seeing europe prosper. that is why i am consulting closely with my european counterparts during this crisis, as we have done here in los kontos. i do think it's important to note that most leaders of the economy's are not part of the g-20. the challenges facing europe will not be solved by the g-204 by the united states. solutions will be decided appropriately by the leaders and the people of europe. so, this has been an opportunity for us to hear from the european leaders on the progress they are making in their neck steps. also because they are heading into the summit later this month. it has been a chance, including the united states, the largest economy in the world. we have a home record of responding to put financial crises. markets around the world as well as governments have been asking

if europe is ready to do what is necessary to hold them together. over the last few days, european leaders here have made it clear that they understand the stakes, and they pledged to take the actions needed to restore confidence, stability and growth. let me just be more specific. first, our friends in europe clearly grasp the seriousness and are moving forward with a heightened sense of urgency. they have some important steps already taken to promote growth. financial stability and fiscal responsibility. i and very pleased that the european leaders said that they will take all necessary measures to restore integrity to improve the functioning of the financial markets. this will contribute to the feedback between the banks. >> in closing, i would note that with mexico's leadership, we make progress. from food security to bring economic growth and climate change, from financial education and potential for consumers to

combating corruption and in strengthening financial regulation to creating a more level playing field. this happened in large part because of the leadership of the president. i want to thank him, and i want to thank my fellow leaders for their leadership. they have worked very hard in their jobs. >> president obama said the most important things he said the most important thing the united states can do to assist the world economy is act on a jobs plan and the one he once talked about a year ago, and the ones he talked about with congress, and he talked >> europe is the trading partner. if fewer folks are buying up, that means we are selling less stuff. freshman i think there are a couple of things that we have already done. financial regulatory reform in the past means that the banks are better capitalized. it means that alice supervision and our mechanisms for looking at the trouble spots in our

financial system are superior to what they were back in 2008. that's an important difference. but there are still more things we can do. the most important thing is something i have already talked about. if congress would act on a jobs plan that independent economists would say put us on the path of creating an extra million jobs on top of the ones that have already been created, putting teachers back in the classroom, construction workers back on the job of rebuilding infrastructure that badly needs to be rebuilt. all those things can make a significant difference. given that we don't have full control over what happens in europe or the pace at which things happen in europe, but make sure we are doing those things that we do have control over and that are good policy anyway. [ indiscernible question ] >> i think it's fair to say that any -- all these issues, economic issues will potentially

have some impact on the election. but that is not my biggest concern right now. my biggest concern is the same concern i have had over the last 3 1/2 years, which is folks who are out of work or underemployed or unable to pay the bills. what steps are we taking to potentially put them in a stronger position. i have consistently believed that if we take the right policy steps, we are doing the right thing and politics will follow. my mind hasn't changed. >> the president was also asked about political attacks made by the romney campaign in overseas publications. >> one of the mitt romney's economic advisers wrote in a german publication that your recommendations revealed ignorance of the causes of the crisis, and he said that they have the same flaws as your own economic policies. >> with respect to mr. romney's advisers, i suggest you go talk to mr. romney about his advisers. i would point out that we have

one present at a time and one administration at a time. i think traditionally the notion has been that america's political difference and at the water's edge. i would also suggest that he may not be familiar with what our suggestions to the germans have been. >> for more on the news conference, i am joined by bob-ish durham. what did you make of the president? that was a polite slapped. >> frankly, what romney's guy was saying while it was crude and ugly. the cause of the crisis we know, george w. bush to the economic policies. while that, it was crude and ugly, they want to encourage the chancellor in germany to stick to the austerity crises. they know that can drive it further down. that could drive much of europe. it could have fall on affects here. they have been rooting for a recession for a long time, so they gave a push. >> the president tonight gave a nod to congress.

you better get after it. that is the best thing you could do. don't make the same mistakes they are making in europe. >> that is what he is saying. i don't have much faith that he will get the congress to move on this. those republicans said that the highest priority was to defeat barack obama. they are willing to sacrifice millions of american jobs if they can get back the job of the president. he was trying to put more pressure on the europeans. he said austerity doesn't work. look at what is happening. he was using congress as a way to send his message. you know if michael doesn't move, then germany may destroy europe, this time without firing a shot. >> i want to talk about syria. the president does not believe that they can hang in there without the political reforms. he also was very clear that russia and china are not on board with the united states. he is very delicate the way he put that forward.

>> he did as well as he could under the circumstances because he has not moved the russians and chinese. he feels he can move them in the next few weeks. i am skeptical of that. one of the problems is that the russians and chinese think that the u.n. resolution to intervene in libya, that they got sold a bill of goods. they did not know the purpose was to throw khaddafi out. they were ninth to think that, but now i think they say this guy has been on our side for a long time. we have interest in him. quite frankly, you have for issues that have demonstrated in the past that don't mind repressing their own people. >> president obama made it clear that posada has got to go. >> he has lost legitimacy. when you massacre your own citizens in the ways that we have seen, it is impossible to conceive of an orderly, political transition that leaves him in power. >> a lot of connection between the russians and syria.

china, not so much. the russians just don't seem to be willing to tell him that he needs to go. the president was almost -- i don't want to make any news on this, we still have a lot of talking. >> there was a lot of talk head, and may never be action. we will have to see. what is going on in syria is obscene. he is targeting massive numbers of civilians. i fink he believes that the repression is the way forward. look at what happened to mubarak, khaddafi. he will be completely ruthless. >> with a plane to a european audience tonight? no one wants american aggression tonight. >> he is trying to nudge the russians, and he is trying to, i think, send assurances that he will not get us involved in another shooting war. >> great to have you with us. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. coming up on the edge show, president obama's immigration policy is a big winner with americans. ned ronny still can't give a

straight answer about whether he would keep it or get rid of it. jose and tony vargas join me. stay with us. we are right back on the edge show. coming up, mitch mcconnell puts romney on the spot. romney won't give away any specifics on any job plans, on any plans he has, actually. bob said he will follow the same strategy as another presidential hopeful. and a catholic group of catholic nuns is speaking out against the gop budget plan and they're taking their message on the road. i'll talk with the organizer with the nuns on the bus later in the hour. share your thoughts on twitter using the hash tag ed show. we're coming right back. welcome back to "the ed show." president obama really has mitt romney totally boxed in by the administration's new immigration policy. mitt romney can still not give a direct answer to a direct question. here he is with fox new's carl cameron. >> why not provide the similar

certainty by saying, well, until such time as i pass a new leaders in the past few decades, and it says a lot about an emerging american majority. the country is changing. another shooting war. >> great to have you with us. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. coming up on the edge show, president obama's immigration policy is a big winner with americans. ned ronny still can't give a straight answer about whether he would keep it or get rid of it. jose and tony vargas join me. stay with us. we are right back on the edge show. [ male announcer ] if a phone rings at your car insurance company

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coming up, mitch mcconnell puts romney on the spot. romney won't give away any specifics on any job plans, on any plans he has, actually. bob said he will follow the same strategy as another presidential hopeful. and a catholic group of catholic nuns is speaking out against the gop budget plan and they're taking their message on the road. i'll talk with the organizer with the nuns on the bus later in the hour. share your thoughts on twitter using the hash tag ed show. we're coming right back. e? downy unstopables. here to shake up your fresh. toss these little scent boosters in before you wash. and the fresh scent will last until you're ready to wash again. downy unstopables. the fresh too feisty to quit.

welcome back to "the ed show." president obama really has mitt romney totally boxed in by the administration's new immigration policy. mitt romney can still not give a direct answer to a direct question. here he is with fox new's carl cameron. >> why not provide the similar certainty by saying, well, until such time as i pass a new immigration law to provide that certainty, we'll do away with or not the president's orders? >> we talk about illegal immigration. we have to secure the border, have an employment verification system, and then with the children who were brought in by their parents, how we dial with them is something that deserves a long term solution. >> he still didn't say whether he would keep the new obama immigration policy or get rid of it, so cameron asked him again. >> executive order from president obama stands or does

not stand? >> you know, we'll see kind of what the calendar looks like at that point. i'm not going to tell which items come first, second, or third. what i can tell you is those people who come here by virtue of their parents coming here, who came in illegally, that's something i don't want to football with. it's a political matter. >> is your head spinning yet? mitch mcconnell was asked about the obama policy today. >> i think we're going to wait until we hear what governor romney has to say on the issue. there may be others behind me who want to address t but my view is he's the leader of our party from now until november and we hope beyond, and we're going to wait and see what he has to say about it. >> there you have it. mcconnell, he doesn't know what to say because romney doesn't know what to say. they don't know what to say. they don't have a plan. the obama administration's new

stance is both good policy and it is good politics, and it's going to help a lot of americans. americans agree with it. by a two to one in a new poll, independents agree with it. 66% to 26%, a huge margin of approval. but remember, the republicans just don't know what to say about that. let's bring in jose antonio vargas. time magazine contributor, pulitzer prize winner journalist and founder of define america. great to have you with us tonight. >> thank you so much for having me. >> the fact that the republicans can't give a straight answer on this, how damaging is this when it comes to the latino vote? >> i mean, it's not just the latino vote. you have now a generation of young people in this country, not just latinos, but a multiethnic diverse america who now things the republican party is synonymous with being the anti-immigrant party. that's the lasting impression and it's something they're going

to have to figure out what to do with. more importantly, it's fascinating, i was in washington on friday when the order was announced surrounded by a bunch of dream act activists, and to me in just three days now, there's a new normal when it comes to talking about immigration. there's a noticeable shift in the way our country and our politicians are talking about it, and i welcome that. it's about time. >> i think you are a key to this whole story because of your personal story. and because a lot of americans are out there saying okay, who is this going to help? what does it really mean? how is this going to unfold? tell us your story. what happens with you? >> i actually came here, was born in the philippines, i came here when i was 12. my mother sent me to live with my grandparents, and it wasn't until i was 16 when i went to the dmv that i figured out that my green card was fake, and what, for 14 years, i worked as

a journalist for the washington post and the huffington post, and kind of lived with that lie because i wanted to work, i wanted to pay taxes because people like me do pay taxes and social security. but inspired by a lot of the young dream act activists last summer, i actually came out as an undocumented immigrant in the "new york times" magazine. if you were to tell me that, what, almost a year later, like we went from the headline in my "new york times" essay was outlaw, and now on the cover of "time" magazine in this essay i wrote surrounded by 35 other undocumented people, it's we are americans, because we are. we just don't have that paper. >> with this, the president of the united states, in a sense, has shifted the conversation -- >> absolutely. >> shifted the acceptance of how we should be viewing this, which is a monumental shift for a lot of americans, would you agree?

>> i would parallel it with the gay rights movement. to me what is fascinating is we have now a generation of young people, to come out, to come out about being undocumented is a positive life affirming thing, just in the way it's being used in the gay rights community. that is a testament, by the way, to the work of a lot of lgtb leaders in the past few decades, and it says a lot about an emerging american majority. the country is changing. we're embracing the fact that these quote/unquote other people aren't really other people. >> jose, it's almost comical how the republicans don't have an answer for this. i think that they despise this president so much, they can't bring themselves to say, you know, this really is the right thing to do. let's give it a foundation and move forward with immigration reform in this country. your thoughts on that. >> i want to give the republican party the benefit of the doubt.

i was on bill o'reilly on fox news and he said he agreed there should be a path for people like me to become citizens. i was on mike huckabee's radio show earlier today and he did the same thing, agrees there should be a path for people like me. look, i have covered presidents, i have covered presidential campaigns, and i have never been allowed to vote because i can't vote, but i think it's time for us, again, to come up with a solution. >> so mike huckabee radio talk show host, former candidate -- >> former candidate.

don't have to wait until after the election to find out what i believe. or what my plans are. >> welcome back to "the ed show." now, mitt romney keeps telling us he's got a plan. but he keeps refusing to give us answers on some of the most critical issues facing this country. now, think progress went out and listed the issues romney just keeps dodging. romney won't say whether he would undo the new immigration policy, he won't commit to the paycheck fairness act. he won't tell us which tax loopholes he would close to make his budget work. he can't name the federal agencies he wants to cut. he refuses to say whether he would have signed the lilly

ledbetter fair pay act. he won't take a stand on the violence against women act and he won't talk about the carried interest tax break which is huge, my friends. candidate romney, don't you think he owes us a few answers? but it seems like he's simply following in the footsteps of another famous politician of decades ago. republican candidate thomas dewey, dewey, i tell you, this guy was famous for making sweeping statements, very generic that sounded good, but he never got into the devil in the detail or the specifics. it works for dewey, and he almost beat harry truman in 1948. just like the empty speeches are working for mitt rom nay as he closed the gap on the president. watch the comparison. let's start with free enterprise. >> americans have come to pass under our free system of productive enterprise. >> not just because i love job creators. it's because i love jobs. >> the only way to win the peace

is to provide strength. >> american strength is essentially for our kids, for us, and for the world. >> the only thing they're afraid of is strength greater than his. >> i have the force to communicate our strength. >> there will begin in washington the biggest unraveling, unsnarling, untangling operation in our nation's history. >> we got to have people who stop thinking of themselves of just republicans and democrats and think of themselves as americans. >> i thank you with all of my heart for your friendship and confidence. >> i love this country. >> we're out of time. >> i'm getting the sign you're ready for lunch. >> is our time gone? >> you're the best. thank you. >> he must have gone to a football coach's clinic and gotten the old playbook. avoiding specifics really worked for dewey. the pollsters stopped polling because they thought truman didn't have a chance to win the election, and of course, the

chicago daily tribune assumed dewey had won the election, but that's there real winner holding up the paper, harry truman. the american voters saw through dewey's empty rhetoric in 1948. now romney is putting the american voters to the test in 2912. i'm joining by bob shrum. you wrote a fascinating article on this. when did it come to you? >> i was doing my column for the daily beast, and he was doing this thing on which he wouldn't say if he would repeal. he said, this fits a pattern. if he gets asked about bain, he flees, he says it will destroy medicare when it will help it. i had a headline, he wanted this election, he wants this election to be a pure referendum. his question is, how do you feel about the economy? if you don't feel all that good, maybe you ought to take a chance on me. dewey's question was, a referendum, who is more presidential. he thought he was more

presidential, to me, he seems stiff there. in facts, he and romney both resemble a description as dewey as the little man on the wedding came. >> can romney get away with being nonspecific until november? >> it's going to be tough. romney is going to get asked the questions. if he ducks the questions and ducks them conspicuously, people are going to figure out he's not on their side, and by the way, when he's asked the question could things get worse, the answer is yet. >> the difference is the money. romney is going to be packed up with a lot of super pac money that is going to drive up the negatives of the president. is it really a fair comparison? >> actually, in 1948, the republicans had significantly more money than truman did. they were scraping money together to keep the whistle stop trip on the road, and truman who had critics on his party, there was even a dump truman movement in 1948, took

the advice, and every single day went out there and was quote/unquote controversial as hell. >> let's get to the debates you mentioned. john kerry is going to play a role in this for barack obama. tell us about it. >> it's a brilliant choice. i work with senator kerry in 2004, we lost that narrowly, but he won the three debates. what you want when you're perfecting someone to play your opponent is you want the best possible person you can pick. you want someone who is going to be a better romney than romney. and kerry is certainly capable of that. he'll have romney down, understand what he will do, and he'll debate well. >> we're at the point trying to figure out if this is a romney strategy to not get specific until the debates or he really doesn't have answers and doesn't have a plan. >> he has a plan. his plan is to slash medicare. his plan is to get rid of a whole lot of government

departments. his plan is to shred the social safety net in so many different ways, his plan is to turn student loans over to bankers. he can't afford to tell us. dewey couldn't afford to tell the country, either. coming up, next, joy reed, ari, and meghan on the attack on women's rights going on across the country including michigan, where this was the scene last night. stay tuned, you're watching "the

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v is for -- >> vagina. >> v is also for our voice. >> welcome back to "the ed show." republicans are receiving major pushback in the state of michigan for silencing their state representatives lisa brown and barb byrum. roughly 7500 people gathered outside of the capitol of michigan last night to listen to a reading of vagina monologues. the play's author eve ensler was in the audience. it was held in response to lisa brown being censured by using the word vagina. brown had a clear message for republicans yesterday. >> we're not going to let legislators turn the clock back to the '60s where women didn't have a right, and weren't insured they were going to have access to safe health care. and in my speech, i made a few

points. but i dared utter the word vagina. we shouldn't be legislating vaginas if you can't say vagina. >> republicans better be paying attention. yesterday's event sent a clear signal. americans don't want their legislators being silenced for debating the issues. >> you see two reps banned from speaking on an issue of reproductive rights is outrageous. it's outrageous. and i am not surprised that it has sparked this kind of response. >> all right, for more on this, let's turn to our panel, joy reed, ari, and meghan mccain, coauthor of a new book with an interesting title. all right, joy, tell me, 2500 people show up in lancing to say, leave us alone and why can't we talk about this? how much of an outrage is this going to help democrats going into november? >> in a lot of ways, i have lost my capacity for surprise when it comes to politics. this issue actually is surprising. there's almost an obsessive

quality to the republican kind of obsession with women's health care when it comes to abortion and legislating women's health care issues whether it's planned parenthood or something like this, where basically these two women were told you can't talk about this. we men are legislating your fill in the word. it's sort of an infantalizing of women that is jarring to a lot of young women who aren't used to this '70s era politics. at the sate as well as the federal level, there's sort of an obsession with these issues among a lot of republican men. >> meghan, do you think a lot of republicans have to learn when you're speaking on this, you're not going to win? >> i think when they say it's not to be said by a woman, you can't help but think we're regressing as a culture when it comes to women's issues. >> virginia, the state of virginia had their own heated abortion debate earlier this

year, and a recent poll shows 72% of virginians don't want government interfering with private decisions about abortion. ari, i can't get away from this. why do the republicans keep going down this road when it's in the polls aba an absolute loser for them? >> i think they have some element of stock home syndrome with their base. they look at the tea party of delivering a lot in the midterms. they had a very loud, very angry primary season and i'm not sure they have pivoted out and figured out what is going on in the rest of the country. these are missteps, and the other point is when you control language, you control ideas. there's a longstanding type of reverse political correctness on the right where they want to say you can say this, you can't say that, or we can talk about vaginas as it relates to abortion and controlling things and trying to gin up pro life outrage, but you can't talk about vaginas for your

perspective. the fact we have to have this language debate tells you hoe controlling the environment is. and the other point i'll make is that, look, obviously, there are people who are of good faith and have strong religious beliefs here. and that is one element that drives this conversation. but there are others who are backing things like saying women can't make these decisions until they're briefed or given certain operations or instructions by their doctor or women should have to check with their husbands. that's been an issue in state laws. i don't like at that as simply pro life. i look at that as sexists. >> i agree. there's a difference between being prolife and pro choice, and i remember the discussion about vaginal probing. there's a difference between humiliating a woman and belittling them. i don't believe there's any woman out there who is pro abortion, and i think we're

regressing as a culture when you can't say the word vagina, and would it be such an issue if a male congressman had said the word vagina. >> romney was campaigning in michigan, and here is what he had to say. >> i'm going to win michigan with your help. we're going to take back the white house. we're going to get america on track and keep it the hope of the worth. >> joy, what does the abortion debate mean for him in michigan? he says if he wins michigan, he wins the white house. >> he should be competitive in michigan. his father was the governor there. this illustrates the extent to which romney has failed to exercise leadership over the party. the three wings of the party, two of three were never really -- they didn't really like romney during the primary. you have the evangelical wing that may not trust him for a lot of reasons. one because he's a mormon. you have the business wing that

is all in for him, and then the tea party wing. mitt romney doesn't like to talk about the issues. he just want to talk about the economy. in michigan, the other problem is he was against the auto bailout. >> meghan, your father ran for president, he was direct on the issues, but we're not getting that out of romney. is this his waterloo? >> he doesn't really need to talk about anything else because at the end of the day, that's the only thing americans are going to be concentrating on. we have 9% unemployment rate, and romney doesn't have to talk about anything else. >> joy, ari, and meghan, great to have you with us on "the ed show." >> coming up, today in wisconsin, a bus full of nuns protested the republican ryan budget. tonight, the nuns on the bus are on "the ed show." stay tuned. a big group of catholic nuns are on the road trailing milt romney's tour to protest ryan's plan on the gop on the poor.

i'll ask the organizer what she thinks about the plan. you can listen to me on sirius monday through friday, noon to 3:00 p.m. and follow me on twitter on the edshow. we're coming back with the big finish. coming up, nuns on the bus.

because it lines the pockets of agribusiness. this time it has strong republican support because it will cost over $1 billion from food stamps over the next five years and heard a lot of poor people. it was said that this will unfairly target low-income families in cut monthly food aid payments by an average of $90. that's a lot of money. it doesn't sound like much, but it can mean everything to a family on food stamps. republicans want to bankroll big sugar, big corn, big cotton and stick it to americans who are

the most vulnerable in our society. this philosophy of this country having a cheap food policy has now morphed into a big, corporate giveaway. paquette question that big tonight, where is the tea party outrage? where is michele bock? wait a minute, cargill is in her backyard. they underscore this. they feed at the trough just like everybody else. coming up, a group of catholic sisters out protesting the rhine and budget. they pay a visit to the congressmen to be home hometown today. we will hear just what happened next. stay tuned. in this coming election, we're going to make a choice. what kind of country do we want [ male announcer ] if a phone rings at your car insurance company

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with dr. scholl's and feel the energy from your feet up. thanks to the energizing support and cushioning of dr. scholl's massaging gel insoles, your feet will feel so good you'll want to get up and go. in this coming election, we're going to make a choice. what kind of country do we want to have. what kind of people do we want to be? >> welcome back to "the ed show." that was congressman paul ryan at a rally among the mitt romney bus tour, making the case that the republican presidential nominee is the guy to go with. well, romney fully embraces the republican budget plan proposed by ryan, a plan that guts the safety net programs for the poor in this country. ryan himself credits his catholic faith as the justification for the

devastating cuts. >> a person's faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and private. to me, using my catholic faiths, the social magisterium, how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a layperson. >> but a group of nuns are questioning his social justice. they're embarking on a bus tour of their own across nine states, protesting the ryan plan. the tour launched in iowa where the nuns visited the office of steve king. the sisters said they made an appointment with the congressman, who is a catholic, but when they arrived at the doors of steve king, the office appeared closed. today, they arrived in wisconsin, the home of paul ryan. let's turn to sister simone campbell, organizer of the nuns on a bus tour. sister, good to have you with us tonight. i want to get your reaction of what you just heard from paul ryan, his justification for

these cuts through his faith as a catholic. what do you make of that? >> well, it may be what his faith tells him, but he certainly doesn't know the fullness of faith. he only talks about individual responsibility, and that's only half of the story. the rest of the story is that we know we can be responsible but only in community. we have to have each other's backs. that's what the christian faith is about. and so i like to say that because congressman ryan only has half the facts, he's 100% wrong when it comes to interpreting his faith. >> is the ryan budget plan, in your opinion, immoral and it doesn't measure up to his faith? >> i like the u.s. conference of catholic bishops and all of the bishops in -- catholic bishops in the united states agree it is wrong-headed.

they call it immoral, and we're standing with our bishops. it devastates those at the margins while giving further benefits to those at the top of our society. that's the wrong way. they've got it backwards. it's not what jesus would do and it's against all of the social principles we hold dear. >> it's not what jesus would do. that's a big statement. are you willing to tell the congressman that to his face? >> oh, absolutely. in fact, we have tried to have meetings with him, but i haven't been successful so far. i have talked to other members of congress, and specifically, raised up the gospel questions. the fact is, a lot of people can have different opinions, but when you break open the gospel and you look at where jesus was, jesus was always at the margins of society. and the fact is people worry about making people dependent on

programs, that's true, but the fact is our programs, responsible programs lift people out of poverty, and what our bus trip is showing is the wonderful work done by catholic sisters, the success stories that responsible programs can point to. so that programs are required, community is required to help people make change. that's why we're doing the bus trip. >> how can republican catholics support this budget and be good catholics? >> well, i don't quite know. i think there are good catholics because they try to follow their conscious, but if their life experience is only with people at the top, if no one -- if they have not had the experience of like i just did at st. benedict's food serving place up right here in milwaukee, if they haven't sat next to billy like i did and found out his struggle, he moved up here from chicago for his kids, a 4-year-old and a

13-year-old, because he knew chicago was a bad influence for them. he's having a really hard time because the economy cut his job, so he's coming to the food serving most nights in order to get food so he can serve his kids food at home. this guy is struggling. he's working really hard. if you don't have a chance to talk to folks like that, you think, they're just lazy. you can make all kinds of excuses. we as catholics know you have to put yourself in relationship with folks who struggle. >> well, you're heading to the offices of speaker john boehner in ohio. he's also a catholic. what kind of response are you expecting to get from the speaker? >> well, we'll be meeting with his staff. we met with his staff in d.c. they have a tendency to get focused on specific details about specific programs. our message to the speaker is

there's an alternative. we have worked hard in the interfaith community in washington to create a budget that raises reasonable revenue for responsible programs. that's what we're about. we have to take care of the debt situation in our nation, but that's not because of social services. that's because we went to war and then we slashed taxed. it's the first time in our history we have done that. we need to make up for lost time. that means we need to pay our just debts. we also need to make sure we invest for the future. that's the way forward. a faithful budget is an alternative and we want to talk to john boehner about it. >> thank you for your time tonight. i appreciate it. that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. the "rachel maddow show" show starts right now. thank you for staying with us for the next hour. in the past hour, president obama has wrapped up a late in the day press conference in mexico before he got back onboard air force one to travel back from the two-day g-20 summit in los cabos. you know, they have to really feel for the mitt romney campaign on a day like today. i mean, this is one of those days that it has to feel frustrating to be running against an incumbent president just in terms of the optics you can arrange for your candidate's daily schedule. today, the guy who is not president but who wants to be president was in a pie shop rolling out dough.

literally, dough, in front of reporters. being seen to be making a pie. his wife, ann romney, posing with a cookie in the shape of a mitten. because -- we we drop the bug. mitten shaped. it's funny, and this is helping for the optics because her husband's name is mitt, as in mitten. they were in michigan, looks like a mitten. looking at a mitten shaped by michigan. marvelous. optics on one side. optics on the other side, the man that mr. mitten is running against, holding a series of bilateral meetings with the most powerful leaders on earth. holding a nationally televised press availability with the white house press corps. this sort of day for president obama is the day in the life of a sitting u.s. president, and in competitive terms for the