mitt romney's response to the news this morning, i haven't read the papers yet. it's thursday, may 17th and this is "now." joining me today, political analyst richard wolffe, new york daily news columnist s.e. cupp, lizz winstead is co-creator of a program called "the daily show," and author of "lizz free or die." and msnbc political analyst david corn of mother jones. republicans have a new plan in the works to resurrect the jeremiah wright attack. the new york times obtained the proposal called, quote, the defeat of barack hussein obama. the ricketts plan to end him for good. it would bankroll initiative. the proposal addressed how to

fend off claims of race baiting, recommending hiring a quote extremely literate conservative african-american who can argue the president masqueraded as a quote metro sexual black abraham lincoln. david corn, your chuckles i think are probably picked up on the microphone there. >> i don't see what's wrong with the metro sexual -- that sounds like a winning combination to me. this is -- the big picture here is in the next five months we're going to see stuff like this happen again and again. angry billionaires, i call themvil themvillianairs being preyed upon by republican conservative strategists including our friend karl rove say, here is how you can change the election. give me 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollars, for these hit ads, that we'll put out in the swing states, maybe the week or two before the elect at the end, and you can win back your country from that metro sexual black guy in the white house. >> but okay, the metro sexual

black abraham lincoln is probably the best part if there is even a best part of the ad. what it is is fear mongering, race baiting, insensitive. you know, it plays on the president obama being a socialist, am some sort of radicalist, et cetera. my question is, does this even work well for mitt romney? >> this is a bad idea on many levels. i'm hoping that this is not a republican idea but the idea of a couple of guys standing in a room conspiring to do something crazy. i mean, when you're the ad team behind demon sheep and christine o'donnell i think -- >> this is from the mind of fred davis. >> right. i think any one smart would say i'm going to take a step back from this and distance myself. this is not a winning idea. >> not to mention when your group is called character matters. it's unbelievable ironic sense that -- >> a missing question mark.

does character matter? >> punctuation is key. >> it's important to read the campaign reaction this morning. richard wolffe, the romney team reacts to this saying unlike the obama campaign, governor romney is running a campaign based on jobs and the economy and we encourage everyone else to do the same. >> good response zlxt actually, look. what we have here is we talked about super pacs being pandora's box. here is a situation, i mean, that is not really come across mitt romney's desk as yet which is to say the conservative super pac that undermines the campaign he is trying to run, one based on the economy. >> unlike the obama campaign may be their only slogan, that's how they are defining thelss. when you're the nominee you cannot actually say i haven't read the papers or i'm not going to police this. you do have a policing role about judging what is fair and foul ball. you know, if this -- this is obviously ridiculous. if it were april 1 you would say

okay, how did so many rich people come to be so stupid, were they stupid in the first place, but in any case this isn't just a joke because it fits into what has passed through the conservative media for the past three years. it doesn't make sense because there is a three-year record to go out with this president. it has become repeated so often as if it's new, people don't know about it, no one ever talked about it apparently when we talk about -- >> given by barack obama in 2008. >> vetted this stuff and never talked about it. so, if it weren't so prevalent we could just have fun with it. but unfortunately, it resonates with a certain group of very silly, very wealthy people because they think nobody's found out so far. >> it also plays into the biden narrative he is on the road that they don't get us, they don't get us. it's insulting to keep bringing this up because it says to people, we think you, regular folks in america, are going to respond to this. when it's basically old news,

it's like you know. >> a little devil's advocate. this goes on on the left as well. the idea to paint sarah palin as a really scary christian, speaking in tongues and praying away the gay and banning library books, this was an effort to also say we think regular america is going to be scared of her the way this group is hoping america is scared of obama. so it happens on both sides. it's not a winning -- winning idea. >> i think there is videotape of sarah palin at a church with a person praying over her. >> so? >> but what -- scares people. >> praying scares people? >> wait. >> praying. there is a difference. >> no difference. >> sure. >> a christian church. >> people do that every sunday. >> beyond the palin videotape, let's look at the story boards from this campaign. on page 1, the narrator says, should we have known when we learned his mentor blamed america for the 9/11 attacks

from his pulpit the sunday after the plane hit. perhaps we should have known. all he had ever known. character matters. the ad ends with a visual of a soccer mom hopeless and lost in utter disfair and says oh, god, what would he, as in obama, do next. >> there is -- this is like praying on alternative reality. that you know, obama wants to basically destroy the country, doesn't know what he is doing. there are real policy disagreements to have in this election. i saluted when mitt romney said there are fundamental issues we're debating. when you say this guy is a bumbling idiot who has a dark secret plan, as richard said, in three years to judge obama on. you want to talk about the economic record, you can do that. >> right. >> the plans, mitt romney's massachusetts record. >> there is a lot to go on.

>> real stuff stew talk about. this is all about painting him as the other which has been a conservative strategy from day one. you can tie to the race or not tie to the race. it doesn't go away. >> they are tying it to race insofar as you got black people to come out and support. >> they are after the president's strongest hand, terrorism t 9/11, the twin towers. if the president had not ordered the assassination of bin laden, if he had not taken such a strong effort to take down the core leadership of al qaeda, they would be a terrorism record to go after. in this case why are they impuning his terrorism record? it's one of the strongest numbers he has. >> it seems counter intuitive. we got a news that mitt romney has now further clarified his position on this. in an interview -- in an interview he says, i repudiate the effort by that pac to promote an ad strategy of the nature they described. i would like to see the campaign on getting people back the a

work, seeing rising prosperity. >> this gives him an opportunity to look serious and -- >> god knows he needs that. >> and sober minded. it does. it allows him the opportunity to separate him from the crazies. >> which he didn't do in the republican primary with his own super pac. >> this is again, again i said the pandora's box of super pacs, the first time to say i'm not part of this. this is not me. >> a lot of right wing crazy coming to town in the next five months, and it's again and again going to be an issue for romney how to deal with that part of his base without turning off independent voters. he has to juggle this dilemma. >> he has to hope that again, regular folks who mostly watch, don't watch these shows, they watch "american idol," he has to hope with the onslaught of all of these super pacs that people are smart enough to make a

distinction where things are coming from. that will be the problem here, too, in general with obama same thing. >> he can get his economic message, whatever that may be, furthered in the broader national dialogue. breaking news coming in now from the world of music. singer donna summer has died. summer reportedly been battling cancer. the grammy award winner shot to stardom with hits like last dance, hot stuff and bad girls. she was known as the queen of disco, donna summer was 63 years old. we will have more on that later in the hour. and up next we'll have more on joe biden's role on the campaign trail. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] the inspiring story of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales. but if you take away the faces on the trees... take away the pixie dust.

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that's romney economics. two sets of rules. one for his wealthy investors, and the other for everybody else. we're not anti-capitalist, for god sake it's the system that built the country. we hope investors do well. but you can't build an economy, economy of the future with the only people who do well are the investors and everybody else pays the price. >> that was joe biden speaking this morning in martins ferry, ohio. richard wolffe, joe biden has had -- >> on fire. >> he is on fire. king joe. the speech i thought was one of the finest sort of oral arguments on behalf of the white house. eloquent heart felt way of talking about the dignity of work, the long walk home, telling your children you lost your job, the sense of the system being fair bac in the day and the untearness now. i mean, it is joe biden's week,

is it not. >> yeah. and he's doing it not just doing the traditional role of a v.p. guy, the attack dog thing. what he does consistently and ted kennedy could do this, too, campaigners, no matter how rarefied their experience in the senate we relate to the personal experience. you felt when they spoke, it wasn't just about the policy, it's actually about something in his life. heaven knows he has enough family stories he can spin out a speech to three hours with this. >> god bless him. >> they are -- he says with it emotion and passion and feeling and that authenticity is supposed to be something that actually his boss was known for in 2008, the challenge for the president is to go out there and relate his policies to his personal experience. because he has a personal story to tell, heaven knows he wrote a book about. his early years were about dealing with people at the bottom end of the economic pile, laid off of those steel factories, he needs to go out and talk with that kind of

passion about his experience, tied to his policy. and maybe learn a couple of things at least from his vice president. >> well, i mean i would say mitt romney probably could learn a few things from joe biden, too. there's been a lot of back and forth about mitt romney's record at bane steel and so on. this is mitt romney in a radio interview yesterday. >> they said oh, gosh, govern romney at bain capital closed down a steel factory. but their problem of course is that the steel factory closed down two years after i left bain capital. i was no longer there. so that's hardly something which is on my watch. we were able to help create over 100,000 jobs and secondly, on the president's watch, about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry. >> okay. s.e., >> take a breath. >> just, it's the problem with romney isn't that he's wrong, it's that he doesn't know how to talk like he's right.

he should not have gone near the job creation. that was not his job at bain. his job was to create profits and by anyone's estimation he wassuccessful. he never comes wake-up the right answer. it's not like it's there in front of him. >> his argument in the second half of that groan inducing response is i did create jobs, i created 100,000 jobs. i think before that interview an adviser said governor, i think you need to be more detached because it's amazing to say well, we lost some jobs, i wasn't there for those two years, his company came in, they loaded up with debt. this is how capitalism works in theses in tanss but they still made money. for him to show no regard for the people working shows that he doesn't -- >> well, this is how business works. i don't want you overseeing any of my businesses because that's how you make money. >> to care about jobs because he

didn't. >> politically, when you listen to what mitt romney said, it goes to your point. all he did was defend the points rallied against him instead of coming out saying i did this, i did this. and that is just being on the defensive so again -- >> and he's reminding people, the contention that somehow 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry. here are some things mitt romney should not talk about. bin laden, and the auto bail-out. he keeps bringing them up. beyond that, the team obama reacted. romney's focus that bain was creating wealth, not jobs. that's core of romney economics. the one thing we don't hear about, is his record as a governor. it's understandable. we're talking about a leadership role and it's as if his career as governor of massachusetts has never happened. >> it's in a black hole. >> you would think that moving into a general election he might want to hit on how as a

republican he reached out and worked in a democratic state. you know, he could build a storyline around that. having been part of the public sector, look, he's got not a stellar record as massachusetts governor. he would have to talk about how fees went up and a couple of billion dollars in debt in health care. to come back to the jobs thing, 1994, when he was running against ted kennedy it was only 10,000 jobs. 10,000 jobs becomes 100,000 jobs and that happened after his watch. you can only round it up t 100,000, multiply by 10 if you take in all of those after he left. if you take in the jobs created after you left you got to take in those you lost after you left. this is such a pickle for him. he shouldn't touch it. >> it's a bogus statistic too. let's say staples created x number of jobs. staples also put stationery stores out of business. so you lost jobs. if you do analysis with the job picture, maybe he's lucky if it's a net wash.

you can't get numbers and he throws themmous, gets shot down and 100,000 jobs lost in the auto industry t obama people came back, saying it's not true. >> alex -- >> right up here, guys. >> it's amazing that generally we consider executive experience sort of the unimpeachable quality you look for in a future president. right. having been a governor. and he is running away from that like it's the bogeyman. it's really -- >> you would prefer to be introduced as chairman mitt romney and not perhaps governor mitt romney. >> private sector mitt romney. >> after the break we'll have more on the breaking news that disco queen donna summer has died. more on her life and career next. high schools in six states enrolled in the national math and science initiative... ...which helped students and teachers get better results in ap courses. together, they raised ap test scores 138%.

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>> from the music world nbc news confirms that singer donna summer died. summer had reportedly been battling summer. her publicist says the greatest her faith. she is known for last dance, hot stuff and bad girls. summer was 63 years old. liz, there is nobody who does not remember she works hard for the money, a song that many working women can commiserate. >> it's true. i'm old enough to remember when her hits came out for the first time. and dancing with many nightclubs with many young gay men to donna summer. i remember her fondly. it's just the truth. >> i'm a big fan. you know, i was young when her music came out but it was playing in my house. she works hard for the money out of this 4-year-old mouth. this was happening in school. >> age is but a number. >> i'm glad you weren't saying

love to love you baby because that was controversial at the time. >> it was. >> very sexual. sort of fed the sort of the opposition to disco that came from circles including the fundamentalist right. it was a political issue, not just culture. >> you have to politicize everything. >> we didn't but others did. >> exactly. we were just dancing. >> richard wolffe, donna summer in england. >> huge influence. incredibly popular. huge. and you know, i was mentioning in the break, look at how one of her tracks plays a pivotal role in the full monty. it lifted spirits 18 rainy, cold, ugly time in the uk, so it was great seeing that come back in that movie. >> richard wolffe going to school listening to donna summer. >> trying to think of sunshine. >> trying to think of sunshine. >> coming up, deja vu or a new beginning. congress renews its battle over the debt limit.

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that's what this thing is a dry run for. it's only a mock-up, a bad mock-up. he's not sending a good message about his confidence to handle this job. >> lizz, you have some serious experience at the daly show. which does a fair amount of skewering of the national media. what do you make of the now sort of touch and go relationship that both the white house has and of course the presumed republican nominee has with the

press? >> i think it's why there is a daly show in a way. when you read, you know, there was a story yesterday on the obama side where finally mark miller got to the line and yelled out a question about playing basketball with george clooney. wait, you got to the mat to ask the president a question and that's where you went. this is why we have these comedy shows that are making fun of the media. it's maddening to me to watch this because at some point the access to with which we can see a candidate be spontaneous is what we want. if we're in this television age. it feels like eventually it's going to be one big commercial for the spca and the press are in cages barking at terrified candidates. that's how they react. is that a pit bull? >> one issue, too, is i don't believe sometimes these candidates particularly mitt romney can explain themselves very well because they are often saying things that are not true.

and if you get questioned about it, well then the whole facade falls apart. i had a flashback. not as far back as richard's because i had a rope line experience with mitt romney in january when he had given a speech in new hampshire in which he said obama wants to create a european style society here and that leads to more poverty. so i went to the rope line, i came by, i said do you have time for a question. he looked at me, okay. i said do you believe there is more poverty in europe than the united states? he kind of like got all shifty and said well, what do you mean. i said you just said that. he said i didn't say that. i go, it's on tape. you just said that. and he kind of like stuttered and walked away. and if he had been on tape it would have been great for the show because he said it two minutes ago. i think it shows that he's not able to think that well on his feet. and that he can't back up a lot of what he's saying.

>> i don't know that i'd go quite that far. i mean, look. >> part of the way there i'm happy. >> there are plenty of outlets, if i were advising him, there is no value but he has got to wide at any net. put it this way. i don't usually have trouble getting interviews with republicans, you know, i interviewed almost every presidential candidate over the past few months. he has been almost impossible to pin down. and that's even in conservative media circles. he cannot be this reclusive. and expect to connect with his base. if he's going to make it over the next few months. >> especially when your answer is i haven't seen the papers yet. >> yes. >> you can't even say i can't deal with you. >> to richard's point goes back to someone who is incredibly risk averse and the job of being president requires someone with

nimble behavior, ability to act on your feet and be courageous. >> bin laden raid is a good example of that. >> yes. and i think, i was trying to sort of be fair here because the president himself has come out and excoriated the media when he was speaking at barnard this weekend. let's listen to what he said. >> no wonder that faith in our institutions has never been lower. particularly when good news doesn't get the same kind of ratings as bad news anymore. every day you receive a steady stream of sensationalism and scandal. and stories with a message that suggest change isn't possible. >> i will leave everyone on this quote from mark mckinnon who said it's an interesting development that the presidential campaigns have ceased kodsling the press or trying to manage the press. they seem to have concluded they can't win no matter what they do so why try. now they often seem to adopt a

hosti attitude toward the press. a long time until november. after the break, kent conrad joins us live to talk about the debt ceiling battle and congress. managing my diabetes is part of my life, between taking insulin and testing my blood sugar. is this part of your life? freestyle lite test strips? they need just a third the blood of onetouch ultra. wow! and the unique zipwik tab targets the blood and pulls it in. so testing is easy. and you can save on these strips monthly simply by joining the freestyle promise program. so saving is easy too. yep, just call or click and join for free.

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the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. >> it's a question of what is their value statement. and if we all agree we have to reduce the deficit how do we do that? but we don't start by saying let's give a tax break to the wealthiest people, let's not pay for it, now we're deeper in debt. >> the reality is the danger of a downgrade comes from continued inaction on the deficit and our piling debt. not for calls for action. >> that was house minority leader nancy pelosi and house speaker john boehner earlier today setting the stage for a battle between democrats and republicans over how to tackle

the debt limit. joining us is north dakota senator kent conrad chairman of the senate budget committee. senator, thank you for joining us. great to see you. >> good to be with you. >> senator, so it sounds like we're not even on the eve of the debt limit and yet each side is going into the trenches. do you think compromise is even possible and i say this to you as someone who as a moderate is retiring from the senate this year. >> i am retiring, but you know, i've been part for the last five years, efforts to bring both sides together. senator judd gregg who is a ranking republican on the senate budget committee and i came up with the idea for a commission, we pitched to the our colleagues, we got 53 votes but we needed 60. then the president went forward on an executive order basis and created the commission called the bowles-simpson commission, and that commission i was part

of, 18 of us, 11 of us agreed to a plan, five democrats, five republican, one independent. i still remain hopeful that provides the best blueprint to deal with our deficits and debt. that's what i presented to the senate budget committee. they didn't vote on it because i know if we vote on it now it will 2 down. go down. as we get closer to the fiscal cliff when wall of the tax cuts expire, the sequester is about to take hold, when the unemployment insurance extension ends, when the pay roll tox holiday ends, all of these things build toward the end of the year, that's going to be the opportunity i think for the grand bargain. >> well, that gives new meaning to the phrase lame duck session of congress. i think the terminology should be flipped. david corn on our panel wrote a book about this how obama fought back. i want to bring you in here because there is a lot of talk about whether we're going to see

a debacle redux this fall early winter. tom column burn said something interesting to ezra klein. he said obama wins and the gop controls wrong he said we've had conversation where president obama told me he'll go much further than any one believes to solve the entitlement problem if he can get the compromise. i believe him. i believe he would. what do you make of that? >> that's interesting. this is a question to put to the senator as well. last year was called the gang of six, three republicans, three democratic senators who came up with a plan close to the bowles-simpson and something that the president endorsed more or less in general terms, and the real problem was on the tea party side of the republican caucus of the house. they couldn't see any revenues and they basically blew things up and forced boehner to pull out of the negotiations for the grand bargain. the question is, this goes to what tom coburn said. is there a way for the democrat

and republican senators to be more assertive in coming up with a compromise and solution that in a way gets around the tea party republican obstructionist opposition. i'm not sure there is but it's a big task. >> senator, is it the tea party's way or the highway? >> that seems to be their attitude. let me say this. david i think put his finger on it. look, i think the opportunity is going to come later this year. the group of six which i've been part of is now a group of eight, four democrats, four runs, we are working to put together the legislative language and all of the scoring necessary so the homework is done in case the time is right. but i think speaker boehner is going to face a real moment of truth. and the moment of truth is going to be does he insist on whatever plan goes forward has most republicans in the house being for it, because if that's his

requirement, he's got a real problem f. he is willing to put together something on a bipartisan basis that has substantial number of democrats as well as republicans in the house marching together, with members in the senate, then there's a chance. >> richard, what do you think about that statement? boehner's position on this if he is willing to accept bipartisan compromise or beholding to his tea party members. >> these decisions are going to come to a pressure point after the election. the lame duck congress, the sequesters kick in and at that point you can see a compromise plan that actually the grand compromise will come then. that debt ceiling will be lifted as part of this overall deal. but boehner will have this choice, go for the majority of the majority or the majority of the house. and my guess is that he's actually a practical guy and will be no alternative to this bigger deal. otherwise everything falls apart. and they don't want to see all of the bush tax cuts go. the default position, the

president has more cards in his hand than boehner. boehner has the debt ceiling. the president has all of the bush tax cuts expiring and the defense cut goesing through so if they do nothing, the deficits come down substantially, more of the democrats will be happier, and john boehner really doesn't have a lot, so he's got a very practical choice ahead. does he take a short-term hit from his base, or does he allow the whole thing to spin apart. he can't get a majority. >> i think a lot of people think it's not insofar as a lot of people think that mitt romney is a moderate republican, a lot of folks think that john boehner is a moderate republican forced to march to the beat of -- >>package and survive as speaker is the question. last summer he couldn't. people came in, moderate republicans who wanted to go ahead and said eric cantor and others are plotting against you. you can't go further. >> might not survive depending what happens.

>> we talked about the purge of the moderates, are you bullish or bearish in terms of the direction of the u.s. congress and what may get accomplished in 2013 and beyond? >> probably doesn't matter so much whether i'm bullish or bearish. what matters is are the american people going to insist that congress behave responsibly and reasonably and come together around a true compromise. one in which yes, the entitlement programs are reformed but also the tax system is reformed to generate additional revenue to help reduce this deficit. we've got a situation in which revenue is almost at a 60-year low in this country as a share of the economy. and our republican friends say don't touch revenue. really? we're going to leave revenue at a 60-year low. that's just not plausible. it's not serious. so there has to be the kind of compromise that i think richard wolffe described. >> senator kent conrad, that

sounds hedgingly bearish. or maybe pes missically bullish. thank you for joining the program and thanks for your time. >> after the break, nearly two dozen republicans voted goodence the gop version of the violence against women act. among that group were two women, one of them is congresswoman judy biggert, we'll ask her about her decision when she joins us live, next. [ male announcer ] the inspiring story of how a shipping giant can befriend a forest may seem like the stuff of fairy tales. but if you take away the faces on the trees... take away the pixie dust. take away the singing animals, and the storybook narrator... [ man ] you're left with more electric trucks. more recycled shipping materials... and a growing number of lower emissions planes... which still makes for a pretty enchanted tale. ♪ la la la [ man ] whoops, forgot one... [ male announcer ] sustainable solutions.

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house republicans passed their own version of the violence against women act, setting up a battle with democrats the white house and even some members of their own party. joining us now is illinois republican congresswoman judy biggert, one of the two republican women who voted against the bill. thank you for joining the program. >> nice to be here.

>> i wanted to read an excerpt from your statement which said this reauthorization should clarify the law to reflect what everyone knows about modern society that any one can be a victim of domestic violence. it can happen in a same sex household, a college campus or native american reservation and our providers want to know they can help any one who comes through the door s. the republican party a modern party? >> well, i think it is. i think that in so many issues they have come across as moving forward. i think that this bill that i was concerned about because it didn't reflect what we've learned in the last five years, and that was what works and what doesn't work. so that they left out some things that i thought were very important. one, that we would make sure that this applies to lgbt, it applies to women, immigrant

women who may be deported if they don't have a green card, they wouldn't come forward and say that they were being abused or more help to the women on the tribal reservations. so these were things that were really important to me and i think that we really didn't spend a lot of time on this bill and i think that's unfortunate that it was discussed. >> was there pressure for you to fall in line with the house republican caucus or did you have a seat at the table to air and discuss your misgivings? >> i had sat down with them and said i think that these were important issues and that i would like to see them. but i don't think that -- they did come and say they hoped that i would vote with them but they know i will vote with them when they are right and i will vote against them if i think they are wrong and i was very adamant that i had gone and met with all of my victim service providers and spent over a month with them

and going over particularly the senate bill and they were very much in favor of that, so that if they didn't want to change anything and add to this bill that i would have to vote against it and they understand that i do that in various instances and i do it because of my representation of my constituents and i think that they understand that. >> do you sense there is more of a movement among republican women to push back against some of these latest gop measures? i know that lisa murkowski and olympia snowe have been pushing back things like the ryan budget, certainly there was bipartisan support for the senate version of the violence against women act. is there a building coalition among women in congress to say hey, these bills don't work for us? >> i think it depends on the individual. and i think we've got a whole new group of women that seem to be pretty conservative. i think that it depends on your

constituency and whether, what they think about the issues. the only people that i heard from in my district were against the house bill and really in favor of the senate bill. i think we were probably really surprised that this bill came from the senate, that hasn't happened very often that we get a bill to come over for us to address. and it was a bipartisan bill, there were all of the women on the senate side that voted for it. i think they did the right thing. >> thank you so much, congresswoman juldy big ert for your time. >> ladies on the panel. we are talking a couple things. one is of course the latest moves here on the violence against women act. also worth mentioning before we end the show is joe ricketts release add statement saying he is neither the author or funder of the so called ricketts plan, he intends to work hard to help elect a president that shares his commitment to economic responsibility but his efforts are and will focus on questions of fiscal policy not divisive

social and cultural issues. >> good to know. probably take your name off of that plan. >> if we look at this, this kind of a jeremiah wright stuff, the strident i would say in some cases bigoted or sexist stuff floated by the arch wing of the republican party, arch conservatives like whoever is behind this bigots ad plan it's clearly not going to fly this year. and now we're seeing women in the house and in the senate who are saying look, some of these draconian measures do not work for the women that we represent. >> if i came to you and said i have this new piece of legislation and i'm going to call it the stealing from men act you would say that's preposterous. stealing from men is a crime. so is -- so is violence against women a crime in all 50 states. vawa as i call it for sake of brevity was in 1994 and is today an example of federal overreach and redundancy.

and frankly, the newest version of this bill is so bizarre it even moves to include protections for men. so i think republicans have not been very articulate in explaining why this bill is absolutely absurd and it is, but it's sexually not hard to do. if you have a battered women's shelter -- >> maybe we are due for good news, lizz. we have bipartisan support for a broad senate bill. s.e. is questioning whether -- >> it's redundant. >> men and women is already a crime. >> the last word on this. >> s.e., wow. i think that when we have a whole new set of circumstances where women are in great peril and being abused on a daily basis and women in congress coming forward and saying we're not protected, i'm not getting what i need, to vote against this is shameful. >> we'll see. the two bills have to be reconciled. thanks to richard, s.e., lizz

and david. i'll see you tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. i am joined by casey hunt and karen finney and robert trainen. until then at facebook.com/now with alex. good morning or good afternoon to you, andrea. >> good afternoon to you. coming up, just in that pro romney super pac rejecting the proposal to link president obama to jeremiah wright. joining us tim pawlenty. also georgia congressman john lewis on voting rights under attack. more on our breaking news, remembering the queen of disco, donna summer, dead at 63. andr andrea mich"andrea mitchell repg up next. [ sneezes ]

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