we do away with dirty political tricks and focus on the issues. the newly selected keynote speaker for the gop convention is just the man to usher in this kinder, gentler, more high-minded dialogue. new jersey governor chris christie. >> did i say on topic? are you stupid? on topic. on topic. next question. >> let me tell you something. after you graduate from law school you conduct yourself like that in a courtroom your rear end is going to get thrown in jail, idiot. >> what you want to do is put on a show and giggle every time i talk, i have no interest in answering your question. >> tom, you must be the thinnest skinned guy in america. >> get the hell off the beach. >> how do you not love that guy? chris christie keynoting the convention. marco rubio incidentally will be introducing mitt romney on the last day. interestingly, sarah palin not going to be at the convention this year. steve, you wrote a piece in salon today where you said actually it should be flipped.

that paul ryan should be the keynote and chris christie should have been the veep pick. explain yourself. >> purely from a strategic standpoint the way i look at it is this. i didn't think asking me two or three weeks ago he was going to pick ryan or christie. romney made a decision somewhere in late july, early august he wanted to be quote, unquote, bold with this pick. he felt the race on its current trajectory was not going to deliver him to a victory in november because even with the economy so bad he was still running behind obama. he decided he wanted to be bold. at that point, ryan became a live option for him. in my mind, christie was a better bold option for him. both ryan and both christie come with risks. we're seeing the real downside right now to the risk of paul ryan because the entire sort of campaign narrative now is being taken over by a discussion of medicare, of the paul ryan budget, things that republicans don't want to be out there defending and the democrats want to be attacking. with christie, it wouldn't be about the specific chris christie plan on medicare. specific chris christie plan on reducing taxes for the rich and cutting government programs.

it would be christie's personality. there's a lot of risks. there's a lot of volatility. i see more of an upside with christie than ryan. >> we're going to talk about medicare in the next spot. let's go to mark. here with us is nbc news senior political editor mark murray. mark, you know the rnc lineup as it stands today. give us your thoughts on the strategy of what the rnc is putting together. >> what strikes me is this is the new guard. you have chris christie, elected in 2009. marco rubio in 2010. a lot of the fresh faces from the republican party. there will be no real big officials from the bush administration or at least the principals like george w. bush who will be addressing the republican convention. and so there is a look forward for the republican party. rather than backward. the other thing that strikes me particularly when you look at chris christie is that he's actually going to be talking more about the role of government than the economy. it is worth noting the unemployment rate in new jersey is at 9.6%. but with christie comes a full throated defense of a lot of the reforms that he's taken on in new jersey and that we've seen

republicans take on elsewhere. >> talk to me a little bit about on the hill, you know, there's a political piece out today about republican strategists anxious about the paul ryan pick. strategists have a way of being anxious about a lot of things. what's your feeling about the talk on the hill among republicans about paul ryan. >> i chatted with a couple of republicans today. in one they remind me that it's important to note the veep pick rarely ends up mattering at the end of the day. that these elections are always fought by the principals, the number ones, not necessarily the number twos. another republican actually admitted to me, said, look, this could actually go either way. if we win, this will be brilliant. if we lose, this will be a terrible decision by mitt romney. we have football season that's coming up. i almost kind of look at this. mitt romney was facing a third and five. by picking paul ryan he decided to actually throw a very deep pass. it's possible that they end up catching it and converting the first down. but if they don't, people will

question why didn't we actually call a much safer play? >> in 2008, everybody said that same line about the veep pick doesn't really matter. with sarah palin, it seemed at least to turn out to make a difference ultimately in the electoral result. >> it did. because it went so poorly. of course, there's in cliche when we're always talking about the veepstakes, do no harm. in 2008, it does seem that john mccain did a little bit of harm to his ticket. although there's still a lot of mccain supporters and campaign folks who ended up saying that sarah palin did drive out a lot of turnout. that they had actually put a tim pawlenty at that number two position, you very well could have had the same type of race or even maybe a bigger obama blowout. >> mark, back to your point a minute ago about george w. bush having no position at the rnc. i think almost always, and steve will check the facts and is headed as i speak, almost always the previous president is part of the national convention. bill clinton certainly has a

prominent role at the dnc this year. is it a bit strange? we know, of course, w.'s a bit toxic right now for the romney camp. is it a bit strange w. has no place at the rnc this year? >> well, it's not strange in the fact that they see the same poll numbers that we're all seeing. and that most americans, a large majority, still believe that president obama inherited the economic situation, the deficit he currently has was inherited. but, you know, republicans want to look forward, not look backward. of course, toure, as you hit the nail on the head, this is probably the best achilles heel for the republican parties and also for mitt romney because you're going to hear the democrats make the case, why should we turn the keys back to the party that got us into this mess in the first place. that's what you're going to be hearing at the democratic convention in charlotte. >> mark murray, thanks very much for joining us. >> thanks. >> toure, let's talk about negative ads. >> why not? >> we're going to see a ton of

them. >> the people tell us they don't love them. then they respond to them. right? >> they work. >> people always respond to them. even as they say they don't like them. let's just show a couple of negative ads that we're going to see coming ahead. >> president obama used his health care plan to declare war on religion. forcing religious institutions to go against their faith. ♪ oh, beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain ♪ >> under obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. they just send you your welfare check. >> we do know that romney personally approved over $70 million in fictional losses to the irs as part of the notorious son of boss tax scandal. >> doesn't america deserve better than a president who will say or do anything to stay in power? >> mr. president, take your campaign out of the gutter. >> i think negative ads work.

and will always work because they're very emotional. they're very direct. and the human mind tends to look for information that supports what it already believes even if its belief system is very small. >> and reaffirms it. >> that's what negative ads feed. >> do they have to be true? >> there's a team of political scientists this year who are studying the effect of advertising, specifically negative advertise ing. one thing they found is one of the ads that was in there where you have romney singing, you know, beautiful for spacious skies, they're ticking off these offenses bain committed under his stewardship, that ad, this team of political scientists found right now, is the most effective one that's been run this campaign. that does more to move pure swing voters than anything else they've seen so far. >> i love that ad. here's what i would say so far. there's been speculation since the paul ryan pick that, oh, this is now going to be a big ideas campaign. and finally we're going to have the conversation about policy that we always wanted to have. i think that's a bunch of

nonsense. and on the contrary, i actually think the choice of ryan is an indication that this really is a turn out the base election where you're trying to put out as much negativity as possible, suppress the vote, and further in the next weeks, there's going to be a race to define the framing -- to define the framing of this election and the obama campaign is going to want to make it about the ryan budget and about paul ryan. and the romney campaign is going to want to refocus it to obama. so it's going to be very, very ugly. >> one of the things i found very interesting on saturday when the rollout was happening then the first attack ad comes. and who's in the middle of the first attack ad? basically the star of it? our own krystal ball. >> what can i say? i'm an effective messenger. >> the one thing i would say, i think it's interesting to consider the rationale for the ryan pick. the effect, i think you're right, is going to be turn out the bases very similar to 2004. i honestly think the romney

impulse on this was that this pick would have appeal to swing voters. that this would have appeal to the middle. how? paul ryan has such an extremely ideological voting record. i think what romney thought would be interpreted by people is bold, courageous truth telling. i think that's how they thought they could sell it. i'm not saying they're going to be able to sell it that way. >> you wouldn't pick extreme conservative, right, we saw that poll. this is the most extreme on either side of vice president that we've ever seen. why would you do that to appeal to the middle? >> voters are not always logical. >> paul ryan voted for t.a.r.p., the auto bailout. there are plenty of areas to say, well, paul ryan is more of a pragmatist. in fact, i think the calculation was that he is a very smart guy. if people are thinking about the economy, then they want two very smart guys on the ticket. >> people are going to see what they want to see. the romney campaign thought they would see leadership. that's what they thought. >> i think you're right that's how they wanted to sell it.

i'm going to throw out a crazy idea here. i think romney likes paul ryan. that was a big part of the calculation. he feels comfortable with him. >> they've got the chemistry. next, careful what you wish for. could the spotlight on medicare ail both parties? we're putting it through the spin cycle as we roll on through tuesday, august 14th. [ female announcer ] most whitening strips promise full whitening results in two weeks or more. rembrandt® deeply white™ 2 hour whitening kit is proven to quickly remove surface stains and deep stains in just two hours. [ female announcer ] rembrandt® deeply white™: whiten in just 2 hours. to provide a better benefits package... oahhh! [ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. ♪

ha ha!

i always have told people,

campaigns are not for educating. you do not educate. there are people who use campaigns as a means of educating lose the campaign. they may go on to win a bigger race later on. campaigns are not made for educating. ryan has to educate the country. >> now the republicans have 84 chaotic days in which to teach america about the nuanced ryan plan. while the democrats have to keep making the simple and arresting point that romney and ryan will end medicare as we know it. a complicated argument versus a simple one. republican strategiist mark mackinnon said i think it's a very bold choice. exciting and interesting pick. it's going to elevate the campaign over big ideas. it means romney/ryan can run on principles and provide real direction and vision for the gop. and probably lose. maybe big. in a turn out election in the age of add and twitter and low information voters, krystal, don't you think dems have a new, interesting, perhaps easier playing field now? >> i do.

as a democrat, if you could pick one issue to focus an election on, you could hardly pick a better issue than medicare. and the reverse is true for republicans. i mean, it's one thing to once you're into the governing phase to be able to convince americans to go along with some sort of medicare reform. but it's not what you want to be running on. certainly by picking paul ryan, you've opened up that can of worms. to be fair here, i actually see some parallels in reverse with the health care debate. it's very easy to be against something. you just have to be against one part of it and make that one part sound really bad. and if you're on the other side defending the plan you've got to explain it and the nuance, it's not exactly a voucher, it's premium support. here's why we don't hate grandma. it's much harder. in fact, kaiser did a poll last year on the ryan plan. very interesting. when they gave their people that they were polling the republican arguments, it moved about 17% more to being in favor of the

ryan plan. when they gave them the democratic arguments, it moved 47% to be against the ryan plan. so it's -- you know, it's an effective democratic argument. >> as we've heard repeatedly when pollsters explain the ryan plan, people are like, you can't be serious. that's not actually what people are proposing. >> that's why this is a very unique vice presidential pick, i think. in terms of where historically the vp doesn't really affect the presidential race. you really would have to go back to 1960, lyndon johnson, texas. maybe talking about swinging a race right there. other than that usually the personality of the vice presidential candidate might have some effect. dane qua . dan quayle scared people. sarah palin. there was a study after the election. 1.6 or 1.7 points. that's what she sort of shaved off mccain's total. one sort of academic estimate of that. >> isn't that a large amount in terms of -- >> it is.

palin is the high end of it. i think the ryan one could be bigger because of this. could be. i'm not saying they're going to lose the race definitely because of this. it could be because of what krystal's saying. this is not just about paul ryan being presented to the american people and people looking at that saying you know what? i'm going to reject specifically the vice presidential candidate. this is about a vice presidential selection that changed the entire fundamental basis for the campaign. >> yes. >> we are now talking about issues democrats have wanted to talk about and republicans have been trying to insulate themselves against. this not about potentially people rejecting ryan. it's about people rejecting ryanism. that has a bigger potential to hurt the ticket. we were talking about a campaign before where no one's going to win this by more than two. there's a possibility this could end up being bigger. >> i think there's something strange, too, about the nominee being shaped so much by his number two. it goes back to cheney/bush. that dynamic of, like, who's really in charge? >> s.e., i'm interested in getting your take here. given that ryan is the pick. romney's kind of gone back and

forth, it seems like, on his strategy for how to talk about medicare, how much to talk about medicare. what would you advise him to do? >> yeah. you know, first, i'm not going to disagree with you guys. medicare is a winner for democrats and a loser for republicans. i will just tweak what you said a bit. i don't know that they have 84 days to educate the public. don't forget this budget's been around for a year and a half. it was litigated by everyone from president obama to catholic bishops and, yes, voters. you're right, now we will have to reintroduce it and learn again what's in this budget. if -- if i were advising romney, i would tell him that all he has to do is pound away at the reality that medicare is going broke. and it is interrupting us. all paul ryan did, this is what i would tell him to say. all paul ryan was doing was putting together one plan to solve the inevitable problem that we will face in about a decade. and if you don't like that problem, then come up with

another solution. so that's a way for mitt romney to sort of put obama and the democrats on the defensive and say, what's your proposal? what would you do about this? you wanted to talk about entitlement reform. you don't anymore. paul ryan is the only one who did. again, it's very hard against a paul ryan's going to kill your grandmother, you know, it's a hard argument. that's where i would go. >> i agree with you that that's the best place for him to go. in order to do that, though, he has to be more specific about what it is that the romney plan exactly would look like and how it differs from paul ryan's plan. >> right. >> because you can't ask the president what are your specifics when you haven't given your own. >> right. >> i don't understand how romney can take ryan and not take his central idea that marks who he is and the reason why you take this guy. >> he can take the idea. he can tweak it and reform it to be a more palatable and politically expedient version. >> i don't see how you do that. you take ryan. you own that plan. you can't say, i'm going to take

ryan a little bit. >> here's the big problem. we're sitting here a few days after the vice presidential announcement and this is what we're talking about. the fact we're having this conversation and every other show is having the conversation about medicare -- >> are we going to be having it in october or november? we might be getting it out of the way. >> if they don't provide their detames and get all the questions answered, we will continue to ask. i think you're right. they have to get it all out there. >> which the romney campaign has been doing so good at so far. >> they've been great at that. straight ahead, can men take care of their kids without women? i can. many can. a new lifetime docu series sent all the women in a small town on vacation for a week. what happened? we'll talk to the creator, next. it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do...

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it's hard to keep track, man.

i haven't slept in six years. i'm tired. this morning i tried to put a shirt on my legs for five minutes. i love you kids. but you're making daddy stupid. >> men are hilarious. yes, he brought a baby to a bar. that was a clip from nbc's new series "guys with kids." about 30-something dads trying to hold on to their youth and their little ones. for as long as time, that's been a struggle for many fathers. luckily mom is around as well. but what if she wasn't. that's the idea behind lifetime's new five episode docuseries "the week the women went." moms in a small south carolina town left for seven days and left dad and the kids behind. in the guest spot today is the doc's -- >> e enough. do you understand? >> i want my mommy! i want my mommy! >> i want your mommy, too! okay? >> i want mommy!

i want mommy! >> in the guest spot today is the doc's executive producer, elli hakami. she is the senior vice president of programming and production of bbc worldwide. "the week the women went" premieres tonight at 10:00 p.m. on lifetime. elli, welcome. >> thank you, nice to be here. >> what were you setting out to do here? was this meant to just be entertaining or is there some serious sociological project here? >> i think we were setting out, you know, in a very simple way. which is ambitious at the same time. remove all the women out of one american town to see what would happen. with that, that was the goal. what then happened was kind of, as you saw in the clip, was individual stories played out in their own kind of fantastic way. >> but why remove the women? is the premise here that women are sort of underappreciated and let's see what happens when men are left to their own devices or what? >> i think that, you know, obviously this is a bbc format

that has played around the world. it was actually the idea originated with one of the programmers in london. i think there was a moment, a moment of inspiration where he felt and he thought, what would a world be like without women? and let's take it from there. >> a lot of hilarious hijinx ensue. we have a clip from a dad trying to get his daughter ready for a pageant. >> behind the stage we had the real professionals moms and daughters like football coaches doing this 40 years for their teams. then you had a bunch of rookies like myself and other dads trying to draw from other people's experience. >> we looked like a bunch of sad amateurs in comparison. >> elli, can we have a keep it real moment between us? i'm a father of two. my son is 4. my daughter is 3. my wife goes to london for work for a week. about three, four times a year. i take care of my kids. everything goes fine.

we have a good time. there's difficult moments. i've had that moment -- >> so he says. >> -- that we showed in the beginning. in my home, in millions of homes the dads take care of the kids. everything goes fine. there's a sharp rise in the number of stay at home dads in america right now. i feel like you're presenting a somewhat sexist promise that if we remove the women, the men will be clueless and ladies of lifetime look at how difficult life is for the men without you. >> well, i think, you know, look. i think that one of the things that, you know, everybody has to keep in mind is that this is about the individual stories. like you said, what happens in your household is very much about you. and about your wife and your kids. i think that what we set out to do is also tell individual stories. so for darnell a for the fathers, their individual stories are that a lot of them haven't ever combed their daughters' hair. now they're charged with putting on this pageant and making a dress. i think those were the individual stories that we found

in this really wonderful small town in south carolina. those are the stories that we set out to tell. >> but there's an overall premise that men need women in order to parent children. >> yes. but i also think that a lot of time was spent at women's camp. and we also see the women's perspective. because i think what happens at the end of the series is that a lot of people think that this is about, you know, this experiment is about the men. but i think what you see as the series goes on is, it's just about -- it's just as much about the women, too. so, for example, there was one woman who, you know, she was at women's camp. she was like, i have just so much wanted this vacation so i could have adult conversation, be away from the screaming kids. she said, you know what? i don't feel whole without them. the experiment cults both ways. it's just as much about the women as it is the men. >> i wonder if you could tell us a little bit about this town.

this is a small town in south carolina. low country. it's about 1,000 people. i think i just looked it up on wikipedia. >> yep. >> i've never been there myself. how much do you think, you know, would the story play out differently here in a town like this than, say, in new york city where our gender roams mles may little more traditional in a small town like this? >> that's a good question. the one thing we really set out to do is find a 360 view of all the roles women can play no matter where we were. so if we were in manhattan or if we were in yemassee, south carolina, wub of tone of the th important to us was we found women playing all sorts of roles. we had two women who participated in the experiment who had to leave their businesses behind for a week in the hands of their daughters. which was something they had never done before. we also looked for, you know, people who were prominent within the community and community

leaders. you know, again, we were looking for a 360 view. i do think obviously if we had done this in manhattan we would have found very different stories. but that was, again, as i said, our goal was to try to remove all the women as much as possible. i think if we tried to remove all the women out of manhattan, i'm not sure the show would have made it on television. >> i wouldn't mind. to that point, you talked about the men having trouble combing the kids' hair and the women really missing their children. those are sort of what you would expect the reactions to be. was there anything here that really surprised you? >> yeah, there were definitely some surprises moments. i think that for me, and i don't want to ruin the storyline. but there was a couple that throughout their marriage they had only been away from each other twice. and so the week away was -- was actually, you know, was very impactful for them. i think that what happened with

those two for the course of the week was probably the most surprising storyline for me. >> it's "the week the women went." docu series on life "time." thanks, elli. meet the banker turned social entrepreneur with an 80% return on investment in america's students. [ male announcer ] now you can swipe... scroll... tap... pinch...

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yan. his organization is offering hope, opportunity and best of all employment to thousands of what he calls tis connected youth. in his new book he explains how his organization is transforming lives by giving students the skills that they need to find a real job in just a single year. thanks so much for joining us, gerald. >> thanks so much for having me. >> over 80% of your graduates go either on to college or they find a job within four months. tell us how you do it. >> well, "year up" is a national nonprofit organization that in one year helps low-income 18 to 24-year-olds go from poverty to a professional career. we do that by combining six months of intensive training and development in our programs around the country. we're in 11 cities. and then six months of an internship at one of 250 organizations or companies across this country. >> gerald, what i'm really excited about with your program is it seems like there are principles here that could be

applied more broadly to help the country at large. what are some of the big principles that we could take from your program and apply either to other programs or existing public education system? >> well, we work very closely with community colleges. we see that system as an incredibly important system in this country to help young people go from their work, their education through to careers. what we believe is that our community colleges can be more connected to the labor markets, i.e. training young people for the skills that are not only in demand today, but increasingly will be in demand tomorrow. it's something we focus on at year up heavily as understanding what are the skill demands out there in the economy. how do we help young adults learn not only the hard skills, but very much those soft skills as well around the attitudes, behaviors and communication skills that employers really need in a knowledge-based economy. >> yeah, gerald, i commend you

on your program. when you talk about soft skills and communication skills you really get at what i want to talk about. which is the extra skills that you see that your african-american entrants to the program have to deal with. the extra unique things that they have to learn to get ahead in the economy. >> well, you know, for many of our students we work with a population that's 95% of color across the country. have served about 6,000 young people since we started the program. for many of the young adults we face that haven't had the role models in terms of what professional work looks like, what are the attitudes and behaviors of that environment, indeed, many f of our young adults are the minority within the environments they're going into. that requires at times a certain amount of what we call code switching. going from how i might act and behave in my neighborhood to a different way to act and behave in a professional environment. it's something that all of us do when we go to work. for many of our young adults

they haven't had those role models in the existing networks to help them learn what is that attitude and behavior look like? how does it manifest itself? we're proving they can learn that quite quickly and be very successful in those environments. >> one thing i've found in talking to those sort of young people is that code switching sometimes is a philosophical problem. they see it as akin to selling out. they're asking me how can i do it without selling out. i'm like code switching is not selling out. is there sometimes an issue of just selling them on the concept of code switching? >> we talk to our young adults about having a new stage upon which to act. for many of us, there are stages we act on in our lives. we're not saying that the professional world is the right place to be, the best place to be. what we're saying is if you want a job and a career path in a company like google, facebook, linkedin, bank of america, jp morgan, we can help you understand the rules of that game. you can choose if that's the place you want to act, the place

you want to interact. we're not making a judgment about that environment. what we're saying is we know that environment well. know how to prepare you for that well. there are certain benefits associated with being in a career in a company like that. we're really saying it's additive rather than losing something or really selling out. it's gaining a place you can bring your skills and your talents to earn a good living. >> gerald, when i first heard about your program it reminded me of the "60 minutes" segment that aired just this past sunday about a way to train adult skilled workers who have been suffering through long-term unemployment thanks to the recession. they're employable, but because of the current market a lot of employers are sayingly employed the next job. they're really in a bind. there's another program working with these adults. i think we have a clip from it. let's play it. >> we ought to be giving every moment of our time figuring out how we're going to restore for

them the american dream. >> joe carbone is president of something called the workplace. it's the state unemployment office in southwest connecticut where people get job training and placement help. carbone has a reputation for innovative job programs, but he has never seen so many people out of work so long. >> there is no comparison to being unemployed for six months and being unemployed for 99 weeks. your needs change in a drastic way. >> it was a really interesting segment. it made me think of your program. are we seeing a movement towards nontraditional ways to train a job force now? >> that's a great question. we've had a very myopic view of what college looked like in this country. and so a college graduate was four year, fixed term, residential. what we need to do in america is broaden our definition of what college means and call it post secondary education. and recognize there are multiple enterprising pathways that a

young person can choose to get into the labor force. that could be a certificate program in technology. an associate's degree through a community college. a four-year degree. we have to value multiple pathways and recognize that the majority of americans will pursue not a four-year, fixed term degree but pursue one of the these different pathways. we have to treat them differently, value them differently and recognize that's the route we'll be taking to get a skilled work force in this kunry. >> we appreciate your hard work in this area and wish you a lot of luck. thank you for joining us today. next, we've got a very different kind of education story that's making headlines today. penn state could be in bigger trouble. steven toure, they're ready to weigh in on this one. [ male announcer ] the perfect photo... [ man ] nice! [ male announcer ] isn't always the one you plan to take. whoa, check it out. hey baby goat... no that's not yours... [ hikers whispering ] ...that's not yours.

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♪ listerine® whitening... power to your mouth. starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. if you're the president, you can't say the worst crime in college sports history happened on my watch and i did nothing. >> what happened at penn state is horrific. it's the worst scam we've sort of seen in college athletics. it cries out for serious punishment. the ncaa has no business being involved here. the punishment i'm talking about should be criminal and civil in nature. >> that was me and toure with a friendly disagreement over the ncaa punishment about the penn state sex abuse scandal. now the organization that issues

accreditation for the school is warning renewal is, quote, in jeopardy. if revoked it could mean the loss of financial aid, the loss of money for currently enrolled studen students. the biggest consequence, degrees could become worthless. there's a process playing out. penn state's going to have to respond to this request. basically what this association is interested in is some sort of a recommendations have been laid out in the free report for penn state to sort of reform itself. penn state basically has to show it's going to reform itself and it's taking these steps. at that point, everybody sort of expects this accreditation issue will go away. i don't have a problem with any of this. i think penn state should be forced by some sort of authority to show it's complying, show it takes this seriously. if it were to thumb its nose at something like this, absolutely start talking about accreditation. above and beyond that i don't think accreditation should be something we're talking about revoking right now because, again, we're talking about collateral damage like i just outlined that would affect students who really, as horrible as the situation is, tens of thousands of students with their financial aid, degrees, if penn state's not asking for it in

this situation i don't think -- >> i think nobody at this table and most of the people listening do think that penn state should lose their accreditation, right? everybody agrees that should not happen. although i -- my -- i feel the hairs on the back of my neck rising when you're talking about the collateral damage and you've talked about that before and others have talked about that before. when we're talking about many men losing their souls, right? going through a lifelong penalty for having been molested and or worse. >> we have to be able to have a conversation about this. if we're going to keep saying that, it's true. this is horrible. i can't say it enough. this is the worst college scandal, one of the worst scandals of any sort i've ever seen. if we're going to talk sensibly about how we should address it and how we should move forward with it we have to be able to discern between this is a reasonable step, this is a reasonable punishment, this is not a reasonable step in this situation, not a reasonable punishment. i don't think if penn state accepts the reforms and makes real good faith efforts to implement the reforms, i don't think accreditation is something that should be stripped. i think we agree.

>> we afwree on that. >> i'm not trying to soft pedal this at all. >> no, but you have consistently argued against penalty for the institution when the institution -- >> i'm not against civil penalty. >> there's something more than a legal problem happened here. the legal problem will happen here. the civil cases will happen. this is greater than that. this is an institution -- >> what's the penalty -- if you don't think accreditation is at issue, what's the penalty that's noncivil and noncriminal. >> i'm not sure. i supported the ncaa stepping in. you did not. i'm supportive of other things happening. there are other bodies that sit above penn state and watch what they're doing. more than the legal system which sits over all of us and watches what we're all doing. there are other bodies that must act. there must be penalties for an institution when its leadership lets down everybody -- >> you don't want to punish the academic, you know, area here. i think one of the problems with this, at least the way i saw it, was that so much emphasis has been put on college athletics

that it's often to the detriment of the academic program. you don't want to penalize hard working students who go to penn state for academics. >> nobody's talking about doing that. >> this isn't about penal sizing t the students. yoeb wants to lose them accreditation. i don't think this organization in charge of their accreditation would be worth its salt. if they at no tididn't at least warning. especially given the language in the free report which talked extensively about the culture at the university as a whole. to your point, the fact that the athletics were taking over the academics. it's really not -- this sounds sort of heartless to say. it's not really about the students and the impact. it's about are they following the guidelines and doing the things they need to do to be an accredited university. there are very specific things there. >> there's a broader issue you sort of get at there. you're talking about the sort of core problem people keep coming

back to here with penn state is the athletics impeded -- became bigger than the entire university. football became bigger than the entire university. in this case it fed this horrible, you know, sex abuse scandal. i thinkcase, it fed the horribl sex abuse scandal. the issue of athletics getting too big and dictating campus policy, that goes far beyond penn state. doesn't always lead to a sex abuse scandal, but it leads to bad things. there's a risk here that we isolate sochl so much on penn state. what is penn state doing? penn state should not be off the hook here, but if we want to have that conversation, we need to broaden it. >> that argument is exactly like steps like this need to be taken so that other schools because penn state is not a -- other schools see there is a consequence when they do allow athletics overtake. >> i'm very uncomfortable with the calculus of somebody or

something needs to be penalized, but let's make sure we don't penalize other people around the situation. let's not send this corporation, that is very problematic. >> needs to be smart. needs to be intelligent. we need to figure out who did this, how this was allowed to happen and make sure those people are held accountable. >> but the people represented the institution. it's not players who are the rank and file or the student. this is the leadership of the institution and thus the institution itself must suffer. >> i would argue the the institution of penn state no matter what happens from any outside agency, the institution is suffering. penn state's reputation is gone and never come king back in my lifetime. that's a real punishment. >> right, but there must be official punishment. >> that's going to be the $100 million lawsuit. it's going to be huge and i said rightly so. any way.

forgot i'm leading this segment. coming up, what paul ryan -- he sat down can s.e. cupp before most people knew who he was. s.e. is talking about paul ryan, next. they have names like idle time books and smash records and on small business saturday they remind a nation of the benefits of shopping small. on just one day, 100 million of us joined a movement... and main street found its might again. and main street found its fight again. and we, the locals, found delight again. that's the power of all of us. that's the power of all of us. that's the membership effect of american express. ♪ [music plays] ♪ [music plays]

so, it begins. the fighting over paul ryan's budget plan and entitlement reforms is underway. if you thought throwing granny off the cliff was bad, you haven't seen anything. the obama campaign has already set out to demonize the the

romney ticket. the truth is, medicare will end whether romney and ryan are elected are not because these programs will be bankrupt in a decade or two and they're bankrupting us. everybody knows this, including president obama. last year in a joint session of congress, he said we are spending too fast to sustain the program. we have to reform medicare to strengthen it. now, however, the re-election is pop us and with millions on votes on the line, the obama campaign wants you to forget the urgency of medicare. what a change of heart. i sat down with paul ryan last summer and he predicted this sort of thing would happen. >> i'm familiar with the tactics he would use to demonize those who try to put up alternatives. what i think people who agree with the president believe is that they have a nullified notion that there's an alternative out there to their

way of life, world view, plan for the country. they put the country on the path. we know what it looks like. they've got obama care, cap and trade coming. here we are, we put out a plan to fix this problem, pay off our debt, balance the budget, maximize economic freedom, have prosperi prosperity. we're in to show the country you can get the american idea back and so what they would like to do is delegitimize this. delegitimize the notion there's another plan out there that's alternative to the path they are on and if they can shoot the messeng messenger, they can win the argument by default. i think that's what's happening. >> ryan knew his budget would be controversial and could cost him re-election, but it would never pass. it was always meant to be a conversation starter. last summer, it was a conversation president obama wanted to have, but now, solving entitlement can wait. the new conversation is is

ryan's very bad, terribly evil plan, to solve entitlement reform. this election it's been said, will be about a choice, denial, distraction. to me, at least, the choice is pretty clear. okay, guys. >> so, obviously, i disagree with a lot of what's in there, but one thing i wanted to say is the rising cost of medicare and the rising cost of health care in general is the primary driver of the problems with medicare program. and the president did put forward the affordable care act, is an attempt to start to bring down this health care cost. >> cut 700 billion from medicare. >> he didn't cut that from medicare. he cut that from a give away to hospitals and insurers and is putting that back into the more benefits for seniors, but we should keep in mind it's the cost of health care that's the problem and the romney plan doesn't do anything to address

that. he shifts the burden on to seniors. >> right, but these are entitlement programs. >> sure. >> simply have that conversation. and instead of continuing that conversation, the fact that he had it is being demonized. >> ezra klein, always smart, which was basically, you have two theer ryes here. the obama care plan. we have the biden vision, they're at a certain level, untested. >> i'm sure this is not the last time we're going to talk about medicare. karen finney, it's all yours. >> thanks so much, guys. good afternoon. i'm karen finney for martin bashir. it's tuesday, august 14th and here's what's happening. >> paul ryan. >> paul ryan. >> paul ryan. >> i think paul ryan is the perfect pick. >> are