after a summer that has seen shooting deaths in multiple corners of the american public square, a movie theater, a house of worship and a school campus, a gunman at the empire state building wounded eight and left one victim dead before he was killed by police on the scene. it is friday, august 24th and thin this is "now." joining me today, msnbc political analyst and georgetown university professor, michael eric dyson. "wall street journal" white house reporter carol le msnbc contributor jonathan capehart of the "washington post" and buzzfeed editor in chief, ben smith. a gunman opened fire across the street from the empire state building this morning, killing one person before he was killed by police. the nypd says nine other people were shot, some of them possibly by the police. the shooting happened shortly after 9:00 a.m. during the morning rush hour. officials say the shooter was a 53-year-old disgruntled worker who was fired during a company

downsizing last year. police say he returned to outside of his old place of employment this morning and shot a former co-worker in the head. new york city mayor michael bloomberg addressed the press in the last hour, saying things could have been much worse. >> this is a terrible tragedy and there's no doubt that the situation would have been even more tragic but for some extraordinary acts of heroism. every day as you know our police officers put their lives on the line to protect us. they did so again today, responding immediately. >> president obama was notified of the shooting shortly after 9:30 by his homeland security team. officials from the fbi and atf are on the scene investigating. radio transmissions from the nypd describe what happened. >> any shots fired by mos. >> witnesses near the empire state building said the scene was one of complete chaos. >> tell me what you heard.

>> a pop, pop, pop, pop and i started to run to my office because i was very shaken up, and i went into my office and i calmed down some, then i came back out and i was standing on fifth avenue between 33rd and 34th street and i saw the dead guy in front of the empire state building. >> what was the response like with the police department? >> so spontaneous. they were coming from everywhere. the sirens and everywhere, they were coming from everywhere. >> today's shooting comes during a deadly summer across the country. since july 20th, 21 people have been killed during three high profile rampages. on july 20th, james holmes was accused of walking into a colorado movie theater and killing 12 people, injuring 58. on august 5th, six people died when a gunman opened fire at a sikh temple in wisconsin. on august 13th, a gunman killed three people near texas a & m university. just last night, 19 people were injured in shootings across chicago. let's get more from the scene at the empire state building with nbc's jeff rossen. give us the latest. we know the president just

spoke, got some -- sorry, not the president, the mayor just spoke. we got some details on the shooter, jeffrey johnson, 53, who was fired from his job a year ago. >> reporter: yeah, fired from his job here in this area, in midtown manhattan, from a company called hazen imports. the victim, the other woman who died, the innocent bystander was 41 years old. her next of kin is currently being notified so we don't have her name yet. nine others were injured in local hospitals. we are told they are not likely to die. we don't know their exact conditions but they are not likely to die. i want to show you the scene on fifth avenue. as people continue to gather behind the police barricades, and police over on this side, alex, continue to investigate the crime, they are focused on this car right here. that's one of the locations. they're also on the ground over there, the little yellow markings on the ground, they're the bullet casings as they count them up. again, this was a shooting, a gunfight between police and the

suspect in the middle of a very busy midtown manhattan street. fifth avenue at that hour of the morning when the shooting happened, just after 9:00 a.m., incredibly busy. many people around, and i think mayor bloomberg probably hit the nail on the head in that this could have been, as tragic as it was, much, much worse considering the amount of people, the sheer amount of people that were here on the street and you have bullets flying in every which direction. police say officers' lives were in danger so they fired back on the suspect, who apparently was coming for some sort of revenge, a disgruntled ex-employee of this company. >> you know, certainly one of the things that mitigated the loss was the fact that the nypd was on the scene, they acted incredibly swiftly and tactically. we do know that the police that were there were actually counterterrorism units. tell us a little bit more about that, given sort of where the empire state building, its meaning and sort of the great

landscape of new york city, it's also clearly a target for would-be terrorists. ray kelly and the new york city police department have been very unapologetic about taking very stringent measures to keep the city safe. this seems to be one area where their actions could have potentially saved many, many lives. >> reporter: yeah. i have covered news in the city for a very long time as a local reporter and network correspondent and i can tell you, since 9/11, whenever you have a shooting, a large-scale shooting like this, especially at a landmark location like the empire state building, they get those counterterrorism officials out quickly to figure out exactly what's going on, are they dealing with a random shooting, something like this, a workplace dispute, or is it something that is much more sinister, something along the lines of terrorism, which they were able to rule out here pretty quickly. but no question, those are some of the first teams that are deployed to an area after the original police officers respond to those counterterrorism officials. >> nbc's jeff rossen on the scene in midtown manhattan.

thanks for the details. we of course are following this story as it develops. i want to open it up to the panel a little bit. we started off this show with a list of the shootings that have happened this summer. it has been a terrible summer in terms of violence and violent acts in the american public square. jonathan, i wonder, obviously there are many details that still need to be sketched out, information that needs to be gathered, but when you think about sort of violence in the american public space, this seems to be if anything on the uptick. what does it say, i guess, what can we learn from these moments? what does it say about the american psyche in terms of how we deal with this but also what happens the next time. i feel like each time we say this must never happen again and yet. >> and yet it happens again. unfortunately, there will be a next time because there always is a next time, which is why you have mayor bloomberg after the aurora, colorado incident, the movie theater incident, he came

out very forcefully saying hey, mitt romney, president obama, what are you doing about guns and gun violence. whether it's a mass shooting like aurora, colorado or a senseless shooting in neighborhoods as is happening in chicago, or targeted shootings as appears to have happened in washington, d.c. at the family research council, there's something, something going on out there in america that i can't quite put my finger on, but after more than a decade, probably after two decades of just sort of safety, where new york city went from having more than 2,000 murders a year to being the safest city in the united states and other cities across the country emulating what new york does, we've gone from a feeling where you could walk anywhere, feel safe in any community, to right now just this summer in the last month and a half, where no one feels safe anywhere. >> i think what sort of separates these horrific acts of

violence, ben, is that each one represents sort of a loss of innocence. the idea of the movie theater no longer being safe. that a house of worship is no longer safe. as a new yorker, the empire state building, there was actually a shooting there in 1997, but these are sort of coded landmarks for new yorkers and so you know, while the numbers are obviously still -- nothing is firm in terms of the victims are in the hospital, of course, they are expected to survive, the numbers may not be as big as those in colorado. for new yorkers, when you see something like this happen at the empire state building it's different than if it happened anywhere else. >> for sure. this is a street that everybody in the city walks down. there's a big library across the street, it's really right in the heart of the city, just a mile south of here. i do think one of the things that will be different about this shooting is you have a local official, michael bloomberg, who is going to talk very directly about guns. i think there's been -- there's a sense nationally a lot of officials feel that's to politicize a tragedy. bloomberg always runs right into

that. he will likely use this platform to talk about that. >> he already started to, when he was speaking today. he mentioned there are too many guns on the street and you see, he talked about this around aurora and other shootings. the interesting thing about this is, a, when something like this happens, in a very public sphere like in the streets of new york, where there's tons of tourists and things like that, it gives a sense of cultural anxiety about anywhere people are, but also in terms of the politics of this, we have seen the cycle of a shooting happens and there's a ton of attention to it, then it subsides and politicians come out and say how sorry they are that this happened and president obama in particular will review his call for some sort of gun control, but without putting any weight behind it -- >> or maybe not even saying the word gun. >> right. or that. and so everybody feels bad when something like this happens, the politicians publicly, but nobody really does anything about it. >> you know, i'm involved in a lot of these debates about

violence because i write some about pop culture, specifically hip-hop. what amazes me is people are always trying to draw a parallel between video games, hip-hop and the culture. well, what we're seeing here is the coarsening of political discourse, not simply about whether you're democrat or republican but the inability to tolerate the other. the resort to violence rhetor rhetoric rhetorically or symbolically and it begins to show up in our personal and public lives. number one. number two, what's interesting, you mentioned very rarely is it mentioned in the media, chicago. we've seen, talking about the banality of evil, the stuff that happens so often, we become almost indifferent to it. certain zones of america have seen the banality of evil but now it's seeping past those folk in the hood, in the ghetto, now it becomes part and parcel of the american landscape and we feel anxiety that we don't feel when it happens to other parts. i think all of us have to grapple with it now. >> that's absolutely cultural anxiety carol is talking about. it's not just in the hood.

it's at the movie theater in aurora, colorado, in front of t the empire state building. this is just the latest in a series of shootings in the public sphere. we will discuss the trends and what it means for the direction of the company and the american psyche next. last time i was at a sleepover my parents had kraft mac & cheese without me. so this time, i took precautionary measures. looking for these? [ rattling ] [ male announcer ] kraft macaroni & cheese. you know you love it. ketaze hve ous inby an

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the area around the empire state building in new york city remains closed following a shooting this morning that has left two dead and nine injured. police say around 9:00 a.m. this morning, a 53-year-old man who had been laid off from his job a year ago shot and killed his former employer at close range. the victim was 41 years old. the suspect then fled, carrying a 45 caliber pistol. a construction worker who saw the shooting alerted two nypd

officers who were stationed outside the empire state building. after the suspect pulled out his gun again, the officers shot and killed him. the nine bystanders who were injured by stray fire are expected to recover. in the 33 days leading up to today's shooting in new york city, 21 people have been killed from mass shootings. yesterday, michelle obama was in oak creek, wisconsin visiting with victims from the deadly shooting there earlier this month. the brady campaign reports nearly 98,000 people a year are shot in america and one-third of them are killed. dan gross is the president of the brady campaign to prevent gun violence and joins us now from washington. dan, i have to say, we have seen a lot of each other this summer, not under the best circumstances. certainly today is not any better than the rest. i guess i wonder what you make of this in terms of turning the corner on the conversation around gun control. >> i think that corner is already turning this summer. the difference is the american people are coming together finally to say, as i told you they would, we are better than this. we're better than a nation where

tragedies happen in movie theaters, near major landmarks in big cities, and we're better than 32 murders in our country every day. you're starting to see the most unbelievable people participate in that dialogue. gun owners, hunters, 74% of nra members support sensible measures like background checks that can prevent a significant number of these tragedies from happening. so you know, that corner is being turned. it's just a question of closing that huge disconnect that still exists between what the american people want, that conversation that's genuinely happening among the american public on we are better than this.org, and between them and our public officials, right up to the top, right up to president obama and governor romney, who have yet to provide us with their plans of what they plan to do about an issue that's going to claim the lives of 48,000 americans during the term of the next president if we don't do something about it. >> dan, it's heartening to hear you think the conversation and the pressure is beginning to mount but i guess i watch video of paul ryan earlier this week

talking proudly about how he was a deer hunter, a hunter from wisconsin, certainly the gun lobby shows no signs of weakening, and i wonder to what degree you really do think this is going to be -- gun control is going to be an issue that's even tackled or dealt with or spoken about on the campaign trail before november, and then in the next administration. >> i do think it's going to happen. we have already seen, you know, president obama has made a couple of speeches about it talking about background checks, talking about an assault weapons ban, but the really heartening thing is we've had hundreds of thousands of americans coming to we are better than this.org, coming to the brady campaign.org and signing the petition to president obama and governor romney to give us their plan, signing the letter to make this a question in the debate. the first presidential debate, by the way, is going to happen within ten miles of both aurora, colorado and columbine and that's why more than 10,000 people have already come together to sign a letter to make this a question. one thing i can guarantee you is

it's not going to happen unless the american people, unless we make our voices heard. the heartening thing, the thing i take heart in, is that is genuinely happening. you have seen people like rupert murdoch, bill o'reilly, michael gerson, george w. bush's speech writer, all coming out, talking about this middle ground that so clearly exists, things like background checks, the assault weapons ban, that we can do to keep dangerous guns out of the hands of dangerous people without conflicting with paul ryan's love of hunting. that's why like i said, 74% of nra members support background checks to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons and domestic abusers and dangerously mentally ill. that middle ground exists. the american public knows it exists. we just have to close that disconnect that exists between what the american public wants and what our elected officials and presidential candidates are doing about it. that's shameful, that disconnect. >> jonathan capehart, dan makes

a very important point which is there are plenty of gun owners and plenty of republicans and plenty of folks in conservative circles that believe in practical gun control measures. governor ed rendell, who talks on this show frequently about the gun control issue, says look, the gun lobby isn't as powerful as you think it is. it just takes some courage and leadership to stand up there and say hey, we've got to do something about this. >> i was going to say, what's sitting in that disconnect between the american people and their elected officials is the nra. so how do you get the nra to back down or more importantly, get elected officials to stare down the nra and say look, we know there's a middle ground here, we know what needs to be done, so damn it, we're going to do it. how many more shootings must we see, high profile shootings like the ones we're talking about today, other shootings like the ones in chicago last night, again, more shootings there that aren't getting the same amount of attention. >> michael eric dyson, we can

pin some things on the nra in terms of push-back on policy and legislation but at the end of the day, this is still a democracy. the american people have a voice and where is that sense of collective outrage? why were there 19 shootings in chicago last night? >> i think that, look, we've ceded so much of this territory to the professionals so we think the negotiation of our conscience is now in the bailiwick of politicians. what is obama or romney doing. what are we doing? there have been grassroots movements across the country. think about chicago, where the deplorable concentration of genocidal impulses are being unleashed and people are dying every day with no news being able to at least highlight it, and then when we do, we're coming into the tail end. the addiction to violence in america is nearly erotic. the impulse to say look, we want to be able to have our guns, we want to defend ourselves, we want to have the second amendment upheld. we have this rhetoric going on and we don't see the

consequences on people. our politicians have not been brave and courageous. martin luther king said you will be a barometer or thermostat. you will measure what's going on or you will change it. our politicians unfortunately have not been thermostat-like political figures who are willing to take on not only the gun lobby but most of the mass opinion of america when it's not working in their behalf. >> well, dan, i want to give you the last word here before we let you go. you seem confident that the american citizenry, we are at a turning point and that the dialogue around this will change and perhaps get more voluble. >> we know the support is out there. like i said, 74% of nra members support background checks. we know the will is out there. we know the american public knows that we are better than this. we just have to make our elected officials show us that they know it, too, and that's going to happen when we start to hold our elected officials accountable. accountable to do the bidding in the name of the public safety of the american people, the people they have been elected to represent, instead of the

bidding of the gun industry when they support the gun -- when they support the nra and the gun lobby. there's a huge disconnect between what the leadership of the nra is doing as the gun lobby and what the members want. hunters don't want people to be gunned down on the streets of chicago. there are things we can do to prevent that, to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. that's why we're framing this as we are better than this, because the american public knows as a people we are better than this, as a nation we're better than this. we just have to force our elected officials to show that they know it, too, and their jobs are on the line if they don't do the bidding of the american public in the name of the safety of the american public ahead of the bidding of the gun industry. >> dan gross of the brady campaign, thank you as always for your time. after the break, we will get the latest from the scene of the deadly shooting near the empire state building. [ female announcer ] did you know the average person smiles more than 50 times a day? so brighten your smile a healthy way with listerine® whitening plus restoring rinse. it's the only rinse that makes your teeth two shades whiter and two times stronger. ♪

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as we've been reporting, a gunman opened fire across the

street from the empire state building this morning, killing one person before police in turn killed him. for the latest, let's go to lester holt. lester, you were in the area around the time of the shooting, then went to the scene. describe to us what you've seen so far. >> reporter: well, we can tell you what we're seeing this moment is a van in the middle of the street, the new york city medical examiner claiming the body of the 41-year-old victim who was cut down in front of hassan imports allegedly by a 53-year-old man who used to work there, was laid off from that business about a year ago. after that shooting witnessed by construction workers we believe were on that scaffolding there, construction worker flagged down one of the police officers routinely assigned to the empire state building as part of an antiterror squad. police then chased the suspect, shots were fired, perhaps an exchange of gunfire although this is where it gets murky. the mayor left open the possibility that some people may have been hit by police fire in what is believed to be an

exchange of gunfire but the nine other victims who were injured, apparently their injuries are not life-threatening but the area remains shut down in mid-manhattan as authorities try to figure out exactly what happened and who shot whom. >> we will certainly be following the story as we get more developments. nbc's lester holt on the scene in manhattan, thank you. coming up, governor mitt romney tries to change the subject from congressman todd akin to the economy and creates another headache for his campaign in the process. we will mine his latest gaffe, next. [ male announcer ] you've reached the age where you don't back down from a challenge. this is the age of knowing how to make things happen. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. 20 million men already have. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision.

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was that i not ask him about abortion or todd akin. >> step two, keep talking about the economy. at a fund-raiser last night, romney argued big business is quote, doing fine, saying we've got to make it easier for small businesses. big business is doing fine in many places. they get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation. just to recap, big business is doing fine. you might remember a similar now infamous statement made by president obama as he argued for a greater focus on public sector jobs and said the private sector is doing fine. >> he said the private sector is doing fine. is he really that out of touch? i think he's defining what it means to be detached and out of touch. >> but semantics aside, here's why governor romney believes big business is quote, doing fine. they know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses, but small

business is getting crushed. just to recap, regulation isn't holding back big business and tax havens offshore are a good thing. well, that's one way to get the conversation off todd akin and here's another. remind everyone about the massachusetts health care plan. >> my health care plan, i put in place in my state, has already insured but we didn't go out and raise taxes on people and have an unelected board tell people what kind of health care they can have. >> the only problem with that statement is of course, governor romney's plan did create an unelected board to help analyze what kinds of insurance qualify under the law. the "washington post" reports it was called the commonwealth health insurance connector authority board. so what to do when the national focus is on a very uncomfortable topic that you don't really want to talk about? distract everyone with three more very uncomfortable topics that you don't really want to talk about and who said politics was tricky. ben smith, mitt romney, it's not been a great summer for mitt romney and this would seem to be

a particularly not great moment to have just hours, 48, 72, before the republican national convention. >> i kind of like this. romney had intended to talk about the economy all summer, barely talked about it at all, distraction after distraction. this at least was kind of straight talk, this was mitt romney, he does in fact know a lot about tax loopholes, he knows a lot -- >> yes, he does. >> he knows a lot about big business and how it works. it is a real thing that small businesses have a lot of trouble and a lot of people realize that, navigating these regulations that big businesses are fine at. and again, the massachusetts health care plan is in fact a selling point, is in fact something he's proud of. he's supposedly going to the convention, will talk about things he has not talked about before about his religion. i think this is more of a relaunch than people realize, kind of back to the old romney. >> really, the phrase, when the president said the private sector is doing fine, it was fodder for a thousand vultures. now you have mitt romney saying big business is doing fine. >> hypocrisy of politics? >> how is that on message? >> it just, what it does is it's

a very inartful way for him to try and make an argument for small businesses. what it does is draw attention to everything that the romney campaign doesn't want to draw attention to which is things like tax loopholes which the obama campaign has made a very intense effort to try and draw a connection between romney's personal taxes and evading tax -- and using, taking advantage of tax loopholes. so he tried to manage to step into all of it and on the akin stuff, the fastest way to get people to start talking about todd akin is to tell them not to ask about todd akin. that's just a classic political mistake. >> it's interesting, too, he's ripping off from the obama playbook thinking we have no memories because first of all, a rape is a rape is a rape. remember that fiasco. obama had just said that. now you're borrowing from obama in terms of the private sector is doing fine. it's more -- it's the kind of political mendacity that is hea

artful but scary in his belief that we don't get it. >> i don't think anything is artful about it. i think part of the problem is there's this presumption by the candidate that if you can just be quiet about everything and not talk about records or policy, people will buy it through november. just don't talk about it, don't ask about it, don't ask, don't tell. >> remember, it was fehrnstrom who said the etch-a-sketch moment. you twist the little dials, things appear during the primary season, and it seems as though someone right now, as you said, they're doing a big reset right now, the romney campaign. someone is jumping up and down and erasing the etch-a-sketch thinking that after labor day when folks are finally focused on the presidential campaign, they will be looking at a blank screen. >> i don't think this -- this was at best endearingly clumsy. it was not -- >> doesn't it secretly -- i guess not to belabor this point, it's more than endearingly

clumsy. it reveals a real truth about mitt romney which is he doesn't think the private sector is doing badly, he doesn't think big business is doing badly. he isn't the arch enemy of regulation. >> he's this technocrat and you are seeing he's really nuanced in views on stuff. >> it's about the level of investment, about not really caring about other people. it's one thing to say that you're a big fat rich cat and you have no interest in those who are suffering beneath $250, those poor vultures down there but the reality is the romney plan has no intent to signal that it wants to make secret its explicit alliance with the rich. where i come from, that's just nasty and foul. >> this incredibly awkward and i think somewhat despicable dance with the very far right elements of his party. we have breakingish news.

moments ago in michigan, romney said this to an audience. ann was born in henry ford hospital. i was born in harper hospital. no one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. they know this is the place that we were born and raised. >> oh, my god. having lived across the street from henry ford hospital at one time, look at that kind of thing. again, the appeal to the far right, the birther issue about the place where you were born, we can give him high points for metaphor, but low points for politics. again, this is an attempt to stir up the pot when you don't have anything substantive to say, then go back to the base bigotry that has informed your base. >> what is going on here? >> the problem with all of this, there's a big piling on of all kinds of issues and the timing couldn't be worse for romney, because they are trying to repackage him heading into the convention, heading into -- you saw romney had an op-ed in the "wall street journal" today trying to describe his record at bain capital. then he keeps stepping on his

own message. >> that is scraping the very bottom of this sort of racist narrative. >> whether in context or out of context, you're right. i want to know, why would he go there? was it in response to a question? is it part of larger remarks? i just want to know what's the wrapping around this string of craziness? >> don't you think when you are in crisis, you fall back upon that which is essentially you. in other words, the natural reflex action you would have in a moment of crisis, unconscious and unthinking. in this he's revealing for us, we should be grateful for this but it's pretty scary to think that a political figure at that high a level is resorting to some of the basest, most despicable bigotry we can imagine. >> one thing worth noting is the obama campaign loves this. if he's talking about this, this is what they want him to be talking about. any time he's not talking about the economy, that's great for them. something like this highlights for them -- >> they don't love the bigotry. >> this comes across as fringe. here we are talking about it.

that is -- i think he's been pushed into a corner and he's now trying to -- but this is not how you win this race. donald trump did not even come close to winning the republican nomination with this. it comes across as the way it comes across to you. >> mike murphy in an op-ed yesterday was saying the fringe is not what mitt romney needs to be courting right now. he's got them. he's got that locked down. he needs to be courting the middle and the akin stuff and this stuff about birtherism is no way to get independent voters. >> what does it say about mitt romney that he is saying these things on the eve of his convention, where he's playing to his base at the very moment he is supposed to be at least trying to shift to the center. i know that the republican party has shifted so far to the right that it's on the other side of the planet but he's got to do something -- >> that pivot to the center never happened. you kept expecting it. in picking paul ryan he kind of

doubled down. >> maybe we're missing the fact, another thing we have not considered is the fact that by you say appeal to the middle and this is fringe stuff, maybe a lot more of his perceived middle believes in that kind of hocus-pocus birtherism. >> i would like to believe the country is a little bit better than that. to me, all of this says this is someone with an internal compass that is spinning around, does not know where true north may lie. thank you to the "wall street journal's" carol lee for being so patient with us today. coming up, todd akin, paul ryan's record, party in-fighting and obama campaign bracketing. are republicans prepared for the storms not named isaac at next week's national convention? we wade through the wisdom with chris hayes, ahead.

for 2,061 days since january 2007, governor mitt romney has been trying to become the republican nominee for president. it now looks like he'll get that title sooner than unusual. a convention spokesman confirms the roll call vote to nominate him will take place in its entirety on monday rather than wednesday when it traditionally happens. the campaign is apparently trying to mitigate any problems caused by any ron paul supporters who still may not be on board with romney. each day will have a different theme. monday's focus will be we can do better, talking about jobs, poverty and debt. tuesday is we built it, based on a line taken out of context from one of the president's speeches on entrepreneurship. wednesday's theme is we can change it and thursday concludes with we believe in america. joining us now is the host of "up with chris hayes." who else but chris hayes. >> i believe in america. >> i know you do. which is news to a lot of folks. >> little known fact, i built this desk. i built this. >> and you did a great job. >> you didn't build that. >> i did not build it but i'm

still an american. i guess you and i have been talking about this, bandying about the question of whether or not mitt romney can bring together the various factions of the republican party. we just talked in the last block about the uphill battle he's had to get the message turned around to get the national dialogue away from the todd akin stuff. i want to play the sound from an event just a few moments ago where he starts talking about birth certificates. let's hear that. >> no one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. they know that this is the place that we were born and raised. >> loud cheers. oh, yes, you are an american, unlike our socialist in chief. >> yeah, i don't even know what to do with that because there's so -- it's like a lasagna of metaphor. it's so piled up, like it was referred to as ironic post-birtherism, hipster racism. it's weirdly nudging and winking at this thing that everyone knows is this kind of coded racial appeal. >> guaranteed to get him get

beat up all day. >> why would you say it? >> you could overanalyze this stuff. i wonder if he thought that was going to be funny. >> he clearly did. >> really bad idea. >> four days, everyone has been saying you have to get it back to the middle, talk substantively, from peggy noonan in the pages of the "wall street journal." too often the romney campaign acts as if the gop primary battle is still raging and its candidate is five points behind rick santorum. all this fussing over the republican base is wasted energy. romney must use his platform to revise his pitch and start talking to general election voters. the question is will he. >> here's to me the really fascinating question as we head into the rnc. who controls the republican party. what is the institutional nature, where is the center of gravity. there's a conventional wisdom about the party that i think is repeated, that we talk about all the time which i think there's a strong case for which is that clearly it's the base. there's the grover norquist line

all we need is a president with ten digits to sign the budget. it will be ruled by the house and tea party caucus. that's one way of looking at it. the other way is look, the base of the republican party failed to gets its candidate nominated in the past two elections. they did not want mitt romney, he had to nominate paul ryan to appease them. it's a fascinating question about who is driving this vehicle. >> interesting to note that rick santorum just released his delegates -- >> that was kind of him. >> he is not driving the bus anymore. i do want to talk about ron paul because i think it is fascinating that in many ways, ron paul, we have talked about this, his supporters are some of the most fervent, die-hard, younger demographically speaking. they might be the future of the republican party insofar as the current republican party is remarkably old, undereducated and white, if you're talking about the voting base. yet ron paul and his supporters have been totally marginalized and the way they have been

placated is by giving rand paul a speaking slot. that's more about the paul dynasty than it really is about courting the paul supporters. >> yeah. go ahead. >> i think you're right, it's appalling, we could say. but what's interesting as well is that going back to chris' point about who's driving it, they both need each other. the middle, what's left of the middle of the republican party, plus the fringe, but they need each other but they can't stand each other. because they can't stand each other, they can't agree on a plan to negotiate the tensions in the party itself. mitt romney could appeal to a broader segment, the bigger tent theory, got forbid that michael steele was talking about when he r was the rnc head, but they don't have the vision. mitt romney has proved he's not ready for prime time. some guys and ladies will not rise to the level of their incompetence before the public in the way that mitt romney does and some people just simply are sabotaging. at this level, it's self-sabotage. what else do you call a birther

comment that is this metacritical analysis, how else do you deal with that except for the fact that you're trying to hurt yourself in public and you have no restraints? pretty amazing. >> i think this is the thing about mitt romney, particularly his events. this is always the dynamic of john mccain and sarah palin has been recreated in the ryan/romney appearances. he has no intuitive visceral ear for what the base wants to hear, so because he doesn't have it in his heart and soul, he cannot give them the dog whistles they want without shouting out the subtext. >> why even use that particular dog whistle? there are all sorts of other dog whistles he could use and has been using. >> there are alternatives -- >> the welfare dog whistle was working better. >> yes. yes. >> they're versions of the same whistle. >> but the birther thing -- >> i'm not sure that's really -- i'm not sure there's a big middle ground here who don't

know and are going to learn from that. really, at this point, it's a dumb thing to say. >> unfortunately, we do have to leave it there. it is worth noting that obama campaign spokesperson lizz smith tweeted just now, keeping it substantive and classy, a la at real donald trump who has said no one ever asked to see his birth certificate. a romney spokesperson downplayed the remark noting the governor said previously he believes the president was born in the u.s., saying governor romney was just illustrating that he was born and raised in michigan. that's all. >> so was i. >> coming up, chris hayes gives us a weekend preview in a little segment called "up now." ♪ ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... ♪ [ sneezes ] [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler.

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it's time for "up now."

chris hayes, what do you have on tap? >> we will talk tomorrow about the amazingly long intellectual linage of the concept behind todd akin's gaffe, which goes back to one of the first recorded doctors in history in rome. the idea that rape -- that procreation was impossible under circumstances of rape is an idea that's actually 2,000 years old and was the dominant idea in medicine until around the 19th or 20th century. todd akin has history and tradition on his side in repeating this idea since disproven by modern science. we'll also talk to the one and only author of an essay in "the atlantic" called "fear of a black president" about race in the obama era, how things have changed and how they haven't. >> a timely moment for that given recent statements and back and forth between the obama and romney campaigns on the birther question. on the todd akin thing, gives a lot of credence to the theory

that the republican party's position on women's health care is positively medieval. >> in the sense we have quotes that we will show tomorrow from medieval physicians who are saying as a matter of their description of how the female anatomy works, it's actually written into law during the medieval period that if a woman is pregnant, that invalidates the claim of rape precisely because the biological function at that time -- >> let's just bring serfdom back. unfortunately, we have to leave it there. thanks to michael, chris, jonathan and ben. don't forget to watch chris this weekend and every weekend morning at 8:00 a.m. eastern. see you back here monday, the first day of the republican convention, at noon eastern, 9:00 a.m. pacific when i am joined by howard wolfson, martin bashir, john heilemann and ari melber. "andrea mitchell reports" is next. good afternoon, andrea. good afternoon. thanks so much. we're continuing to follow the breaking news, eyewitness accounts from the empire state building shooting in new york city.

and along the campaign trail, moments ago, mitt romney went there. we have the tape as he takes a swipe at president obama on the birther issue. and we run down all the plans for the republican national convention with rnc's communications director, sean spicer. we are tracking isaac. all that next on "andrea mitchell reports." ere are proje. and there are game-changers. those ideas that start with us rolling up our sleeves... ...and end with a new favorite room in the house. and when we can save even more on those kinds of projects... ...with advice to make them even better... ...that's a game-changer in itself. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get flooring for every budget with pergo gunstock oak laminate for just $1.88 per square foot.

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let's compare. germ party! eww! now the colgate total mouth. nice! [ female announcer ] colgate total fights 90% more plaque germs. i'm in. [ female announcer ] colgate total. less germs. healthier mouth. we have two civilians shot. the perp is shot. we have reports of four people shot. >> breaking right now on "andrea mitchell reports" in the heart of manhattan, at least two people are dead, as many as nine others injured at the iconic empire state building, when a disgruntled employee allegedly opens fire this morning. >> this is a terrible tragedy and there's no doubt that the situation would have been even more tragic but for some extraordinary acts of heroism.