>> obama versus romney is unofficially under way. we'll have the latest on the campaign. and the latest developments in the killing of trayvon martin. game on. a clean sweep for mitt romney. >> a decisive victory in a three-state sweep. >> the outcome is preordained. it has been for a long time. >> are we in the second half of the race? >> it's halftime. who's ready to charge out of the locker room in pennsylvania for a strong second half? >> mitt romney seems to think it's game over. >> you want to play, big boy? come on, big boy, let's play. >> goalpost, locker room, halftime. >> game on. >> is it over? >> it's romney versus obama. >> the president came here yesterday and railed against arguments no one is making. >> it's not a good climate to be mitt romney. >> the president has five times the staff, ten times the money. >> he needs to at least have substance. >> he's got a lot going against im him. >> out of touch liberals say they want a strong economy.

>> mitt romney calling the president out of touch. >> come on, really? >> out of touch liberals like barack obama. >> the president's out of touch? >> can you ask him what flavor of kool-aid he's drinking? >> i'm shocked republicans are upset at the president. >> the president did not cause the economic crisis. but he did make it worse. >> we were sent here to serve the american people and look out for their interests. >> vote for us, the government will take care of you. vote for the other guy, and you're on your own. >> i think mitt romney has a case of the yips. >> corporations are people, my friend. >> i like being able to fire people who provide services for me. >> $10,000 bet? >> if you don't run, chris christie will be the nominee and we'll lose. we'll lose. we'll lose. joining me now, alex wagner, host of "now with alex wagner," and chris hayes, the host of msnbc's "up with chris hayes." the phrase of the day is "game

on." they haven't gone face to face exactly, but they went back to back. the president and romney giving speeches from the same microphone two days in a row. let's start with a clip from how the president got this started. he gave the first speech. let's listen to him on medicare. >> but here's the solution proposed by the republicans in washington. and embraced by most of their candidates for president. instead of being enrolled in medicare when they turn 65, seniors who retire a decade from now would get a voucher. if health care costs rise faster than the amount of the voucher as, by the way, they've been doing for decades, that's too bad. seniors, bear the risk. if the voucher isn't enough to buy a private plan with the specific doctors and care that you need, that's too bad. it's a bad idea, and it will ultimately end medicare as we know it. >> all right. hold it. let's give mitt romney a chance

to respond. 24 hours later, he steps up to the microphone, and this is mitt romney's reaction. >> the president came here yesterday and railed against arguments no one is making. and criticized policies no one is proposing. it's one of his favorite strategies. setting up straw men to distract us from his record. >> chris hayes, you couldn't even contain yourself. you couldn't even let mitt romney finish, you were starting to jump. >> okay, first of all, the gold medal of straw men, if i may mix metaphors, is mitt romney himself who's been parading around the country telling people preposterous things about what barack obama has said, done and believes. for instance, i'm not going to apologize for the u.s. there's no instance of the president actually apologizing for the u.s. he's been setting up straw men left and right. the president's description of the ryan plan for medicare, you could find that in a "new york times" article. that was as accurate, except for the "it's too bad your on your

own" editorial flourish, all he was doing was describing precisely the framework that the republican party has adopted to deal with medicare. there was no straw man or even any spin. that was actually the substance of the policy they are proposing. >> alex, i feel an etch-a-sketch proposal. it feels like romney is saying when i'm the nominee, i will tell you, i haven't told you anything yet seems to be what he's trying to say. >> romney is filled with aluminum powder. the most surprising thing to me is that he embraced anything in terms of what was going to happen with policy. the obama re-elect team was absolutely right to take a gigantic lasso and wrap it around romney and ryan. and i have to say, as someone who has watched them bungle over and over and over again the messaging operation, the fact that they are starting early and apparently going to go often i think is very reassuring to a lot of democrats to watch the president get pilloried for no

reason at all. >> i want to re-run the moment where president obama finally said the word "romney." let's listen to the naming names portion of the president's speech. >> one of my potential opponents, governor romney, has said that he hoped a similar version of this plan from last year would be introduced as a bill on day one of his presidency. he said that he's very supportive of this new budget. and he even called it marvelous. >> so there's the president calling out romney. romney shows up today, and he says, hey, he's accusing me of things i haven't proposed. and then romney proposes raising the age for social security. let's listen to what romney said about that. >> i'll gradually raise the retirement age for social security and reduce the rate of benefit growth for tomorrow's higher-income seniors. i'll introduce market competition and consumer choice to medicare while also

preserving traditional medicare coverage as an option so that future seniors can get higher quality at lower cost. >> well, chris, there you go. he's not saying anything like what president obama said he's saying. >> i find -- >> it doesn't say the word "voucher" here. >> exactly. exactly. >> it says medicare. >> market competition, right, exactly. >> i don't see "voucher." >> well, the republican relationship to medicare particularly in the last ten years -- last two years, since 2010 and in the run-up to 2010 is fascinating because everybody always needs to remember the background context for this is that the republicans ran ads around the country in every swing district in which their one-line critique of the obama administration, a one-line critique that romney himself has used on the stump was that it cut hundreds of billions of dollars from medicare. that was the one line. $500 million cut from medicare saying to seniors he's coming after you. but of course they want to get rid of medicare. and they need to have their cake and eat it, too. they're in this bizarre situation in which they're trapped between the december

graphic base of their party and their ideological commitments. demographically, they can't tell the people that comprise their base that their ox will be gored. so they have to come up with all sorts of ways talking around the issue or creating this two-tiered system in which they can say to their base, don't worry, you'll get good socialized medicine. you people, we're going to screw you. >> alex, this looks like what the campaign's going to look like. >> yes. >> this guy's going so stand up looking presidential. he does look presidential, i'll give romney that. president obama is going to stand up being presidential. and they're going to have this contest back and forth. president obama's going to say voucher. mitt romney's going to say -- wait a second. he's going to say consumer choice. market competition and consumer choice to medicare. how's this going to go? >> totally compelling and totally boring. you know, i thought the language that the president was using yesterday, the social darwinism the fact that these platforms are antithetical to entrepreneurism was the sharpest

to date. the rest of the speech, though, was a lot of sort of professor obama. and i think the big concern here is that the american public tunes out. number one, because mitt romney is -- you saw him today. it's hard to pay attention to him. there's no cadence. there's no real sort of center to what he's talking about. the president obviously, this is a fundamental argument about the american social compact. there's a lot of policy here. i think the question for the white house is whether they can make a convincing argument that is also sound bite worthy. and that's very tricky. >> i do think we've seen two interesting things happen. is that as the economy has started to get better, as the fundamentals of the recovery look like a surer and surer bet come november, both sides have gotten a little more ideological in the way they talk about it, right? so romney now has to make an ideological critique as opposed to a practical one because he's worried about just being able to point at the unemployment and say, well, he's done a bad job. so he has to sort of weave in this broader critique of stifling american

entrepreneurism. the president, at the same time, can't talk about the recovery because all the polling shows, and the focus group shows, when you tell people the economy is getting better, they recoil. >> and if you look at long-term unemployment, it hasn't budged. >> right. >> this one poll i want to look at is "usa today"/gallup poll showing this gap with women. it is really extraordinary. they're running overall, you know, reasonably close, obama, 49, romney, 45. four points, which is the maximum that's going to separate them at the end. but when you get to obama with women support versus romney with women support, let's put it up here on the big board, if we have it. there's president obama at 54% with women. romney at 36%. an 18-point gender gap. and with men, they're virtually tied. so as i said the other night, that's pretty much the end. you don't have to know anything else. if those numbers hold, that's all you need to know. >> mitt romney, i don't think

anybody thinks of romney as a particularly strident anti-feminist, but he's being greatly aided by his party at what's happening at the state level. they're pushing if not actually passing draconian pieces of legislation that's really intended to shame and intimidate women. >> chris, the republican party offers their candidates this year the chance to either overtly screamingly be anti-feminist or take a stand against what the party is doing. and if you don't take that stand, you might as well be with them on all that stuff. >> what's interesting, it strikes me there is an amazing opportunity for romney if he wants to have his etch-a-sketch moment in the general election to stand up and condemn some state legislator, even go to the state, right? find some state that's passed the most heinous version of this bill, go give a speech there, and say, this is wrong. this is not what we're about. i mean, that, i think, would be smart political strategy because he has to separate himself from this. and the fact of the matter is republicans cannot win if they have the kind of gender gap that we saw in 2008 which this

polling essentially is in line with. >> romney will get my whole hour if he does that in this campaign. alex wagner of "now" and "chris hayes of "up." a judge in louisiana is ordering the justice department to do homework exercises based on things president obama says in his speeches. van jones and richard wolffe will join me. and later, that new attorney for george zimmerman has to work with. charles blow and i will sum size the summarize the case as it stands tonight in the killing of trayvon martin. and joe scarborough rewrites every republican surrogate for mitt romney simply by telling the truth. and joy behar is here to discuss one of her favorite subjects. sarah palin. [ male announcer ] fighting pepperoni heartburn and pepperoni breath? fight both fast with new tums freshers! concentrated relief that goes to work in seconds

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the killer of trayvon martin has a new lawyer tonight.

charles blow and i will examine exactly what evidence that lawyer has to work with. and president obama is apparently driving federal judges crazy because one of them said something truly crazy about the president yesterday from the bench in an official proceeding. that's coming up. and joe scarborough rips the facade off all of the republican supporters of mitt romney. that's in tonight's "rewrite." and joy behar will be here to talk about sarah palin. the battle between the ♪ ...stream, stream, stream... ♪ whenever i want you, all i have to do is... ♪ [ female announcer ] introducing xfinity streampix. stream your favorite movies and full seasons of shows instantly on any screen. find out more online. i get my cancer medications through the mail. now washington, they're looking at shutting down post offices coast to coast.

closing plants is not the answer. they want to cut 100,000 jobs. it's gonna cost us more, and the service is gonna be less. we could lose clientele because of increased mailing times. the ripple effect is going to be devastating. congress created the problem. and if our legislators get on the ball, they can make the right decisions. the battle between the

president and the courts is getting hotter. first, the president said this. >> ultimately, i'm confident that the supreme court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress. and i'd just remind conservative commentators that four years what we've heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. >> and so yesterday something very strange happened when the fifth circuit court of appeals was considering one provision of

the president's health care bill involving physician ownership of hospitals. a judge you've never heard of, judge jerry smith, said this to the justice department attorney defending the health care law provision. >> let me ask you just something a little bit more basic. does the department of justice recognize that federal courts have the authority in appropriate circumstances to strike federal statutes because of one or more constitutional infirmities? >> yes, your honor. of course, there would need to be a severability analysis, but yes. >> i'm referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect -- and i'm sure you've heard about them -- that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed "unelected"

judges to strike acts of congress that have enjoyed -- and he was referring, of course, to obamacare -- to what he termed a broad consensus in majorities in both houses of congress. >> yes wasn't enough to satisfy judge smith, so he ordered the government lawyer to do an unbelievably weird homework assignment.

>> joining me now on just how crazy things are getting between the president and the courts are van jones, president and co-founder and author of "rebuild the dream." and richard wolffe, msnbc political analyst, awe number of of the book "revival clrn the struggle for revival inside the obama white house." van, your teleprompter introduction was a little bit weird. so you are the president and co-founder of rebuild the dream? >> yes, i am. >> which is also the title of your book. that's what threw me. all right, good. we're finished with the book promo. >> very good. >> so a homework assignment, high school stuff, three pages, single typed, thursday at noontime. what? >> look, this is -- it's ridiculous. first of all, if there is a threat to the dignity of the courts, it's not coming from the

president. it's coming from stupid stunts like this. and the worst part about it is, the president's exactly right. this is another example of conservatives just making up stuff to be mad about. the conservatives have been the ones saying we don't like judicial activism. the president says we don't like judicial activism. they go oh, my god, he's trying to overthrow the government! same thing with health care. the conservatives say, we don't like single payer. we don't like public option. we want individual responsibility. the president says, okay, here's a mandate. oh, my god! we hate it! it's socialism! same with energy. the conservatives say we don't want a carbon tax. we want cap and trade. okay, here's cap and trade. oh, my god! it's awful! so whatever this president does, even if their own ideas, they will go crazy. they'll go nuts. and now not just the wingnut crowd in the streets, on the bench. on the bench. >> amazing. >> we have crazy behavior. my view about this is, you know, the president has clarified

this. the poor government lawyer clarified this. to be spanked like this, you have to write out, i love marbury versus madison 50 times i think is an abuse of discretion on the part of this judge and i think the department of justice should stand up to this judge. >> the department of justice has actually said they're going to comply in a way they think is appropriate. we'll find out what that is. richard wolffe, it sounded to me for a bit like this judge was looking for a talk radio hosting job. >> right. >> it was an amazing -- in fact, and you know what? why don't you hold it. let's listen to rush limbaugh's reaction to all this. >> why not? >> let's see what he thinks of this judge's audition to be a talk radio host. we'll listen to that. >> in my view, this judge is very brave. the one is going to look at this as insolence. obama is going to look -- how dare he. how dare he challenge me

publicly like this. how dare he embarrass me. how dare this judge lift his hand up to me. that's going to be the reaction. this judge has now made himself a target of the regime. >> this judge is not ready to be a guest host of "the rush limbaugh show," richard. >> right. when a coward like limbaugh calls you brave, can you really take it to the bank, right? obviously, this judge -- you know, the giveaway for the judge was that he used the word "obamacare." >> yes. >> this is a court proceeding about the affordable care act, and he calls it obamacare? so he's already repeating right-wing jargon, slogans, talking points right there. and let's just try for a second to adopt the republican and conservative mantra which is that they have some kind of ideological consistency, some kind of rigor of thought. if you are a judge and you believe in these principles and you think it is wrong to

interfere with judicial independence, go give a speech to the federalist society. as, in fact, president bush did, railing against judicial activism in 2007. you give a speech outside of a court proceeding, you do not inject politics into a proceeding. and if this had been done by a lower court judge, a federal judge at the lower level, then the court of appeals would have said, you're in no position to judge this thing. the fact that it's the court of appeals, who are you going to appeal to? of course, our friends in the supreme court. >> it is extraordinary to be, in effect, talking back to political speech, van, instead of legal speech, nothing said in the courtroom that the judge was addressing. and look, the president was on a stretch there. of course, the supreme court can overturn this. they overturned the line item veto which passed the senate with 69 votes. this thing passed with one vote. the president says incorrectly that it had a strong majority. it did not. but that's just political rhetoric. it doesn't belong in a courtroom. >> it could have been a totally different matter if, in fact, a

briefing had been filed, challenging marbury versus madison or something like that. of course, you say hold on a second. but to reach over into the public political sphere and pull out maybe a little bit of rhetorical matter on the part of the president and make that central to a judicial hearing, maybe without precedent. i mean, part of the thing that strikes me as very disturbing is that the people who claim to be the defenders of american tradition are increasingly the violators of american tradition. they say they love america, and they're the big patriots, and yet they are now trying to -- look at the paul ryan budget. it would smash down every american institution that made our country great from medicare all the way down the line. and so i think we're going to have to have a debate here. cheap patriotism versus deep patriotism. actual respect for our institutions, for what our parents and grabbed parent labor union rights, those are the pillars that we built the great country with.

we are have to at some point come to a decision about whether or not that is america's great heritage, and those who attack it are opposing america or whether somehow for 100 years we made a mistake. the american century was a mistake, the middle class was a mistake, the american way was a mistake, and we're going to go back to some mythical wild, wild west of social darwinism which, in fact, did not ever exist and did not make us the great nation that we are. >> richard wolffe, whenever we've had what some voters might think of as a boring presidential election, i always remind them that the supreme court is always at stake. if there's nothing else you can think of, any other reason you can think of for voting, think about who this person's going to appoint to the federal courts. the judge we heard from in this was appointed by ronald reagan. and does this help the president, highlight the stakes involved in judicial appointments in this presidential election? >> well, it does, and there's a parallel here, i think, with the birth control issue which is

that, look, i think it was actually a mistake for the president to engage in this at this point. there would be a time for him to get into the fray on this with the supreme court after they make their ruling. he could have put any number of surrogates out there at this point to frame the argument for conservative pundits if he wanted to do so. but the mistake that he made has opened up a bigger issue for republicans, and that is very, very fertile ground for democrats. >> van jones and richard wolffe, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> thanks. coming up, joy behar is here, and she has a few things to say about sarah palin. and joe scarborough is in "the rewrite" tonight telling us the truth about what republicans are privately saying about mitt romney. and next, the killer of trayvon martin has a new lawyer, and charles m. blow, eugene o'donnell will join me to review the case file george zimmerman's new lawyer is studying tonight.

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there are now precious few republicans willing to be even just a little bit honest about mitt romney's chances in november. the one who was brutally completely like totally honest today gets tonight's "rewrite." and a little hadn't you already know what he said if you were watching msnbc this morning long before i woke up. and joy behar joins me later. we'll find out what she's thinking these days about sarah palin. and next, the new lawyer in

the killing of trayvon martin is busy trying to get up to speed tonight. charles blow and i will help him. next. [ cellphone rings ] ♪ ♪ you do ♪ something to me ♪ that nobody else could do ♪

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comes down to a gut feeling. that's all it is. okay. and i'm glad you clarified that. >> not just a gut feeling. >> joe -- >> i've asked questions. can you ask why it's a gut feeling and why i feel good about it? because it's an instinctual thing and it's also because i have what i have been told validated. i'll agree with you, my role in this, i agree, just doesn't make sense. >> we obviously had some lighting problems during that interview. and the man who killed trayvon martin has a new lawyer today, and the defense team's first order of business was to get rid of joe oliver. joe oliver, the man you just saw, who has been making the media rounds presenting himself as a friend of george zimmerman and was generally getting softball interviews until he appeared on this show. when he was here, he insisted that he wasn't being paid, but he told nbc news today that he would no longer be the zimmerman family media adviser.

today, two agent says for the state special prosecutor's office canvassed the area where troy trayvon was shot and interviewed residents. the new lawyer on the case is an experienced defense attorney and an experienced tv talker. he did a lot of television legal analysis of the casey anthony trial in florida. he also is a former police officer and a former prosecutor. the file that he is opening today in defense of george zimmerman has some serious problems in it. here to summarize the case as it stands tonight are eugene o'donnell, a former new york city police officer and prosecutor, and charles m. blow, editorial writer for "the new york times." thank you both for joining me tonight. i just want to summarize what i think this lawyer's looking at in his file tonight. and eugene, one procedural point i want to start with quickly that predates the shooting, which is george zimmerman's arrest record. he got arrested once for battery

against a police officer. his fiancee got a restraining order against him. would any of that be admissible in a criminal trial? >> the prosecutors are obviously, if they decide to move here, are going to look for all of that to see whether it can be used. it's going to depend on the specifics. not only things that were charged criminally but also the idea that he made these calls, these prior calls, these 50 calls he made. so evidence of his state of mind and prior bad acts and things that he did, whether they were proven criminally or not, prosecutors are going to seek to introduce them to lay a foundation for understanding who he is. >> okay. so the lawyer starts his file with the 911 call made by george zimmerman as he's following trayvon martin. let's listen to a piece of that that has a problem in it for zimmerman. >> are you following him? >> yea. >> okay, we don't need you to do that. >> okay. >> okay, there's problem number one, charles, in the 911 call. >> right. that's only one of the problems in the 911 call because what you have to figure out is, number

one, what is the nature of the suspicion? why is it that trayvon martin who this is not his first time to that subdivision. he had been there several times with his father before. what is it about trayvon martin that night that draws george zimmerman's attention? number two -- >> which is the only thing stated, black. >> well, right. he says he looks like he may be on drugs. he may be wandering around. >> as people will say, it looks like he's carrying a weapon. and this is a 20% black community. >> right. >> it's not like this is some rarity. >> right. so you have that. establishing the motive. what is the threat response that's activated in george zimmerman that says that this person, this young man, who he knows is a teenager. he says in the beginning of the 911 tape, they ask him about how old he is. he says he looks like he's in his late teens. he knows he's a young person. he knows he has on a hooded sweatshirt. and that is -- he -- they ask him about race.

he identifies what he believes is race. that's pretty much all we know. so what is it about that that makes george zimmerman exit the truck, knowing that he has a gun on him and follow trayvon martin? >> i would say there's a jury credibility issue moment in there where the police -- the dispatcher says to him, are you following him? yes. we don't need you to do that. zimmerman's response is "okay," which anyone on the other end of the phone believes, okay, i'm not going to do that. he then goes on to do it. there's also upcoming in the 911 call this racial slur. let's just play that very quickly. >> [ bleep ]. >> are you following him? >> yea. >> okay, we don't need you to do that. >> [ bleep ]. >> are you following him? >> yea. >> okay, we don't need you to do that. >> everyone -- not everyone -- a lot of people listening to that think they hear a racial slur. that is a problem as you go through this file.

let's put these issues up on the big board here. the problems in this file, number one, is that there's that 911 call from zimmerman where he ends up testifying against him in certain ways. you then go to sequentially trayvon martin's girlfriend says she's on the phone with him, and she's got phone records to prove she's on the phone with him, and he is telling her, there's somebody following me. the next thing in the sequence is a 911 call where we hear someone screaming for help. let's listen to that call. >> i think they're yelling "help," but i don't know. send someone quick. >> does he look hurt to you? >> i can't see him. i don't want to go out there. i don't know what's going on. they're sending. >> so you think he's yelling "help"? >> yes. >> what is your phone number? >> there's gunshots. >> you just heard gunshots? >> yes.

>> how many? >> just one. >> and it turns out the most important evidence provided in that call is not from the person making the call but from the person who is screaming in the background. and number four in your file, you discover tonight that audio experts who have analyzed it have said that is not george zimmerman's voice. and charles, this is key to george zimmerman's story. he says that was me. i was crying for help. >> exactly. and so if you can establish that it is not george zimmerman's voice on that tape, the only other person that we know of that is outside in that altercation is trayvon martin. so then you have to say, why would a person who is attacking and as george zimmerman's family has said, punching george zimmerman in the face, slamming his head into the concrete, why would that person who is on top winning a fight screaming for help in what sounds like screaming for his life? it doesn't add up, if it is as the audio experts say. >> there's more.

let's go to the next -- we have another list of items in this file. there's an eyewitness account that was picked up by cnn last week. and i think we may have a clip of that that we can run right now. we don't have the clip. but that man told cnn that what he was looking at in the dark, he couldn't tell who was who. but as soon as the screaming stopped, it seemed like the person on top in this altercation, the person on top instantly got up. that would contradict george zimmerman's account. he says he was on the bottom when he had to shoot trayvon martin. then you have the police report. the next stage is we get him down to the police station. but on the site, they have a police report saying he had a bloody nose, cuts on the back of his head. then you go to the sanford police department video of george zimmerman appearing -- i think we have some of that video to roll now of george zimmerman appearing at the police station. and you don't see any evidence of a bloody nose. you don't see cuts on the back

of the head. and very, very importantly, eugene o'donnell, you don't see any kind of blood splatter, and you would think, with a chest wound, a bullet chest wound against trayvon martin whose body is supposed to be on top of yours, you would think that george zimmerman would be covered in trayvon martin's blood. >> right. the totality of the evidence. and when you start adding the evidence together, what you're seeing is the control, who precipitated the events? as you lay the evidence together, you're seeing there's much less of a case that mr. zimmerman was not the controller of the events. that trayvon martin was stalked, was essentially isolated by this man and that in the light most favorable to the suspect, there would be only a few seconds where trayvon martin had a chance to act. all of the actions leading up to precipitating this act, the evidence shows so far, at least, that they were at the hands of

george zimmerman. >> and then charles blow as you're kind of rounding out what you can know as zimmerman's attorney tonight putting this file together, well, what does homicide say about it? it turns out that what you can gather so far is that the lead homicide detective believes he had a manslaughter case on his hands. >> right. the lead homicide detector did not believe george zimmerman's story was credible. and that, i think, will be crucial if a charge is ever brought and this goes to trial. that -- his opinion and what made them not charge george zimmerman? what -- in consultation with billy and the state attorney, what was that conversation, and is there any documentation of that conversation? and how was that decision swayed? >> really, what was there other than his word that would make them have a doubt in and it was detailed by the police as though there was some sort of rich layer of evidence. but it really was only his word as far as we can tell. >> and zimmerman's first lawyer

was asked about any medical records. do you have anything to show us? any documentation of treating these injuries? and he just wouldn't answer the question. and if you had a hospital record from the next day or from any time period even close to this, you'd say, yeah, we have this. >> and the truth is that a person who righteously uses deadly force on somebody, they don't have to misrepresent. they don't have to embellish. the tell the story the way it is. they tell it straight up. it's when you catch people in embellishments that red flags go up. >> charles, there's so many -- i mean, i tried to get the basic things that we're looking at. it seems to me that the only thing the lawyer can be heat about is just this little section of a police report that says, oh, bloody nose and cut on the back of the head. >> right. and even then, you have to look at the severity of those injuries, if they, in fact, do exist because you have to figure out, is this a situation where george zimmerman could, as a reasonable person believe that could have been in that situation with physical force or was lethal force required for you to extricate yourself from

that situation. and that will hinge on how severe the injuries are. >> and just squikly, if you've goat a little scrape on the back of your head, did you get that tonight or yesterday? it could have hatched anyway. eugene o'donnell, former new york city police officer and prosecutor, and charles m. blow, editorial writer for "the new york times." thank you both for joining me tonight. coming up, joe scarborough is in "the rewrite" tonight. and he got in it by telling the truth, the truth that no other republican wants you to know. and joy behar is here with a few things to say about sarah palin. [ male announcer ] this is lawn ranger -- eden prairie, minnesota. in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota,

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to what the republicans are really thinking than any of the rest of us here at msnbc. this morning on "morning joe," he directed the discussion to why rick santorum should get out of the race in order to avoid a possible crushing defeat in pennsylvania and preserve his viability as a candidate in 2016. mark halperin then smartly made the point that if romney wins the presidency, there will be no possibility for santorum to run in 2016, and that's when joe revealed why he and other republicans are talking so seriously about 2016 right now. >> santorum in '16, i think there are two caveats. one is if romney wins, there is no '16. three caveats. if romney wins, there's no '16. two, '16 has got a lot of powerful people running. >> nobody thinks obama will win. let's just be honest. can we just say this for anybody at everybody?

>> oh, gosh. >> can we just say this for everybody at home? >> he might. >> he might. >> the republican establishment -- i have yet to meet someone in the republican establishment that thinks mitt romney is going to win the general election. they won't say it on tv because they don't want people writing him nasty e-mails. i honestly don't care, but i have yet to meet anybody in the republican establishment that worked for george w. bush, the republican congress, that worked for ronald reagan that thinks mitt romney is going to win the general election. >> joy behar will be here next, and i am going to push her and push her and push her until she tells me how she really feels about sarah palin.

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who should mitt romney pick for his vice presidential slot on the republican ticket? hey, let's ask the most recent

losing vice presidential candidate who will never be president. >> top of my list is allen west. i love that he has that military experience. he is a public servant willing to serve for the right reasons. >> when i talk about going rogue, what i want to do is encourage gop nominee to not think that they have to go with somebody necessarily safe that conventional wisdom perhaps would lead somebody to believe that if it's somebody quote, unquote, safe. >> well, right, yeah. why would you ever go with somebody safe like joe biden? who would do that when there's palins out there? and really wacky republican congress congressman like allen west. joining me now, the always unsafe joy behar, co-host of "the view" on abc. joy, there we have the voice of an actual losing candidate. >> shouldn't she be turning some

letters on some game show at this point? why is she involved in the conversation politically? >> involved, it was palin mania this week in new york. co-hosting the "today" show. >> she was opposite katie couric, her nemesis. and i think she beat katie in the ratings, so she must be so happy. she does have charisma. >> mr. matt lauer was on the "today" show, and he's been known to beat the "good morning america" show without sarah palin. i'm a company man. i'm going to give the credit to mr. matt lauer. >> no, i'm going to give her credit because even though i can't stand her politics, she has charisma. >> yeah, she does. >> give it to her. who cares what she thinks at this point? and anyway, you know who i think they should put as vice president? i have two ideas. one is trump. he and romney can say, you're fired. and then the other one, what about the dog whisperer?

isn't this good to, like, mitigate all the attacks on romney about the dog on top of the car? >> oh, there you go. >> huh? and you get the hispanic vote because it's cesar milan. it's two for one. it's fabulous. >> you're thinking this through. miss palin suggesting that they should go with an unsafe choice. >> i know. >> it's just -- and john mccain on one of the morning shows today saying why don't they pick sarah palin? why not make the craziest mistake ever made again? >> i think john mccain really must hate romney because why would you make that suggestion? they say that pataki and all the rest, jeb bush give lukewarm endorsements. i think it's real hatred. >> we have joe scarborough saying they all think he's going to lose. those big republican players all think obama gets a second term. >> well, because of the horrible stupid things that romney has been saying. we don't know who he is. he said that his health care plan in massachusetts, years ago

he said that it should be national. these are all going to come out in all the ads, and everybody -- even people who don't pay attention to msnbc like i do will realize that he's a loser. >> i take it it's no surprise to you and the women of "the view" -- >> yes. >> -- that there is now an 18-point gap in polling with women that president is 18 points ahead of mitt romney with women. >> i know. well, we had, you know, governor nikki haley on "the view" the other day. she said a very interesting remark, women are not interested in contraception, she said. >> you didn't let her get away with that. >> i did not. are you showing the clip? >> show the clip. that's a good cue. >> women don't care about contraception. they care about jobs and the economy and raising their families and all of those things. >> we should care about contraception, too. >> that's not the only thing they care about. the media wants to talk about contraception. >> but when somebody like santorum says they're going to take it away, we care.

>> she begins by saying they don't care about contraception. >> that just shows you she's not thinking. i don't know where her head is at. the only people who don't care about contraception is mrs. duggar and the octo-mom. >> there are some men i know who care about contraception. >> of course they do and they should. they're getting viagra on their insurance plan. i don't think people understand in order to have a baby, you need to have a man with an erection, usually. >> oh. >> did you know that? >> okay. >> turkey basters aside. >> erections, turkey basters, who else could it be here with us but joy behar? joy behar gets "the last word" tonight. thanks very much. >> thanks for having me.