anything near 8%, anything over 4% is not cause for celebration. >> pittsburgh pow-wow. mitt romney meets rick santorum but without a photo op. don't expect santorum to endorse today. and stephen colbert has his own fix on the 2012 race on today show with david gregory. >> it comes down to has been crueller to a dog. >> good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in washington. mitt romney just wrapped up a rally in rick santorum's home two. the two finally held their private meeting this morning behind closed doors. santorum is not exactly falling in line. >> are you expecting to get rick santorum's endorsement today? >> well, i expect that you're going to see us all come together. >> do you think he'll endorse you today after that meeting? governor, i don't mean to interrupt you. >> i don't know. i don't think we have plans for an endorsement today but i think

all republicans will come together. >> it's like negotiating with the chinese. chris ysaliis cillizzysaliis ci. this was the long awaited face to face meeting but it's not two faces we'll see on camera. why won't rick santorum jump on board and embrace romney? >> let me first say he has not called me and told me. anything is my guesswork. my thought here, andrea. >> that's why we get the big bucks. we guess. >> my thought is he's trying to extract something from mitt romney, whether that's help raising money or retiring any debt he might have, whether it's a speaking slots at the convention, those are typically the kind of things that candidates ask for. i would say though that i think the longer this goes on, i'm not sure that santorum waiting around to endorse mitt romney does him much good. you know, santorum probably has an eye on 2016, 2020 and beyond

and what he doesn't want to do is look like he's capitulating immediately to a guy who many conservatives believe is just not conservative enough. santorum's looking out for himself but he has to be mindful of the fact the more this goes on, the less leverage i think he retains over romney to ask ask for some sort of prize or reward for that endorsement. >> let me just reinforce that by pointing out according to our andrew rafferty and garrett haake reporting on all of this, the meeting was held in john brabender's pittsburgh office. he is, as you know, rick santorum's top adviser. so how unseemly is it that the. >> top political adviser. >> has to go and pay homage to the loser in the loser's campaign chief's offices? that doesn't seem as though rick santorum is leaning you know over very far to make things any easier for mitt romney. >> well, the thing that's strange too, just in terms of leverage for santorum, i don't know that he has all that much.

the washington post polling, nbc polling, gallup which suggests that even people who didn't vote for mitt romney that wanted someone else, republican who's wanted somebody else to be the nominee, when you match-up mitt romney and barack obama, mitt romney has 92, 93% support among that group. i don't know that rick santorum can really deliver a group of people to mitt romney who wouldn't be for him otherwise. i think this is more about rick santorum's future politics than it's about what he can do for mitt romney between now and november. >> and another indicator that many people say is mitt romney's sensitivity more -- greater sensitivity to pressure from the right than to any other constituency within the republican party. is the subject of rick grinnell. this is eric fern strom from the romney campaign on the daily rundown earlier today about the subject of rick grinnell and whether or not he was pressured out by conservatives concerned he is openly gay.

>> i don't want to speak for rick but i will say that, of course, you know, there were vois of il tolerance that expressed themselves during this debate. that was unfortunate. >> and speaking of voices of intolerance, brian fisher of the american family association had this to say on may 1st about the grinnell story. >> he said i think it's probably going to be a long time before govern romney hires another homosexual activist to a prominent position in his campaign and that is good news if you're the pro family community. so it seems very clear that the anti-gay or anti-tolerance or however you want to describe the community has really weighed in on this. rick grinnell is edgy. he's attacked some of our own attacking raiched mad do you and others. he's an invet rat tweeter and has been very, very tough, but that's not why he was pushed out. >> yeah, you know, andrea, it's interesting, in my opinion

social conservatives like brian fisher are clearly trying to claim rick grinnell as a scalp. i would say i don't think that rick grinnell, just based on my reporting i don't think that rick grinnell's departure was entirely due to the complaints by people like. i don't think that helped but i think he was not vetted as thoroughly in terms of things as you point out things he had 2003ed out among others rachel, that he was kind of a person who was unromney like in a lot of ways that, romney is very buttoned up, very careful, very cautious. mr. grennell is not necessarily like that. i think those two things it, the con introduce is what mattered. not just the social conservative carping. >> some say they did really want an attack dog in that case. to be continued. thank you very much, chris cillizza. see you later. the big deal to let chinese activist chen guangcheng could

allow the american government to save face. new jersey republican congressman chris smith chairs account congressional executive commission on china and he held an emergency meeting on chen's situation on thursday. thanks so much for joining us. first of all, your reaction to the deal as outlined by secretary clinton and her staff today? >> i won't be -- none should be satisfied till it's wheels up till chen and his family are on the way to the united states from china. from the chinese point of view, the continued harassment and use of torture against chen and his family for defending women who have been subjected to forced abortion in china and that was why he was so persecuted for seven years, was unsustainable from the chinese point of view. finally the news media really focused on the chen story and that brought a great groundswell of support for him worldwide as well as inside of china where his story was largely untold. and, of course, we've been working on his case for over seven years.

i actually nominated him for the nobel peace prize two years ago in 2010. so he's a great man and his wife, yuan and finally it looks like this will have a positive consequence and he'll come to the united states. andrea, i have to also -- >> i just wanted to play a little bit of what hillary clinton said in china this morning and then have you react to it. >> all of our efforts with mr. chen have been guided by his choices and our values. and i'm pleased that today, our ambassador has spoken with him again. our embassy staff and our doctor had a chance to meet with him. and he confirms that he and his family now want to go to the united states so he can pur u his studies. >> are you satisfied because clearly hillary clinton is going to leave for bangladesh then on

to india. so this is going to take a couple of days at least for the paperwork. it's going to be the immediate family, not his mother, not the extended family. i understand he's going to be coming to nyu. are you satisfied with the agreement if he able so leave in a matter of days or a short amount of time? >> it's a step in the right direction. i do believe the ball was dropped largely in the begin and this groundswell of support, it was untenable to think he would find a safe place somewhere in china. so the idea get him out of the embassy as quickly as possible because of this great summit that occurred because it was complicating to the summit i think was flawed in the extreme. but that said, you know, let's hope that he gets out, his wife gets out and their children. and then we move to the next step of what about the rest of the family. and we need very strong vigilance to ensure that his mother, his nephew who was arrested, and we're not sure where he stands in this whole process, is he being in any way abused right now?

and, of course, the woman who saves him who hopped in a car who this woman at great personal risk was then arrested after the fact after she got him to beijing and now we have a situation where she's being followed and harassed by police. so this story is not over. but it pay have at least a semi positive outcome that this great man and his great wife find freedom, but the rest of the people who have been supporting him need to be equally and i underscore equally concerned about by the news media and by congress and by the white house. >> now, yesterday when you held your meeting, bob fuh, the human rights activist actually called an reached chen in his hospital room. it was about 4:00 in the morning. and you played that call. i wanted to play a little bit of that for the group on the hill. >> so the thing i most concerned right now is the safety of also

my mother, my brothers, and i really want to know what's going on with them. >> so that was bob fu translating for him. >> andrea again, that underscores that the extended family we knew of at least four, maybe more of his family members who were interrogated and you know interrogation means this, they come at you, they use a great deal of force to try to compel information from the individual and sometimes they just do it out of hate and spite. but that story and what's happening now needs to bring light on these other individuals. you know, we cacs chen. my strongest feeling was that he should have been given more time in the embassy to really think through his options but again, there was a hurry-up offense to get him out but hopefully it has a happy ending. let's not lose focus and keep our eye on these individuals who again, as soon as the lights go out, the media scrutiny as well

as other scrutiny seems to dissipate, the chinese if past is prolong government will move aggressively against them. that is my greatest fear now. >> congressman, thank you very much. thanks for joining us today. and joining me now, former u.s. ambassador christopher hill who served as assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs and the key envoy in the north korean negotiations dealing with china on a daiily basis. it's great to have you here. your experience dealing with the chinese, this was a crisis because it was the meet is, the annual meeting in beijing. you had all of the issues, including north korea, iran, syria, and the economic issues with secretary geithner all on the table and the embassy perhaps moved too quickly. he said he wanted to leave. so we know from his own tweets and his own words that he wanted to leave but did he change his mind. but was there sort of a bum's rush to get him out so that he

was no longer an american problem? >> i don't know. first of all i'd like to say that the team who has apparently been able to make this deal, i mean, this was a tough thing to do. you're in the middle of beijing. emotions are running high on everybody's part. i mean, we have a person who has been in prison for four years, been under really intense surveillance for some months after that. so it wasn't easy at all. so i think we have to kind of judge this thing by its results to some extent and by the fact that we're dealing with a chinese government that really, really takes you know, takes to heart when people try to deal with them in china with respect to their own citizens. so this was a tough issue. and i think we ought to give some credit to the fact that it seems to be heading in the right direction now. >> i was with hillary clinton on her first trip to beijing in 2009 when she seemed to downplay human rights. there has been some criticism that the administration, the push/pull always is human rights more important than the economy.

what about this balance and the fact that we had to give the chinese some sort of face-saving solution. what state department officials are saying is they are even surprised, frankly, that the chinese were willing to go along with the summit despite this eruption. >> right. first of all, the number of foreign students in the united states of chinese students are number one. we will have something like 160,000, 170,000 chinese students here. so the idea that perhaps he could pursue his studies in the u.s. is not unheard of. >> he's not asking for political asylum. >> no, in fact, when you apply for a student visa, it's on the basis that you want to return to your country. it is not aim grant visa. it's an application for a temporary visa to study. let me just make a point about secretary clinton and frankly secretary rice, her predecessor. both of them have raised human rights repeatedly in all of their meetings in beijing. i've seen both of them do that. and i was with secretary clinton in that early trip to china. the issue is how do you raise

it? do you do it publicly? do you try to do it at the end of meetings by getting people out of the room, going through lists of disdenies asking for progress on these issues? in fact, are you trying to go for sort of results oriented policy? i think that's generally what our senior people have done. so i really can't subscribe to the view that secretary clinton somehow didn't care about human rights. >> how complicated is it that mitt romney in the middle of all this came out criticizing the administration saying it was a day of shame if the reports were true? doesn't that in the middle of these delicate negotiations complicate it? >> i've always tried to avoid interfering in someone's internal fairs including our own, but i would like to pay a little more respect maybe to the people out there dealing with a very tough issue, very emotional issue. not at all clear what they could get out of this issue. a lot of things could have gone very, very badly. and so i think people kind of stuck with it. i'm not sure today's really a

good day to criticize these people. i would give them some credit. you can argue maybe the supply of hugging may it be exceeded the demand, but i think overall, they did a pretty good job. >> a big picture with everything else we know, bow gee lie and the other problems china is experiencing, is this a victory potentially for the wen group, the reformers or is that perhaps too much of a generalization? >> deal of early to tell. you put your finger on it. these are really tumultuous times independence china. now, we often judge china by its foreign policy actions, you know, what's it doing on sudan, on north korea. but in fact, what chinese leaders are very much focused on is internal issues, whether the chinese communist party needs if fundamental changes. there are a lot of corruption issues they cannot sweep under the rug. these are very, very difficult

times in china on domestic issues. >> chris hill, thank you so much. and another weak month on the jobs front. what can be done? hilda solis joining us next. plus the rookie mistake in massachusetts. this is "andrea mitchell reports." a load of new listings... and two pills. after a morning of walk-ups, it's back to more pain, back to more pills. the evening showings bring more pain and more pills. sealing the deal... when, hang on... her doctor recommended aleve. it can relieve pain all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lois... who chose two aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels.

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the unemployment number inched down to 8.1% today, but the april report revealed continuing weakness on the jobs front. 12.5 million americans still looking for work and over 5 million of those americans have been searching for jobs for six months or more. labor secretary hilda solis joins me now. thanks so much, madame secretary. thanks for joining us. i know this is not a great day. markets weren't happy with the number because the jobs growth of 115,000 was first of all fewer new jobs net new jobs than

expected. it's not enough to keep up with population growth. not even half as many as needed to keep up with population growth. what do we do to try to improve the situation? >> some of the things the president has been working on have paid off because even in the last four months, we've added 207,000 jobs on average. just in the last four months. and in the last you know, 26 months, we've seen 4.2 million private sector jobs. now we have a long way to go, but remember when we came in, we lost close to 8 million jobs. we continue to keep our eye on the ball, move forward making sure we can get job creation going by tax credits for small businesses and making sure we have construction projects available. we're waiting for congress and the senate to act so we can create these infrastructure jobs that will put a lot of construction workers back to work, engineers, architects. we need cooperation as well and

the president talked about these things time and time again. we need to work together. i think the american public expects that. but again i will tell you that 4.2 million jobs in the last 26 jobs is not bad. we can do better and we will but we should not take our eye off the ball right now. >> romney said today it won't be good till it's down to 4% which was an old definition of full employment. more likely 5.5% is a more realistic definition. he's talking about 4%. >> i don't know where he's getting his figures from. i look on what the bureau of labor statistics puts forward and all i can tell you is that we definitely have a changing issue going on with our economy. we have more people, young people staying in school longer educationwise and that's good because they're staying and going to college. we have the baby boomers that are also leaving the job market and leaving employment so we have these challenges that we're faced with and also those people that continue to look for work.

that's why the president is moving ahead on more investments with community colleges and businesses to partner up those skill sets so people can get those good paying jobs because right now, there are about 3 million jobs open but we've got to find people that meet those skill needs that the employers want. >> when you look inside these numbers when we talk about african-american unemployment, it's 13%. hispanic unemployment 10%. so this is unsustainbly high and when we talk about the hispanic community, we're looking tomorrow to cinco de mayo. wanted to ask you about the immigration stalemate. nothing is being done right legislatively on immigration reform. i'm about to interview the ambassador from mexico who has said this is the single issue right now between the united states and mexico. the fact that weep still have 11 million people who are undocumented and are living in the shadows. >> the president said yesterday at the white house that he's ready and willing to sign a

d.r.e.a.m. act. immigration reform act if we can have cooperation on the other side of the aisle. i don't hear any members except for senator rubio maybe coming forward talking about a proposal that's half cooked because it doesn't -- his notion of the d.r.e.a.m. act would only provide you with residency and the ability to stay, go to school, but not lead to a path of citizenship. the president wants to do the citizenship aspect and he wants to make sure that people do it in a time lay way, legal and that they get in the back of the line. we don't have any players on the other side of the aisle coming forward. that doesn't mean we're going to give up because we're going to still be resilient. all the maureen for us to get people to cooperate with the white house. i think the public knows where the real stalemate is. >> thank you very much. hilda solis, thank you, madame secretary. >> happy cinco. >> up next, who qualifies as an minority. elizabeth warren's native american stumble.

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this is zales. the diamond store. take an extra 10% off storewide now through sunday. in today's politico briefing, maine senator susan collins just endorses republican senator scott brown in his re-election bid coming as brown's rival democratic candidate elizabeth warren faces some tough questions. reports surface this had week she once listed herself as i minority when she was at harvard law professor which seems quite a stretch since she's only 1/32nd native american based on a great, great grandmother. is this just a blip in a long political campaign or does the way she handled this reveal a weakness in her candidacy. martin, this is the first time she's run for political office. there seemed to be a lot of stumbling when this was first revealed in how she responded to it. >> this is the hottest race in the country. national democrats really see this as a seat they can win.

they want to get ted kennedy's old seat back in democratic hands. elizabeth warren is a rookie candidate. it seems like she acted like a rookie how she handled this. it's a mini controversy but lasted for several days. she should have gotten out in front of this explained it as simply as possible the first day. there was an uneven response and it was a little bit confusing. she listed herself as native american for a decade and unlisted herself. but she's proud of her heritage but never used it to get ahead in academia. it's an uneven response for a very important candidate. >> in fact, she was listed by harvard as the only minority professor tenured professor back in '9 . and she seemed to unlist herself when she came into federal government service, a much tougher vet. >> i don't think that there's any federal government listing that would allow her to say i'm a native american. i'm a minority because i'm 1/32 native american.

it's a democrats hope that this little miniature scandal will pass but republicans would like there to be part of the an warren narrative, they say hey, can we trust her? if she listed herself as a minority for a decade and then suddenly it disappeared from her resume? this is a problem for her. she'll have to move past it if she's going to keep up with scott brown. >> it is the best race going on in the country right now. thank you very much. thanks, martin. coming up, did mitt romney speak out too quickly about the debate in china? plus the woman at the center of the secret service scandal goes public. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. no calorie sweeteners. this bowl of strawberries is loaded with vitamin c. and now, b vitamins to boot. coffee doesn't have fiber. unless you want it to. splenda® essentials™ are the first and only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet.

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recently, students from 31 countries took part in a science test. the top academic performers surprised some people. so did the country that came in 17th place. let's raise the bar and elevate our academic standards. let's do what's best for our students-by investing in our teachers. let's solve this. now, the alled prostitute who spashed the secret service scandal spoke out for the first time today. during an interview with a colombian radio station, dannia

suarez said she never would he have called police if she had known the men were secret service agents. she added no drugs were involved and that she was very intoxicated and that the agents buys alcohol like one buys water. >> today is richard myers first day as interim police chief of the sanford police department replacing bill lee currently on leave until commissioners fully investigate the trayvon martin incident. the spotlight is going to stay on brian huffman on the tenth day of testimony in the john edwards trial. he was the decorator for major edwards doan another bunny melon and served as the middle man in the exchange of more than $700,000 from melon. the family of junior seau will allow doctors to study his brain for signs of long-term damage that could have resulted from concussions suffered during his career. police ruled his death was a suicide. and a major blow to the yankees' bull pen on thursday.

star closer mariano rivera for the acl in his right knee shagging fly balls in kansas city. it could be a career ending injury for the future hall of famer. mitt romney has criticized the obama administration over its handling of the case of chen gaung college saying if press reports true, it is a day of shame for the administration and a dark day for freedom. stephen hadley served as national security adviser for president george b. bush and now with the u.s. institute of peacen a an romney supporter. good to see you. >> he there's the whole question of whether mitt romney spoke too soon in the middle of very, very delicate negotiations. was that a wise thing to do? we are in the middle of a campaign but this is a tough time in beijing. >> it's a big issue. you're asked about it, and it's very difficult not to respond. and i think you saw he tried to condition it, look, we're all living by press reports at this point. secondly, this is unfolding in progress. the deal that was struck here

24, 48 hours ago which caused a lot of questions, a lot of concerns looked like it broke down for reasons of chinese authorities and from some reservations chen had. there's now a new deal that might involve him leaving the country to come to the united states to study. that seems to be something that the two governments have agreed upon and almost chen finds acceptable. that may be the way out of this, but this is a story that's really unfolding in realtime, and the problem, of course, is when you're rung for president, you get asked about these things and you have to make some kind of comment. >> were we too quick to sort of throw him back to the chinese to push him out of the embassy? he said, you know, we've interviewed the ambassador, gary lock, he did say that he wanted to leave, but were we too quick to do that without checking ought of the other factors and without him having a goo clans to talk to his wife and other

disde dissidents because he had been so isolated? >> it is difficult. again relying on press reports, he's changed his mind. he's changed his mind in part in response to new information he got. he made a dl when he thought things were fine. he apparently came out and then realized that his family and friends were being harassed. questions of safety then arose. he rethought that deal. i mean, you can expect this. the problem that the administration has is this is a time of remarkable instability in some ways in china. you have a transition of leadership going on you've got attentions between reformers and more reactionary elements. we don't know who has the upper hand. we have difficulties of enforcement by the central authorities down the line, tension between foreign ministry and the security ministries which they do not have any control over. so it's very tough in a

situation like this to do a deal that is complicated that requires a lot of elements to go on the chinese side to participate in order to enforce. and be comfortable and confident that it's going to be seen through. that's part of the problem here. this is -- you're seeing some problems within the chinese system in how they decide and then enforce their decisions. and it's not a very buttoned up system at the present time. >> given those uncertainties, would you be comfortable if you were hillary clinton leaving china and leaving it up to the chinese to live up to this bargain? >> i think what you've seen is that they decided that they were not comfortable. that it was a very complicated arrangement and it seemed to founder in its opening hours and they have, and an i think you have to give them credit for this tried to regroup and come up with another arrangement that works for the chinese, works for the united states and works for mr. chen. you know, the irony is what mr. chen was doing was not

challenging the regime. he was trying to get the regime to enforce its own policies to get local authorities to drop forced sterilizations, mandatory abortions because the central authority had dropped those measures years before. so what he was trying to do was to get accountability into the chinese system. in an odd sense, he's actually doing something that the chinese central authorities ought to be making sure happens in the chinese system. >> i know it's hard from the outside but how would you rate the way the u.s. handled this? >> let's see when it's over. this is still -- we're in probably the second and third act of a five-act play. i think we ought to wait till we see how this finally plays out. >> and you alluded to the transition going on and all the turmoil politically in china. bo xilai, the can dal which is a murder mystery. there's sex, there's murder. all sorts of suspicious aspects to it and a lot of corruption.

it could be that this is has pulled back the scab on the widespread corruption within china among the elites. is that a real challenge and problem politically for the chinese? >> i think it is because basically the message it says is that the elite that sets the rules and those rules apply to everybody other than the elite. and that's going to go to the issue of legitimacy. and, of course, the chinese authorities already have an issue, legitimacy because communist ideology is certainly in the wane. and their legitimacy is dependent upon their producing economic growth and having some sense of pairness in the system. of course, this raises a real question of fairness. so i think it's probably the most serious challenge to chinese leadership in decades. and again, this is a story that's in the second or third act and it's got a ways to go. >> steve hadley, thank you very much. >> nice to meet you. and up next, the stalemate over immigration reform ahead. a day ahead of cinco de mayo, we

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see the difference at avivausa.com. tomorrow is cinco de mayo. celebrated at home and among our neighbors in mexico. president obama addressed the holiday and the bonds keking our two countries on thursday. >> the united states and mexico have lived intersecting and overlapping histories. our two countries share the ties of history and familia and commerce and culture and values and today, we are more united than ever. in friendship and in common purpose. >> artu tuarturo sarukhan casamitjana serves as mexico am bass tore to the united states. thank you very much. happy cinco de mayo a day in advance. one of the things you said in

your speech yesterday about cinco de mayo was immigration, that immigration reform is the unfinished business between our two countries. and you talked about the fact that there are 11 million people living in the shadows. i talked earlier to hilt da solis, the labor secretary about this but the argument you get from democrats, from the white house is that oh, it's the republicans on the hill. the argument you get from the republicans is that the white house won't negotiate. what is your perspective looking at us? >> well, look, this is probably the most important single issue in the u.s.-mexico bilateral relationship. nothing will have a more profound impact on the future prosperity, well-being and security of north america of mexico and the united states than getting immigration right. but it is a very toxic and very polar rising issue more so in an election. and more so when so many americans are hurting and out of a job. these issues are very tough to handle and there are people on both sides of the aisle that i

think are fully committed to getting this done. the challenge is timing. and the equation, how you put this together so combined all the different groups that have a specific interest in getting immigration done, but that need to come together and agree to big single holistic deal. >> immigration, illegal immigration is down. is that because of border security or is that because more jobs are available and the economy has improved so much in mexico? >> this is probably the most important story that is happening today on the u.s.-mexico border which americans are not took foor s s. there's a dramatic drop from undocumented immigration from 2006 to 2011, we've seen a 60% drop in documented immigration. there has just been a report issued by the pew hispanic institute that states what a lot of us had already been seeing

that net migration from mexico is zero if not negative. that means that more people are going back than people actually coming across the border. it's a mix of reasons. certainly a softer u.s. economy especially in the construction sector which has traditionally been a magnet for undocumented labor has to do with it. greater operational control of the border. something a lot of people don't want to focus on but which is a reality. the pernicious and very troubling musclealing in of organized crime into human trafficking on the border and the impact that has on the well-being and security of migrants. i think the most important reason is that over 15 years, as a result of sustained sound macro economic policies in mexico, one of the largest free trade agreement networks that any country has on the face of the earth by generating export-related job creation and by what is probably by world

bank bench marks the most successful extreme poverty aleviation program on the face of the earth. these things combined with a profound shift in the demographics of mexico is expanding the middle classes, is creating better jobs. and is locking in or anchoring people who may be a year ago, two years ago would have decided to cross the border. they're staying home. >> we're anticipating of course, in june premium court decision on immigration. and the indications from the oral arguments and it's always difficult to guess, are that the court may uphold some of the more extreme measures. how will that be viewed south of the border? >> look, this is an issue that as you can well imagine has garnered a lot of attention in mexico. i think that mexico in the past and we continue to say it, i think that we fully agree to the fact that any country has the right to establish whatever

immigration policy it deems fit, but we do believe also that that's a responsibility of the federal government. and we think that some of these laws, arizona, but a lot of people have forgotten alabama, it may be one of the worst pieces of legislation out there are poisoning the well spring of values of bonds that connect these two countries. it is a very big challenge. >> let me ask you finally about the violence because as a member of the committee to protect journalists i have to tell you, there's terrible concern for reporters and photographers in veracruz state murdered only this week. what can we do about what's happening? it seems to be the targeting by these criminals of reporters and photographers. >> first of all, we have to do anything in our power to defend journalists who are doing their job and a lot of them do become the target of organized crime that is either seeking to silence them or to ensure that the stories don't come out. we have to find ways to protect

these journalists more importantly we have to build mechanisms in which we can investigate and prosecute a swiftly and as quickly as possible because a society where a free press is muzzled because of intimidation or fear senior a society that's in trouble. >> arturo, sarakhan, thank you very much for joining us today. first, it has been a wild week for wild animals. che check out mama bear and her cubs hanging out in california in a neighborhood tree. by nightfall, they all headed back to the wilderness on their own. in saudi arabia, own. in saudi arabia, drivers got a real run for their money. a 400 pound ostrich sprinting between two lanes of traffic and managing to outrun his pursuers behind the wheel. and this 36-year-old elephant at the smithsonian zoo using her

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which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours? chris cillizza joins us again. chris, it's the president launching his campaign in ohio and virginia, he's going to college campuses. i thought he launched his campaign. is he announcing for re-election? am i missing something? >> for most of us that happened many months ago, andrea, when he sort of put out a web video saying i'm running again. campaigns from the presidential level all the way down to the state legislative level, they're trying to get as many bites at the apple as possible. that's what president obama is doing. this is the formal kickoff where he kind of comes out and talks like a campaign rally of sorts, not just a web video or a press release or they're starting to raise money.

the fact that he picked virginia and ohio which is where the events will be, is not by accident. it is kind of a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new. ohio has long been a swing state. virginia, new to swing state territory. there was a "washington post" poll yesterday that had him up 7 in virginia over mitt romney. a nice moment for barack obama to be visiting the commonwealth. >> with an 18-point gender gap which may be a result of the whole abortion debate in virginia. that is a pretty significant gender gap. >> no question. a lot of work to do for mitt romney. the one thing i would say mitt romney's defense with that poll, virginia was not contested in any meaningful way in the primary process. we know only mitt romney and ron paul made the ballot. so i think mitt romney may be suffering from the fact the republican party brand is a little bit down in the state. let's see if he can differentiate himself. get away from talking about social issues which are obviously talking about women.

talking more about the economy and how he would turn it around. >> in the last 15 seconds, who had the worst week? i think it was in our politico briefing today. elizabeth warren. >> a week-long debate about her native-american heritage. should thfb was not-day story. it wound up being a one-week story which means it was a worst week for elizabeth warren. >> one 30-second native-american. 1/32 native-american. remember, follow the show online and at twitter. my colleague tamron hall has a look at what's next. happy friday. >> we're following a lot of developing news including what's happening on wall street. the dow has fallen more than 150 points due to the latest job report. i'll talk with the daily beast. the headline today was that the numbers should not matter.

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that's good morning, veggie style. hmmm. for half the calories plus veggie nutrition. could've had a v8. hi, everyone. the "news nation" is following news this hour. right now the dow jones is down 162 points. reacting to the second disappointing monthly jobs report in a row. it shows employers added just 115,000 jobs in the month of april. far fewer than economists expected. the nation's unemployment rate did dip to 8.1% but mainly because more people stopped looking for work. and just a couple of hours ago, both president obama and the presumed nominee mitt romney reacted to the numbers.