you do what you do... because it matters. at hp we don't just beeve in the power of technology. we believe in the power of people when technology works for you. to dream. to create. to work. if you're going to do something. make it matter. good morning. i'm chris jansing. establishment republicans will just have to put up with todd akin. he won't go away and neither will the debate over rape, abortion, and women's issues. >> this is not about me or my ego but it is about the voters of the state of missouri. they've chosen me because of the principles i stand on. the people in my state didn't elect somebody who was perfect. they knew i wasn't perfect. >> of course you can't ignore that all this is coming in a

week that is really important for the republicans. they are gearing up for the convention in tampa and they were supposed to be talking about mitt romney, talking him up as well as bashing the president. instead, they had to talk about akin, women's issues, all over again. and it's allowed democrats to attack. >> is there a war on women? absolutely. >> i think these policies are out of the past and women across the country are certainly going to take notice of the republican party's platform. >> this is not your grandfather's gop. >> let me bring in "usa today" political reporter jackie kucinich and the grio's politics editor perry bacon. hello to both of you. so paul ryan called todd akin, asked him to get out. mitt romney has said publicly it's time to go. here was akin's response this morning. >> if you were in romney's position don't you think he may have bid this thing up and made a bigger deal about it than he needed to? why couldn't he run his race and

i run mine? >> why couldn't he run his race and i run mine, jackie? he doesn't seem to care that he's alone on an island. >> well, yeah. he is alone on an island and he has given up his house seat so he really has nothing to lose here. the problem is the republican party has a lot to lose. they're looking at the senate. they had a real shot at taking over the senate when he was a viable candidate. now that he's not so viable, they want him out of there because it's not so much about mitt romney as it is about the republican party. it is about mitt romney but not as much as the bigger picture here. >> when you step back and you look at it, it doesn't make sense that he's staying in i don't think. but i guess it's natural when you're in this kind of high pressure situation to listen to supporters, whoever they may be. let me just play for you some of the constituents in his district that we heard from yesterday. >> what he said was misguided. he admitted it was misguided. and i'm all right with it. i think he's --

>> i think he's a good man and i don't necessarily think he should drop out of the race although it may hurt republicans' chances to win. >> so, perry, what do you think his calculation is here? do you think, for exactly the reason jackie pointed out, this is a critical senate seat for the republicans. he thinks that they're going to relent at some point and turn over $5 million? what's going on here? >> yes. i think there are two thoughts. one like jackie said, he has nothing to lose. if he drops out of this race where is his political career? in a selfish way that is his incentive. my guess is he also thinks he maintains, is ahead or stays close in this race the republicans will eventually give him money. remember in 2010 they actually eventually gave christine o'donnell from delaware who said a bunch of crazy things some money at some point as well so the thing is to keep close enough and he'll be, republicans will put him over the top anyway because of how important his seat is for control of the senate. >> and he's fund raising off of

this. the democrats are as well. so far at least what we heard this morning he raised $11,333 which doesn't sound like a whole lot of money in a statewide race to me, jackie. >> yes. >> but then when he put up this sort of appeal, first of all they spelled your wrong i think three different times. it was supposed to be you're, rather, and he spelled it your. having said that, the real controversy was when the first one went up it had a picture of a fetus on it. is this exactly the kind of thing -- they pulled that very quickly. is this the kind of thing that republicans were worried about, jackie? >> republicans don't want to talk about abortion right now. they don't want to talk about medicare right now. they want to talk about the economy. anything that diverts from that at this point is a distraction and is not a good thing for their message. and so the fact that we're talking about todd akin still on wednesday when he -- when a lot of people asked him to drop out

on monday, that's a problem. >> yeah. and clair mccaskill is raising money off of it. >> who says he should sy in. >> they're sending out -- well the democrats want him to stay in. >> right. >> absolutely. senator fuch is putting out a fund raising letter. she is going to be speaking at the democratic convention. this is not an issue they're going to let go of. >> no. the big thing is how paul ryan and mitt romney now deal with this issue. paul ryan campaigning in pittsburgh today was pressed in an interview on a pittsburgh station about his position on rape and incest and whether there should be an exception in abortion. his position has been the same as todd akin's which is he doesn't support an exemption. he was pressed on that repeatedly today and wouldn't say what he was for and against. that is a big challenge and an issue the republicans don't want to elevate as jackie noted and now they'll be pressed about it not just in the national press but also the very important regional outlets they really

care about. >> i want to bring in congressman grahal a democrat from arizona. we have a few technical problems so i apologize. you're joining us on the phone. let me start with this that is going on with todd akin. is it as he claims a distraction? here is what the republicans are saying. democrats are trying to paint everyone in the republican party with a broad brush and use this one person as an example because it's good for the democrats. what do you say is going on here? >> i think it's -- [ stand by audio difficulty ] -- you look at their platform on the issue of women, on the issue of choice, it's consistent. akin is merely saying out loud what is already written. so it's not an aberration. it is his message. the same can be said for the issue of immigration as part of that. very extremist, disdainful of

the latino community. further isolating that group and it continues to be a pattern that he could be part of a dialogue in this debate for president of the united states. it's their platform, their leadership, akin being one of them, that steadies the tone. so it's not an aberration do you find it interesting as somebody who has been involved in politics for a while platforms are something that never got very much attention. now suddenly we're looking at the republican platform as it relates to abortion and looking at these arizona style immigration laws that are part of the republican platform. do you actually see a scenario where come october and november people are actually looking at the platforms of the parties and making decisions about how to vote? could it become that big a deal? >> well, i think it will be because i -- that is the policy manual for the party. and the policy manual the republicans are putting out is

harsh. it's painful, disrespectful. it disconnects itself completely from the latino community. of course, we're all going to look at that part very carefully and let the community and voters know what it says. i think as a manual of policy, it is going to be looked at and it should be because that is the guide ideological and philosophical of the party. >> congressman grijalva again we apologize for the technical problems. thank you for joining us on the phone. >> no problem. thank you. >> i want to run through some interesting numbers from the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. this was supposed to be a week for the republicans to really put the positive spotlight on mitt romney. first the horse race. the president leads mitt romney by four points. here is one of the big takeaways. mitt romney has a couple challenges going at the convention. one he has to repair his image and, also, sell his medicare proposal. is there time, jackie?

>> i mean, this is going to be a close race no matter what. i mean, i think to the end it's going to be a close race. with medicare, i mean, they haven't had -- they haven't explained it yet in a way that, i mean the medicare numbers are all over the place and so, you know, it is -- whether they have time, i don't know. i mean, it really depends on what that message is and how it captures the voters. >> i think one of the consistent things in this poll is that for some reason people don't seem to relate to, even like mitt romney. more people have an unfavorable view of him and when you compare a whole list of qualities, everything from being easy going, likeable, on women's issues, caring about the average person, president obama is beating him and not by just a little bit -- by huge margins. so can this convention, perry, help him reverse that? where does he even start especially again when the conversation is about todd akin? >> i think this lack of the this

likability gap, every poll shows voters like obama about 20 points more and find him more caring as a person. so this can be a time to explain who is mitt romney, talk about his family, talk about his wife. this can be the real time to narrow that gap. that is the challenge. there is time. the conventions and debates are huge events and that is when undecided voters will tune in and choose who they're voting for. obama is not at 50% yet so there is still room for romney to come back in this race but the convention and debates are going to be huge. >> how important now especially given everything else that's going on, jackie, do you think his convention speech is? >> could be extremely important. if it's the most important speech to date at this point i think. because he -- he is, i mean, really it's his first big speech to people who might not be watching as carefully as they, you know, the rest of us have. so, yeah. it's extremely important and i think that is why they're working hard on it. >> we should also say in this poll it's not all good news for the president.

there are a couple big areas where he is behind. having good ideas to improve the economy. changing business as usual in washington, which was of course something he talked a lot about four years ago when he was running. are there ways for him to change that, perry, are there ways for mitt romney to capitalize on that? >> i still think there are ways for mitt romney to capitalize on that. the president, this race has been pretty stable for like the last five months. the president in our poll leads between three and six points throughout. so there are ways to change that because obama has not, like i said, not got over the majority support yet and most of the polls, the majority of the voters say the economy is not improving. romney can make a case on those issues but he has to improve his likability. people have to think he's caring. he has to improve those numbers first and then they'll listen to his message about the economy and medicare and those issues in more detail once voters like him as a person more. >> fascinating stuff. perry, always good to see you. jackie, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> political watchers are also keeping a close eye on what could be. let's call them two major

stories descending on tampa in time for the gop convention. the first is an actual storm named isaac that some forecasters say could reach category three strength so you're watching that closely. the other vice president joe biden will be going to tampa for rallies on monday just to keep the democrats in the spotlight. he even joked he was going to be a speaker at the convention. we'll be right back. [ kate ] many women may not be properly absorbing the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption.

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what was supposed to be the selling point for mitt romney, his business experience, is hurting more than helping him according to our new poll and his taxes, both the percentage paid and not releasing more of them are also a minus. a column in "the washington

post" argues that for the first time in american political history we have two wealthy candidates on the same ticket whose priorities are aimed at helping the rich but cutting programs for the poor. "the washington post" columnist and msnbc contributor matt miller calls them draw bridge republicans and he is here with me. so what is a draw bridge republican? >> a draw bridge republican is what it sounds like. it's a wealthy republican who is pulling up the draw bridge behind them and shutting off opportunity for the middle classes, working classes, and others. i k it think it is really notab that we haven't had on the national ticket two folks who either both came from money, mitt romney came from money and made his own sizable fortune obviously. paul ryan which we've learned since he was named reports assets between he and his wife that may be up to $7 million from their various trusts and inheritances. and, yet, their priority, their chief economic priority is to cut taxes on the top further even though they're already at pretty low levels historically

and to raise taxes on the rest of us and to cut programs serving low income americans and even worse cut programs like college age, pell grants, the kinds of things that allow upward mobility for people who are less well born to rise. and it really makes you wonder what they're thinking and how americans once they understand the full impact of these budget proposals and priorities won't be shocked. >> as you know, they'll say you're misrepresenting it and they'll make two points among others. the first point will be that by cutting taxes on the wealthy it gives them more money to hire more americans to bring down the unemployment rate. that's the first thing. the second thing is the paul ryan mantra is you have to be more realistic. we've gotten ourselves into so much debt. barack obama has gotten this country into so much debt they will tell you that tough decisions have to be made and he's not willing to make them. >> here's what's wrong about both of those arguments. first, we try, the supply side mantra in the 1980s. we cut taxes on the top.

we didn't end up -- we ended up with huge deficits. we didn't end up with a situation with faster growth. bill clinton as you know in the 1990s raised taxes just modestly on the top and we had a boom, 23 million jobs over eight years. on the paul ryan argument the real hopes there, even if we have to slow the growth of social security and medicare as the boomers age and we do that doesn't mean you deepen the hole we're in in terms of deficit by cutting taxes deeply on those who are best off and by slashing programs like medicaid that provides health care for the poor, food stamps, other services that a decent society should have as a safety net. in england by contrast you have david cameron, a conservative prime minister who is also an heir himself, not unlike a paul ryan or a romney in terms of his financial status. he has the exact opposite view. he put off a cut in the top marginal tax rate of oo% there which he pledged to do in the campaign because he said when you're trying to lead a country through difficult times you have to lead in a way that is both

fair and seen to be fair. now, i say that's a conservative ruling class with a conscience. can you imagine ryan and romney saying anything like that here? >> well, it is interesting. it's not americans who have pushed away from people who have done well. that's the american dream i think. >> absolutely. >> the last survey was something like 47% of members of congress have a net worth that makes them millionaires. so it really isn't about being well to do although i wonder, matt, how you think that the very different kind of person that barack obama has been, although he has now made a lot of money with his books and so on and so forth and joe biden taking the train back and forth. >> right. >> in a time like this it does make them more relatable than someone of wealth. apart from their policies. >> i do think it makes them more relatable. what i'm saying is not anti-wealth at all. it's the idea of wealthy candidates on a national ticket who lack what i think is the moral imagination to see that by proposing just continued breaks

for the very, very top at the expense of all those who in a global economy with rapid technological change, the threat now because of the rise of india and china that jobs can be offshore we've got such a hard pressed middle class, such a hard pressed working class that the idea of the cheap economic priority and cure for everything is tax cuts at the top, it doesn't make sense and is even out of character when you think about mitt romney in massachusetts he is the only governor who passed a universal health care plan back when he was governor. he sort of walked away from all of that. so i think there is a deep, psychological confusion that's unattractive in my view and i think voters will find it unappealing as they focus on it. >> matt miller, great to have you here. thank you so much. meantime, as we're talking about the conventions, tropical storm isaac is brewing in the atlantic and it's threatening the republican national convention in tampa next week. look at this radar. right now the storm has sustained winds of 40 miles per hour. kerry sanders is at the florida international university of miami where engineers are

experimenting with building designs that could with stand wind gusts of up to 200 miles per hour. right in the middle of it, kerry, what's going on? >> reporter: this is unique because i'm in a 30-mile-per-hour wind which is a little less than isaac but this is a controlled setting here at the wall of wind as they call it. i'm going to walk over here and sort of step out of the 12 fans that they have. these fans that are set up are fans that typically are used in mine shafts. the engineers have put them together and now as i step out the engineers inside are going to crank it up to about 150, maybe 160 miles an hour, which takes us back to hurricane andrew here 20 years ago. that was a category five storm. now, what's interesting especially as we consider the republican convention in tampa at the code of uncertainty, we don't know whether isaac is going to make its way there or not, upwards of 60 to maybe 70% of the structures built in the

hurricane zone that have not experienced a devastating hurricane are built under what are called the preandrew construction rules. that means the nails in the roof are a little different and more shoddy and the construction is not really designed to with stand what we have right now, 117 miles an hour. it's climbing. you can see it's going to 130 miles an hour. we're going to take it all the way up here to 156, maybe even 160. if you look to the left, you can see, yes, it's lost some shingles. but that post andrew construction is sturdier whereas to the right you can see it's not only taking off the shingles but some of the paper which means there's just a thin sheet of plywood on the roof there meaning the water can get in and now we're 158 miles an hour. this is a true category 5. eric is a meteorologist here. what we're looking at is the water can now get through and get inside. everybody is looking at tampa

wondering about issac. you are a meteorologist so you won't say anything definitive but what is the lesson? what should we be recognizing right now especially for all these people from around the country who have never been in a hurricane? >> realize we're coming to the hurricane capital of the united states and for the people coming to the tampa area being prepared and staying informed and listening to local authorities, if that storm looks like more of a threat to that part of the state local authorities will start recommendations for evacuations. >> that is going to be complicated but not impossible. getting people out of town is always difficult because everybody wants to wait. in those final as you know, chris, in those final days, 24 hours, you never know if it's going to make a hard left, hard right. you never know what is going to happen. people always think they can wait it out. the real problem is if you wait it out then there may not be a seat on the plane to go back to california, go back to oregon, or to perhaps go wherever the authorities decide they're going

to move the convention. >> kerry sanders, who is going to have a busy upcoming week i have no doubt. thank you, kerry. good to see you. politics now is up next. follow the wings. [ kimi ] atti and i had always called oregon home. until i got a job in the big apple. becoming a fulltime indoor cat wasn't easy for atti. but he had purina cat chow indoor. he absolutely loved it. and i knew he was getting everything he needed to stay healthy indoors. and after a couple of weeks, i knew we were finally home! [ female announcer ] purina cat chow indoor. and for a delicious way to help maintain a healthy weight, try new purina cat chow healthy weight. andatd anc ]lelib f way to help maintain a healthy weight,

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but that doesn't mean we should be penalized for it. that's why liberty mutual insurance policies come standard with accident forgiveness, if you qualify. learn more at libertymutual.com. to politics now where the campaign trail looked a little bit more like an attack fest yesterday. first, paul ryan went after the president on guns and religion. >> remember this other time where he was caught on video saying people like to cling to their guns and their religion. hey, i'm a catholic deer hunter.

i am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion. >> then in reno president obama attacked mitt romney for being out of touch. >> a few months ago governor romney told a crowd of young people just like you that if you want to be successful, if you want to go to college or you want to start a business, then you can just, and i'm quoting here, borrow money if you have to from your parents. harold did your parents have a whole bunch of money to lend you? >> then paul ryan with another hit saying he has as much foreign policy experience as the president did when he ran in 2008. >> most of the traveling i've done has been to the middle east. i've gone to afghanistan and iraq to meet with our troops, to learn from them. obviously i have a lot more experience than barack obama did when he became president. if you take a look at our

current posture, president obama is, quote-unquote, leading from behind. >> and vice president joe biden traded in the phrase in chains for squealing pigs. >> over the objections when they sound like squealing pigs over the objections of romney and all his allies we passed some of the toughest wall street regulations in history. >> not only is more money being spent on political ads attack and otherwise than any other previous campaign, the sheer volume of different ads boggles the mind. here are two of the newest. >> some think obama care is the same as free health care but nothing is free. obama is rating $716 billion from medicare changing the program forever. taxing wheelchairs and pacemakers. the romney/ryan plan will restore medicare funding and protect and strengthen the program. >> mitt romney says class sizes don't matter. and he supports paul ryan's budget which could cut education

by 20%. >> these are all issues that really he, personally, cannot relate to. to be able to afford an education, to want the very best public education system for your children. >> ads like these are carpet bombing airways in key battleground states. these markers you see on the screen have seen the bulk of campaign ads in the past week with iowa seeing the most activity. let me bring in patty doyle the former chief of staff for vice presidential operations for the obama campaign and former hillary clinton campaign manager. good to see you. good morning. >> good morning. >> i'd like to get an inside look at some of the decision making that goes into placing these ads, where they go, how much. i mean, the airwaves are saturated. how do you figure out how to get the most bang for your buck? >> well, in this campaign in particular this election cycle i think we will see saturation like we've never seen before, given the -- all totaled up we'll probably see a billion dollars worth of advertising given the super pacs and the

campaigns themselves. so i think what you need to do, i mean the battle -- the battle states are pretty much well defined so i think what you need to do is buy early. i think the campaigns need to buy october and buy november now so to speak. they may not know what they're going to air but they know which states and they need to get that air time. >> because could it literally be all gone? >> it could. it could literally be all gone. like i said, before the super pac, the campaigns themselves, and then the senate races that are going on in these battleground states. so buying early is important and, also, buying -- we don't normally expect -- everyone wants to buy on the networks but taking a look at cable for instance if you're targeting women, buying on lifetime or hallmark i think you need to be creative in how you buy. >> well, it's interesting that you bring up for example women because i wonder if the whole todd akin controversy is

suddenly going to start producing a whole wave of new ads? >> well, you know, on a personal level, on a human level i just -- i'm stunned by his words and this controversy but on a political level, you know, i think if you had a list of the last thing you wanted to talk about going into your convention, i think rape is probably on the top of that list. but i do believe that it has spurred again this war on women for the republican party and, you know, they just don't want that right now. and obama's numbers at least by your latest nbc/"wall street journal" poll, he is ahead by huge margins. >> it is interesting, too, because i've talked to campaign people on both sides of the aisle and i asked them about, you know, how much is too much like, you know, people are

getting sick of the ads already and that kind of thing and they kind of laugh and they say, you can never have too much money. but there was an interesting article that they wrote in the "national journal" about the strategy on the obama side, which apparently is this. which is they decided they were going to spend and now i guess it's close to half a billion dollars. in these months in the summer when we usually think people aren't paying attention because they believe they could define mitt romney and then in october and november it would be too late. people's views of him would have already been embedded. what do you think of that strategy? do you think that, again, according to our poll where people have this discomfort with mitt romney certainly on a personal level, can that be turned around at this stage of the game? is it really too late already? >> well, i think the strategy of the obama campaign that david axelrod put forth yesterday, you know, judging by your own poll, again, has proved to be pretty

effective, again, by huge margins in order between 20 and 30 points obama is leading on likability issues, issues like who cares about people like me? and who's more the main stream? so obviously it's been effective. and now romney is going to go into his convention trying to redefine or defend, you know, and make some headway on the likability issues. but we do have the fall to contend with. there are the debates. there's the convention. and, you know, there's that october surprise. anything can happen in october right before the election. so i think there is still time but i do think that with the obama campaign what they've done has been extraordinarily effective good to have you on the program. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> let me bring in someone who is heavily involved on the other end of this which is the ground game for president obama and the democrats. mary kay henry president of seiu the service employees

international union more than 2 million members. good to see you. thank you for coming on. your union is mounting a massive ground game so tell us about it. tell us about the strategy here. >> we are going to have 13 million conversations, chris, just in the battleground states because we know that our members and working people are going to rely on people they trust to make this decision about who stands for good jobs now. everybody's got to pay their fair share. how do we invest in medicare, medicaid, social security and make sure that we get comprehensive immigration reform. >> when you say 13 million conversations are those phone calls, is that door to door? how do you calculate that number? >> it is a combination. it'll be one conversation directly either in the work place, at home, in the neighborhood, in a meeting. and then reinforced through phone calls, mail, social media. we are going to make sure that we talk about how we can trust each other to make a choice for

president barack obama through the barrage of ads that you've just been talking about. because we know that the future of the country is at stake in this election and president barack obama stands for our vision and is going to get this country back to work and make sure that everybody pays their fair share in order to invest in the services we need. >> we just learned today that mitt romney, senior campaign adviser, said they have a target number for latino voters. we know that is a key voting group, 38% which would be more than john mccain got. that is a large segment also of your membership. and i know that you have a particular latino outreach. how is that going to work? >> it's working very well. it's been very aggressive throughout the summer. we are outreaching in the battlegrounds to latino communities both our members and all of our friends, family, and neighbors, to make it crystal clear that president barack obama stands for comprehensive immigration reform, good jobs, education, the things that matter most to the latino community in this country.

and it's making a huge difference to create the contrast and provide people with real information instead of the lies and distortions and all of the different things that the romney/ryan campaign has been saying. >> i'm sure you know that the republicans have been downplaying the impact of unions because they say after the wisconsin gubernatorial recall vote they call it a proxy for the national election. they say it exposes the limitations of the impact of unions and i only have a few seconds left but i want to give you an opportunity to respond to that. >> we completely disagree. working people know what's at stake in this country. we want an economy that has shared prosperity and not trickle down economics. and that's why they want to discount the role that working people play in the future of this nation. we made it great and we intend to make it greater by supporting this president and getting this country back on its feet. >> mary kay henry, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. >> thank you. >> our new nbc news/"wall street

journal" poll finds paul ryan has not given mitt romney as much of a bounce as some previous vice presidential candidates have so richard lui has been looking at the numbers. paul ryan is no sarah palin. >> good morning to you, chris. when you look at the data from "the wall street journal" poll and nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, the question is asked here, does paul ryan's selection make voters more or less likely to vote for governor mitt romney? and that's what that poll asked. well, the verdict for ryan, it decreases the likelihood by one percentage point. perhaps causing a drag. the poll includes one day of the todd akin controversy. compared to other picks, yeah. ryan is no sarah palin. she boosted her running mate's polls by 9 percentage points but as we know, that faded. joe biden was not far behind. his bounce netted barack obama a positive eight points. those two were in the small leagues though. the bigs were led by john edwards who catapulted john kerry by 21 followed by joe lieberman who spiked al gore's

poll numbers by 13. the pick closes to ryan's negative one percentage point, dick cheney, who registered a net positive two points. small upticks could be republican trait. data shows below average gain for republicans in general. one consideration do voters know the person? in ryan's case certainly better than a year ago when you look at these numbers here. but still 35% either don't know him or are neutral. those who have an opinion, more believe ryan is out of step. now, for mr. biden, it's worse with a negative 9% on this very same question. and though ryan rates at the bottom of the vp bounce, the positive romney battleground increase was helped at least by ryan and his pick. not to mention though that battleground wisconsin, ryan's home state, now trending by some

accounts red and the $7 million fund raising spike after ryan's naming, if not a bounce certainly could be part of a healthy bump. >> more of that money rolling in. thank you so much, richard lui. and the countdown is on to the iphone 5. cnbc's mandy drury is here with what's moving your money. still not confirmed by apple but there are as i understand some new clues. >> there are some cluls out there. in fact, a verizon employee, chris, has confirmed a tick crunch that no staff of the phone company is allowed vacation from the dates of friday, september 21st to september 30th. why? because it is expected the next iphone whether called the iphone 5 or simply the new iphone will be available in stores starting friday, september 21st. the announcement is likely to be september 12th in the usual apple fashion with lots of fanfare. as you can imagine when the sales begin you can certainly understand why they don't want any staff on vacation those days. >> i'll be interested in seeing the sales for carnival cruise

lines. they're debuting a booze cruise. >> a booze cruise. the world's largest cruise company is carnival. this month it has begun testing a nearly $50 per day package on the carnival victory. it gives you access to unlimited wine, beer, and spirits. of course also nonalcoholic drinks. it is called i love this, my awesome bar program package. if you want a full bottle of wine or champagne because a glass isn't enough you can have that in a 25% discount as well. the caveat here and i think it is excellent, each passenger age 21 and above of course in the same cabin must purchase a beverage package so you don't have one guy and he's with three mates on the same package and they all drink unlimited amounts of booze on one person's package. naturally that is a good rule to have. >> cnbc's mandy drury. thank you so much. >> thank you. well, it used to be girls just want to have fun. of course now we can run the world. "forbes" is out with this list of the most powerful women in the world.

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>> todd akin's comments about rape touched off a political fire storm but it also sparked an open letter from a rape survivor who made the decision to keep her child when she became pregnant as a result of a rape. she writes, i do not know if in your terms it was legitimate rape. yes, i cried. hysterically. yes, i fought until my body akd. and, yes, i changed afterward in ways i could not ever imagine. shauna prewitt joins me now. thank you for being with us. >> thank you. good morning, chris. >> i wonder what your gut reaction was when you heard what todd akin had to say? >> i was absolutely horrified. you know, this notion first of all that somehow the body can shut down when it knows it's being raped and not result in a life is just, you know, biological fiction. that was bad. but then hearing the term "legitimate" grouped with the term "rape" just reinvigorates

this long-held notion that in a rape trial it is the victim that is on trial. it is not the defendant. so i was just horrified and felt compelled to respond. >> you are a lawyer now who advocates on behalf of rape victims. and you have said that his comments have made your job more difficult. explain that. >> about two years ago i started kind of investigating why there are so many limited legal protections around the country to women who mother through rape. and what i struck on was this idea that words have power. and that the way we speak about raped women and especially pregnant raped women i feel has prevented us from providing meaningful legal protections to these women. >> here's the shocking thing i found out from you. i just want to make sure people understand we're clear. a woman who chooses to give birth to a child who is a product of rape could essentially be tethered to her

rapist forever because laws in many states give him parental rights. it doesn't matter what the method of conception was. is that right? >> that is correct. in 31 states around this country there are no laws on the books that change the parental rights of men who father through rape. and so you have a situation in which a woman could conceivably be tethered to her rapist for 18 years, be forced to shuffle her child to and from visits with him, to inlt ateract with him o important decisions about education, schooling, religion. it is just a terrible fact. >> you have become an advocate for women who are in your situation. i'm trying to figure out what is the argument against a law like this? i mean, wouldn't it make sense for republicans to support your cause because in the absence of these laws you could argue that more women would decide to have an abortion? i'm trying to figure out why these laws exist. >> normally what we see is with any kind of legislative debate

you'll have certain parties who come in that raise this flag and state that if we have a law on the books, women across the united states will come in and say i was raped so that they can strip custody rights away from good, honorable men. i just think that that is a ridiculous argument. nobody is suggesting that a woman can go into court and say, i was raped and immediately rights are terminated. instead, of course a judge is going to consider evidence, is going to look at the facts and make a decision based upon this. we are merely asking for a law that enables and allows a judge to do that, to look at the evidence and then ultimately strip a man of these parental rights if indeed the judge believes that this woman was raped. >> well, shauna, thank you so much for bringing to light what i think is a shocking bit of information for a lot of people. shauna prewitt, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. you may be muddling through allergies.

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that wraps up this hour of

"jansing & company." thomas roberts is up next. >> hey, chris. good morning. good morning everybody. the next hour agenda the republicans are trying to force todd akin out of the missouri senate race. akin is digging in. how is the conversation driving the war on women? meanwhile forbes is out with the world's 100 most powerful women. we'll talk about the female elite. then dana milbank asks, has god forsaken the republican party? dana joins me to discuss his take and if divine intervention is the only hope to win the white house. that and much more after this.

hi everybody. good morning. i'm thomas roberts. topping the agenda today republican renegade. tensions within the gop hitting a boiling point as they a defiant todd akin digs in against calls to bow out of the u.s. senate race in missouri. >> this is not about me. this is not about my