some. >> no lunch at hooters unless john takes me on "the washington post" expense account? jonathan? >> hooters tampa. >> hooters tampa. he's a big fan. >> gets me in. >> yes, you get your it's great. frequent visitor. one more, buddy? >> spike on twitter, hoping to hear willie top chris mathews clip. >> i don't think you repaint the mona lisa. >> can i get one of those meals? >> get you one. >> that's very good. >> republican national committee is in damage control mode right now and they've released the following message addressing their membership. been a lot of trouble for the republican party here lately, so they put together this message for the republican membership.

hope you enjoy this too. >> in light of recent inappropriate behavior by republican congressman todd akin and kevin yoder the republican national committee requests from now until election day our members will refrain from the following naked swimming naked texting, pretty much anything naked, snorkeling and making offensive remarks about women. a message from the republican national committee. >> getting it done. getting it done. >> very perceptive. good morning. it is friday, august 24th. with us on set pulitzer-prize winning writer for "the washington post" and msnbc contributor jonathan capehart. msnbc and "time" magazine senior political analyst mr. mark halperin. co-host of msnbc's "the cycle," se cupp, thrilled to be here this morning. >> i am. >> and the president of the council on foreign relations richard haass. welcome everybody. everybody awake and alive. >> it's going to be great. >> this is good. >> we're going to get to the convention? a minute. richard, i want to ask you about

this big story this morning front page of the "daily news," stripped, lance armstrong throwing in the towel on charges that have followed him the better part of 10, 15 years being stripped of all his titles. is that an admission he did something wrong and didn't want to face the arbitration and see the evidence against him? >> he says it wasn't an admission, it's a nonadmission admission. he's gone forward, all these eyewitnesses would have spoken about it, chapter and verse. seems to me there were enough eyewitnesses, enough smoke you have to say there's fire and it's sad. this guy one of the iconic athletes of our time, made this event popular and brought it to all sorts of people who never watched it before and leading people in the world in sports and sad. >> so much bigger than sports with the live strong group and everything he's done for cancer. put out a statement after announcing he will not fight these charges anymore he said there comes a point in every man's life when he has to say enough is enough. for me that time is now. the toll this has taken on my

family and work for our foundation and me leads me to where i am today, finished with this nonsense. as i said the united states anti-doping agency came down quickly after he threw in the towel on this one, stripping him of all seven of his tour de france titles, lifetime ban from the sport, also loses the bronze medal at the 2000 olympic games. it is a sad story in a lot of ways. but you have to believe this arbitration hearing that was coming, there were going to be apparently ten witnesses, many his own teammates saying they saw him do this. again he maintains he never tested positive for anything. >> he was a brand and the brand is damaged. what makes it worst, he's hardly unique. across sports and all sorts of enhancing drugs. this is a play in modern sports, the playing field is not level. this is the umpteenth example. you don't know what to believe, what to trust. this is not a good thing. >> yeah. we saw it in baseball too, mark halperin, back-to-back 50-game

suspensions for banned substances. >> the thing that's closest to it is pete rose, somebody a long-time legendary figure, this because of all his charitable work and work on cancer is more emotional for people. for some reason tea he's a huge lightning rod and it's common for people to say this is an admission, but it's more sad to me than anything else because he can't compete in other sports now and we'll never really probably know the facts. >> yeah. >> and i mean, this is either the greatest and i mean worst witch hunt sports has ever seen or lance armstrong is maybe one of the more pathological sports figures we've ever seen. to say with a straight face for years and under such scrutiny, didn't do it, and, you know, he was ig dig nant about this too. you're right, we'll probably never know. that may be one of the bigger tragedies of this. certainly his legacy is

tarnished. >> and comes to mind, roger clemens. >> yeah. >> go to cooperstown, it is amazing how many of the plaques on the wall, how many of the records are roger clemens' and here he is denying he did anything, got off quote/unquote but again, there's aster ricks to names now. >> if lance armstrong didn't think there was evidence against him he would give up his life's legacy, stripped of the tour de france titles and never participate in the sport again. he knew something was coming down the pike. >> think about it, this is yet another institution that has failed. i mean we've spent the last, what, i want to say decade, i don't want to overstate it, we've seen everything that people believed in, whether it's the financial institution or government itself or just heros, just falling by the wayside. you're seeing that this world that we had constructed of sort of purity and perfection, it's just not real. >> armstrong said in that

statement, i know i won those seven tours. my teammates know i won those seven tours. everyone i competed against. it's the toughest event in the world. nobody can change that. his charitable work with live strong will continue. we'll move on to the republican national convention. now three days away in tampa, florida. all the talk right now about tropical storm isaac. is it going to be there for the convention in tampa? let's check in with bill karins. >> overnight willie, the storm remains very weak. the path has shifted slightly to the west just a little bit. not a lot. still expect some impacts in tampa no matter what as we go throughout the day on monday. tuesday is more of the question mark. the storm is now due south in d. the latest forecast track from the national hurricane center. don't pay too much attention to the category 1 going landfall into areas of north florida. intensity forecasts, three to five days in advance, are notoriously horrible. we're really not going to know

what this storm is going to be intensity wise until it comes off the coast of cuba and starts to intensify as it passes the keys. that won't happen until we go to early monday morning. late me give you a closer view of the final trajectory. mostly pay attention to the yellow which is the cone of uncertainty. it still includes miami barely, still includes tampa, even though tampa has shifted a little off the cone and new orleans still in the cone of uncertainty and that's from last night. anywhere from new orleans to tampa, you have to be prepared for the possibility, i would say worse case scenario category 2 hurricane heading your way. looks to be a tropical storm or a category 1. but as we always watch these little squiggly lines, willie, these are our computer models. a lot of these shifted a little towards the west yesterday, now back to the east and notice a couple are still dangerously close to the tampa area. don't want to let everyone in tampa let their guard down. >> obviously bill, we're concerned about when it hits sf but also for a lot of people

watching "morning joe" they will be going to the convention. if they're just waking up, the rain hits tampa when and when should they start thinking about moving a flight? >> rain and wind at any point would be monday. last day for preparations in florida, especially the tampa area would be all day sunday. the problem with getting there and flying in on sunday is that the airline, they don't like to get the planes in harm's way. they could end up canceling flights on sunday. make sure you can get into tampa, try to do so saturday, saturday night. >> and by the way, the drinking game word, the phrase, cone of uncertainty this morning. >> i thought jonathan was the cone of uncertainty. >> oh. >> the israelis worried about this immunity and you're worried about the cone of uncertainty. >> thanks so much. >> news last night, mark halperin, out of the convention which is that mitt romney will officially be nominated on monday, rather than wednesday, first reported by jeff zelleny at "the new york times." explain the back story.

>> good pronunciation of zelleny, rhymes with felony. the networks aren't covering monday night the broadcast networks and that's when ann romney was supposed to speak. i think part of this is to deal with maybe moving in romney's talk, they haven't said that, some are speculating about that, and part to deal with the ron paul forces. governor romney's campaign has done i think an incredibly good job of finessing a lot of potential problems. 15,000 journalists sitting around always looking for controversy and you to tamp down anything that could become the story of the day along with the hurricane, that might get in the way of your message about what you want to talk about. by moving it to monday they're hoping to minimize the prospect that there's visible clashes with the paul people in way that steps on the message. the big thing for them, paul ryan, ann romney, mitt romney, introducing them to the country they don't want the story to be about ron paul forces trying to get attention op the floor. >> can you explain in simple

terms, because it is a little confusing, what the ron paul problem is for mitt romney? >> well, they don't want there to be seeming divisions between the paul forces me's got a lot of delegates, not as many as he would have liked. they negotiated a settlement to determine the number of paul delegates there, but they don't want there to be a perception that there's paul people who are unhappy with mitt romney as the nominee of the party is the theatrics they want to try to avoid. >> this is, you know, this is very mitt romney, right? he's disciplinarian, wants to run a tightly controlled campaign. he will try and deal with "squawk boisaac if he could, joe biden coming to crash the rnc and the ron paul forces and the troublemaker tent, if you've heard about this. if that means he has to move things around he will. i think mark is right, he wants a smooth convention, he wants to be the star every night, and not

just at the end and he wants his message finally controlled. >> you know who they're bringing in to try to deal with the hurricane? >> who's that? >> mikos casa dine. know what i'm talking about? >> i am. >> google. >> get on the google machine. >> jonathan capehart get on that, my man. let's talk bigger picture about what this convention means, why it's important to mitt romney. we've been through the food fights every day. a couple weeks since paul ryan was announced of not talking about the economy but medicare, talking about definition of rape. is this sort of a re-set for mitt romney to introduce himself to people who haven't been in the weeds with us? >> he certainly hopes so. whereas other conventions you're looking forward to seeing nonprimary speakers and then certainly in 2008 sarah palin stole the show. this will be all about mitt romney. he has the opportunity to give a huge, important tone-setting speech that he will need to carry through the next couple of

months. it's hard. he has the dnc right after this. he only has a couple days in between to really grab on to some momentum. if he doesn't come out with an exciting, arousing speech, i think this convention will be considered a failure. paul ryan's going to speak very well. an eloquent speaker, going to excite the base and then chris christie and marco rubio and nikki haley to do all of the sort of celebrity heavy lifting. mitt romney needs a moment where he looks presidential, he looks exciting, and everyone in that audience looks excited and rallied around him. >> richard haass, what are you looking for as a foreign policy man out of this convention? you're not going to get any of it. go ahead. go ahead anyway for laughs. >> unemployed. >> yes. >> it's tough. it's a tough time to have chosen my career path over the next couple months possibly. i think we have to remember that most americans have not been focusing on this nearly as much as people around the set or watching the show.

for mitt romney, it's a chance not only to introduce himself but frame the issue and frame the campaign. in his case to put the onus or whatever you want to call it squarely on the obama administration's economic performance. so it's a chance to frame the campaign and to present himself. he has two tremendous important goals here. >> jonathan capehart, do we overstate the importance of one speech? a lot of people have said, as se indicated, the most important speech of his career, could change the tone of his campaign, can that happen in one speech? >> we've been saying around this table and months now the american people are not paying attention. that's the night they start paying attention. how he delivers that speech, what he says, will then -- and the coverage of that after that once people start thinking about oh there is a presidential election going on, who is this guy, what's he like, how do i feel about him? to see him as se was saying, cheering his name, holding up the sign, looking excited about him is something that could help

mitt romney. while i'm in tampa, i'm curious to see how much real love there is for this guy. is it love for mitt romney or is it just an unbounded hatred of the president that's motivating people. >> i think paul ryan did something toward that lack of excitement. i mean paul ryan in my estimation sort of gave conservatives the permission to feel like they could vote for mitt romney and still be good conservatives. he needed that. it will be interesting to see at the convention what i'm looking for how they split the responsibilities between paul ryan and mitt romney in terms of their speeches. you would imagine paul ryan would be great at speaking about the economy, but you know what he's also really great about speaking about social issues. he can talk about faith. i've spoken to him many times about his faith in really palatable ways, not what you might think from a guy who was in charge of a bill with

forcible rape in the words but he really can deliver that message. it will be interesting to see if they let mitt romney talk about the economy, paul ryan talk about social issues, vice versa or share the load. >> say two things about romney's speech. one is when paul ryan walks in to give his speech he will have them at hello. the people love paul ryan. romney i think is going to have to win over not just the country but the people in the room want to hear from him in a way that will affect how the speech is received at home. the other thing is, often the romney campaign in boston will look at what we say here in the media convention wisdom is and say you don't get it. you're talking about something not relevant. the conventional wisdom is romney has to give the best speech he's ever given by far. can't just be a good speech. most people around governor romney dispute that. you guys are building it up. i think in this case they may be wrong. they're underestimating the significance that this moment will have for him until the debates the one time he has the platform and as se said the

president's convention comes on the heels of this one. he needs a speech that is so good people are still talking about it by the time the president's speech. >> what would that entail? how does mitt romney turn himself into ronald reagan, a picture of charisma in the course of a 20-minute speech. >> like george bush did in 1988. no one thought he had a speech in him like that. it has to be a speech that shows his heart. david axelrod loves to say presidential speeches are mris of the soul. mitt romney has to show his soul in this speech. >> how can he maintain that enthusiasm and momentum if they h he's going to give this speech on monday -- >> no. he's not giving the speech. just the roll call. >> roll call is monday. he's still speaking thursday. >> got it. >> but the economy, i still think as much as the personal thing is, this is the framing issue for this campaign and what he's got to do is bring it back to that and make the case it's connected -- first of all for

foreign policy a link between national security and the strength of the american economy draw that nexus to people and make the case that four more years or version of it is unacceptable. i think there's actually -- there's a potential -- that's the potential sweet spot for the romney/ryan campaign more than the social issues which might excite people in the hall. outside it's to return the focus to the issue more than anything else is going to motivate voters and frame the election and whether he can give a compelling case. he offers a better stewardship, alternative stewardship of the economy than four more years of barack obama. i think that's at least as big a sell as anything personally. >> you don't think he should talk about cyprus? richard trying to get that into the platform. >> working hard on that. >> richard, before we go to break, ask you about the book abouts the navy s.e.a.l., member of s.e.a.l. team 6 in the room he says when osama bin laden was killed and is writing a book.

we've learned his name yesterday a 36-year-old from alaska. are you surprised giving the code among not just in the military but especially among navy s.e.a.l.s he would go public for the story. >> short answer for the reason you say. the code. once you join the s.e.a.l.s is there is a sense of fraternity and not just short term but long-term methodology as we used to say. the idea someone would write a book and put out there exactly how this was done, detail, is off. it seems to me it's pulitzer prize but a question of simply wrong. yes, it's not the sort of thing one would have expected and i'm surprised. also the clearance issue, how did a lot of this get out there. there's still a case for secrets this ought to have been one of them. >> we don't know what's in the book yet. comes out september 11th. from what you're hearing in national security sirc krls they worried about what could be in the book in terms of classified information. >> some question about sources and methods and thou things were

tracked and so forth. it's a bit revealing about operational detail. and again, i think -- but the bigger story will be the one you alluded to how is it someone who goes through this training, makes this career choice, these commitments not just to the institution but to his fellow s.e.a.l.s why he would do this sort of thing. it's just not what you expect. >> former s.e.a.l.s have come out publicly saying they're disgu disgusted. we'll get a preview of the republican convention with florida governor rick scott how the preparations are going and ready to deal with a hurricane on top of everything else. also with us the moderator of "meet the press," david gregory and "washington post" eugene robinson. up next the top stories in the politico playbook and later the week in review. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks.

welcome back to "morning joe." it's 6:22 here on the east coast. let's get an early look at the morning papers. the "l.a. times" the norwegian man responsible for killing 77 people in a mass shooting last year was handed a 21-year prison sentence today. the mimum under the country's law that could be extended. anders breivik gunned down his victims at a summer camp after detonating a car bomb. >> signs iran is speeding up its nuclear program. according to a new report from international nuclear inspectors iran has reportedly installed hundreds of centrifuges. >> this plays into something we were talking about in the break, joked about foreign policy not on the ayen da at the convention but it could become so quickly. >> one of two scenarios, the israeli strike against iran before the american election,

probably september, october. i think the odds are far more than negligible. the rhetoric has been heating up and what we saw is the talks aren't working and meanwhile iran continues to enrich, enrich. even if the israelis don't strike, no matter who we elect, barack obama or mitt romney, i would think in 2013 the most far-reaching national security decision he's going to have to make is whether or not the united states would carry out a preventative strike against iran. even though foreign policy is missing in action no matter what happens it's going to be front and center for the next president of the united states and possibly again for this president. >> if you care about obama, romney, that may be the most important article in the papers today. >> "washington post" american journalist covering the syrian war is missing. austin tice filing stories for a number of news outlets including the post. his last communication a tweet on august 11th, his 31st birthday. in this weekend's "parade" magazine, one of the reasons they don't want to disclose more on their tax returns. the republican candidate says

the format will show how much money's he's donated to the mormon church. we'll have more with "parade" magazine's editor in chief. >> nice execution on the newspapers. >> i love newspapers. >> sitting next to each other thing happening. with us the white house correspondent for politico, mike allen. mike, good morning. >> happy friday. >> we're off and running on the weekend. let's talk about your piece today on politico at the republican convention, the high rollers. big money getting up close and personal with some of the big names there. what are we talking about here? >> yeah. willie, this is the convention behind the convention. the one that's totally off camera, for the big donors, big bundlers, the givers to the outside groups that are really fueling this election cycle. they're going to have their own events, their own lounges, their own briefings, from some of the

big speakers at the convention, so a number of the speakers who will be at the podium and other stars of the party will be then separately briefing these big givers. if you gave -- or raised $250,000 or more for mitt romney, they call them the stars, two waterfront hotels where you'll have your own suites and willie, i know you're going to be extremely jealous of this, but they get their own performance by the oak ridge boys and -- >> what? >> and by don felder of the eagles. >> wow. >> so in addition to that, tim pawlenty, condoleezza rice, governor bob mcdonald of florida, they'll stop by and give briefings to these big donors. >> you're very excited. >> that's in my wheelhouse. >> giddy up. >> everything is a waterfront hotel. >> that's a good point. mike, let me ask you quickly, the piece on the top of your page you co-wrote with jonathan

martin, the making of paul ryan. as we look back now a couple weeks in to the paul ryan choice, what's the feeling? was it helpful? we know the numbers, there wasn't a huge bounce. long term, was he the right choice? >> the romney folks, many of whom as you know were against it, some tried to talk governor romney out of it, but they say if they win, paul ryan will be a part of it. he was part of energizing their candidate, gave him the reagan halo. the point we make in the piece is 19 years ago, paul ryan was getting coffee carrying books for bill bennett at empower america, working on the side, doing jobs as a trainer, at a gym, and as a waiter at tortilla coast. this is every intern, staff assistant's dream and he pursued it very purposefully. two years ago when he became the house budget committee chairman, his goal was to get the party's nominee in 2012 and at the time,

it seemed like a far fetched goal to get the nominee to embrace medicare reform. and not only did he get the ticket to embrace it, he is the ticket. >> and se, to mike's point about the intern made good, joe talks about this in 1994/ '95/ '96 many times the smartest person in the room at these committee meetings was a young staffer named paul ryan who was about 23 years old. >> that is -- >> widely respected on the hill. >> reputation around the hill. sort of the human google is the rep and you've seen walking around just in his own world and doing his own thing and the guy with all the answers really well liked. you won't find a lot of people who have personality problems with paul ryan. he's done pretty well for himself over the past two decades in d.c. >> mark, has the fear in loathing we heard about, about a week ago, from some of the gop establishment that he was the wrong guy because of the medicare question, because of some of the budget cuts, has that subsided a little bit or still there? >> it's subsided because of

congressman akin. another thing to think about. i think people are adopting a wait and see attitude. they've been encouraged by the amount of money and energy the romney campaign has spent on trying to win the medicare fight. i think people are, you know, politicians get nervous when there's change and uncertainty and felt a little better that the boston operation had a plan to try to drive this and some of the ads they've run going after obama care in particular. but, you know, like with a lot of paul ryan, i think the jury is out on whether the pick was bold, dramatic and brilliant or less -- >> we'll find out maybe on election day. >> willie? >> yes. >> bill bennett told us 20 years ago, young paul ryan called him and said, does this pass the laugh test? i'm planning to run for congress. >> wow. i guess it passed after all. >> yeah. >> mike, when are you heading to tampa? >> tampa tomorrow and another little tidbit, pick you up on your roll call story, we think that ann romney's speech will be

moved to tuesday. that speech so important to them, no broadcast network coverage monday so she's going to crowd governor christie a little bit at the podium and share the night on tuesday night. >> no one crowds chris christie, let's be clear. that's a big night on tuesday night. ann romney and chris christie. mike allen with a look inside the playbook, thanks so much. our coverage of the republican national convention begins monday morning. we'll be down there hosting "morning joe," "way too early," everything from the elephant bar on channelside drive in tampa. if you're in the area like going out in hurricanes, come on by. coverage beginning at 5:30 a.m. could be just a few of us in that bar. >> bring your slickers. >> that's on monday morning. up next, the red sox finding new ways to lose. last night surrendering a six-run lead at fenway. highlights from their collapse when we come back. how do you know which ones to follow?

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welcome back to "morning joe." never too soon to start talking about the nfl, the real games start in less than two weeks. less than two weeks. >> looking live. >> looking live on a wednesday night during the democratic convention. last night the packers a tune up against the bengals. aaron rodgers has a gun for an arm but watch him dance with his feet. this defensive act is going to

hear about this in the film session later today. beat to the corner by the quarterback, 12 yards out. a footrace. few minutes later it's the first quarter, again, rogers getting to the corners from five yards out. did throw an interception but ran tore two touchdowns, packers win easily 27-13. to baseball the wild card race heating up in the american league. tigers looking to stay in it taking on the jays. watch the game-saving catch by austin jackson, laying out. look at the replay, up on the heel, corrals it, brings it in there. skip to the bottom of the 11th, tied at two, tigers two on two out. alex avila, single to right field, beats the throw home. a 3-2 walk-off win for the tigers in a three-way tie with the a's and orioles for the second wild card spot. angels 2 1/2 back, they played a wild one at fenway. boston was up 6-0 in the third inning but got out of hand for the red sox.

angels scoring eight runs in the third. no pitching, no defense, 13 batters came to the plate. the angels, red sox not helping themselves. in the field a slug fest. as we move to the tenth, score tied at 12, ken dri morales takes a pitch over the wall in right field. angels tack on a couple more. red sox did get one back. bottom of the tenth, both the tying run on first. adrien gonzalez goes down swinging. los angeles from a 6-0 deficit to win, 14-13 on a is inned -- >> pitcherer a duel. >> pitcher's duel. >> you talked about it the new york yankees only two and a half games up. that's what i'm looking at. >> that makes me nervous. elderly team, end of season, worn down, still have problems with the starting pitching, that is in new york, that is -- that's the stuff people love. >> you guys, talk to a mets fan, please. >> the lead is not big enough says the yankee fan. >> never big enough.

>> story out of college football one of the best known players in the game, the honey badger, will not play at all now in the upcoming football season. according to reports matthew has been admitted to ed tted to a r center for drug abuse counseling. lsu announced it kicked him off the team. sources told espn he violated the school's substance abuse policy. he's a quarterback and punt returner, heisman finalist, one of the most exciting player in college football. lsu going to miss him on the field. big expectations this year. look at the preseason rankings, lsu at least number three and some of them and number one in the "usa today" poll. they'll have to win this year without the honey badger. coming up which of the stories will be in the week in review. i think you know a few of them. but first we'll go through the must-read opinion pages. keep it on "morning joe." ♪

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welcome back to "morning joe." the sun up over the capitol in washington. 6:40 on the east coast. time to go through some of the must-read opinion pages. the first one we're looking at, mitt romney writing in "the wall street journal" writes what i learned at bain capital. a broad message emerges from my bain capital days, writes romney. a good idea is not enough for a business to succeed. it requires a talented team. a good business plan and capital to execute it. i know what it takes to turn around difficult situations and i will put that experience to work to get our economy back on track, create jobs, strengthen the middle class and lay the groundwork for america's competitiveness in the world. as we were discussing in the break this seems to be the message he should be using. >> absolutely. when i used to teach at the kennedy school we used to argue

90% of life is execution and implementation. it's competence. seems to be one of the most telling or persuasive argument for mitt romney is confidence. succeeded at the olympics, succeeded in business, i can succeed in fixing what's wrong with the american economy. this would be a message that happens again and again. >> he was on this early on, mark halperin, but was it the prospect of bringing up bain capital over and over again, after getting hammered so hard. >> that complicated it. the last three guys that got elected president had narratives of their lives, sort of biographical stories that led them to this moment where the country said that's the right person to lead us. mitt romney has a lot of experiences including the bain capital experience he has much talked about. this timed to go with the convention and they're going to make an effort at the convention to context urlized what he learned to say he is a mr. fix-it, can turn things around. why they got off that at least in part is what you said, bain

capital, was not their favorite topic for a long time. >> it looks like they're going back to it. >> seems strange. a good op-ed. the messages are good and succinct and compelling. i'm not sure why this message wasn't hammered out earlier. we could have had this op-ed three months ago, better timing, we've litigated bain. it was an unsuccessful topic for him. to come back to it before the convention seems a bit odd to me. to come back to it so targeted, not just i can fix problems but bain. it's in the headline. it's a weird choice, i think. >> i hope that what this means is, we will move beyond here's what i did at bain, to now how am i going to take that experience and specifically what i'm -- what am i going to do to create jobs, expand the economy, move the american economy out of the deep ditch that it's in. i mean there's some specifics in the op-ed, but i mean, we -- some. very few. but we need a whole lot more. not just from governor romney, but the same onus is on president obama for what he

would want to do in a second term. >> wise to bring up bain capital again, as se said, like we've been down this road before, got hammered for mentioning the word bain and their ads and people accusing him of killing their wives. >> i think it's smart. at the end of the day he's a business man and he has the business experience to fix what's wrong with america. that's central to his campaign that yeah, whatever price there is to pay with that, it's so much part of his core definition. it's part of his core biography. how can you hide the bain things and make the argument you're the experienced economic hand. you can't. so actually think it's smart to put it front and center. >> david brooks writing in "the new york times" about paul ryan saying ryan's biggest mistake, that's what the piece is called, paul ryan's fantasy happens to be the number one political fantasy in america today, writes book brooks, which has inebriated both parties. the fantasy the other party will not exist. the fantasy that you're about to win a 1932-style victory that

will render your opponents powerless. paul ryan has a great campaign consciousness and when it comes to things like medicare reform i agree with him, but when he voted no on the simpson-bowles plan he missed the chance to show he has a governing consciousness, missed the chance to do something good for the country even if it wasn't the best he or i would wish for. >> so what about the fact that paul ryan voted for t.a.r.p., auto bailout, to raise the debt ceiling? he has a history of working well with others and being very pragmatic. in fact, he's known for being maybe personally ideological but politically practical. i'm not sure what evidence david brooks is basing this on. i mean it might be wishful thinking to paint paul ryan as a no man, but i don't think the evidence there is for that. >> in fact, mark, he's been hammered for that very fact, what se brings up, voting for medicare part d and all those things and flying in the face of his reputation as a deficit

hawk. >> people who celebrate simpson-bowles overlook the fact that there were a lot of tax increases in there that were unpalatable for paul ryan. i think that for david brooks' point, independents and people in wall street make about president obama which is there were a lot of things in there that they may not have liked, political risks to being for it, but it was a moment in time and the right thing to do was to be for it, taking the political heat even though you didn't like everything in it. i think there are other things that are probably more open to criticism than voted against simpson-bowl simpson-bowles. >> the simpson-bowles guys a fantasy? something fun for us in the media to talk about? why didn't everybody vote for this and do a big thing? is there political courage in washington to do things like have a republican vote for a tax hike or to have a democrat vote for medicare reform? >> well, the fact that tom coburn voted for it and dick durbin voted for it, even though the package contained tons of things both had objectionable

was a moment in time and symbol. it was not going to pass. one reason the president didn't support it. the country wasn't ready for it. there had not been a big debate about the tradeoffs involved. but you can make the argument it was a moment in time and that for paul ryan and the president they missed an opportunity. i don't agree with that argument but you can make it. >> the reason you create it is to take something outside the political process and broker a deal. like the social security commission or something. a recognition that washington wasn't working create something special outside and get it done there and reintroduce it back into the political process. it would have been a partial fix, not a solution to anything, and i think the ryan argument is the 800 pound gorilla, which was medicare wasn't it in. to have a fix without the 800 pound gorilla was a step in the wrong direction rather than the right direction. >> and the tax increases. people forget that. >> and when we come back a look at the week in review, lighten things up a little bit. >> thank god. >> keep it here on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac

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oh, yes. it's time. >> let's chat again. >> sorry. once more with -- >> with feeling. >> it's okay. >> oh, yes, willie, is it time? >> it is time, indeed, jonathan capehart, thanks for asking.

richard haass you'll be glad to know we begin the week in review with a story about foreign policy as it relates to the sea of galilee. >> some members of congress started jumping in the water. >> at number three. holy water. >> we had been in israel already several days working very hard. ended up having dinner at the sea of galilee. >> in ebbers of a congressional delegation traveling in israel jumped after a few drinks and even fewer clotheses into the same body of water where jesus is said in the bible to have walked on water. the frank the tank routine -- >> we're going streaking! >> drew obligatory outrage from the top of the republican party. >> i think it's reprehensible. >> this is unbecoming of a member of congress. >> jesus released a brief statement through a spokesman saying simply, father forgive them. >> wasn't my finest hour as a member of congress. >> at number two, mommy van

trill la gist. >> what was your recipe that won you the trip? >> fish chowder with a pretty salad. >> jimmy kimmel showed this week why he was bumped up to the 11:35 slot to take on dave and jay. when he alerted the nation to a bizarre mother/daughter television interview. >> i looked up the stage beverage of virginia was and it was milk and the first soup that came to my head was chowder. >> as her daughter responded to a host questions mom conducted her own shadow interview, mouthing along silently with the answers. >> what did you tell the first lady when you saw her? >> i saw her, i told her i was really glad to see her and i was really excited for that day. >> after the interview, the mother removed her hand from the little girl's back and returned her to her carrying case for the trip home. >> sigh ya nar ra. >> and the number one story of the week? >> it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to

shut that whole thing down. >> missouri republican congressman todd akin, the man running for senate against inbum can't claire mccaskill drew near universal fire when he offered a free lesson on the female reproductive system. >> i can't defend what he said, i can't defend him. >> the views expressed were offensive. >> rape is rape. and there's no splitting hairs over rape. >> shakin' and bakin' akin apologized for se men take ticks. >> the mistake i made was in the words i said. >> but resisted pressure on his campaign to well shut that whole thing down. >> my friend john paul jones, i've not yet begun to fight. >> the only man happy to hear todd akin's comments in the all-consuming media firestorm that followed the dude who got buck rodgers and jumped into the place where jesus walked on water. >> wasn't my finest hour as a member of congress. >> we got foreign policy into the show. >> glad i showed up this

morning. >> in the middle east, and the sea of galilee. >> make a good foreign policy magazine cover. >> foreign affairs magazine. >> new reporting coming up after this break, about what exactly is happening at the convention. turns out maybe there were not changes to the roll call vote, maybe always been monday. >> this is an evolving story. >> it is. >> in the cone of uncertainty. >> it is in the cone. thank you. we're going to work through that and give you new reporting when we come back. florida preparing for 50,000 politicos and a tropical storm, maybe a hurricane. governor rick scott of florida will join us live. later, made in china, the director of a new documentary explores why jobs in china could be in silicon valley instead. keep it on "morning joe." ♪

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corner. this week's rant is on people who listen to their diskman too soft. blast that diskman. blast that walkman. crank up that l.l. cool beans. siri, can you bring me a glass of water? >> here you go, senor mitt. >> thank you, siri. that's all i got this week. see you next time on the romney bomb video. peace. stop web camera. stop video camera. stop internet camera. stop web camera. siri, can you stop web camera? ♪ >> the diskman. >> diskman. >> senior mitt. >> jimmy fallon unbelievable. 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. mark halperin, jonathan capehart, se cupp and the assistant managing editor of

"fortune" magazine leigh gallagher. >> great to be here. >> in the last hour we said citing "the new york times" report of last night that the roll call vote at the republican convention had been moved from wednesday to monday. turns out it was never going to be on wednesday. that's number one. number two, that ann romney's speech would be moved from monday so it would get network coverage on a different day. what can you tell us? >> the roll call according to people at the convention, the roll call was always monday. they're just going to do it straight through. sometimes you move things around and have ohio put the guy over the top. starting with "a" and when he goes over the top. in part they moved it because of what we discussed earlier. they didn't want the ron paul thing if it blew up in their face to be a story on wednesday. they would rather do it at the top. >> that decision was made long ago. >> announced a while ago apparently. case of ann romney as of this moment, as we speak here, she's still scheduled to speak monday but because the broadcast

networks aren't currently planning to broadcast that evening there's a bit of a game of chicken going on. the romney campaign would like as much coverage of ann romney as possible. if they get broadcast coverage she'll stay monday. if they don't it's possible she would move to tuesday. at this hour in flux while they wait and see what kind of television situation they're going to have on monday night. >> they have a'proechd the broadcast networks and ask them to kofrp monday. >> an ongoing dialog and expressed unhappiness about it. in the old days gavel-to-gavel coverage on the broadcast networks and easy to program what you wanted and get coverage. there's been a transition. part is the cable networks do pretty well on those nights. no broadcast coverage you'll see a big audience on cable. don't know if it's the number of eyeballs, demographics, more undecided voters watching broadcast than cable or the symbolism of it. kind of an insult and, you know, not the symbolism you want to have ann romney's speech not be

on broadcast television. my guess if they don't get one or two of the broadcast networks on monday based on what they're saying she will move to tuesday night. >> that's just to recap where we are, the roll call vote will be on monday as planned for some time and as of now, ann romney is on monday but could move to a different day if they don't get the networks to cover it. leigh, we've been talking about this convention and what the central themes are going to be there. we've been mired for the last couple weeks on medicare, budgets and rape frankly. do you think we get back on to the economy and what you guys specialize at "fortune"? >> i think so. for us that's topic a. we've talked to a bunch of ceo, fortune 50 ceos, big companies and everything is on hold. everything. and that just leads to kind of a vicious spiral because then, you know, executives don't make decisions, consumers, too. i mean politicians and business people hate uncertainty more than anything else. and that's exactly what we've got here and more of it and more

of it with the fiscal cliff and everything down the pike. >> what is the mood on wall street an the business community toward mitt romney? we know a lot of people on wall street have drifted from president obama over the last four years. what's the feeling about mitt romney. is it he's one of them? >> it's mixed. not like they've flocked aggressively toward romney. it's more they've moved away from obama. so, you know, times story this week is interesting, makes a great point in private equity you think somebody in business is who you want, right? leader, great analytical skills, all of that, but in private equity it's a different ballpark. not really you get to pick and choose your battles, hyper surgical about what you focus on, pick the least risk and most opportunity, opportunities that are, you know, the best, the lowest hanging fruit really and you don't get to do that in the oval office. it's completely the opposite. >> mitt romney has a piece we were talking about it in our last hour wrote an op-ed in the "wall street journal" what i learned at bain capital. we were discussing the wisdom of

bringing bain capital up again. what's your view? is that a strong suit for him to talk about his years at bain? >> i think right now bain for the general american voting public is still synonymous with layoffs and i think that has been pounded in for the past several months and i think that's been really successful. and that's true. i mean that is what private equity does. cuts costs, gets rid of anything possible, and in order to maximize profit. and that, you know, the anti-wall street or anti-business sentiment we've been seeing over the past two, three years, you know, that kind of goes right along with that. now he's making this, running on this instead of from this which is, you know, going to be interesting. this shift has just happened. it will be interesting to see what happens. >> writing on it on the eve of convention. 50,000 or so expected to go to tampa for the republican convention. organizers knew planning the event could involve a hurricane. looks like it may. comes with some risk but with 29

electoral votes up for grabs also has potential rewards for the candidate. florida battleground state that barely went blue four years ago, president obama beats senator john mccain by less than 3% of the vote. the president and mitt romney running neck and neck right now in florida. latest "new york times" poll has them in a statistical tie in the state of florida. se, how does florida shake out? does -- i mean the convention, you know, probably overstated how important that is towards swinging the state. >> right. >> where do you think we sit right now with the state of florida? >> florida is huge. you know, a lot of seniors in florida, medicare and health care are obviously huge issues. mitt romney and paul ryan are gambling that they can do what they need to do on the issue right now and get it out of the way. and that's why i think you saw them run right to medicare after announcing paul ryan so they could deal with it, make the best case they could, go to the convention, and then forget it completely for the next two months and focus back on economic issues and a broader

sense and some foreign policy i would argue. but you know, florida is going to be huge for both candidates this year. >> with medicare, a scary issue obviously for a lot of seniors to look at what paul ryan proposes if you're over the age of 65 or whatever the age you want to put on it, frightens some people in florida, didn't it? >> it did. the idea they were going to pick paul ryan to deal with medicare and forget it, i think is laughable. you pick paul ryan, that's what he's known for, the ryan budgets but also what they would do to medicare. you pick him, you pick all of him and you're going to have this discussion not just the day you announce him, but throughout the entire campaign until the american people have their opportunity to make a judgment. >> looking at paul ryan now, the ryan experiment, a couple weeks old, if you were adrising the romney campaign and said we need paul ryan to appeal to people on the center left of the country what aspects of his biography or positions do you think has that potential? >> i'm not sure. i'm not sure. because you take medicare was

the topic that we talked about the first week. the second week how many weeks has it been now? the second week we've been talking about his positions on abortion, vis-a-vis todd akin. i'm not sure if there -- what there is in his background that we've heard so far that would appeal to the center left as you ask. maybe there might be some things at the center but the center left i'm not sure. in terms of sort of overall sort of american story of a kid who goes to capitol hill as this staffer, smartest person in the room so we hear, and then becomes the vice presidential nominee, well, that's the american story. to go from obscurity to the heights of power. >> can i answer what i think appeals to the center left and it's not his politics or policy. it's that i think people in the middle rightly understand that the economy is the greatest issue we have to deal with and they want smart people dealing with it. i think by and large, on left

and right, people see paul ryan as smart. forgetting his politics and his ideology, he's a smart guy and you hear that from democrats, you hear that from republicans. i think they are banking on him being a smart guy, maybe something of a tech know crat, appealing to the middle. >> but he's not the top of the ticket and that's -- >> also you have this enormous -- you know, i was going to say left turn, that's the wrong way to put it, but just a sharp turn and everything has been focused on the abortion debate and that's where he -- when he comes off on the surface he's p 90 x and heavy metal and cool great american story but, you know, it's that beautiful calm that maureen dowd wrote about. something darker than we know and it's now dominating -- >> i don't think it's dark. i've talked to him a number of times on his position on abortion and what paul ryan does so well if he gets the opportunity is he talks about the economic implications of social issues and the moral

implications of economic issues. he makes that bridge in a way that's really compelling and if you're not a right wing religious person, i'm not religious, it's a really compelling argument to say look the decisions we're making right now on the budget, for example, we have a moral obligation to balance the budget. why? it makes us a more generous nation. gives us the ability to help the needy in ways we can't when we're fiscally strangled. he has a great way of putting these two right/left brain issues together if he's given the opportunity and not at the barrel of a gun as he's been this past week. >> but the only problem with that is, everyone's focused on the abortion issue and the folks who are in the center, independents or moderates, once you hear the extreme positions that he has signed on to with a lot of the bills that congressman akin has signed on, particularly hr 3 which had the forcible rape language in it, the personhood bills, a lot of people the way the politics are

now they shut down once they hear something that extreme. you want your economic message to get through but it can't because this is the guy who has some very -- who signed on to some bills that would do things that i don't agree with. >> but they didn't shut down. they didn't shut down when they learned that president obama signed on to i think the most extreme pro abortion legislation i've ever seen the born alive act. it's shocking in its extremeness this piece of legislation and this didn't seem to phase anyone. i think there's a real double standard when talking about the edges of social issues and the edges of social issues on the right are far more toxic to the mainstream media than the edges of social issues on the left. >> i think your point about making the country more generous and helping the needy and all that, how do you get there? to paul ryan, you would say your idea to do that is by giving tax breaks to the rich and cutting

programs for the poor. lot of people in this country don't want to get to being a more generous country that way. >> i think that's a valid argument. that's looking at his policy very surgically and asking questions about how he wants to get there. but the fact that he wants to get there negates a lot of the arguments that he's just an evil person who really just wants to benefit the rich. there's -- there's nothing dark in his heart. he's a devout catholic and a morally upright person. >> mitt romney may have given democrats a new line of attack last night. he made some comments at a fund-raiser near minneapolis, despite his criticism of the president's handling of the economy, romney told supporters, quote, big business is doing fine in many places. he went on to say, they get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation, they know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money putting various things into places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses. his comment that big business is doing fine drew immediate

comparison on the left to this line president obama used following a disappointing jobs report in june. >> the truth of the matter is, that as i said well,' created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months. over 800,000 just this year alone. the private sector is doing fine. where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy had to do with state and local government often times cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they had in the past from the federal government. >> so now we've got a fight between the private sector is doing fine and big business is doing fine in many places. >> pick another word, mitt. >> romney campaign aides and rnc pointed to the president's comments to suggest he's out of touch with the economy.

leigh, should we be troubled by as many people were by what the president said by what mitt romney said about big business last night? >> big business is actually doing a lot better than i think most people realize. >> the president was right? >> yeah, exactly. i mean profits are soaring although we're starting to see that change a little bit which is kind of alarming. that speaks more to the economy. you have to draw a distinct between business, big business and the economy. they're different. the market again, things are changing right now. yesterday we came off this three-month rally many people were calling a sucker's rally because it was sort of too good to be true. but no, business is fine except for the uncertainty issue. they don't want to do anything, don't want to depreciate anything, don't know what the rules are going to be. decisions you make in 2012, you know, relate to the things that are going to change in 2013. ceos need to know that and they don't. they're holding back.

there's this sense of paralysis and that's not good. >> big business a broad group but what would big business like to see out of its government? certainty is the term. what specifically would they like to see president obama or a president romney do to move things forward? >> they're always going to want favorable, you know, tax, you know, they don't want many changes to the tax code. you know, health care issing by a deal, although we did see merger activity in the insurance arena this week because some ceos see opportunity if obama care with all the changes that that's going to bring. so i think it depends every industry is different. with the tech industry right now, is very different and i would say probably not as tied to what happens with the election as some other industries. >> certainty is the word we seem to hear all the time from business. coming up we'll talk to florida governor rick scott, keeping a close eye on tropical storm

isaac as tampa prepares for the republican convention. also, a preview of "meet the press" with david gregory and "the washington post's" eugene robinson joins us as well. first an update on isaac with bill karins. >> isaac has been a stubborn storm a large storm, hasn't been that intense. still only a minimal tropical storm. hard to project how it's going to look by the time it gets to the gulf after it goes over cuba. it's a weak tropical storm and looks to be reforming once again to the south. that's according to the latest hurricane hunters flying through the storm. so this path has wobbled to the west, back to the east a little bit, for the most part settling in between new orleans and the west coast of florida, east coast of florida is looking better. it you're in miami you need to watch this closely and the keys obviously look like they're going to get clipped. the latest projection and how it goes in the middle there of tampa and new orleans. the right side of the storm is usually the stronger side. the rainier, the dirty side of the storm and much of the west coast of florida would have to

go through that including tampa. the timing has been moved up a little bit too. notice we're talking more of a monday event into monday evening with the weather improving in tampa as we go throughout the day on tuesday. possible landfall, though, on the northern gulf some time late in the day on tuesday. so we're at this fine tune this forecast through the upcoming weekend. the biggest question we have is the intensity forecast and more on that as we possibly go through sunday into monday. haiti is one of those areas we're expecting just a ton of rain. the storm so far remains offshore. so maybe we'll get a little lucky there. not so lucky for us in the u.s. definitely heading our way. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ female announcer ] the power of green coffee extract is now in our new starbucks refreshers™ -- a breakthrough in natural energy. made with real fruit, starbucks refreshers™ are delicious low calorie drinks

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welcome back to "morning joe." in key west, perhaps the calm before the storm there, as the

tropical storm isaac moves in that direction. we're joined by florida governor rick scott live from tallahassee. thanks for being with us this morning. >> good morning. yeah, the last night as you saw, the storm has moved a little further west so joe's hometown of pensacola is going to have to worry a little bit more. but a lot of people worried about the convention and fortunately in the last 24 hours, the storm has moved about 100 more miles west than where it started. i've been leading these twice a day briefings with the rnc, federal officials, local officials, just to make sure everybody has the same information. so we can make sure we have a good convention and we get everybody in our state prepared in case we do have a hurricane. >> this storm, governor, is getting a lot of attention for obvious reasons, as it crosses over with the republican convention, but inside your meetings privately, how concerned are officials about this storm reaching tampa? >> well, the positive is it's continuing to go west so i think

people are relieved with that. but we're prepared. this is the state that knows how to deal with hurricanes, we've got great local emergency management teams and state emergency management teams and we have a very good working relationship with fema and a great national guard. so we're ready. we're also a hospitality state. we have over 80 million tourists a year. we're looking forward to the 50,000 individuals that are going to be coming to tampa and make sure we take care of them and they're safe. >> based on what you know, governor, at 7:22 in the morning on friday, is there any chance part of the convention could be postpo postponed? >> i don't see why it would. it looks like right now if it stays on the track it's on, and, of course, you know, the track will change, but we'll get rain, but we're used to dealing with these things. so, the convention will go on, a great convention, tampa will be a great host city, and people will want to come back to florida like they do every year. >> governor, mark hall perrin here with a question. >> hi, mark. >> good morning. a question about the politics of

your state. do you concede that the polling suggests president obama has a small lead in your state and whatever your answer to that is, will the convention help mitt romney improve his political position in florida? >> you know, mark, i think it's all going to be about jobs. if governor romney is -- can convince floridians he has a plan for job creation that's how i won my race. he has that plan and can sell it well, he's going to win the state. that's the whole issue here. you know, we've done really well, had the biggest drop in unemployment but we need a federal partner, we need lower federal taxes, less regulation, the same thing we've done here. that's going to be the key to the race in november. >> governor scott, i'm wondering if you can also address another convention rumor that there's going to be some protests, potentially some violence around the convention. what have you been hearing about that? >> well, we're ready for that. we have, you know, we've got the

conventions ready, the sheriff's office is ready. law enforcement from around the state, police chiefs ready. so we're ready if that happens. and we've got national guard on standby to bring more national guard in. hopefully we won't. hopefully this will be a situation where we can, you know, the convention can tell its message, same thing as we hope in the dnc when they have their convention. >> governor rick scott of florida, good luck with your preparations there. let's hope this storm isn't a big one for you. >> thanks for being here. >> i look forward to seeing you in tampa. >> see you there. bring in now from washington pulitzer-prize winning columnist, associate editor of "the washington post" eugene robinson and moderator of "meet the press" david gregory. good morning? >> good morning. >> good morning. >> let's start with you, david, we're setting the table here this morning for this convention. you'll be there with "meet the press" on sunday. what are the big themes, what are you looking for as you arrive in tampa? >> i'm focused on biography. i think this is one of any

campaign's huge moments where you have an opportunity to reach way beyond the political class, political journalists covering the race day in and day out and reach a very large audience of people, some of who may not have been dialed into the race before now and people who have been, who are undecided and may be be persuadable. it comes down to biography. governor romney faces real deficits in terms of how he relates to voters, how voters perceive him, strengths, weaknesses, a lot of that being personal. i refer back to our own polling that shows a huge gap between the president and mitt romney in terms of who cares about average people. i think governor romney has to address those things. you've been talking about bain this morning. he's got to own that business record as his biggest calling card for the race. he has got to get out ahead of his own image, define himself, and take control of this if he's going to continue to take a race that is so tight and put himself

to some advantage. >> looks, jonathan capehart, he is embracing that beginning with this op-ed piece in the journal. >> you said biography is important for mitt romney but how important is specificity about what he wants to do, take the country, what direction he wants to take the country in, in that speech? >> yeah. i think it's a big part of it. i think the speech accomplishes a lot of things in front of, you know, tens of millions of people, jonathan. i think what they want to start -- you've seen something clear from this team. they don't want to be too specific. talk about tax cuts what's he going to cut? he doesn't want to create targets on his back because of what he's talking about cutting. he wants a little bit of gauziness around policy areas. he wants to be more specific about some of the principles that he wants to outline. he's got to do that. republicans have been calling on him to do that. they're setting up this convention theme adequately. a lot will be around the

question are you better off now than four years ago. mitt romney does have to provide some sort of way forward. he's got an advantage on economic ideas and i think that's relatively easily accomplished in this economic climate. he has to provide some road map on what he would do to create jobs but to become a practical leader. you can rest on a biography that says look i can reach across the aisle and work with the other side, you know, president obama, president bush before him, campaigned on a return to civility and changing the culture in washington, they couldn't achieve that. i think a lot of people want to know what practical aspects of leadership are going to change the fact that things don't get done in washington and people are disgusted by it. >> gene robinson i had a hunch you would find a way to turn this storm bearing down in tampa into a metaphor for a disaster that is the republican party and you delivered. >> willie -- >> part of your piece and talk about it. a storm the gop didn't expect by gene robinson. the uninvited participation of a

hurricane at next week's republican convention would be superfluous. the party may be flooded with cash but already a debris strewn mess. who would imagine topic a in the days before gop delegates gather would be abortion. never crossed the minds of the convention planners who intended this four day infomercial to be a nonstop indictment of president obama's economy. the line about the relationship between the political parties and candidates, democrats fall in love, republicans fall in line, is so last century. gene? >> well, willie, first of all, that's what's known as a cheap and obvious metaphor and i'm proud of it too, because -- >> at least you're honest about it. >> i write two of these every week and sometimes you have to go for what's in there. >> we knew it was coming. >> you know, i stand behind it. you know, now, you know, in tampa i'm going to be looking first for rain for the deluge. i've got my official msnbc

poncho here. >> survival kit. excellent. >> the kind that mitt romney thinks looks tacky and cheap, remember when he told those fans that gee, they look kind of awful in those ponchos. i'm going to look like that too. seriously, i think the party itself is going to be really interesting at this convention. this is a big tent republican party that has all the sort of currents of thought and people, you know, who -- the anti-abortion crowd, the social conservatives, the libertarians, the establishment republicans who seem to have lost control of the whole process, it will be interesting to see hows they currents interact and whether the party can successfully keep the focus on the economy, keep the focus on defeating president obama, or do we have another eruption like we had this week on the abortion issue. >> looks to me -- >> yeah, david, go ahead. >> i want to add to that, i think it's really important what

gene is saying because as much as mitt romney has a biography test here this is a republican party test as well. he owns the party, it's a difficult party right now in terms of the various strains. i'm talking to governor jeb bush who is an elder statesman in the republican party, a lot of people hoped he would have run for president. he talks about using the convention to turn the country into a nation of converts for the republican party. the difficulty of the party faces right now, among the fastest growing voting groups, hispanics, also among women, younger people, other minorities, is that they are not gaining ground as the demographics of the country change. mitt romney warned the party would be doomed if they don't get ahold of that. i think this abortion fight is the latest issue that challenges the party. as if this is the fight that anybody in the establishment party wanted to have, to go back to talking about abortion, which could even diseffect a lot of women within their own party when they want to keep a focus

on the economy. i think the problems with the party the challenges they face within a party for mitt romney to really govern effectively becomes a crucial test as well at the rnc. >> gene, you think then, the speech that mitt romney delivers there in tampa, he's going to try to sort of wipe the slate clean and get back to what he wants to talk about, the economy as you write in the piece? >> absolutely. i think that's where he wants to go. but he does have a larger task. i mean he does have to sound like the leader of a coherent party that's ready to win the election and ready to govern and so in that sense he can't be quite as narrowly focused as perhaps he would want to be. he's going to have to embrace the whole party and that's a difficult task that can be very interesting to see how he pulls this off. >> david, you mentioned former governor jeb bush. who else do you have joining you on "meet the press" sunday? >> we're going to talk to john mccain about his own weather problems four years ago at his convention that had nothing to

do with minnesota, of course. but had to do with what was approaching arizona -- excuse me new orleans. talk to him about four years later where the party is and what the challenges are for governor romney. debbie wasserman-schultz, head of the dnc will join our round table and jan brewer, immigration is a huge issue in the party, i talked about among hispanic voters. special edition as we set the table for the convention. we'll be live in tampa. >> can't wait to see it, david. live sunday morning in tampa. david gregory thanks so much. eugene, thank you as well for that column at "the washington post."com. he took the low hanging fruit and delivered. well done, gene. thanks. coming up which candidate has the advantage heading into the debates? the atlantic magazine has the tale of the tape. full preview coming up on "morning joe." the capital one cash rewards card

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our coverage of the republican national convention begins monday morning. we'll be hosting our show from the "morning joe" elephant bar on channelside drive in tampa. come join us, brave the rain. coverage begins at 5:30 a.m. with "way too early." we'll see you there all week.

coming up, death by china, a documentary explores how american jobs are ending up overseas. the director of the film joins us next. hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower cholesterol

as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true. ...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios apple employs 26,000 people in its design of making new products. it employs 700,000 manufacturing workers in china. they're an american company, headquartered here, all their jobs are somewhere else. americans need those jobs. but they all exist in china. every one of those manufacturing jobs exists in china. >> these are jobs that could easily be in silicon valley, in oregon, northern california, general along the coast for which they are well trained and

very interested in women and men who would take them in a heart beat. >> a clip of the documentary "death by china" with us writer, producer director peter navarra and author "death by china confronting the dragon, global call to action." thanks for coming in this morning. >> great to be here. >> what's your overarching concern about our trade relationship with china? why is it death as you call it? >> well, since they joined the world trade organization in 2001 with the support of both the democratic president and a republican congress, we've seen over 50,000 of our factories disappear, we've lost 6 million manufacturing jobs, we've got 25 million people who can't find a decent job and we've got both the politician in the media, they haven't figured out that the trade deficit is the problem with our economy. we can't solve our economy until we solve our trade deficit problem. over 75% of our trade deficit excluding oil is with china. they cheat. that's the problem. they don't play by the rules.

they manipulate the currency, they do huge illegal export subsidies, steal our intellectual property, put stuff in the air and water, when steel plant in ohio can't do the same thing, that's a competitive advantage. the worst of it all that apple factory, that's the best factory in china and still 16 hour days, seven days a week and people jumping off buildings into suicide nets. as americans, do we want to really support that kind of thing? as americans, if we really want to recover this economy, we've got to regain our manufacturing base. we have to produce more than we consume. >> conventional wisdom those jobs leave the united states and go to china because it's cheaper, obviously, with wages. >> yeah. >> is that true? >> that's the great myth. i'm a professor in my real life i guess and i did a several year study on sources of chinese competitive advantages. cheap labor matters but that's not it. if it were cambodia and bangladesh would dominate the

economy. the legal weapons of job destruction. the currency thing alone, 40% under values, like a tariff on u.s. goods in china, acts like a subsidy for goods here. china is not solely to blame. big business is doing fine. why? because apple, boeing, ge, caterpillar, they're all going over to china to take advantage of chinese workers, lack of environmental pollution and those export subsidies, dumping stuff back here in america. we go into a walmart and we're not connecting the dots. this is the presidential campaign issue. if we -- if the economics is the issue, china is the issue and the whole point of having a movie come out right now, as the conventions are going on, right after we open in new york, i'm going to ohio, for a month, for this film. we're going to be in 20 different cities in ohio, boots on the ground trying to get these presidential candidates to promise to do something for the american people about china. >> i think this -- this is why i

said before, i think foreign policy is going to be on the table at the rnc because of issues like china which have economic implications. i think energy is another one that mitt romney is going to try to corral because it has foreign policy implications and it's seen as a weak spot for obama. i think you are going to see some foreign policy talk at the rnc but they're all going to be foreign policy issues that have serious implications about jobs and national security. >> and the way to frame that, it is the trade deficit. you look at how the economies grow, gdp, consumption, investment, government spending and exports. run a trade deficit that drags the gdp down by 2.5%. if we're running 1.5% gdp now which what is we're doing, if we had balanced trade which i advocate in the film we would be at 4% like we used to be. now the other part of the trade deficit is oil. >> right. >> and so we need to come to this moment here in this and

understand fiscal stimulus is not going to stimulate an economy that's running on two cylinders instead of eight because we don't have the manufacturing base and so this is what -- this movie is about. we go into the walmart, we give them our money, and basically the other thing they're doing is they're turning that into a war machine which is going to be the most powerful on the planet. make no mistake about what they're doing. they're stealing our technology and making the best military that our money can buy them. >> i guess the question leigh is how to reverse it. >> one question i do about it what do you make of the recent slowdown in china? if you look at gdp we're seeing inventories are piling up and factories closing and outputs slowing. the growth is still torrid compared to us. >> it's great question and the irony is this, china is an export dependent country and they basically prospered over

the last ten years by draining the blood out of europe and the u.s. and so now those two economies are flat on the ground, what's happened to china? it's slowing down. that's no surprise. i was long advocating that the policies that they need to do that would benefit both china and us, what they need is a strong domestic consumer. they need to build up that country instead of just sending exports. the way to do that, for example, would be to revalue their currency, strengthen their currency, put purchasing power in the hands of the people, health care system, pension system. these are the things that the communist party needs to be able to do. the communist party is not communist. they're basically totalitarian dynasty and a great character in the film, harry woo, people's republic of china, no republic, not people's republic. >> what's the first thing you would do if you're president obama or mitt romney to stop this trend? >> two things. advocate a policy of balanced

trade by 2020, and brand china a currency manipulator. the chinese don't understand weakness. they exploit weakness. and as thee ya lee says in the film both parties have failed us the same way. >> it's a critical issue. thank you for shining a light on it. death by china is the out in the theaters. the book "death by china confronting the dragon a global call to action" thank you very much. shy la he buff's new movie about bootleggers in the south, the man who wrote the story about his family of rum runners. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks.

we'll have to put gas in it. >> i'm sorry, jack, i had other things on my mind, like robbing your brother's friends. >> all you had to do was put gas in the truck. >> if we're just sitting ducks -- come on, you got to be kidding. >> what, you got a better idea? >> you're going to put moon

shine in the gas tank? >> move! >> that was a clip from the firm lawless. the infamous bondurant. lawless is based on matt's book about his own grandmother and great uncles and we just learned how to fix your energy problems in this country. moon shine, that's the answer. >> and the book is great because it's essentially your family's story, tell us about it. >> there was a general understanding that my dad was involved in moon shine when i was growing up, but it wasn't until we discovered several

articles 15 years ago, when we came to ups the depth, my father and i actually, that he and my father were -- which is the climax of the film and the book. that sort of established them as a gang or an enterprise at the time which was quite surprising to all of us in the family. i set asite as much information as i could to create a plausible dramatic narrative. >> we saw in the film "lawless," was it as violent as it seems to be? was there as much money going

around as there seems to be? >> it is sensationalized to a degree. i think it's amplified a little bit. but some of the things that are depicted in the film did happen. it's probably just in the way they are depicted in film and tv. but there does seem to be a fascination where prohibition. but it does seem to come around. it's a distinctly american phenomenon. it's a cultural history that we find very fascinating. >> describe the scale of the operation. >> it's hard to say, at the high of it, during prohibition itself, they would be distributing from a couple

hundred barrels at a time. it was difficult to be septembeseptembe -- a lot of moon shiners had to remain, almost somewhat mobile, your site would become discovered. >> how did they distribute their product? >> in the old days, it was mostly by car, my father remembers being a very young boy driving around in his father's truck with jars of moon shine in the backseat. in those days it was a generally accepted, common practice, nobody thought much about it. it was the cultural of the air. then as prohibition comes in and it becomes a hiaieig higher dol

amount. then there were trucks and making these mad dashes. and a lot of people know that stock cars came from this that people fixing up their engines so they could go faster. >> you're speaking my language, i'm a huge nascar fan. but as a writer, you find out you've got criminal path in your family, do you think jackpot, this is so great? or do you think, maybe i don't want to tell to story? >> i had just finished or was writing my first novel when i started to discover these things. i knew it was a compelling story, i knew it was interesting. i didn't feel like i had any obligation or i didn't feel like it was necessary to air family secrets or something like that that didn't really enter into it. obviously i was close to the

people involved, i felt authority, i felt i could talk about the area with authority, it was a research project that i could sink my teeth into. it was really trying to find a good story and it was handed to me. >> it's a great story, it's exciting, it's dangerous, it's got so many great elements. the film again is "lawless" based upon your book. still to come, what 50 hours of footage can tell us about how barack obama and mitt romney l stack up against each other in the debates. and lance armstrong decided to stop fighting the allegations of using performance-enhancing drugs and went on to become the most famous athlete in the u.s.

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public and national committee is in damage control mode right now and they have released the following message addressing their membership. it's been a lot of trouble for the republican party here lately, so they put together this message for the republican membership. >> in light of inappropriate behavior by todd akin and kevin

oweder, the republican committee request that republicans -- a message from the republican national committee. >> getting it done. getting it done. >> good morning, it's 8:00 here on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. as you wake up out west. take a live look at new york. jonathan capehart, mark cap prin. >> lance armstrong stripped, being stripped of all his titles. is that an admission that he did something wrong and he didn't want to face the arbitration and see the evidence against him? >> he says it's not an admission, but it's a nonadmission admission. you would have had chapter and verse, it seems to me there were

enough eyewitness, there was enough detail and enough smoke you have to say it was fire and it's sad. this was one of the iconic athletes of our time and he made this event popular among people who never watched it before. >> he had put out a statement yesterday after announcing he will not fight these charges anymore. he said there comes a point in every man's life when he has to say enough is enough. for me that's now, the toll this has taken on my family, our foundation and me leads me to where i am today, finish with this nonsense. the anti-doping agency stripped him of all seven titles. a lifetime ban from cycling and a loss of the 2000 olympic

bronze. he maintains he never tested positive for everything. >> he is the brand and the brand is now damaged and what makes it even worse is he's not unique, there's all kinds of sports, this is a plague in modern sports, the playing field is not level. you don't know now what to believe and what to trust. >> we just saw it in baseball, back to back 50-game substances in banned substances. >> the closest things to it is pete rose, and this because of all his charitable work and his work in cancer is just a shock for everybody. it's common for now people to say, well, this is an admission, but it's more sad to me that this is afternoon admission, and he can't compete in other sports

now and we'll probably never know the facts. >> this is anotherer the greatest witch hunt, to say with a straight face for years and under such scrutiny, didn't do it. he was indignant about this too. you're right, we'll probably never know,a may be one of the biggest tragedies of this, but certainly is legacy is tarni tarnished. >> and you have roger clements, it's amazing how many of the plaques on the wall is roger clements and all the way denying everything. but there's asterisks on all the plaques now. >> if lance didn't think there was enough evidence against him, he would not have made this

admission and let them strip him of his seven titles. >> we have spent the last decade, we have seen everything that people believed in, whether it's a financial institution or government itself or just heroes just falling by the wayside. you're seeing that this world that we had constructed of sort of purity of perfection, it's just not real. >> he stated i know i won those seven tours, everyone i competed against kws i won. this is the toughest event in the world, and he says hiss charitable work continues strong. we'll move on to the republican national convention, three days away in tampa, florida. all eyes now on hurricane isaac. is it going to be there for the republican national convention? >> overnight the storm remains very weak, the path has shifted just lightly to the west, a

little bit, not a lot. still expect some impacts in tampa, the storm is now due south, the dominican republic and has to eventually cross over the cuba as it gets towards florida and the gulf. here's the latest track from the hurricane forecast center. we're really not going to know what this storm is going to be intensity wise until it comes off of cuba and it passes the keys and that may be monday morning. mostly pay attention to the yellow which is the cone of uncertainty, it still includes miami, barely, it still includes tampa, although tampa has shifted a little bit. new orleans is still in the cone of uncertainty, so anywhere from new orleans to tampa, you have

to prepared for, worst-case scenario, a category 2 medded your way. most likely it's a category 2 or category 1. a lot of the commuter models shifted a little bit toward the west yesterday and a lot of them have shifted back to the east. i don't want everyone in tampa to let their guard down. >> obviously we're concerned about when it hits south florida, but for a lot of people watching "morning joe," they're going to the convention, the rain hits tampa when exactly? >> i think rain and wind at any point would be monday. the last day for preparations in florida, especially the tampa area, if it does head your way, the problem with it getting there and flying in on sunday t airlines, they don't like to get their plane's in harm's way. if you want to get into tampa, try to do so, saturday, saturday

night. >> the drinking game word, the cone of uncertainty. >> i thought jonathan was the code of uncertainty. >> bill, thanks so much. there was some news last night, mark halperin, which is that mitt romney will officially be nominated on monday rather than wednesday. explain the back story on that a little bit. >> you know, they're still playing with the pieces of it. the net wovrks are covering the networks, so i think part of this is to develop -- some people are speculating about that and part of it is to deal with the ron paul no, sirs. governor romney's campaign is done, they have done a good job of addressing a lot of the problems of the convention.

you got to tamp down anything that could become the story of the day, a la the hurricane. there's visible clashes with the paul people that steps on the message. the big thing, paul ryan, mitt romney, introducing him to the country, they don't want it to be about ron paul's earning attention on the floor. >> can you explain what that ron paul rob is for romney? >> they don't know -- he's got a lot of delegates, they negotiated a settlement to determine the number of paul delegates there would be, but they don't want there to be the perception that ron paul is in charge of the party. >> this is very mitt romney,

right? he's a disciplinary, he wants to run a tightly controlled campaign. he will try and deal with isaac, if he could. he will deal with joe biden coming to crash the rnc and he's going to deal with the ron paul forces and the troublemaker tent, if you've heard about this, if thats means he has to move things around, he will. he wants to be the star every night, not just at the end and he wants his message finely controlled. >> do you know who they're bringing in to deal with the hurricane? mikos krrkcassidine. >> it's been a couple of weeks since paul ryan was announced,

not talking about economy, but talking about medicare, talking about the definition of rape, is this a reset for mitt romney to introduce himself to people who haven't been in the weeds all summer? >> he certainly hopes for, in other conventions, you're looking forward to seeing nonprimary speakers. this will be all about mitt romney, he has the opportunity to give a huge, important tone setting speech that he will need to carry through the next couple of months, and it's hard, he has the dnc right after this, so he only had a couple of days to really grab on to the momentum. if he doesn't come out with an exciting rousing speech, i think this convention is going to become a failure.

mitt romney needs a moment. >> as a foreign policy man at this convention, because you're not going to get any of it. go ahead anyway for laughs. >> it's a tough time for those in my career over the next couple months possibly. we have to remember that most americans have not been focusing on this nearly as much as people watching this show. so for mitt romney, not only to introduce himself, but the frame the issue, to frame the campaign, so to put the onus on the obama administration's economic performance, so to frame the campaign and to introduce himself. >> a lot of people have said as he indicated,itis the most important speech of his career.

could it all happened in one speech? >> american people are not paying attention, that's the night they start paying attention. and after that, once people start thinking, oh, there is a presidential election going on, who is this guy, what is he like? how do i feel about him? to see him on that stage, people cheering his name, holding up a sign could be something that could help milt romney. but when i'm in tampa, i will be curious to see how much love is there for mitt romney or is it just an unbound hatred toward the president that's motivating these people? >> paul ryan in my estimation according to of gave conservatives the permission to feel like they could vote for

mitt romney and still be conservatives. i want to see how they split the responses between paul ryan and mitt romney in their speeches. he has spoken many times about his faith in really palatable ways. he really can deliver that message. so it will be interesting to see if they let mitt romney talk about the economy, paul ryan talk about social issues, vice versa, or they share the load. >> say two things about ryan's speech, when paul ryan come in to do his speech, he's going to have them at hello. the other thing is often the romney campaign in boston will

look at what we say here and the convention wisdom is romney has to give the best speech he's ever given by far. most people around governor romney that i have talked to sort of dispute that. i think in this case, they may be wrong, i think they're understood estimating the significance. the president's convention comes right on the heels of this one, he needs a speech that is so good that people are still talking about it during the president's speech. >> how does mitt romney turn himself into ronald reagan, the picture of charisma during the course of a peach. >> it's like -- david axelrod likes to say that presidential campaigns are mris of the sole.

>> how can he maintain that enthusiasm and that momentum if he's going to give the speech on monday and the democratic convention. >> just the role call is monday, he's still speaking thursday. >> it's as much a person thing as the campaign. he's got to bring it back to that and make the case that it's our foreign policy. and make the case that four more years or a version of it is unacceptable. that's the possibility sweet spot for the romney-ryan campaign. outside the hall it's to return the focus to the issue that more than anything else is going to moat tate -- essentially he offers a better steward ship, a

better sue pardonship of the economy than four more years than barack obama. i think that's at least as big a sell as anything personally. >> when we come back, who will win the debates, obama or romney. is that's next. also a preview of parade magazine's pick. you know what i love about this country?

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welcome back. in our last segment there was so some -- whether or not the republican national convention moved the role call vote from mitt romney from wednesday to monday, as a response to something, mark, this is something that's been in the works for a long time. >> this is in response to the weather. they wanted to move the role call to get it out of the way to avoid a later flash with the ron paul people. ann romney's speech is still scheduled for monday. if they can't secure sufficient coverage in prime time on

broadcast television, for ann romney's talk on tuesday. >> so ann romney may move, but roll call on monday as planned. >> as announced by the role call planners. his cover spoir, obama versus romney who will coffer the -- many of aspects of campaigning, he decembisplays s laboratory youly studied moves. the debates have been his strengths. he grew up with bois strous arguments about everything around the dinner table. quote he loves the dialectic of arguing both sides. he will enter this fall's encounters with very recent

successful experience and a wide range of formats and challenges. we're trying to imagine you in a dark room studying 50 hours of debates. >> we really sacrifice to inform the public. the thing that was surprising to me was to go back and see the teddy kennedy and the young mitt romney in 1944. he was very much the same guy as he see today. he's not the best guy at working a crowd or having an impromptu speech, but the debates he actually does better at than anything else, i think. >> let's watch a clip from october 1994. this is mitt romney in a senate debate against the late ted kennedy. >> when there's anxiety, there's a willingness to listen to simple, easy answers and that's wrong.

the us most importance to working families in massachusetts. >> mr. romney. >> sal, the answer to your question isa -- they appreciate what senator kennedy has done and they realize that the answers of the 1960s are not working anymore. >> it's interesting to look at the man, he was i think strikingly handsome then in a different way from now, he's a very formidable person physically. but the message was just the same as the one he wants to advance against president obama. president obama, they sympathize with them. but he says the real point is we need to do something different about our economy. that showed in our debate in

massachusetts. he was able to say, the real point is, the real answer is, the debaters skill on getting back what you're talking got. >> mark halperin is with us with a question. >> both campaigns try to set expectations. forget the campaign spin, are they roughly even? do you think one of them goes into this with a better set of skills, more likely to do well? >> i did try to acknowledge this expectations game, i'm aware of all that, but let's look at the way these two perform. as i was saying earlier, i think this is the best part of romney's repertoire as a campaigner, and it may be the weak spot in obama. where the big set speech, where he will have 30, 40 minutes to talk about what he's doing and where he has best. in the debate, first against hillary clinton and then against

john mccain. there was one or two things where obama got himself in trouble. especially, hillary, you're likable enough, hillary. we think of obama being rhetorically very polished, but this is not his area of real achievement. another is, in this challenge of incumbent debate. the challenger is seen in the first debate as having beaten expectations, it's the first time he had stood head to head with mitt romney. >> so you've watched all these videotapes of all these debates, you poor thing, what's the best format for mitt romney and what's the best format for barack obama. >> i think with mitt romney, there's a-plus for him. the point i'm trying to make is that when he's prepared, when he

has the relief, of course he lost. the free wheeling situation is one where he's had most trouble. when he's off his sort of assigned lines or in an area of sort of third and fourth follow up. by contrast, president obama has now had four plus years and the two years of campaigning before that of dealing with almost every question under the sun. hoe has developed some skill as the free flowing event. so i think that the more improvisation occurs, the more that sticks to a formal plan, the better for governor romney. >> all right, james, october 3, wednesday october 3, at the university of denver, we'll get our first look at these guys on the same stage in a domestic policy debate and a couple weeks later in a town hall format.

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welcome back to "morning joe." here with us now editor-in-chief of parade magazine, on the eve of the republican convention, on the cover story of the new issue of parade. the romneys, it's a discussion about the republican nominee and his wife ann romney. you covered a lot in this interview, what was the take away? >> what was interesting was the premise was we put questions to governor romney from two parade papers, gate house papers, cafe mom and parade readers, they wanted to know about the economy, romney's religion and his goal to be president would affect their lives. it's kind of an interesting interview, in that he jokes

around a little bit. there's listen a little bit of humor, at first ann romney talks about how emotional she feels when she gives the check and he turns around and says, yeah, i feel emotional true and i cry for different reasons. he goes on to say that one of the reasons he doesn't want to share more about his tax returns is that tithing part he wants to be private. >> our church doesn't publish how much is given, this is done privately. one of the down sides of running for president is that this is known. it's a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our god and our church. mark halperin, that's one of the reasons people surmise among many others that he hasn't released his taxes, do you believe him? >> my gut is that it is that, he

doesn't think it's anybody's business, not just the tithing, but now he's made his money and the tithing, i think he has a different evaluation of what's proper to do or what's politically salable about what's been done if you put them out. >> just about how loose the romneys were, which sort of contradicts the impression of him as a wooden figure on the campaign stop. >> we have done two interviews, this particular day was a friday afternoon, the family was there, full on. they served dinner, lobster and corn, a sort of new england boil. and there was a baby, the latest grandchild was sort of seated at the table cooing away, and every

so often, mrs. romney would sort of play with the baby. it's a verimor very more relaxe there's family around, they're very comfortable in their own skin, which is interesting because i don't think we have seen that and maybe we'll see that over the next few days at the convention. >> you solicited questions from your readers. what do you finded? >> there were live questions how i'm struggling, you have never had to worry about money a day in your life. the interesting answer, this was done before the ryan selection, and also before his trip to europe and he responded saying i have never had financial stress

but i have had health concerns and we have had to grapple with that and that answer with everything that's come in the last few weeks, he's concerned about health, he did his own health plan in massachusetts and now doesn't know quite what to do but his compassion with his own health issues translate -- >> did you get any hint of governor romney being uncomfortable answering these personal questions. it's one thing to talk about policy and policy positions, but it's another to answer questions about your health, the health of your family, the health of your wife, your wealth, how you spend your money, what you spend these things reason. >> well, he's actually -- they were very chatty, they talk about what their white house

might be. he had a number of humorous moments. one reader asked, have you ever felt like a leader? and his response was i have my church and i have my faith and if i thought about what other people think, i would lose my hair and ann romney said, you sure haven't done that. and he said, no, it's all held on with glue. >> i certainly like his musical choices. toby keith? that will unite the party. >> it's all about getting the southern rock strategy back. >> i'm on board. >> i think that he shows himself -- he also said something very nice about the obamas, believe it or not in that he sensed he likes the feeling of children in the white house and the feeling that the obamas have had a very welcoming white house. so this is a slightly more

personal vibe that we're getting, they're all policy questions, but he says, as we have said before, nobody's really been paying attention up until now, i mean we pay attention, but americans are going to tune in starting on sunday and monday and say who is this guy. and he gets to hit the reset button. >> he drops down to the killers. >> maybe flowers is a mormon. >> do you think mitt romney listens to the killers? >> i listen to kenny and the killers. i think they can be compatible. >> we're about to find out everything new about mitt romney. >> rattle off some adjectives some traits that you don't usually see in public?

>> i think she's funny, he's an incredibly warm grandparent, when we were with him back in november. he was picking up fruit loops off the floor because the grandchildren were dropping them. >> was he eating them? >> he was not eating them. but i think this is a family person and i think actually what's interesting about both the romneys and the obamas is that this is a unit of, you know, we always think of the clintons as a political couple. i think this is a political couple. i think ann romney is very helpful on the campaign trail. where her speech will be will be interesting. his family brings an energy to him that makes him push forward. >> why can't he do that on a tv show or at an event? >> i think it's maybe it's

just -- when you're a ceo, maybe you're not used to sort of projecting that. he actually said, we asked if he was emotional or not. he says he is emotional, he's not john boehner emotional. maybe he needs to showmore of that. i don't know how much real ceos are allowed to put forth sort of what they wish. pain we want our candidates and our presidents to be much more down to earth and we'll see if he gets there. >> romney is this week in parade magazine. >> we have the president and the first lady, so we offered them that stay and so same situation, we sat down with both of them, half hour interview, questions, you know, there's a nice mix between sort of the softer stuff that you know my former colleagues at "people" magazine had asked and more serious stuff including what governor romney sort of basically says that, you know, the president wants to

make this a socialist society and the president responds to that. it's a one-two punch for people who aren't necessarily getting this in their local newspapers. it's a way for the nation to kind of on a sunday sort of see, okay, who are these people in and who are their families and what are their values? >> this week the interview, the front cover of parade magazine, the romneys. we'll see you soon. we'll be right back with the weekend review.

all right, you have waited long enough, it's time now for the weekend review.

>> members of congress started jumps in the water. >> at number three, holy water. >> we had been in israel for several days, working very hard, endsed up having dinner. >> it was revealed this week that members of a congressional delegation traveling in israel last summer jumped after a few drinks and even fewer clothes jumped into a body of water where jesus is said to have walked on water. the top of the tank routine. drew obligatory outrage from the top of the republican party. >> i think it's reprehensible. this is unbecoming of a member of congress. >> this was briefed through a moti spokesman saying, father forgive us. >> jimmy kimmel showed just why

he was bumped up from the 11:35 spot to a bizarre mother daughter interview. >> i looked at what the state drink of virginia was and it was milk. and the first dish i thought of that had milk in it was chowder. >> her mother was mouthing along silently with the answers. >> what what did you tell the first lady when you saw her. >> i told her i was very glad to see her, and i was really excited for that day. >> after the interview, the mother returned her to her carrying case. >> and the number one story of the week. >> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has a way of sort of shutting that down.

>> akin offered a free lesson on the female reproductive system. >> i can't defend what he said, i can't defend him. >> rape is rape, and there's no splitding hairs over rape. >> he resisted pressure on his campaign to shut the whole thing. >> to quote my ole john paul jones, i have not begun to fight. >> the happy to hear tom akins comments the duty who got buckwalters and jumped into the place where jesus walked on water. >> up next, the best of late night. [ mom ] dear chex cereal,

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committee is in damage control mode right now and they have

released the following message addressing their membership. been a lot of trouble for the republican party here lately, so they put together this message for the republican membership. i hope you enjoy this too. >> in light of recent inappropriate behavior by republican congressman todd akin, the republican national committee kindly requests that from now until election day our members refrain from the following, naked swimming, naked wrestling, pretty much nick naked and making offensive remarks about women. >> we'll sit back and relax and show you how loose and cool i am. let's do it, baby. ♪ a superfreak >> you can also check me out on

pinterest. i feel the need for pleats. now it's time for romney's rants corner. this week's rant is on people who listen to their diskmen too soft. blast that diskman, blast that walkman, sunni, could you bring me a glass of water. >> here you go, senior mitt. >> thank you. all right, that's all i got this week. see you later. peace. stop video camera. stop webcam, stop internet camera, stop webcam are, sirry, can you stop webcam are in? >> we'll be live next week from our own elephant joe morning

bar. we'll be at our howl at the moon bar. coverage will begin at 5:30 p.m. on monday. up next, what did we learn today? [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec®

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live picture of tampa, we'll see you there on monday at 5:30 in the morning. what did you learn getting up and talking about politics for a few hours? >> i think that movies are finally getting the respect they deserve. everyone's coming up moon shine. >> let's call it a wannabe red neck. >> you're safe. jonathan, what did you learn? >> i learned a new terms of art, cones of uncertainty. >> mark what did you learn? >> i learned that if you say mikos cassidin on -- >>