what do you need to fix this problem? we will get you what you need. that does it for us tonight. "weekends with alex witt" starts now. this morning, paul ryan gears up to appear with his mother at the world's largest retirement community in florida. will he be able to defend his medicare plan? we are live. also, a close look inside the president and vice president's relationship. what some in the know are saying this morning. and after a mild winter and the summer job forecasters are predicting a big change. and andy cohen is telling us how he lied to get his first big celebrity interview. alex is off. i'm craig melvin. happening now, front-page politics and president obama back on the campaign trail. he used his saturday address to hammer home the need for jobs, specifically the need for

quality teachers. >> if we want america to lead in the 21st century, nothing more important than giving everyone the best education possible, from the day they start preschool to the day they start their career. >> later today, the president will campaign in new hampshire, meanwhile, mitt romney started his own weekly podcast today. >> hello this is mitt romney. and this november, america will make a choice about the direction we want to go as a country. and nowhere is that choice clearer than on the issue of medicare. >> today, romney's running made, paul ryan, on the trail with his mother in florida, at a huge retirement community there, talking about medicare and other issues imported to seniors. joining me now forefront page politics, david mcnamara and joy ann reed. good saturday to both of you. thank you for getting up so early. let's start with paul ryan,

let's start with mitt romney's running mate again in florida at the retirement community. talking to seniors about medicare. both written extensively recently about this topic. joy ann, what do you see the risks, what do you see as the benefits of the speech today? >> i'm still trying to recover from the mitt romney podcast. >> hello. >> good morning. >> hello. >> they have to take it on. put paul ryan on the ticket. you have to take it on. paul ryan is the best explainer of his own medicare plan. it's smart to rush into it. for the last week they are trying to dodge medicare reforms and they can't. >> you wrote about two defenses that they are using. what are the two defenses? >> first one is hey, barack obama cut medicare first. it's him that cut medicare. journalists aren't buying it, he didn't cut it by $716 billion. they stopped paying bonuses to insurance companies, drug companies and other providers and the cbo said that would save

over time $716 billion. a complex argument, but not a cut in medicare and it didn't touch beneficiaries. that's number one. second one is we're the ones who are trying to save medicare, we're going to save it actually, the problem is, you know, seniors now may not face it. people over 55, because they wouldn't get the vouchers, seniors favor medicare and don't want the cuts, even if cuts don't hit them. polls show seniors, people over 55, don't like the idea of voucherizing medicare, even if it doesn't affect them. >> david, what will it take for paul ryan to have a successful saturday in the sunshine state? >> craig, i think for the romney campaign, what -- as joy said, they are trying to neutralize the obama campaign attacks on of this. that won't be easy. i was with the president when he went down to florida. a senior home in palm beach. and this was before paul ryan on the ticket. he was saying -- the president saying what the republican plan would do is leave you on your own if health care costs rise, it will turn into a voucher

system. you will have a voucher, but won't be able to afford health care. some of these little groups are planning a protest to keep the pressure on, but as joy said, think probably smart for the romney campaign to go ahead and get this debate on before the convention, have the debate, put it behind them and move on to jobs and the economy. >> david, mitt romney and paul ryan set to campaign separately, until the convention, now they are going to be appearing together in new hampshire on monday. what can we make of the change? >> interesting. romney campaign said basically, you know, mitt romney feels more comfortable with paul ryan by his side, more energized. before he was on the ticket, mitt romney was having trouble connecting with voters, obama campaign was making him seem aloof and distant. not one of the common man. but what paul ryan's more common touch is to give mitt romney not just bigger crowds, but more enthusiastic crowds, and i think

that mitt romney is feeding off the energy, and some people noticed that he's been sharper on his attacks and even more so than -- usually you let the vice presidential candidate do that. have you seen mitt romney do it himself. >> joy ann, been on the ticket exactly a week now. how has paul ryan done so far? >> polls are showing he hasn't given mitt romney a bounce. i think because there are so few undecided voters left, not much of a bounce for anyone to get. he did run away from the reason they put him on the ticket, which made the campaign seem disheveled. the first day, they did a good job, after that they seemed notton how to answer the most obvious question on the table, which is why do you want to turn medicare into a voucher system? one thing i will disagree with your other guests on, look, you won't be able to move on. this is about medicare until move. there won't be a pivot back to the original message of jobs. what romney wanted to run on.

when you put a guy on your ticket, probably the strongest ideologue in the republican party and his ideology reinvolves around changing medicare, y have to have that conversation on election day. >> thank you, both. appreciate your time. >> thanks, craig. the bond between president obama and vice president biden, and how they work together we'll talk about that in ten minutes. and officials in dallas ground plans to spray a pesticide due to bad weather. west nile virus is blamed for killing ten people in the dallas-ft. worth area and infecting others. this week, the city started aerial spraying for the first time in 45 years. the centers for disease control and prevention says the en pidec

is spreading. take a look at this torrential rain soaked southern california, causing a massive mudslide. residents say it sounded like a freight train coming down the mountain. one woman rescued, she's okay this morning. your saturday forecast. a little rainy here in the new york area. nbc meteorologist bill karins here with the forecast for us on this saturday. bill, good morning to you. >> great saturday morning to you, craig. a lot of changes this week compared to past weekends, active weather in the tropics, heat in the west and a totally different weather pattern in the middle of the nation. somebody start you in the gulf of mexico. any time we have a tropical storm in the gulf of mexico, we need to pay attention. i challenge to you find the storm. usual the bright yellow is the cloud tops, it's very small, weakening, right along the mexican coast during the day today, moving inland and possibly weakening and

dissipating throughout tonight. not an issue for anywhere in the united states. so how does this weekend look? very cool, crisp, fall-like morning in the ohio valley and great lakes, and rain linger in the eastern portions of the northeast. and the warm weather continues out west during the weekend. first the rain in the northeast. gloomy, rainy, sleep in saturday morning from areas of massachusetts, rhode island, connecticut, and also new jersey. this afternoon, the sun should break out in most areas, especially late in the day. temperatures cooler than it's been and you will notice it. albany, buffalo, and pittsburgh. in the 70s, a lot of heavy rain overnight in oklahoma. just what we need. thunderstorms continue in areas of arkansas, and any state in the country, yoeshg has had some of the worst drought conditions. forecast for your this saturday, looking stormy from texas down along the gulf coast. from denver to chicago into portions of ohio, what a beautiful weekend for you. and it looks like we'll stay just as nice assist we go into

sunday. craig, a break from the big summer headlight at and drought. it's about time. the mars rover out on its first road trip. it will aim its laser blaster for the first time. taking 30 shots at a rock formation on the red planet. it's powerful enough to vaporize tiny bits of rock. it's part of a two-year mission if the planet most like earth could have ever hosted microbial life. the $2.5 billion rover landed on mars earlier this month. it's worth noting that the curiosity rover is on twitter. in fact, britney spears asked a question earlier this week, asking if mars looked the same back in the year 2000 and posted a link to "oops i did it again." the recover responded. hey, brit brit, mars is still looking good. maybe some daiane yday, an astr

will bring me a gift too. a prediction for this year's winter? it won't be like last winter. and bravo's andy cohen tells alex about his first surprising job in television. in "office politics." [ obama ] i'm barack obama and i approve this message. [ male announcer ] you work hard. stretch every penny. but chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him... mitt romney made twenty million dollars in two thousand ten but paid only fourteen percent in taxes... probably less than you now he has a plan that would give millionaires another tax break... and raises taxes on middle class families by up to two thousand dollars a year. mitt romney's middle class tax increase. he pays less. you pay more. mitt romney's middle class tax increase.

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mr. biden not making any appearances today. a new article takes how the obama/biden white house has been formed. after this comment on tuesday. >> romney said in the first 100 days, he will let the big banks once again write their own rules. unchain wall street. they are going to put you all back in chains. >> amy parmes wrote the article in "the hill." she is the white house correspondent for "the hill." good morning to you. >> good morning, craig. thank you for having me. >> you write advisers insist that these guys, the president

and vice president, have never been on more solid footing. >> that's right. they have been through a lot the past few years. they have formed a bond. have weekly lunches, compare notes quite a bit. the vice president is always the last person in the room, which is something that means a lot to him. on a more personal level, they root for the same -- two youngsters, president daughter's daughter sasha and vice president granddaughter macy are on the same basketball team. they root together on the sidelines. >> in an interview with "entertainment tonight" take a listen to what the president said. >> we don't spend a lot of time worrying about the chatter. the country is not as divided or obsessed with gaps or some stray remark as washington is. >> we heard it was phrased that way, what was your reaction? >> what joe biden was talking about, again, is an example of a

substantive argument, a subsubstantive issue that the american people should be concerned about, and his phrasing is a distraction from what is at stake. >> that sounds like a defense we always hear from folks who have to defend something that joe biden has said. he misunderstood it, took it out of context. people don't care about it. >> yes. but he is -- i think his strength outweigh his weaknesses, and the president and advisers have said all week, that was taken out of context. they say this guy is known as amtrak joe. people can relate to him quite a bit and that's why the president has used him in those roles. have you seen him go to capitol hill quite a bit to serve as a congressional liaison of sorts. incredible foreign policy experience, helped manage the end of the war in iraq. they have a lot to offer. >> i'm glad you said that. this guy, even before becoming

vice president, former head of the senate relations committee, joe biden a smart man so said things time to time that are dumb. go ahead. >> he says things off the cuff, but that's what people can relate to. he is not a poll tested guy. is he someone who can go out and work. he's a retail politician, like no one's business. he can go out there -- i was traveling with him this week, hes that that affect on people, he's this real guy people can relate to, and he's something, he offers something to the campaign that president obama doesn't offer. a lot of people see him as a little detached, and the vice president isn't perceived that. >> john q. six pack. do you think what the vice president does is deliberate? some of the things we call and characterize as gaffes are specifically designed to achieve certain goals on the trail? >> i think it's just an

effort -- he's in attack dog mode, so he will ramp up his game bait. but he wants to be portrayed as that real guy, joe from scranton, we'll see more of that on the trail i think. >> thank you very much. i appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> later, we'll hear from someone who knows something about vice presidential choices, megan mccain. why she thinks the president should drop biden. that coming up. wildfires raging across the west. some residents who were forced to flee are being allowed to see if they have a home to return too. kristen dahlgren live in washington just east of seattle. good morning to you what are conditions like right now? >> reporter: good morning, craig. overnight things tend to die down a bit. but it's still burning. they did get more of a handle on the fire yesterday. 40% contained. but far from out. late yesterday, we were watching

huge flareups. still 100 homes here in the danger zone. for the fifth day, the flames raced through the dense, dry pine forests, little to stop them but the hurricaclean effor from firefighters. >> oh, in i goodness. >> reporter: those with homes nearby keeping a close eye. >> what do i do? i mean, to continue on, oh, my god. >> reporter: making the decision on when it's time to flee, and what to bring. >> the neighbor said the first day, we have 20 minutes to evacuate. what would you do in 20 minutes? >> reporter: the awful reality and fear over what will be left isn't just playing out here. 52 out of control while fires are burning across the country. in idaho, featherville, population 500 in the summer, bracing for a blaze. the trinity ridge fire, just 4% contained. >> contact is still inevitable, it is going to get here.

>> reporter: residents could only listen as officials try to prepare them. >> it makes you absolutely want to cry. >> reporter: even idaho's governor preparing to evacuate his vacation home. >> i'm going to leave when they ask me to leave. i hope everybody else will too. >> reporter: already one death and 14 injuries, fighting fires in idaho. these pictures taken at the state spring fire, show just how intense the fight is on the front lines. as temperatures across the region continue to soar, back in washington, a new fear of what the weekend might bring. >> we've also got thunderstorm activity predicted. dry lightning for saturday. >> reporter: lightning can spark new flames and make this just the beginning. think about it. if they get lightning strikes they could come in areas that haven't seen rain in more than a month. so today, craig, really could be critical out here. >> kristen dahlgren for us in cleo. thank you, appreciate that.

straight ahead, new numbers show who rebounds from unemployment faster, married or single people? why the discrepancy? and lobster prices plummeting to record lows, but you may not see the cost difference on the menu. we'll explain. ed for their every financial need. and then, in one blinding blink of an eye, their tree had given its last. but with their raymond james financial advisor, they had prepared for even the unthinkable. and they danced. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you.

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including smartphones and tablets. the first plan of its kind. share everything. only from verizon. now add a tablet for only $10 monthly access. welcome back. what we talked about after our big money headlines. ups and downs, single hires and lobster low. cute little pictures to help you out. economy analyst, author of "black market billions" joining me to make sense of it all. two of the biggest names in the tech world if not two of the biggest names in pistol. facebook and apple and they are going in the opposite directions. >> right. facebook took almost a 50% hit to its stock because there was a 90-day period where initial investors had to hold on to the stock and that day, that period, ended on thursday.

so all the initial investors able to let go of that stock. >> couldn't wait to dump it. >> people can't draw that conclusion that that was the case, but, yes, the -- the end result was that the stock went down, it's taken almost a 50% hit, it opened at $38 now, and now around $19. that's what it closed on friday. >> what is mark zucker biberg saying about all of this? >> initially he said don't listen to them. a lot of analysts were questioning facebook's revenue model, saying stock price was overvalued. telling employees not to listen to it. now, sources were saying he had a meeting with employees, saying that this might be a little bit hard to ingest and take, but you really just need to focus on the social mnetwork and building a good business. >> apple continues to defy expectations. >> apple, 1$105 billion more thn the gdp of sweden.

>> let's talk about singles. singles seem to be finding jobs faster than married counterparts. >> single people were finding jobs, and sort of getting their jobs back in 2009. the rate was a little bit faster, out of the 5 million single people unemployed, 90% of them were getting their jobs back, versus their married counterparts, 6 million married counterparts, only 22% are getting their jobs back, those unemployed. >> what factors are involved here? >> a lot of singles are younger. people under 35 are able to get jobs faster, more willing to move for a new job, more willing to take a price cut versus married counterparts and married counterparts, a double income, so not too quick to move onto a new job. >> lobster prices in new england, hit a 40-year low, but

you can't walk into a restaurant and get a good price. >> this gets my goat. i love lobster, and still paying $18 for a lobster roll and lobster prices have hit a 40-year low per pound, $3.99. but the reason why i'm still paying $18 per lobster roll is the value pricing. restaurants feel you can only get the lobster roll, a very specific item, so they will price it out at that same price, because people like me can't get enough of that specific lobster roll, block island, get that one specific -- >> i was just at block island. >> i'll tell where you to go, amazing, but they still price it at $18. thank you for having me. paul ryan takes medicare challenge to the sunshine state. at one of the largest retirement communities in the world, and his mother is in tow. leave report from ron mott in ple florida. up next. [ female announcer ] most whitening strips

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guts. glory. ram. good morning to all of you. good saturday morning. welcome back to "weekends with alex witt." alex is off. i'm craig melvin. paul ryan will campaign with his mother by his side later this morning. how seniors receive him will be crucial because of the controversial budget and medicare plan. ron mott is traveling with paul ryan. ron, what can we expect to hear from him later this morning? >> hey, craig, good saturday morning to you. a big speech for paul ryan, in a very big place, the villages in florida, billed as the world's largest retirement community. one of the residents here, 60,000 folks who live here. paul ryan said the medicare program that he and mitt romney would like to address, they need to change it to keep it. president obama's plan is putting medicare on the track to

bankruptcy and insolvency, earlier in the week, he started taking on the issue directly, paul ryan, saying it's a debate that mitt romney and paul ryan wants to have, the country needs to have, and ultimately, paul ryan and mitt romney believe they can win. this has been a whirlwind week forpa for paul ryan. last week he was rolled out as romney's running mate. he will take a break tomorrow to go back to janesville, wisconsin before reuniting with romney in new hampshire. last monday, in des moines, iowa, at the iowa state fair, had a close encounter with a medicare protester, and in the past 24 hours, paul ryan has had to reverse course, after denying he sought stimulus funds back in his home state of wisconsin. yes, he indeed sent letters to win money for a couple of

organizations. one nonprofit got more than $20 million. those two, if you will, side issues, aside, it was a pretty good week all in all for paul ryan. he hopes to finish with a strong speech at the villages. his mother comes along with him. back to up. ron mott traveling with paul ryan in the sunshine state. thank you. we appreciate it. >> you bet. security forces in afghanistan on high alert for a national holiday. the caution comes after a deadly week for u.s. forces in that country. we are live in kabul with the very latest. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, craig. the pentagon issued new guide lines for service members in afghanistan, following a rash of green on blue attacks when afghan forces turn their weapons on the u.s. and coalition forces that they are supposed to fight alongside of. among these guidelines, the pentagon says all u.s. service members must carry a fully

loaded magazine inside their weapons at all times. these guidelines came following the death of two more americans in western afghanistan yesterday as the u.s. special forces went to farah province to train afghan local police. villages trained to protect their hometowns as the special forces were handing out weapons, one of the afghans took his, turned it on the americans, killing two in cold blood. insider attacks at an all-time high. there have been more than 30 incidents so far, and 39 fatalities, the majority of them americans. >> atia, be safe. thank you. despite recent deaths and the news that the army saw a record number of suicides in july, the war in afghanistan has received little, to no attention, on the campaign trail for the first time since before 9/11. this is a presidential campaign focused nearly entirely on domestic issues being specifically, the jobs and the

economy. joining me now domenico montanaro. >> good morning. >> have we heard anything about afghanistan on the campaign trail? >> not recently. in polling, most people overwhelmingly concerned with the economy and issues of foreign policy have taken a back seat. the president gets high approval ratings on foreign policy. one reason why it's been difficult for mitt romney to make the case that the president is -- is not doing a great job on foreign policy. you did hear some foreign policy this week, but paul ryan talking about china and mitt romney talking about iran. they don't want to touch afghanistan. mitt romney has not been very specific about afghanistan. i think they would be perfectly fine with the timeline that's in place, and let the president have to deal with the two hot wars. >> one of the big stories that i thought at least from the past week, that i saw you report on,

the amount of money that has been spent so far in this campaign, absolutely eye popping. what is it? >> we've crossed the half billion dollar mark in campaign advertising spending. more than $512 million has been spent in this campaign. half of that money from outside groups. nearly the entire -- nearly the amount of the entire 2008 campaign ad spending. it's really an unbelievable number when you consider how much that -- that money is when -- when 90% of the country polls have shown, everybody is locked in. you are trying to move the needle with the small 5% to 10% of people who might not even vote in the first place. might be a lot of money for nothing in a lot of ways. >> is the lion's share of money spent on tv ads, ground game operations? what does the majority of that money go toward? >> all of this money we're talking about is television and

radio ads. >> wow. >> the number is much higher for ground game for keeping the lights on in campaign offices and things like that. and nine out of every ten dollars of the outside money being put into the race are going to support mitt romney to hammer the president or support mitt romney, so there is a lot of money being spent. the president's campaign is still the -- the biggest spend every by far. more than 200 million, but with the outside groups coming in, crossroads in particular, they are spending over $100 million. bringing romney up to a point where now they are spending more than 2-1 over the president. heren d.c. market, great for our local tv station, but the ads are just -- i mean, it's just blanketing the air waves, where they are -- it's just -- you know, negative ad after negative ad, and we'll see how it plays. >> you have to wonder, i spent some time talking to voters.

you have to wonder what point do you think the company is sensitized as well. do you just tune out the ads? >> it's interesting to see. you are getting stuff from everywhere, and you wonder if you have reached a saturation point. >> domenico, thank you for your time. >> thanks. in this week's "office politics," alex talked to andy cohen, creator of "watch what happens live." she asked andy about his surprising first job in television. >> andy cohen paying bills in his office. what don't you do at this desk? >> i don't clean it. >> cheers, i had to get in the mood. thank you for doing this. this is the perfect thing to do. drink first thing in the morning with annie cohen. all good. except before we get to this fabulous, fun part of your life. a lot of people may be surprised to know that you were a true newsman. >> yeah, i was at cbs news for

ten years. it was great. i learned so much. and i think it formed everything i'm doing now, weirdly, in edit rooms and telling stories. >> you started as an intern, and you didn't so much like the fact that you got assigned to the consumer unit. >> didn't. i was at the consumer unit of the morning show, which i felt was like a double loser indemity. and so -- but i quickly realized, this is really exciting. in the doors at cbs news and doing interesting work, and it was exciting. >> yeah. >> and with regard to your love of pop culture, did that start with your love of "all my children," which i used to watch too, and i called it "all my brats." >> i loved everything on tv. "battle of the network stars" dvd somebody sent me. >> oh, my god. let me see this. that was like the gay olympics

for me. you know, that was my olympics. so i just love anything on tv. and i still do. >> i went and watched this be filmed. they were done at pepperdine. farrah fawcett, whole charlie's angels thing. you loved d farrah fawcett. >> what's not to love. >> you also love susan lucci. >> pint sized diva. >> how did you get the interview sr. you c ? >> i lied. i said, oh, it's going to run on the cover of the boston university newspaper. but i hadn't actually secured any -- i hadn't spoken to boston university's newspaper about it. i lied a lot as it turns out, but i don't anymore. >> but it's gotten you to where you are, so is this maneuver which people should be able to use or --

>> i don't think so, no. don't lie. >> so don't lie. andy cohen says not to lie. >> executive vp of the bravo network. how did you make that transition? >> from behind the scenes to on camera? you know, lauren and francis, two people that don't believe that job titles necessarily have to constrain you, and lauren asked me to do a blog, and then from the blog, i wound up doing an aftershow on bravotv.com at the request of lawylauren and f and then came reunion shows and then "watch what happens live." >> the idea for "watch what happens live," i read you took your experience watching the dynamics of the green rooms and you loved that? >> i loved the green room at the morning show at cbs. would you have tip o'neil and

joan rivers, and why are these two people together? that has been a deciding principle of how we book "watch what happens live." why is bruce jenner with amy sedaris. weird combinations of people. you love it. and no one does that really anymore but us. just put weird people together and see what happens live. >> what are some of your most memorable moments from the show? there has to be a ton of them. >> too many to count. every wednesday night is shotski night. jimmy fallon gave us a shot ski, and we do every wednesday night. >> i've seen it. >> live tv is so much fun. we had willie geist on, and he was on with tiffany thiessen from "white collar," but from "saved by the bell." he was a big fan from the day.

and we had viewers decide which teenage fantasy tiffany could satisfy for willie. >> that you could show. >> that we could show. and at the end of the day, they slow danced on the show. >> like a prom dance. very funny, believe me, i was up way too late last night watching. >> more of alex's conversation with andy cohen at noon when they talk about the truth behind the real housewives and the one question from annie thdy that president owe became refused to answer. all coming up at noon. going to extremes, from the worst of worst summers to the worst of winters. why is one forecaster predicting a brutal winter, next. [ male announcer ] hey, isn't that the girl

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weather predictions, a cooler and wetter winter ahead. we may see scenes like this. joining me now, dr. reis holter who wrote a book called "the instateable bark beetle." we won't talk about the book this morning, but i want to talk to you about the winter. how bad will it get? >> well, good morning, craig. by all accounts, it's -- there are going to be a lot of snow on the eastern seaboard, but more importantly, it -- the drought looks like it will persist on the plains, and that's really why we are right now. the mississippi river is down, craig, and this -- this is -- these aren't good times, man. >> and going -- looking ahead to the winter, when we start talking about the frigid predictions, are there particular areas that will see it worse than others? >> well, you know, we're hoping

that we're going to see snow in the rockies. that's for sure. and as i say, the eastern seaboard in january and february, supposed to get some pretty good storms. but, you know, what they haven't taken into account is this missing sea ice, craig, up in the arctic, and when the ice isn't there, all the energy that's stored in the arctic, bleeds up into the atmosphere, and then we get these huge blobs of the jet stream bringing more intense cold weather down into the lower 48 so it's a crapshoot right now, you know? >> let's take a look at past snow totals. we can pull those up. >> sure. >> take a look at these. i think you can probably see them on your screen there. is this year's prediction part of normal fluctuations or looking at something entirely different here? >> yeah, well, we are looking at something entirely different. the earth is warming up, and as things warm up, we are getting

wild storms, wild weather, and we are supposed to see higher totals, but, you know, it's like there is a new normal happening all the time, and we know one thing, the weather is going to be wild, and wooly. >> thank you, dr. reece halter, always a pleasure. love the orange shirt as well. >> okay, brother. >> that was richard belzer screaming here in the studio. he is going to be joining us a little later. should be a treat. up next, nearly 1.5 million potential voters in a key swing state may not be allowed to cast their ballot. the group battling on their behalf tells us precisely how they plan to fight. down here, folks measure commitment by what's getting done. the twenty billion dollars bp committed

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with just 80 days there's special urgency in the swing states where republicans fear voter fraud but critics say it keeps mainly minority voters from turning out. 25% of the african-americans and 19% of the latinos do not have the proper documents to vote. good morning to you, ma'am. >> good morning. how are you? >> i'm great. thanks for asking. >> good. >> which states in particular are you working? >> well, we're working in a number of states. unfortunately we're seeing all across the country this attempt to disenfran chiench the voters whochl are these voters? >> they're mostly veterans, senior citizens, african-americans, latinos, and college students. so in some states like pennsylvania, which is a swick state, we're filing an appeal

that would disenfranchise voters. what we're seeing for partisan gain these laws are being passed that will block people from exercising their right to vote which is the essence of our d m democracy. >> the judge said it your appeal applies to all. >> many don't have the proper i.d. the i.d. is very restrict irv. no one is against that. the problem is it's so restrictive you find large numbers of pennsylvania voters are not going to be able to get it. the offers where you have to go to get this i.d. in 13 counties are only open one day a week. in nine counties, they're

closed. they don't have one at all. so 35% of the voters don't know this law exists. if you live in the city, you may not have a driver's license. veterans may not have a driver's license. they're elderly. they may have disabilities. so if yo du do not have the pror i.d., you're going to be blocked from the polls. >> leila, i want to call your attention -- i should say call our viewers' attention to the poll because i'm sure you're familiar with "the washington post" poll that came out this week. when asked 74% think you should have to. 23% disagree. have you found public opinions hurting your efforts at all? >> not at all. when you inform people that the problem not i.d. but how restrictive it is and how hard it is to get. for example. if you take texas, college i.d.s are not accepted.

85% of the colleges do not issue a photo i.d. with the proper expiration stamp they would accept. many find these are insurmountable hurdles they're not going to be able to overcome and that's wrong. that's the one day that we are all equals when we can have our equal say in the voting booth. >> leila mcdowell. thank you so much. appreciate your time. have a good weekend. >> thank you. >> that wraps up this weekend. thanks so much for watching. be sure to enjoy two hours with alex witt at noon today. straight ahead, uppers, get ready. smart political talk, up next with chris hayes. germ party! eww! now the colgate total mouth. nice! [ female announcer ] colgate total fights 90% more plaque germs. i'm in. [ female announcer ] colgate total. less germs. healthier mouth.

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