op where there's always the interaction and one of the other things that's striking is think about jimmy cartner 1996 when he was barely invited by bill clinton, the only living former democratic president barely invited to be a guest at the convention rather than delivering a big speech was up in the stands. >> and in 2000, al gore tried to solve that and make carter a much more prominent part of his convinces in los angeles reattaching himself to carter after very difficult carter/clinton years. >> that's the weerds part about george w. bush. as the republican party has evolved, it has evolved as a reaction against george bush. the tea party anger is not only geared towards president obama and democrats,

geared toward the republican party that spent too much. got into too many wars and essentially got away from its conservative principles. >> and was too liberal according to some on immigration. the endorsement would be a ticklish at best. >> having all kinds of fun, let's look at their spoof of the open mike incident. >> your mission is simple, mr. obama. to gain unchecked flexibility. dmitri will transmit the information. >> starring barack obama as president flexible. dmitri immediate vedov. and putin as himself. >> you can't go wrong with a bare chested putin, right? >> the russian people might have a disagreement about that. i think it was significant moment for the president. i wrote about it and i thought

it was at least as significant. i won't say i jumped into it. a lot of people jumped in about etch a sketch. not on the ballot, not leading the country, not trying to lead the country. the president as leader of the country said two things that he later said are consistent with everything he said but in that place, to dmitry medvedev, who everyone knows is an underling and possibly a delegitimized puppet of putin carrying that message is i don't think what the president would have liked the nation to hear. [ male announcer ] what's the beat that moves your heart?

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with the u.s. trade embargo in cuba, there's very little i could bring back for you. but i did bring this back, music. more from acclaimed musicians. you'll hear from them next at carnegie hall. they'll be playing next november.

♪ chris cillizza is back with me. what a nice way. i can't tell you -- >> especially when it's cloudy and gray. >> worst week in washington? >> it's don, the solicitor general. tuesday turned into a total debacle in the oral arguments if you are a sport of obamacare, the affordable care act. buzz feed a website cut down the oral arguments. about 40 seconds. >> out of context. >> but still halting, struggling. he will get blamed in some circles if obama care is ruled unconstitutional. he should not. he should not. but we live in a scape goating city and he set himself up as a scapegoat. >> not fair.

>> thanks very much. thanks for being with us for this special edition of "andrea mitchell reports." that does it for this week. we'll see you next week. i'm heading to turkey to interview secretary of state hillary clinton in istanbul. we'll have that for you on the show on monday. my colleague tamron hall has a look at what's next. >> safe travels. i can't wait to see your interview. another big development in the trayvon martin case. now the mayor of sanford tells reuters that police originally did not want to release the surveillance video. you're looking at it. the mayor said he overruled police saying, quote, we are not here to hide anything. plus, i will talk with a man who actually started the online movement to bring the story of trayvon martin's killing to the attention of the world. and there is a major warning for credit card holders about a big security breach. of course we're about that mega lottery. somebody is going to win it tonight.

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