todd akin throws the missouri senate race into chaos with incendiary comments about rape and abortion. augusta national announces it will open its doors to female members. is there a better day for us to talk about women and the american political landscape? it's monday, august 20th and this is "now." joining me on set today, new york senator kirsten gillibrand, sally quinn of the "washington post," salon.com editor at large, joan walsh, author of the book "what's the matter with white people, why we long for a golden age that never was" and from dallas, texas, senator kay bailey hutchison. great to see all of you ladies. two years ago, the house of representatives saw an historic setback when the number of congresswomen dropped for the first time in three decades. there are currently just 73 women in the house representing

16.8% of the lower chamber and it's not much better in the upper chamber, where female senators are 17% of the senate. at the state level, 88% of governors are men. of the 100 largest cities in america, 92% of mayors are male. four states, mississippi, iowa, delaware and vermont, have never sent a woman to the u.s. congress, either the house or the senate. the united states is far from a leader for the rest of the world when it comes to female representation. the latest report from the interparliamentary union finds the u.s. ranked 79th in terms of female participation in national parliaments. among the nations with higher percentages of elected women are rwanda, afghanistan, china and cuba as well as 22 of the 27 eu nations. but what better illustration of just how male dominated the debate has become than comments made yesterday by missouri congressman and current u.s. senate candidate, todd akin, asked about whether he supported

abortion in cases of rape, he said -- >> it seems to me first of all, from what i understand from doctors, that's really rare. if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. >> akin's opponent, claire mccaskill, called the comments ignorant and offensive and shows akin doesn't understand what a rape victim goes through. >> this statement is kind of a window in his mind. for most missourians, i hope this is a gut check moment and they realize this is not somebody we want speaking for us and our values on the floor of the united states senate. >> today, mitt romney gave a strong condemnation of akin's words, telling the national review online quote, congressman akin's comments on rape are insulting and frankly wrong. i have an entirely different view. what he said is without merit and he should correct it. a lot happening today in the area of women's concerns. senator gillibrand, i guess the first question is, were todd

akin's comments representative of the political dialogue that is too male-focused? >> i think it is. clearly, if we had 51% of women in congress, we would not be debating whether something is a legitimate rape, whether we should be having contraception and whether employers should make that decision. we would be debating the economy, jobs, national security, things that really matter. so i really believe what our generation needs is a nationwide call to action to make sure more women's voices are heard. we need women voting in this election. we need women holding these elected leaders accountable for what they've said, for what they've done, for what they believe in, and we need a transformative call to action that can actually change what this dialogue's about and what our national priorities are. >> senator hutchison, i want to go to you because you are also serving in the senate. are you surprised at this debate over abortion and women's issues continues to be such a talking point despite the fact that everybody has acknowledged that the economy and sort of the great debate on social issues

and american fiscal policy is really what the country is hungry for? >> yes, i do think that the issues that should be the focus of this election are jobs and how we can create jobs, how we can get this debt down in a responsible way. i hope we can get back to that. i don't think anyone believes that congressman akin was giving the views of any other person but himself. it was just outrageous and he knows that, and i certainly don't think he represents a party in any way. i do think more women in congress, more women in the senate would be very important for us to have as a goal, and i think there has to be an acceptance that women will be judged by their views on the issues that affect people's lives and i think that is what we need to base our decisions

on, and i think more women bringing their views to the table and their experiences to the table are very important. >> i have to say, senator hutchison, the romney team responded very forcefully on this and there have been other opportunities where they have not perhaps responded as strongly. you are saying that congressman ash akin is not representative of the party. do you think this has ramifications for the race against claire mccaskill? >> i would assume so because i would assume that the people in missouri feel the same way that governor romney and i feel, that these comments were wrong, but i don't know. i don't know what the situation is in missouri. i think jobs ought to be the issue. i think obama care ought to be the issue. i think how we get down the national debt should be the issue that people look at, and i think how he handles those -- what he said, he's got a lot of apologizing to do and i hope he

does it and i hope that he gets right on the issues that matter in missouri. >> i want to open this up to you guys as well. what's amazing about these debates on women's issues is that very often, the folks debating them are men. >> right. >> and the question is how do women not only take back the debate but move it on to things that people actually care about, and when we talk about women and higher office, what we see is a trend downward. we're talking about congress may reach a 30-year low in terms of female representation. there was a study done last year asking women, prominent women in law, business, education and politics whether they were interested in running for higher office. in 2001, 23% of men were asked the question -- sorry, 23% of men said they were interested. 18% of women said they were interested in running for higher office. in 2011, that number had dropped, 14% of women were interested in running for higher office. i guess, you know, let's unpack that. is that -- you look at what's happening on the women's health

stage of sort of the debate around women's health, you look at how women in public office are treated, you look at the difficulties in terms of campaigning. is it a surprise that women, less women are inclined to throw their hat in the ring? >> can we go back to todd akin for a minute? >> yes. >> we don't want to waste this opportunity. i agree with kirsten and with kay but i also think that this guy is so over the top that he's not representative of most people, although he is representative of a small group of republicans who believe absolutely, most of them are smart enough not to say what he's saying in public. >> can i just interject one thing? there was a bill in congress called redefining rape that paul ryan supported. >> exactly. >> it went in this direction. some rapes are real rapes and some are not, so he is not isolated. i don't link him to senator hutchison but todd akin sadly is not isolated and if he becomes

the person who topples claire mccaskill, that is a national tragedy and that will get women out into the voting booth and i hope it gets women out into running for office. >> the other thing is, it's put the romney people in a real bind, because they are anti-abortion, and what todd akin said actually represents most people who are anti-abortion, which is abortion is murder and it doesn't matter how the woman got pregnant. if you murder the fetus, you're murdering a human being. so when they say well, we're in favor of it for rape or incest, they're basically saying we're sort of in favor of murder but sort of not. so they're really caught up in a bind on this one. >> again, senator, paul ryan in 2011 was one of the congresspeople that supported a narrow definition of forcible rape, that is absolutely worth mentioning. but again, this dialogue that we're having over rape, over

personhood, over defending planned parenthood seems largely to be conducted by men. i wonder when you are inside the senate, you're watching this go on, what is the discussion among the women who are representatives as far as why this legislation is being pushed forward? >> what it represents is the lack of women's voices in our democracy on the level that it should be. to have only 17% women in congress, to only have six women governors, to have a panel on birth control, the first one held in the house to not have one woman being part of that testimony, it shows that women's voices really aren't being heard. if we could have a rosie the riveter for our generation that created the call to action, asking women to vote, to be heard, be advocates on the issues they care about and hopefully more women running, truly, if we had 51% of women in congress we wouldn't be debating these issues. we would be talking about the real issues. kay bailey hutchison is on today, she's written a bill called the infrastructure bill, with john kerry. it is a common sense nonpartisan idea about how to create jobs in america. to unleash the private sector's

ability to be the investor, the direct equity investor in long term infrastructure projects of national significance. what a great idea. if we had more women, we would be doing things like small businesses, made in america, where we have small business u.s. based manufacturing, they would be rewarded. >> senator hutchison, it's like we have a democratic senator praising a republican senator on live television. it doesn't happen very often. are women more bipartisan than men? >> well, i think kirsten has been such an advocate for the infrastructure bank and i so appreciate that, and i think it's well known that the women senators meet for dinner about once a month and we do have a good relationship. we do allow that we have different views on the issues and we represent different states and that's very important, but we don't try to tell people from a different

state and a different party that they should vote on controversial issues in some way. we sort of rise above the politics and in that way, we are able to come together when we are unanimous on something and we have a huge voice, and sometimes that's on women's health issues and issues of what's covered by insurance, and those kind of things, where we've been very effective. but i would also like to go back, alex, to your original question about why women don't run, and one of the issues i think is the tenor of politics and looking at the presidential race, looking at some of the things that are done in these local senate races, it turns women off and they think why would i want to get into a destruction derby when i have a nice life, i've worked hard, i'm in business or i'm a mom and i'm a civic activist, whatever, they

don't maybe want to get into this sort of nastiness of politics. i think that should be part of the factors considered here. >> can i just add to that? i think you're exactly right. the reality is, particularly with this independent money, this secret money, it's flowing into these campaigns in the tens of millions of dollars. what it's doing, most of that money is spent on negative ads. so if all of the voters hearing, all the young women are hearing negative ads pounding these opponents they won't want to run for office. they will say i'm not going to put myself or my kids through that. so you're reducing the number of talented, bright people, particularly women, who want to serve and that has to change. >> campaign finance reform has to be done next session, kirsten, because these pacs that have no accountability and you don't know who is contributing to them, is absolutely a part of this problem. >> yes. pacs are no doubt part of the destruction derby, as you call

it, senator hutchison. we'll be talking a little more about the destruction derby and also after the campaign, what happens when women become legislators. we will discuss the challenges women face as leaders and lawmakers, next. this man is about to be the millionth customer. would you mind if i go ahead of you? instead we had someone go ahead of him and win fifty thousand dollars.

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that's the double standard, definitely. we're always having to fight to be heard and then having to defend ourselves when we are vocal. >> a lot of women don't know their true potential and since it's always been this old boys club, i think a lot of women are afraid to break into that

sector. >> this year, a record 298 women are running for congress. that's up from the previous record of 262 in 2010. but it's unclear if more female candidates will lead to more women representatives. two years ago, the number of women serving in congress dropped for the first time in 30 years, when women do run for office they tend to do so not in a bid to grab power but because they are driven by a desire to actually focus on the issues. according to rutgers university, 46% of women who ran for state senate four years ago did so because they wanted to focus on policy. that's compared with 36% of men. senator gillibrand, we were talking in the block before about bipartisan legislation and women have an ability to work together and perhaps if there were more women serving in congress we might get more done. it is not a particularly good climate, though, for women in congress. the national journal reports that one-third of senators characterized as centrist were women in 2010, but we do know there are going to be prominent retirees. senator kay bailey hutchison. when we talk about women and a

distaste for running for public office, we have to be fair and sort of look at the last couple years and how we treat our women electives. one of the stats i found staggers, nancy pelosi saw $65 million in gop ads, 161,203, including one in which she was portrayed as the wicked witch of the west. we are also talking about the treatment of michele bachmann and sarah palin in the national media. women look at this stuff and if you want to run for office, you have to completely dismantle your personal life and build a coat of armor around yourself th that a lot of women are unwilling to do. >> that's true but when women do run, they win, so they are very good at raising the money, running the tough campaigns, getting it done. this election cycle, we have such opportunity. we have 11 women running for the senate right now, five new challengers, six incumbents. among them, you have at least two pickup opportunities in nevada and massachusetts. so there's a lot of opportunity out there for women this year. largely because patty murray, a

woman, is head of the democratic senatorial campaign committee so she's helping select the candidates. when women are asked to run, that's when they respond. that's why i want to create this rosie the riveter because if you remember, that was a request during world war ii for women to enter the work force. they responded overwhelmingly. six million women entered the work force because of that iconic image. i want to create a similar request of america's women to vote, to hold these members accountable, to run for office, because women just need to know number one that they're needed. number two, that they can make the difference, their voice is the difference in setting the agenda, changing the level of the debate, getting things done. i think kay bailey is a perfect example. what women are so good at often is listening, building consensus, finding the shared common core values and building legislation from there. that's why we tend to get things done. we can put aside our differences but come together. frankly, that's what we need more of in washington. >> why don't you be rosie the riveter? >> i agree. >> i launched the campaign called off the sidelines.

we have been doing it nationwide trying to get more women, democrats, republicans, all women, to again hold their elected leaders accountable, vote and hopefully run for office. they just need to be asked. >> senator hutchison, you know, we hear a lot of talk about mama grizzlies and republican soccer moms. do you think the gop has done a good job in terms of cultivating the next generation of female republican leaders? >> oh, i do. i do. we have excellent women candidates for the senate. deb fisher is going to win in nebraska. we've got heather wilson in new mexico. we have linda lingle, the former governor of hawaii. we've got wonderful candidates for the senate who are willing to take on these tough races and linda mcmahon also in connecticut. we've got really i think strong candidates who are women, who will add to the dialogue, and i believe that the republican party has reached out and i do

think women now feel welcome in both parties, and i think that it is the views on the issues and the leadership potential that people vote on. some of the most touching moments that i have are fathers bringing their daughters to see me, to say i want her to see a woman leader and that she can do it, too. i campaigned my first campaign was on homemaker iras and i had husbands come up to me and say oh, my gosh, thank you, for giving my wife a chance to have a homemaker ira like i've had all these years but haven't been able to do for my wife, who does stay home and raise our children. i think that we sometimes focus on issues that men aren't against, but they haven't had the experience to know that they're issues. that happened when i was in the legislature and i passed the bill for rape victims to have

equal treatment under the law, and it wasn't that men were against that. they just had never had it brought up until we had women in the legislature. >> given your track record on that, do you think if there were more republican women in office there would be less of a focus by the republican party on these sort of issues that todd akin is talking to, redefining rape, and more focus on the things you just prioritized? >> i think that women do add to the dialogue. conservative women do and liberal women do. i think we add a level, when you have a legislative body that should be representative of all the people, you do need more than 17% of the people represented being women. and so i think we bring that to the table but it doesn't take away from the fact that kelly ayotte and i are conservative women. kelly is one of our women of the future. she's going to have a long career like kirsten. she's about the same age, and

they are going to be the women of the future and they're both strong, they're smart, one's conservative and one is more moderate to liberal, but that's what we need. we need women at all levels who can be what they are and yet bring something to the table with their experience that is lost if you don't have women at the table. >> well, we are certainly happy to help in a search for rosie the riveter. i want to thank kay bailey hutchison of texas and kirsten gillibrand of new york. it is an honor and pleasure to have you both to discuss these very important subjects. coming up, from basic health care to owning a business, will the next generation of women have to refight old battles? senate candidate elizabeth warren joins the conversation ahead on "now." >> certainly obama with the health care reform strikes me as women's rights that that

supports. >> i don't think that anybody's really committed to any sort of women's rights. they just kind of waffle between whatever group they're standing in front of, whoever they're speaking to. i think they go with the tide. obama included. this is the plan that revolves around you. introducing share everything. unlimited talk. unlimited text.

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i feel where i am right now in my profession, that i have the same opportunities as the males in my profession. >> many, many big corporations that i've worked for, it's always a man at the top. they're the ceo, the vice president. it's very hard as a woman to climb the corporate ladder. i've been in that position and it's definitely not easy for us. >> it's been nearly 50 years since the passage of the equal pay act but pay is hardly equal. in 1963, women earned 59 cents for every dollar a man made. today, the disparity is down to 77 cents. the inequality doesn't stop there. according to the u.s. women's chamber of commerce, in the years leading up to the financial meltdown, women were 32% more likely than men to receive subprime mortgages and now with the recovery underway, women, particularly single women, find themselves having difficulty paying for food, health care, mortgages and rent. joining the panel now is the woman whose discrimination case went right to the supreme court, fair pay advocate, lily

ledbetter and from massachusetts, senate candidate elizabeth warren. a real honor to have both of you on the program. elizabeth, i would like to go to you first. as we talk about the discrepancy in pay between men and women, why are senate republicans still fighting legislation to account for that gap and to make pay equal? >> you know, boy, i got to tell you on this one, i don't know the answer. this is a really simple proposition. equal pay for equal work. equality has been what our country's been founded on, and women are just saying when it comes to the work force, we just want to make sure that we got a piece of that, that we are being treated equally with others. that's all equal pay for equal work is about. and i cannot believe that the republicans have lined up entirely against it, including my republican opponent in this senate race. just amazes me. >> lily, it was your name that was on a bill that president obama signed into law talking

about fair pay. are you surprised that, for example, when asked about the lily ledbetter fair pay act, mitt romney had no response, that as elizabeth warren points out, there is still no sense among many in the republican party, especially leaders of the republican party, that this is an issue, that fairness is a real issue. >> it shocked me. i am really discouraged in romney's campaign, since they didn't know anything about the ledbetter bill or didn't know what they would do with it. there was six seconds of silence. that should have been a no-brainer because the ledbetter bill was sponsored by republicans as well as democrats and that's what it takes to get this country back on track and to get all of the american families paid equally. >> elizabeth, on a purely political -- the level of political calculation, look, you want female votes and the idea that he now, mitt romney has a running mate in paul ryan who voted against the ledbetter pay act you would think would hurt him among the female electorate,

yet that's not an analysis the campaign is doing. >> all i can surmise is they are hoping no one pays any attention to it that, they can keep the attention somewhere else in this campaign. you know, i really want to say on this, this one really matters. this is something that echoes throughout a woman's life. it matters to young women when they get started, when they get started in their jobs. it matters to women who are trying to raise families, whether they're trying to do it alone or whether they're part of a two income family with a spouse. it matters because it matters in the money that goes into their retirement accounts and whether or not they will be secure in their retirement years. equal pay for equal work is something women need and we need it from the beginning to the end, and not having it, it's a punch that happens every single day to women, and this is wrong. we shouldn't be doing this. women have a right to equality here.

>> it matters, let me please add, it matters to men, too. a lot of two paycheck families, if the wife is being discriminated against, then the whole family is suffering. it should be a broader social issue and it struck me when you mentioned the level of republican support for your bill, that is a measure of how far right the republican party has drifted in just three years under president obama, because now, three years ago, mitt romney i believe would have said that's a no-brainer and now he feels that if he's going to court this far right base, he can't say he would support that. >> literally he cannot support it, he's doubling down on a position that is squarely against it insofar as he's chosen paul ryan. i do want to talk about women and the economy overall because we think about this as sort of a women's issue or a man's issue but it's really an american issue. elizabeth, in an op-ed recently, you were writing that in 2009, most women who filed for bankruptcy had been at one point

solidly middle class and that more than -- >> oh, yes. >> there were more than a million women that filed for bankruptcy, more than graduated from college, received a diagnosis of cancer or filed for divorce. this is a major issue in america. >> this is -- go ahead. i'm sorry. >> proceed. go ahead. >> i was just going to say, this is a reminder of what unequal pay does over time to women. it just goes back to the same basic issue. women work hard, they play by the rules, they get out there, they get an education, some of them get married, they buy homes, they have children. they get good jobs. but they hit a bump in the road. unemployment, a serious medical problem or a family breakup, and it just turns them upside down financially. and when they're not being paid equally, it means they've got far fewer resources to call on, and that's why it is that we've seen rising numbers of women in bankruptcy. all families, we saw rising

numbers of people in bankruptcy, but the number of women filing for bankruptcy was moving much faster than the number of men filing for bankruptcy. >> when we talk about the recession and its effect on women both in terms of subprime mortgages, unemployment, getting jobs after the recession, you worked in a field that was fairly male-dominated and i guess i wonder, in your own personal experience, do you think that women are adequate advocates for themselves in terms of getting what they deserve? >> not always. not always. but there are those obviously that do, we do advocate and fight for what -- >> like you, for example? >> yes. because i felt like in my initial beginning that i was being a trailblazer, that this was setting the pace and giving an example to a corporation that women could do these jobs. it was a great job for a female and it was a good job if you were good in management and it helped support families but elizabeth is exactly right on

the hardships. in my case, i've learned that this is just the tip of the iceberg. there are so many families across this nation that are not getting their pay and as she stated, this goes on for the rest of your life because the senior group of women that are out there today are like myself. we are outliving our spouses by ten years, our income is so much less not because we didn't work, simply because we did not get the pay we were supposed to. >> elizabeth, the institute for women's policy research shows us as of june 2012, men have regained 46.2% of jobs they lost since the start of the recession. women have only regained 38.7% of the jobs they lost and in some part, that's because men are now taking jobs, i hesitate to use the word taking, but men are now employed at jobs that used to be largely the purview of women which is to say education and health services. when we talk about fixing this and getting women back on their feet, which is part of getting

america back on its feet, what do you think the message needs to be? i guess specifically perhaps what does the message to everyone need to be and not specifically towards women because too often when we talk about women, it's an audience for and by women and it really needs to be to men, to americans writ large. >> that's right. this is why i got into a senate race, something i never thought i was going to do. i never thought i would run for public office. but as i see this, this is really about whose side do you stand on. i think there are two very different visions for the kind of country america builds going forward. the republicans have made clear what they want to do. they want to cut taxes for the thin slice right at the top and then they want to leave everyone else, all of our families, everyone, just to pick up the pieces. i think that the way we build an economy going forward is we ask those at the top to pay a fair share, but we really concentrate on the things that families need, the things that individuals need, the things

that working people need, and that means we do things like we invest in education. we invest right now in jobs, putting people back to work. we invest in basic infrastructure, the things that will give our businesses a competitive advantage and help create jobs over time. we invest in research because we build a big pipeline of ideas and that works for generations to come. in other words, we invest in our people. we invest in our families. we invest in the heart of america, not in the thin slice at the top. it's really two different visions of the kind of people we are and the kind of country we're trying to build. >> sincere thank you to senate candidate elizabeth warren. great to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> coming up, from congressman akin to foster freeze, members of the republican party continue to show a startling lack of awareness when it comes to women's health. are we returning to the dark ages?

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that's smarter power today. 52 years after the fda first approved the sale of the pill, a republican megadonor said this. >> this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it's such inexpensive. back in my days, they used bayer aspirin. the gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly. >> 42 years after president nixon signed title 10 into law, prioritizing access to contraception and providing funding to groups like planned parenthood, governor mitt romney said this. >> planned parenthood, we are going to get rid of that. >> today, planned parenthood announced it was committing $3 million to expand breast exams and education. last year they provided more than 750,000 breast exams nationally, yet defunding the organization has become a priority policy for the republican party. reacting to comments made by

missouri congressman todd akin on what he called legitimate rape, dnc chair debbie wasserman-schultz said i'm outraged at the republicans trying to take women back to the dark ages. it's deeply concerning that republicans continue to support legislation that is quite literally dangerous for women. gabrielle union is an actress and women's health advocate and joins the panel now. great to see you. thanks for coming on. >> thank you for having me. >> today has been a big day. we have been talking about todd akin's comments about women and rape. augusta has opened its doors to women, which i guess is a sign of progress in what we are calling the dark ages or potentially the return to the dark ages. i guess i wonder as someone who is concerned about these issues, a, are you surprised at where the debate has gone, but b, more importantly, how do we get more young women involved in this, when they see the sort of toxicity out there when it comes to the discussion around women's health and women's issues? >> where do i start. first, let me say i'm here as an

actor and activist but also as a rape survivor. i'm on the national advisory committee for violence against women. i speak out against all sorts of women's issues. todd akin, i was shocked and i would say sad and upset. i shot todd a little twitter message today explaining, kindly explaining, though i didn't realize there was a need to, that all rape, todd, is legitimate and every rape victim should have equal access to services and justice. just in -- >> and health care. >> and health care, in the same way i believe all women should have equal access to quality health care and preventive services. >> the fact that you not only have firsthand experience here, i think entitles you to speak not only as a woman but as a survivor on this, the shame which is a plank here that's

part of the republican sort of platform at this point when it comes to discussing women's health, shaming women, intimidating them, making them think less of themselves and almost dehumanizing the experience, that's what he was giving voice to in a lot of ways. >> he absolutely said your experience is not valid. >> right. >> whatever that is. it's not valid. i'm here to throw a blanket over all of you because it's pretty much the same and i'm here to be judge and jury as to your experience. and what sort of access you should have made available to you. and that goes for any sort of women issue -- women's issues. i don't understand how we're moving in this direction. it's counterproductive. >> it's not just todd akin's comments, either. there is movement happening on all levels, whether the state level or the national level. texas of course ended funding for family planning providers, which served 130,000 low income women. 22 states have introduced personhood initiatives and then

can we forget virginia governor bob mcdonnell and his much-touted trans vaginal ultrasound. joan, we talk about distractions, we talk about shame, we talk about intimidation. there's also some sort of hunger here at the state and national level to keep this stuff in the ether through policy. >> it seems kind of shocking but it seems to be part of a culture war approach to politics that republicans believe worked for them. they really play on people's fear about the independence of women, changes in the family, they blame it on women and they feel like if they could keep us from exercising all those freedoms, we would be better off but i want to say one silver lining in all of this mess i think has been the activism online and elsewhere on the part of young women. we used to talk about why aren't young women feminists and why do our issues seem so foreign to them, and then you got rush limbaugh, it was very unfortunate that he called

sandra fluke what he did, but i think rush limbaugh, a, woke women up to all of this is now under attack and b, he made feminism kind of sexy. we're all having so much sex, we need the taxpayers to pay for it. >> that's one way to put it. we are having so much sex. sally, do you think in the long term, this kind of rhetoric, this kind of debate, inspires women to run for public office, to participate in the electoral process? i know, i will reference the piece on the cover of "the atlantic" that said women, you can't have it all and now more than ever there's this sense of the forked paths, you can choose this or that. >> well, i think this is a moment, this is kind of a last gasp is what i think, and i do think that the republicans who are using and they are predominantly republicans who are going after women, think that it's going to work as joan said, and a lot of it i think is religious right driven, that the

religious right is the group that really keeps women down. they really don't -- they do think a woman's place is in the home, but i don't think it's working. i think it will backfire and i think ultimately, women will rule the world. and i think, you know, every time you turn around, there's some new glass ceiling that's been broken and i think that this is sort of a desperation move on the part of a small group of people. look at them, they all get laughed at. they all end up looking foolish and even getting criticized by their own people. so i don't really think it's a bad thing in a way. i think it energizes women, it turns women against these people and it makes women say wait a minute, you know, this is ridiculous. >> it gets lily ledbetter and gabrielle union on the road talking about women's issues, women's rights, pay parity and women's health concerns which is hugely important in terms of the 21st century and women's

participation. thank you all. thank you both. thank you for participating in this. we have to let you go because i have to move on to the next block and my post-script, next. people have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. but they haven't experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast. visit fastreliefchallenge.com today for a special trial offer. visit fastreliefchallenge.com mornings are a special time for the two of you...) and now you can make them even more special... with new fancy feast mornings. mornings are delicious protein rich entrées... with garden veggies and egg. each one perfectly designed... to start her day with a little love. new fancy feast mornings gourmet cat food.

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now to my post-script. >> maybe they don't know them. maybe they don't get what's going on and i still think that this is really not going to be a popularity contest. it's going to be a contest based on jobs. >> so very many outrageous statements have come from the mouth of the donald, america's birther in chief. he who will be awarded statesman of the year by the republican party of sarasota next week during the republican national convention. but maybe, maybe they don't get it deserves some special attention for what it signifies, a tip of the hat to mysogeny, to

a worn-out, baseless claim that women don't actually know what's going on in the world or what's good for them. they just don't get it. they're too busy washing their hair or gossiping or walking small purse-sized dogs. but perhaps mr. trump should take a look at what women do know. which these days, happens to be a lot more than men. more women than men attend college. more women earn bachelors degrees than men and have for the previous 16 years. and while 10.5 million men earned higher degrees last year, that's a lot of higher degrees, 11 million women did so, too. but what's book learning good for? just liberal elite media take-downs of fearmongering, race-baiting comments, right? this election is all about the economy, about getting back to work, about strengthening the american middle class and just like the donald said, maybe women don't get what's going on there. the truth that pesky and inconvenient thing that only occasionally makes its way into political debates is that women, not men, are on the front lines

of the battle to keep households solvent, to make ends meet and to stretch a dollar as far as it will go. 94% of women say they pay the bills. 87% say they are responsible for managing their household budgets. and 76% of women say they are the ones in the family planning for retirement. trust me, mr. trump. women know what's going on and given the fact that women made up 53% of all voters in the last presidential election, it might behoove you and the wing of the gop that calls you statesman of the year to perhaps pay closer attention to what women are thinking. at the very least, try to curb yourself from making more statements regarding women and their intelligence. in the end, all it really does is highlight the fact that it's you who really doesn't get what's going on. thanks again to lilly, gabrielle, joan and sally. that is all for now. see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. whoa, look at all those toys. insuring that stuff must be a pain.

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