mitt romney went to london today to be closer to his $77,000 tax deduction, which is competing in the horse ballet section of the olympics, and the president of the united states went to new orleans to address the issue that has seized america's attention. >> i, like most americans, believe that the second amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms. but i also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that ak-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. that they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities. i believe the majority of gun owners would agree that we should do everything possible to prevent criminals and fugitives from purchasing weapons. that we should check someone's criminal record before they can check out a gun seller. that a mentally unbalanced individual should not be able to

get his hands on a gun so easily. these steps shouldn't be controversial. they should be common sense. so i'm going to continue to work with members of both parties and with religious groups and with civic organizations to arrive at a consensus around violence reduction. >> brian williams caught up with mitt romney in london today, and reminded him of the time not so long ago when mitt romney agreed with president obama about assault weapons. >> as governor, you signed an assault weapons ban in massachusetts. and you said at the time, quote, these guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. they are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people. do you still believe that? >> well, i actually signed a piece of legislation, as you described, that banned assault weapons in our state. it was a continuation of prior legislation, and it was backed both by the second amendment

advocates, like myself, and those that wanted to restrict gun rights. because it was a compromise. both sides got some things improved in the laws, as they existed. >> that was mitt romney once again saying things that don't make any sense. not one word of mitt romney's answer about signing the assault weapons ban in massachusetts is consistent with mitt romney's irresponsible position now. >> i still believe that the second amendment is the right course to preserve and defend and don't believe that new laws are going to make a difference in this type of tragedy. >> brian williams pressed mitt romney on romney's self-contradiction on assault weapons. >> on things, however, like aurora, colorado, do you see why americans get frustrated at politics? they can see and hear your words from earlier. people are hurting out there. perhaps they want to start a national conversation about

whether an ar-15 belongs in the hands of a citizen. whether a citizen should be able to buy 6,000 rounds off the internet. you see the argument? >> well, this person shouldn't have had any kinds of weapons and bombs and other devices. and it was illegal for him to have many of those things already, but he had them. >> romney is lying, of course. all of the weapons and ammunition that our most recent mass murderer used in that movie theater were obtained legally. completely legally. romney had more to say. >> and so we can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. it won't. >> there is no one who believes that changing the law will make all bad things go away. every law is violated by someone. what we hope is that changing the law will make things better. make some bad things go away. not perfection, just make things

better. if the romney standard for changing a law is that that law then must make all bad things go away to be successful, then we should have no laws. we should have no stop signs, because people go through stop signs sometimes. we should have no speed limits, because no one pays attention to those anyway. we should have no laws against murder, because thousands of people break that law every year. we have not seen, in the television age, a presidential candidate who more blithely says absolutely inane, meaningless sentences, as mitt romney does, every day, in virtually every answer, and every speech. mitt romney wasn't finished. >> change in the heart of the american people may well be what's essential to improve the lots of the american people. >> so, to reduce mass murder in america, we have to change the

heart of the american people? this is not funny. it is not a minor thing, that a presidential candidate addresses the most important issue gripping his nation today with utter, meaningless nonsense. such is the bankruptcy of the republican party that such a person can be their nominee for president of the united states. joining me now are msnbc's joy reid and jonathan capehart. joy, the president was speaking to the urban league tonight and going straight into the territory that many people have been saying all week, politicians shouldn't go near. and what he was asking for is not what mitt romney and the liars about weapons and ammunition control talk about, the president was not asking for perfection. he was not asking to make all things go away.

in fact, he talked about, the final two words we heard from him were simply the ambition to achieve violence reduction. >> yeah, and it's amazing. right even as we speak, lawrence, our reporter at thegrio.com who was in chicago is rewriting her piece. because we were literally just -- we had ordered a piece about this issue, that the equivalent of a mass murder is taking place something like every three weeks on the streets of chicago, illinois. you have places like miami and philadelphia where gun violence, where people shooting ak-47s in broad daylight, killing children, killing, you know, innocent people who are just out in the streets, it's happening every day. and no one talks about it. we sort of get shocked into action when something horrific like what happened in aurora takes place. but we forget that gun violence is an ongoing plague for so many communities. well, president obama waded right into that argument. he took that head-on. he talked about the common sense fact that people are and need the government to step in, in a sense, at least try to do

something about gun violence. we can't eliminate all bad things, but surely there must be something that society can do to stem the gun violence that's happening, not just in colorado, but everywhere. >> jonathan capehart, isn't the argument that we're hearing, if we can even call it an argument from mitt romney and from others, certainly the nra and everybody who says that there's no use doing this because you won't eliminate every -- you won't stop every mass murderer. you know, passing laws has never been about stopping every single person who's intent on breaking them and the president made that clear in his speech tonight. >> right. as you said, his last two words were "violence reduction." and the president has the american people on his side. he alluded to it in his speech and in the clip that you showed, but there's a poll out from mayors against illegal guns, and that's the group that is co-chaired by mayor michael bloomberg, who we all know, from the moment the aurora tragedy happened, has been outfront, very vocal and very aggressive

in pushing both president obama and mitt romney to say something, and do something, about the gun violence happening in this country. and in that poll, that was done by frank luntz, you know, republican-leaning pollster -- i have it right here, 87% of nra members polled said that they believe that guns should be out of the hands of criminals. in the high 70% of those people who were polled said that they believe in background checks and other things to make it more difficult for people who would do lots of people harm, to keep guns out of their hands. so, you know, the president, you know, a big leadership moment tonight by not only addressing aurora, but as joy said, addressing the mayhem and the carnage that is going on on america's streets. >> let's listen to brian williams asking mitt romy about those 6,000 bullets that we've been hearing a lot about lately.

>> as a practical matter, do you have a problem with being able to buy 6,000 rounds of ammunition off the internet? >> well, i don't know that i'm going to be able to find a way to prevent people who want to provide harm from being able to purchase things that could carry out that harm. what i want to do is find the people who represent a danger to america, and find them and keep them from having the capacity to use or buy things that could harm or hurt other people. >> joy reid, am i being too tough, once again, i didn't hear a word that made any sense in response to brian williams' question. >> yeah, lawrence, i think the word -- the term for that is word salad. it's a bunch of words strung together in a bowl and you can jumble them up and it doesn't mean anything. what would he do, specifically? what is mitt romney proposing to do? get into the hearts of the american people? find those people who would do us harm. it doesn't even make sense. it's not really an answer to the question. what it really means is that mitt romney is once again paralyzed in the face of his

true constituency, the far right. he understands that wayne lapierre, the boss of the nra, will not allow him to give the answer to the question that the old mitt romney would have given, which is that the old mitt romney said that assault weapons belong in the military and shouldn't be in the hands of anyone. so now the new mitt romney has to conform. he has to put himself in this little box that the nra, that other members of the far-right have put him in, so he can't even really answer simple, straightforward questions. >> funny you should mention the nra. brian -- brian asked mitt romney about his fidelity to the nra, his newfound fidelity to it. let's listen to that. >> you said a few years back, quote, i don't line up with the nra. is that still true? >> well, on every single issue, there are differences between myself and the nra. on many issues, we share a common commitment to the second amendment and the right of people to bear arms. but i'm sure from time to time, there'll be issues where they and i might part. i don't have one for you right now.

but their agenda's not entirely identical with my own. i don't know that i line up 100% with almost anybody. >> jonathan capehart, classic romney. he's sure he disagrees with the nra about something, but "i don't have one for you right now." >> right, i was going to say, you know, he just threw some croutons on that word salad that joy was talking about. again, that clip that you just showed, you know, just reiterates or sort of verifies what joy just said a moment ago. which is, mitt romney is still enthralled to the conservative base of this party, that he can't say what the old mitt romney would have said in response to that question. you know, i haven't seen the entire interview, but it would be great to know if brian asked a follow-up. you know, hey, just name one thing. one thing that you, where you and the nra differ. i doubt he would have gotten the answer. and in fact, i doubt brian asked that question, knowing fully well that mitt romney just would not answer it. >> well, brian's working with a time limit and he has to race

through a bunch of things. he did a great job and got us an awful lot of stuff. jonathan, i noticed that you tweeted right before the show tonight that you forgot something for the show. and i'm staring at you on the monitor and i'm just trying to guess what that is. i just can't figure out, is is something -- what's -- what might it be? >> it's a little drafty in here, but i -- maybe you can see it. >> dress casual? >> i'm sure the people on twitter have figured it out. joy reid and jonathan capehart, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, the senate passed a tax increase today. it actually did. a tax increase on top income earners. but we're still moving closer to going off the fiscal cliff on new year's eve. and in the "rewrite" tonight, the confused ramblings of bill o'reilly on gun control. he claims gun laws do no good. then bill o'reilly proposes a new gun law.

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it was a miraculous day in the senate today. the senate actually voted to increase taxes on top income earners today. the first time they've done that since 1993. but the house republican reaction is still moving us one step closer to going off the cliff. and bill o'reilly is back in the "rewrite" tonight. first he attacks what he calls the loony left, those are his words, for advocating gun control. and then bill o'reilly proposes more gun control. does that mean o'reilly is the loony left? i'll leave it to you to decide. [ man ] ever year, sophia and i

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the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. if you are 18 years old, the united states senate did something today that it has never done in your lifetime. it passed an increase in taxes on the top tax brackets. and it did it this afternoon by a simple majority vote. republicans dropped the procedural 60-vote hurdle in the senate for this particular vote, because they wanted to see, they wanted to dare democrats, see how many of them were willing to vote for a tax increase on incomes over $250,000. 51 democrats voted for it. that's exactly the number that voted for the last time they voted for it, in 1993.

only two democrats voted against it in 1993, more voted against it than today. but the bill, of course, that was voted on today has absolutely no chance of becoming law, because the house of representatives will ignore it. and if the house of representatives continues to ignore it for the rest of the year, you know what that means on new year's eve. ♪ >> after the senate vote today, senator patty murray, known on this program as senator thelma, said this. >> i want you to give a big round -- >> i guess not exactly that. let's see, senator murray, i'll tell you what senator murray said. she said -- oh, no we have it,

i'm told. now, let me just get this straight with the control room. are we now going to run senator thelma or barack obama? senator thelma. here she goes. >> there is one man standing at the wheel as we careen towards the fiscal cliff, and that is john boehner. he can either pass this bill, which delivers certainty to middle class taxpayers and, by the way, is a tremendous step towards addressing sequestration, or he can step on the gas, head towards that fiscal cliff, and strap the american people, just like a dog we know, to the top of his car. >> president obama now, time for president obama, had this to say about the democrats' tax bill. >> so, republicans in congress, they've decided, apparently, that they're not going to let this bill pass. despite the fact that 98% of americans make $250,000 a year or less, so we can provide 98% of americans certainty that

their taxes would not go up, despite the fact that this would be good for the economy and investment climate, they've decided to hold middle class tax cuts hostage until we also agree to spend another $1 trillion on tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, folks who don't need tax breaks, and frankly, many of them aren't even asking for them. now, governor romney doesn't just approve of this strategy. he wants to import this into the white house. >> joining me now is jared bernstein, a senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities, and an msnbc contributor. he's the former chief economist to vice president biden. jared, you have to forgive me for getting all nostalgic here, watching that 51 votes for a tax increase on the top earners in the senate today. i'll never forget that vote around this time of year, actually, in 1993.

it was much tenser. it actually became law. and the economy soared after that particular tax increase, but it seems the republican intransigents, as patty murray has identified it, is still going to send us on new year's eve off the cliff and that may be the only way that we get sensible tax policy. >> i agree with you. and i was also feeling a sense of almost -- well, elation is too strong a word, because we know where this is going, given the dysfunction in the house. but the idea that a majority in the senate, and we didn't have to -- because this was not a procedural vote, the republicans put aside the filibuster on this one, we actually had a majority vote in the senate to do something smart today. which was to add some revenues to our budget situation, so we can achieve a kind of sustainable path that we simply can't do on spending cuts alone. you know, we're back to "alice in wonderland" very quickly, because mitch mcconnell himself said, this is meaningless, it's

just procedural, the house isn't going to talk it up. we know that's true. but there was a tiny sliver of light there. and i think when you couple that with your points about patty murray's strategy, which is one that i very much endorse -- i don't love it, but i endorse it. i think it's the right way to go. maybe there's some light on the other side of this cliff, if you'll excuse the metaphors. >> and jared, i just want to clarify the technical point of what was actually voted on today. because i've kind of lazily described it as a vote for a tax increase. but, technically, technically, where we are now in law, it's different. since the law is currently written that on january 1st, all tax rates will go up, what the democrats actually voted for today was a tax reduction for all -- starting on january 1st, for all of the rates below the top tax rates. and they simply did not vote for a tax reduction on the top rates. and so claire mccaskill and some of the democrats that the

republicans wanted to dare into casting that vote can very honestly claim what they voted for today was actually a tax cut. >> right. and, in fact, interestingly, and the president alluded to this, 98% of households would benefit from that tax cut, and that's something that, of course, everyone agrees on. the squabble is, of course, over the 2%. but you're absolutely right. and this is the reason why the logic of going over the fiscal cliff makes sense. because once you go over the cliff, taxes reset to where they were back before the bush tax cuts took place in 2001. at that point, all the grover norquist and the pledge silliness is off the table. at that point, members of congress can vote for a very significant tax cut to reach the middle class, like the senate

did today, and simply leave the upper income rates reset where they are. that represents, as the president said, $1 trillion of needed revenue over the next ten years, on the one group who's benefited from growth in recent years. >> i want to listen to the president doing his part in making it very clear that the democrats are willing to go off the cliff. this is really scaring and shaking the republicans, but the president's doing it now in local interviews on the campaign trail. let's listen to how it goes in this interview. >> will you veto any legislation that extends all of the bush tax cuts, even to what you call the wealthy? >> yes. and the reason is, we can't afford it. it would not make sense for us to give folks like me or mr. romney or mr. buffett another $1 trillion in tax cuts that we don't need. >> and jared, as you know, this strongly empowers the democrats in the congress. the president saying, look, even if they did pass it, which they can't, without the democratic votes, he would veto it.

and so this showdown is just getting closer and closer every day. >> the thing that i took from today's vote and from the kind of attitude you just heard from the president is that the democrats have real spine here. and it's something, frankly, we haven't always seen enough of. the 51 votes today, to allow those top rates to increase on the $250,000 plus group, that 2% at the top, along with the white house's consistent stance on this, patty murray and her stance, and i very much applaud the attention that you've been bringing to that, lawrence, that sounds to me like something that is very much engrained in their strategy now, and frankly, the republicans, i believe, are starting to understand that. >> yeah. and democrats, and the president, have gotten a lot of criticism over the years for not hanging tough. they are hanging tough on this and they are doing it for very, very sound policy reasons. jared bernstein, thank you for joining me tonight in our "off the cliff!" segment for tonight.

thanks, jared. >> sure. coming up, mitt romney didn't go to london today to face questions about his income taxes, but brian williams was there to ask him why he's not releasing his tax returns. and sometimes bill o'reilly can be, quote, so dumb it hurts. those are bill's words, not mine. and bill o'reilly is in the "rewrite" tonight. ♪ [ male announcer ] introducing new dentyne split to fit pack. it splits in to two smaller, sleeker packs

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"the last word" "off the cliff!" campaign button. brian walter from chicago sent us this button with television's most famous cliff on it. cheers to brian walter. here's a design by steve harris of new york city. and this one came to us via twitter from cory strawn of holland, michigan. i think i might have to pick a new campaign button. i think a lot of your designs are better than the one i came up with here. so i think next week, i may just pick one of the new ones to be the new official "off the cliff!" campaign button for "the last word." coming up, brian williams had some taxing questions for mitt romney today about his still-secret tax returns and bill o'reilly is talking in circles this week about gun control. first he's against it, of course, then, surprisingly, he's for it. then he says only the loony left

wants more gun control. and then he proposes more gun control. so if there is a loony left, bill o'reilly might now be its only member. bill o'reilly in the "rewrite." [ male announcer ] while many automakers are just beginning to dabble

with the idea of hybrid technology... it's already ingrained in our dna. during the golden opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the pursuit of perfection. in the spotlight tonight, taxing questions. mitt romney's secret tax returns are still following him everywhere he goes. brian williams asked about those tax returns today in london. >> canou say that your decision is firm? that you will not do a walk-back between now and the convention, now and the fall election? that there will be no returns, more returns released by mitt romney? >> i'm following the same precedent that was put in place by john mccain. two years -- and by the way, hundreds of pages of returns -- for the democrat operatives to go through and to twist and to

distort and to turn in different directions and to try to make a big deal out of. >> joining me now, "washington post" opinion writer and msnbc political analyst, e.j. dionne, author of the new book, "our divided political heart," and ari melber, a correspondent for "the nation" and an msnbc contributor. e.j., the romney reason now for not releasing tax returns is actually that, well, you know, there's stuff in there that the other side will use, which is actually the exact reason why we want tax returns released. is to check to see if there are things in there that are questionable. that is how this tradition got started. >> i think you studied logic in college, lawrence. and by the way, thanks for what you're doing on gun sanity. i really appreciate it. if you look at what romney is saying, he's saying, i don't want the democrats to get hold

of this because they will make something of it, which says there's something explosive in these tax returns. i think he's got a problem. if there weren't questions about his foreign accounts, and if he weren't pushing the sort of tax policies in the campaign, that he benefits from, and if he weren't very different from everyone else in his economic status, then maybe his tax returns wouldn't be an issue. but guess what, he's got every one of those problems. and that's why this issue just won't go away. and i don't think he'll be able to sit on them, and if he does sit on them, they'll stay an issue until the end of the campaign. >> and brian williams' follow-up question on this was all the more pointed after mitt romney's first answer. let's listen to that one. >> people hear, he's not going to release the rest of his returns, and they wonder why. they wonder, is there a year there where he paid no taxes? they wonder about expensive horses and houses and what have you. so i'll ask another way, what is it that is preventing you from

releasing the rest of your returns? >> well, one, i've released all the information about my financial holdings that's required by law. and then in addition, beyond the law, have released, or will finally release, when the last year is complete, two years' of full returns. and what we've noted is our democrat friends take what's there, twist it, distort it, dishonestly use it in attack ads. i just don't want to give them more material than is required. >> ari, that was an easy one to answer in the middle of that question, and that is, have you ever paid absolutely no taxes. he could have easily said to that one point, since the campaign's already attempted to address it, no, there's no return on which i paid no income taxes. but we're left with complete ignorance at the end of that answer. >> we are. and his problem here is both political and substantiative. politically, it is hard in these campaigns, where you have an issue where the journalistic

interest overlaps with your opponent's interest. he is right that democrats will pore over these things. that's what happened in years past. but if you pay your taxes and nothing in these returns goes beyond the numbers that are already out there, which, as people know, he has a lot of money, the democrats won't have much. the journalists pore over it, looking for similar things, because they want to tell the public more about this candidate's conduct. if there's something in there that the journalists can report and the opponents can seize on, then he's got a bigger problem. and that's what it seems like given the attitude here. and then the second part, substantively is, what we do know is really bad. we know that there is something on the order of $50 million in the tax-sheltered retirement account. and we know that under the law, even at the maximum level, if you use employer-based contributions, you can only get up to $30,000 a year. i don't care how good you are at investing, if you go from 30k a year up to tens of millions of dollars, there's something funny going on. that's what the bloomberg news investigations are reported.

given what little he has released, he has got to give us an answer how he went from 30k a year to $50 billion. and there's a lot of tax sheltering there going on if he used tricks. >> e.j. dionne, richard cohen says "by and large, the tax filings tell you nothing that you don't already know, but the refusal to release them is a different matter. in romney's case, this is his one and only stand on principle. an odd example of political bravery." and then richard cohen goes on to list all the other things that he's flipped on. but e.j., it is quite striking that the one unmovable stance he has is that, you are not allowed to see my money. >> it is. richard's column is great, and i think he got it exactly right. and, you know, i had the reaction the first couple of weeks ago when he talked about this, and the very adamants in which he says, i'm never going

to release them, nothing is going to set off journalists more, nothing's going to set off democrats more, but what's really interesting, it set off a lot of republicans. there are an awful lot of republicans who have gone out there and said, release them. i don't know if any of them want them out before the convention so they can dump him, i doubt that. but it's really remarkable how many republicans have said, you know, this position won't hold. >> well, he's hoping that his foreign trip makes everyone forget about it. but unfortunately for him, brian williams was in london. e.j. dionne and ari melber, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. >> good to be with you. coming up, over $1 billion will be spent on this election. none of it will be spent to get my vote, because i don't vote in a battleground state, and much more importantly, i am not undecided. polling indicates the undecided don't like what they see in this campaign so far, but they

really, really don't like mitt romney. that's coming up. and next in the "rewrite," bill o'reilly loves to talk about the loony left, but his confusion about gun control this week has even bill o'reilly proposing new gun control laws, even though he says only the loony left wants more gun control. of course, it doesn't make sense. this is bill o'reilly we're talking about. play in the same sandbox as luxury s.u.v.s, it helps to have an interior full of hand-selected wood trim and soft premium leather... and it doesn't hurt to have a selec-terrain dial that truly performs. ♪ with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life

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imagine you with less pain. cymbalta can help. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. ovider is different.com but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company by continuing to help you do more and focus on the things that matter to you. first bill o'reilly says only what he calls the far left loons want more gun control. then bill o'reilly, in the very same statement, proposes more gun control. how stupid does he think his audience is? well, i guess he must know. it's his audience. o'reilly's next in the "rewrite." got the jetta. i wiped the floor with the guy! not really. i would've been fine with 0% for 36 months, but i demanded 60. no...i didn't do that.

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or, get some fresh air. but this summer, we used our thank youpoints to just hang out with a few friends in london. [ male announcer ] the citi thankyou visa card. redeem the points you've earned to travel with no restrictions. rewarding you, every step of the way. in tonight's "rewrite," even when bill o'reilly is leaning in the right direction, he can still be so dumb it hurts. >> so dumb it hurts. so dumb it hurts. so dumb it hurts. >> here he is on monday, making the case that gun laws don't do any good at all. >> new york. well, it has the fourth toughest gun law in the country. sounds good, doesn't it? ready? 2011, nearly 4,000 guns were confiscated by new york city cops, just in the city! 4,000 guns. yeah, those tough gun laws, they're working great, aren't they? >> only bill o'reilly could give an example of how effective a

law is while claiming it's ineffective. new york city cops seizing 4,000 guns that violate new york laws is an example of gun laws working! it's an example of taking guns out of the hands of people who are not legally allowed to have those guns. without new york's gun laws, those people would still have those guns in their pockets. so bill just gave 4,000 examples of new york's gun laws working, thinking that they were examples of the laws not working. talk about is so dumb it hurts. on tuesday, bill said this -- >> the far left is trying to use the colorado movie massacre to promote gun control. >> well, i guess that means me, although i'm personally more concerned with ammunition control than gun control. the guns being useless without ammunition. in another one of those "so dumb it hurts" moments, after bill o'reilly said, the far left is

trying to use the colorado movie massacre to promote gun control, exactly two sentences after he said that, bill o'reilly said this -- >> it also makes sense for congress to pass a new law that requires the sale of all heavy weapons to be reported to the fbi. >> so there's bill o'reilly, proposing a new gun control law, two sentences after accusing the far left of trying to promote gun control. the truth is, o'reilly is actually smarter than this. at least a little bit smarter than this. he knows exactly what he's doing. he is a master manipulator of his audience. he has to say these things to his right-wing audience. >> the far left is trying to use the colorado movie massacre to promote gun control. predictably, far-left ideologues are demagoguing the mass murder in colorado. why do the far-left loons want to take guns away from law-abiding citizens who want protection?

>> o'reilly made each one of those statements before then advocating his own new gun control idea to report the sale of all heavy weapons to the fbi. o'reilly believes in more gun control. we know that now. o'reilly thinks the national rifle association position of unlimited guns and ammunition is unreasonable, but in order to present o'reilly's gun control idea to his right-wing audience, he has to first of all talk about far-left loons, so that o'reilly can then sneak his little gun control idea into his show without sounding like a far-left loon to the far-right loons who watch his show. this is when watching o'reilly is really the most fun, when he's trying to make a semi-reasonable or reasonable suggestion that he knows his audience isn't going to like. he loads his rhetoric up with far-left loon stuff, and then suggests something that

republicans and the nra would label as far-left lunacy, if anyone else said it. o'reilly is terrible with facts, of course, so his objection to our latest mass murderer being able to buy 6,000 rounds of ammunition online came out this way. >> the kid bought 60,000 rounds and no federal agency knew about it. >> you're -- >> are you kidding me?! >> if the fbi is alert that somebody's buying 60,000 heavy-duty rounds, they're going to check it out. say this guy had bought 60,000 rounds in colorado, which he did, and the fbi in denver got wind of that, they would have been watching him! all right? this just makes common sense. >> no, you're not going to side -- >> bill's right, it's not an intrusion on gun rights. but bill o'reilly's republican party thinks it is. but tonight is not the night to be picky about o'reilly getting

the number of bullets wrong in our latest mass murder story. tonight is the night to welcome bill o'reilly to the ranks of the far-left loons who want more gun and ammunition control. >> here's how crazy this is. if you take a flight lesson, the feds get a heads up. but you can buy a machine gun and they don't know. that's so dumb it hurts. that's so dumb it hurts. that's so dumb it hurts.

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with 104 days to go before the election, team obama and team romney are on their way to spending over $1 billion in a fight over an ever-shrinking group of the american electorate, the only group that matters, the undecideds. and the undecideds don't like what they see. nbc news/"wall street journal" pollsters find president obama with a 29% favorability rating among the undecideds. 20% find him unfavorably. mitt romney's favorability rating with undecideds is about half of president obama's. 44% have an unfavorable view of romney. joining me now, keith boykin, b.e.t. columnist and alicia menendez of huff post live. keith, this favorability rating we're seeing among the undecideds, with mitt romney's polling only favorable to dick

cheney's unfavorability rating, truly, when he was leaving office, cheney had a 13, which is about as low as you can find in polling. you just need your family and extended family to get to 13. i mean, how -- is there any way romney can get these undecided if the they don't like him so much? >> yes, there is, but he's not willing to do it. there's a number in the poll, 67% of people in the poll like president obama personally, but only 47% like mitt romney personally. in order for romney to connect, he's got to talk about his experiences. he's got to talk about his faith as a mormon, he's got to talk about his experiences as a business leader at bain, talk about his experiences at the olympics, talk about all the things he doesn't want to talk about, because those are the things he's been hiding from us, as the american people have been asking these questions.

so he's in this tough position. he doesn't want to disclose anything, but that's exactly what he needs to do in order to communicate to the public. >> and alicia, as we've talked about before, with the latino vote, there is a gap that unless something happens with it, there doesn't seem to be math that shows how romney can win. and that is the same nbc news/"wall street journal" poll has president obama leading 67 to 23 among latino voters. what might change those numbers between now and election day? >> i don't think anything changes those numbers for the better, for romney, even as he tries to soften his language on immigration. hispanic voters, remember all of the things that he's said in the primary about self-deportation, about vetoing the dream act. in addition to that, you look at the polling and one of the most appealing things for hispanic voters for president obama is the way he talks about middle class issues, about basic economic issues. the one game changer for obama could be them registering a large number of these unregistered voters, in florida alone, 1.4 million unregistered, potentially eligible latino voters. that's five times his win margin from 2008. so they do an aggressive registration program there, that could make this spread even

larger. >> and keith, as we know, the republicans have an aggressive voter suppression move going on through these voter i.d. laws. that seems to be what they're betting on to deal with things like this latino vote margin. >> well, yeah. it seems like they're not really trying to get people to like mitt romney. because the vote for mitt romney is overwhelmingly anti-obama, not pro-romney. whereas the vote for obama is pretty much pro-obama. they're not voting against mitt romney. but if you look at what people were saying, what the republicans themselves were saying about mitt romney, it's understandable. i mean, newt gingrich called him a liar. michele bachmann said he was a chameleon, jon huntsman said he was a perfectly lubricated weather vane, and ann coulter said,, if we run with him, we're going to lose. the republicans themselves don't like him, why would they expect independents or anyone else to like him. they're trying to sell something nobody really wants. >> keith boykin and alicia menendez get "the last word."

thanks for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. up next, hardball with chris matthews. the army of the night, let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start with this tonight. i have this feeling about this presidential election between barack obama and mitt romney. it's not just about them, it's about the armies behind them. the people who share in their victory also in their defeat. look at the army of the night riding behind the presumptive republican nominee. it's an army of war hawks, of neo-cons for lack of a better word. they bring war with them in every election. an agenda of a country they want us to fight. people voted for w, they got iraq. why? because the army poised behind the uninformed ill-read w knew what he didn't. when 9/11 struck, they struck.

this time it's iran. but don't think they're going to end it there. these old cold warrers haven't been happy since the berlin wall fell. they want another big one with russia, with china. listen to romney's words. he didn't write them himself. he'll say what it takes to get the right wing behind him. but the right wing will follow him right to the white house. they will grab the levers of military power like rumsfeld and cheney before them. and they will use them. you can bet on that. joan walsh writes for salon. an msnbc political analyst. joan, you're laughing because you know i'm telling the absolute truth. there is an army of john boltons out there and all these people. they have nothing else to do but get jobs in a new republican administration every ten years or so, or 12 years in which they can push for their latest war agenda. they are absolutely consistent. here's the question. who wins if obama loses? let's start with the