but what you might not expect, is you can get all this with a prepaid card. spends like cash. feels like membership. happy friday, the detroit lyons used to play in this building, the silverdome. after the pontiac factory moved and the town of pontiac went broke, they tried to sell to the highest bidder. the field has seen monster truck rallies, soccer games. if it can happen on a field, it can happen here. >> anything ranging from your dirt shows, snow cross shows, home and garden shows, trade shows, concerts to anything you would like to do on top of a football field. soccer, flag football, indoor football, arena football.

you could have lacrosse down there. >> a canadian tycoon bought the place. it cost $55 billion to build. he got it for a half million dollars. he wanted to put a casino in there. voters said no to that. pontiac's formerly 55 million silverdome right now. look at that. over the past week, windstorms have shredded the silverdome's inflatable roof so the weather comes right in. do not worry, the owner says they were going to build a new roof anyway. this is not really the dis's ter looks like. a very, very rough phase one, the demophase. for his next big plan to make money on the dome that nobody wanted in the city that is so broke. michigan is amazing. republicans, you in particular

are amazing. on inauguration day, being sworn in for the second term. michigan republicans spent the day talking about turning an island into a new independent country. it would be ruled based on the fictional pseudo economic nominals of ayn rand. after insisting there was no reason to strip union rights, michigan republicans passed a bill doing just that and governor rick snyder signed it. the whole thing opened, passed and shut within a week. never mind what we said before. we're doing it. surprise. michigan is amazing, right? michigan is the state with the republican law to let the state fire all your locally elected officials and unilaterally abolish your town if they want to on their own say so, n no mar

how you vote. michigan laws repealed that with a direct that. governor snyder and the republicans gave the michigan voters a one-finger salute. decided to pass and sign into law a new emergency manager law. this new one can't be killed by the voters. what's that you say? the will of the who? have we met? you know the funny videos about the honey badgers and how they don't give a [ bleep ]. michigan republicans do not care what anything thinks of them, certainly not the press, and apparently not the voters, michigan, my personal nominee for the one state that is shameless enough to actually do what a whole host of other states finally today are starting to get too embarrassed to go ahead with. usually the outliar in american

normal politics is florida, right? florida is usually the weird state. sad, scary, and florida. you click on the florida tab, and you only get the stuff that starts with florida. if the headline starts with naked florida man and doctors unable to determine what drugs he's on, welcome to your new found celebrity status. that's the story of a naked burglar, a karnie, i will let you reed it yourself. instead of reading it on tv. okay? we expect to read this on florida. not just true crime, but politics. often the political equivalent

of the naked pooping carney burglar. katherine harris, the butter florida ballot, the nice jewish people inadvertently voting for pat with you c pat buchanan, hiring fake candidates to run. the largest medicare fraud fine in history. because as governor he would crack down on health care fraud. it's always been seen as the shameless american state. there were incredibly long lines for voting in florida on purpose. the governor rick scott signed a law to cut early voting days in half. the impact of that, at least 200,000 people did not vote in 2012 who otherwise would have voted because they couldn't wait in the eight-hour long lines that rick scott created and

defended as the right thing to do the electoral failure was so floor it got a shotout from the president on election night and a huge round of applause when he talked about long lines and said we have to fix that. that same florida fail has become a rallying cry for newly democratic florida politician charlie christ as he mounts what might be a challenge to rick scott and all of that attention, we think of florida being unembarrassable, right? but that attention has maybe made even unembarrassable florida a little embarrassed about the way they are doing politics right now. since the election, governor scot backed down on cut on early voting days, which he had previously been defending and put the early voting days that had been there back. florida republicans actually got embarrassed and caved. that same dynamic may now be at work in the latest national shamelessly exercise in the tilt the playing field shenanigans. it started with redmap.

the national republican party project this past year, targeting specific blue states plan was agresively to redistrict those states to make those states a lock. they are bragging this scheme is the only way they held on the house. since redmap. republicans have followed up on redmap's success to consider a way to push that scheme even further. to change the rules state by state, to elect the president using the same jergerrymandered maps. they have been motting a way to overturn the electoral college winner takes all system in these blue states to allocate electoral votes by congressional district. by the congressional districts they have aggressively redrawn to be a lock for republicans.

ambitious, right? but it started off i'm sure deliberately as a very quiet effort and because it was being done quietly in district states, not getting much attention in the national news. now it has become a front-page story. the narm journal first picked up on this plan. their reporting we flagged early last week, when we say, hey, beltway, wake up. this is happening. since drawing people's attention to it, the coverage has taken off. it percolated on more influential lefty blogs, hit the mainstream. republicans eye new election laws, and inside the beltway groups started running their own stories. front page above the fold story

in "the washington post" today. front page, above the fold, right-hand column. gop pushing electoral changes. it's becoming big national news and tonight the big kahuna, hit the national newscasts. >> seeing red. a push by republicans to change the way we elect the president. if these had been the rules across the map in november, we would have president romney. >> if the whole country adopted plans being considered in virginia, michigan, ohio, pennsylvania and wisconsin, instead of obama winning 332-206, the electoral map would go from blue to red, romneyory obama. >> as this story goes national and gets national attention and goes sort of big time as news go, republicans in the states pushing this plan seem to be getting a little embarrassed. in florida, the previously unembarrassable florida, where rick scott backed off the early voting long lines disaster last

week, the republican speaker of the florida house says no way are they going to do this electoral college rig the vote thing. do not pin that tail on him. to him, it's like saying in the football game we should only have three quarters because we were winning in three quarters and they beat us in the fourth. i don't think we need to change the rules of the game. we need to get are better. how about in virginia, where republicans moved on a bill to enact this change earlier in the week. two crucial republicans senators are saying no to the idea. and governor ultrasound bob mcdonnell now saying no, he's opposed to making the change. republicans floated the idea before the election, and governor tom corbett was enthusiastic about the idea, but now, now with all of the attention, republicans in pennsylvania are sitting on their hands. chair of the pennsylvania republican party saying he didn't really like the idea the

first time around either. in ohio, about five minutes after the election when the republican secretary of state, john husted began stumping for this idea. hey, just an idea, right? now it's very quiet in ohio. and that leaves michigan. oh, michigan. michigan, my nominee of incapable of being embarrassed. move over, florida. michigan has a bill on the way, republican sponsor, quite unembarrassed by the attention now or his failure to pass the same kind of bill last year. "the bill got no traction last year. there were people convinced that romney was going to win and this might take electoral votes from him. but now that romney lost, now maybe even rick snyder, the governor, warming up to the idea. publicly, he's saying it's fair to change the rules since the election is not for a few more years yet.

we started with six states on the map, republicans talking about changing the rules to elect the president so you could use the gerrymandered congressional maps to make the presidential election go the way the house vote went this year, where democrats got more votes, but republicans still held the office. we start with a map of six. two states have put the idea in the deepest part of the deep freeze where they can reach without falling in. most of the other states on this map appear to be putting the idea on ice, putting on the ice floe, saying good luck, your on your own. in michigan, they appear to be warming up. my bet for actually doing this thing that most of republican america is too embarrassed to go ahead with. not like the other states anymore. what doesn't work there they think work there. so what if the silverdome roof is tattered. or if they are too embarrassed to turn democracy into another

fist? does even an avalanche of public shaming embarrass republicans? do they get embarrassed or do they just move on with it? now we are about to find out how much of a honey badger michigan republicans really are. and chantix helped me quit. i honestly loved smoking, and i honestly didn't think i would ever quit. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. it put me at ease that you could smoke on the first week. [ male announcer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, tell your doctor if you have new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack.

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our first full team gathering! i wanted to call on a few people. ashley, ashley marshall... here. since we're often all on the move, ashley suggested we use fedex office to hold packages for us. great job. [ applause ] thank you. and on a protocol note, i'd like to talk to tim hill about his tendency to use all caps in emails. [ shouting ] oh i'm sorry guys. ah sometimes the caps lock gets stuck on my keyboard. hey do you wanna get a drink later? [ male announcer ] hold packages at any fedex office location. [ bop ] [ bop ] [ bop ] you can do that all you want, i don't like v8 juice. [ male announcer ] how about v8 v-fusion. a full serving of vegetables, a full serving of fruit. but what you taste is the fruit. so even you... could've had a v8. man named saxby chambliss announced that he is retiring today. as a u.s. senator, he is up for

reelection in 2014, but he is not going to run. he was about to get primaried, challenged from the right from within his own party. he doesn't say this is why he is quitting, but now he is quitting rather than face that challenge. now that he is quitting, who is going to be the republican nominee for that senate seat in 2014? >> they asked me who is the president of ubek-beki-bekistan-stan. i'm going to say i don't know. do you know? herman cain has run before. but even though everybody is asking him, he is not going to run for saxby chambliss's seat. the other names that immediately floated to the top were this guy. >> all this stuff i was taught about evolution, embryology, big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. >> congressman paul broun. he is on the house science committee, state from the pit of hell. he also says he does not know if obama is a u.s. citizen. also on the short list for the seat is this guy, congressman phil gingrey, who says todd akin got a bad rap on that whole

legitimate rape thing. todd akin was pretty much right about that. and rounding out the short list, remember when the susan g. komen foundation decided to go after planned parenthood and it was a huge disaster for them? the woman whose that idea was is also on the short list. republicans are looking at maybe choosing from the birther science is alive from the pit of hell, the one who says todd akin was right, and the woman who was so upset about abortion she managed to get a cancer charity in trouble. saxby chambliss would have very likely been re-elected again. but instead one of these guys? seriously? this is the exact republican strategic formula that resulted in democratic joe donnelly getting the indiana senate seat that had been held by republican dick lugar for 35 years. it's the same formula that got democrat claire mccaskill to hold on to her seat in missouri when nobody thought she could

hold on to it. it's the same formula that got harry reid to hold on to his seat when nobody thought he could hold on the his seat that year. and chris coons in delaware. and bennett in colorado. this is a formula. this is a familiar scenario for a reason. and it is still going on right now in 2013 in the republican party. the last republican presidential nominee did not come to the presidential inauguration this week. mitt romney is the first losing presidential candidate since michael dukakis in 1989 to not go to the inaugural. he did go to the trouble of leaking to the press that he probably wouldn't even watch the inauguration on tv, which is classy. but mr. romney did actually go to washington today to attend a luncheon in his own honor at the washington marriott hotel. there is a certain awkwardness to this trip, right? to come to d.c. not for the inauguration, but for something honoring yourself. that perceived ungraciousness, though, is not just a one-way street there is a certain amount of ungraciousness that honestly is being shown to mr. romney

right now by his own party. the republican party this week has been making a big show of publicly deromneyifying themselves, cleansing themselves of all traces of the romney nomination. remember the empty chair that clint eastwood famously ranted at during prime time at the republican convention this year? it's being used as a physical symbol for the republicans of what went wrong with this presidential nomination. the chairman of the party told the press this week that he cheeps that chair in his office. he points it out to reporters as a sign that he is committed to never forget the mistakes of 2012. a republican strategist telling the "washington post" this week, there is no romney faction or romney wing of the republican party keeping the flame alive. no one tailors their policies because it was what romney supported in the 2012 campaign. no one feels like they need to be loyal to the romney position on any issue. and in the conservative media this week, quote, some republicans believe the rnc ceded too much control of the

party's message to the romney campaign, which was happy to run the show in the confidence that romney would soon be elected president. the result was catastrophic. republicans are even talking about undoing the procedural rules that mr. romney established for the delegate process, and they're putting news of that effort out into the press. the republicans want you to know that they're getting rid of everything romney. they are taking a hot bleach shower. they are making a very public display of expunging all evidence of his candidacy. because he obviously was the problem with the republican party. he must have been. everything else has been awesome. and that's why they're keeping everything else. the other thing that happened in republican politics today is that they reelected reince priebus as chairman of the party. even more amazing, he ran unopposed. it's the guy who was in charge of the republican party is keeping his job, no question about it. nobody even competing with him.

and meanwhile, the purification process of killing off, even very conservative republican incumbents in favor of ever more doctrinaire further right challengers who are further outside the mainstream, that is claiming new scalps today. still even in the united states senate, saxby chambliss, who got an a-plus rating from the nra and a 100% rating from the national right to life committee, he is being forced out. he is not far right enough. thank goodness they got that romney guy out of the way. joining me now is michael steele. thank goodness for former chairman of the republican party and as always a good sport, mr. steele. nice to see you. >> it's good to see you, rachel. >> do you think there is really no imprint at all that mitt romney should have left on the republican party? they're just trying to pretend like he was a bad dream. >> well, that's just silly. and the fact of the matter is that mitt romney went through a primary process in which delegates and activists around the country voted overwhelmingly

for him. and so to now sit back and say well, there may not be a romney wing of the party, but certainly as our nominee, he did -- he did have some stature. he did leave an imprint and an impression. and you can't whitewash that. you can't just say it didn't happen, it didn't exist. and if we ignore it and pretend it never did, then everything else we do will be better. so it's just silly. and it's just typical crap that these guys throw around to put the blame some place else instead of looking at the internal processes that are much more focused on anything other than grassroots, you know, would take care of our vendors, we take care of our consultants. what are they doing on the ground with state party organizations? there is no reason, rachel, why this party was not prepared after everything that we had done between 2009 to elect chris christie in knowledge, bob mcdonnell of virginia to pick up the house and senate seats around the country, that they didn't have that ground game already in place that they like to vilify before, but got folks elected. >> well, when try to understand

what is going on in the republican party, looking at very broad strokes movements inside the party, i feel like we had bush and cheney. we had the mccain/palin campaign. and that was a primary campaign. that was decided pretty early on. so the party really unified around mccain and palin. then we essentially had the tea party movement. the tea party movement was manifest as a purification process, primarying even very conservative incumbents for people who were further outside the mainstream, further to the right. i thought that ended with the romney era. but it seems like republicans still think that was a good idea. >> well, actually, rachel, it ended during the first few months of my campaign, of my chairmanship. we sat down with a lot of tea party activists after the scarzafava race in spring of 2009. largely a lot of other nomination processes had started, and that effort was under way. so what we tried to do is get in

front and say look, let's cooperate, let's work together, because you can't go after our incumbents in states like delaware and colorado and utah and elsewhere where, you know, but for this individual, we would not have this seat. and so we negotiated a peace, if you will for further campaigns and worked cooperatively with tea party activists around the country. that clearly had not happened over the last couple of years. we saw what happened to the ron paul campaign and how he was treated at the national convention. not allowed to speak. his delegates not given a voice on the floor. and now they're trying to make nice with these guys and pretend that that didn't happen. well, the grassroots activists have very long memories. so your words are nice, but your actions say more. and i think that the party has put itself in a very difficult position, and will see itself challenged if we do not get on the ground and work with these organizations and individuals who are very fired up and

passionate, but put that energy in a very constructive way to support incumbents that we have, particularly in those tough districts or states that we can barely hold on to, like a georgia. i mean, that seat could come in play, depending who that nominee is. and the party has to give that some great consideration. >> that substantive critique from you and the different strands of substantive critique about what happened in 2012 and what is wrong inside the party and the structure of the party makes it so remarkable to me that reince priebus was unopposed. i find it astonishing. >> yeah, me too. >> michael steele, msnbc analyst, former chairman of the party, thank you for your time tonight. it's great to see you back. >> all right, rachel. president obama has made his choice to run the s.e.c. the agency that is supposed to police wall street. there are very few people, like maybe zero people who know more about the nominee or the job of the nominee than our special guest tonight, former new york governor and attorney general eliot spitzer is here. yes! stay tuned. ♪ alright, let's go. ♪ shimmy, shimmy chocolate. ♪ shimmy, shimmy chocolate.

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some eye catching reporting this week about anonymous liberals making the case against president obama's nominee for defense secretary. anonymous liberals. why would they be anonymous? [ siren ] i know what this is. do not be alarmed. this is a "rachel maddow show" bullpucky alert. remain calm. we have the situation under control. we've been training for this all year. stay tuned. this is a bullpucky alert code 3. stand by. we'll take care of this shortly. [ male announcer ] there's a story behind the silver of philadelphia cream cheese. it always begins with fresh, local milk, blended with real wholesome cream.

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and on. the gunman had stormed two hotels. they had taken hostages. people were barricaded in their rooms. and when november 26th turned into november 27th, and there was still no end in sight, it was still ongoing, it became clear that this was an unusually well coordinated, highly researched, highly planned terrorist attack. by the time the three-day siege had ended, 11 different locations had been struck around the city. this were ten attackers. they killed 166 people. the majority of the people they killed were indians, but among the dead were six americans, including a 13-year-old american girl. even once it was over, it seemed impossible that this had actually happened and had gone on for so long in such a big city in such a cosmopolitan place with so many different attackers and so many targets and so many people killed. it was almost impossible to get your head around. and for americans in particular, what remains almost impossible to get our heads around is one of the main planners of that attack is an american guy. his name is david headley. he was born in the united states.

his mother is american. his father is from pakistan. the thing that made david headley most valuable to the terrorist groups that trained him was that he was an american, which meant that he could travel easily all over the world without attracting suspicion thanks to his american passport. when the ten attackers arrived in india for the mumbai terrorist attack, none of them had ever been to that city before, but they were able to pull off this highly coordinated, highly mobile multisite attack in a strange city they didn't know because of david headley. they knew exactly where to go because david headley had scouted everything for them. he had given them meticulously prepared videos and reports and gps coordinates about how to wage that assault on that city in november 2008. david headley was not arrested until almost a year after the attack in october 2009. u.s. officials picked him up at o'hare airport in chicago when he was en route to denmark in the midst of planning a second mumbai-style attack. the attack in denmark was going

to involve terrorists storming a newspaper office in denmark, beheading the employees and throwing the heads out of the window of the newspaper office out on to the street. they were going for the highest level of horror possible. that's the terror in terrorism. american david headley was in the process of scouting locations for the danish attack, just as he had done for mumbai when he was arrested in chicago. and then yesterday david headley was finally sentenced to 35 queers in prison. he was sentenced in chicago. the only reason he didn't get life is because he turned state's evidence in what prosecutors say was a big way. only one of the actual gunman from the mumbai attack survived the attack itself. he was hanged in india last year. but as an orchestrator of the attack, david headley was tried here in the u.s. and you may recall that precisely nobody complained that it was too dangerous to try david headley here even though he was a terrorist involved in a complicated international terrorism plot. arrested here, questioned here, he turned against his former comrades and helped the u.s. catch more terrorists.

he even testified against some of his fellow co-conspirators. and now he has been sentenced here. and he will do what is likely to be the rest of his life in prison here in federal prison. despite the high-pitched whining about the need for guantanamo, terrorists get prosecuted here all the time. american prosecutors do it. these cases can take years to build, but they can be done, and people go to federal prison. these things have been done even in the highest profile terrorism cases. and they have often been done by this person. this is mary jo white. when it came time to prosecute the people who carried out the 1993 attack on the world trade center, the person who led that prosecution was mary jo white. that was ms. white's first year on the job as the u.s. attorney, the federal prosecutor for the southern district of new york. she is the only woman who have ever had that job in the 200 years that job has existed. one of the first things she did her first year is help prosecute the people who bombed the world trade center in '93. that same year her office prosecuted the blind sheik, omar abdel rahman for his role in

conspiring to bomb the u.n. in the wake of the blind sheik case, ms. white created a terrorism unit in her office. no other u.s. attorneys office had one at the time. she was the first to do it. she also led the prosecution against mob boss john gotti. she won the conviction that put him in prison for the rest of his life. several other prosecutors had tried to do that, but had failed to it. she did it. in 1996 she helped convict ramzi yousef for his attempt to assassinate the pope and blow up multiple planes in flight. he was the nephew of sheikh khalid mohammed. in 2001, she prosecuted those who orchestrated the embassy bombing in africa. president obama nominated mary jo white to be the what is essentially the top cop of wall street. >> as one former chairman said, mary jo does not intimidate easily, and that's important, because she has a big job ahead of her there is much more work

to be done to complete the task of reforming watts to make sure american investors are better protected going forward. >> it's not the only thing you should know about her career given this nomination. it's also the matter of her decade as a defense attorney, not a prosecutor, but a defense attorney. when she left the prosecutor's office in '02, she went to a private law firm. she started prosecuting cases and started defending defendants. among her areas of focus at that law firm, white collar criminal defense and white collar internal investigations. from that side of the legal aisle, mary jo white defended the giant global financial firm morgan stanley. she defended the ceo of bank of america. she defended jpmorgan chase and the financial cases that almost swallowed hole the nation's economy. if she is confirmed, her new job would be to oversee some of those former clients of hers to

make sure they follow the rules. she is an interesting choice, right? a highly qualified but interesting choice. if you are the kind of wall street guy who can't believe you didn't go to prison for what happened in '08? who can't believe what you guys got away with when you crashed the national economy by knowingly breaking all the rules? if you're that guy on wall street tonight and you're still behaving that way when you go to work every day, are you happy to hear that this wall street white collar defense attorney is going to be the new top cop on wall street? are you happy about that? she defended the bank of america ceo. or are you scared because the cop who put away john gotti and the blind sheik might be coming for you on wall street next? which is it? are you bummed or are you psyched? the one and only eliot spitzer joins us next. [ female announcer ] need help keeping your digestive balance? align can help. only align has bifantis, a patented probiotic

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discover how our sleep professionals can individualize your sleep experience. exclusively at one of our 400 sleep number stores nationwide. sleep number. comfort ... individualized. queen mattresses start at just $699. and save $500 on our special edition bed set. now at the sleep number white sale. it's not enough to change the law. we also need cops on the beat to enforce the law. and that's why today i am nominating mary jo white to lead the securities and exchange commission. over a decade as a u.s. attorney in new york, she helped prosecute white collar criminals and money launderers. in the early 1990s, she brought down john gotti, the head of the gambino crime syndicate. and she brought to justice the terrorists who are responsible for bombing the world trade center and the american embassies in africa. so i'd say that's a pretty good

run. you don't want to mess with mary jo. >> you don't want to mess with mary jo if you are a terrorist or a mobster. but if you are the ceo of bank of america, or if you're jpmorgan chase, mary jo white has not been nearly as scary as she has been to those other different, very different types of bad guys. does president obama nominating mary jo white to be the top cop of wall street at the s.e.c. mean that we're going to get a new tough cop on wall street, or does this mean that wall street is still being trusted to police itself? the person i most want to ask about this is the former new york governor and new york attorney general who earned himself the nickname the sheriff of wall street while he was in office. he of course is eliot spitzer. governor, thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. and it's a joy to be here on the set with you. thank you. >> mary jo white spent the last two years defending jpmorgan chase in cases that dated back to the bank's behavior during the financial crisis. >> right. >> now she is slated to run the agency whose job it would be to investigate jpmorgan chase if the bank were breaking the law. that really sounds like a

problem to me. >> it sounds like a problem. and to answer your question, are the ceos thrilled or terrified? the answer is both. because we don't know until we watch what she does whether she has internalized the defenses she made on their and a half. what i mean by that, she is tough. the president is right. she brought down john gotti, she brought down terrorists. she knows how to use the law in a creative, aggressive way. the question is over the years representing the ken lewises of the world, the ceo of bank of america, has she begun to believe her own rhetoric? that's what happened to harvey pitt. harvey pitt, former chairman of the s.e.c., a disaster. he first came in and said i want the kinder, gentler s.e.c. he destroyed the place. mary jo has the capacity to step up to the plate and show us that she can turn that broken agency around. here interest three metrics that i think we judge her by. one, what cases does she bring and bring quickly?

use the clayton documents which showed the knowledge within the banks of the corruption of what they were doing about the underlying mortgages, use those documents to make structural cases. two, seek remedies that go way beyond money. reorganize the banks and the way they do business. remedies has been the problem of the s.e.c. even when they prove guilt, they say pay us a little money and we go away. that's not enough. and three, the rule-making capacity. and i don't just mean rules about how they issue their proxy statements. i mean rules that empower shareholders to finally run the companies on the behalf of shareholders, not on behalf of the ceos. those are the three different metrics i'm looking for. >> two questions about her which i think you know the answer to. one is her organizational capacity.

>> right. >> it's not that she is out there, arguing, litigating every single case out of the s.e.c. you need to be able to run the agency. >> right. >> two, her understanding of the implications, the moral implications and legal implications of complex financial doings. is she capable over doing it? >> look, she is as smart as you will find anybody to be. she understands all of this. i've been on panels with her. we have sometimes jousted with remedies because she was still representing these guys. but she gets it. and i think if she takes that enormous innate talent she's got to understand what these companies did to the markets and to the economy that we depend upon, she can be a remarkable force at the s.e.c. >> i don't mean raw intellectual power. does she have the technical understanding of what they're doing? these people have counted on people not understanding their business. >> shes that the capacity to understand it the way anybody that smart would. at a deeper level, she doesn't make the cases individually. she doesn't sit behind the desk and say i'm going to invest a, b or c. she has to infuse the organization with the energy, the creativity, the spirit and bring into the organization the people who can do it. a lot of people say revolving door. she comes from the other side of

the aisle. revolving door is a bet metaphor than diagnosis. and what i mean by that, we all love the imagery of the revolving door as a major problem. some of the real dead wood at the s.e.c. are folks who have been there forever. they've never been in the private sector, and likewise, some of the best people who have reformed our financial markets like gary gensler came from goldman. so it's not so much where you came from, it's what's up here. in other words, do you have the energy and independence to break with wherever you have been to say this has got to change. >> don't you think the incentive change of the revolving door metaphor, though, makes sense. >> yes. >> that people who are not at the top of the agency, but working in the agency would think you know what? i don't think so. money doesn't drive mary jo. it doesn't necessarily mean she will be good. but a couple of moments ago,

brings cases, seeks remedies and changes rules to empower shareholders. she has the intellect and capacity to do it. we have to wait and see. i think not knowing what to expect is a better approach and ceos should have a drink tonight and say i don't know if i should be happy or terrified in answer to your question. >> one drink, not ten. not drowning their sorrows or celebrating. have to get their act together. >> i don't know where the tolerance is. when they get drunk, they do dangerous things to the economy. keep them sober. >> former attorney general and governor eliot spitzer, thank you for being here. i know have you been weird stuff since we've seen each other. i'm sorry to say, but there is reporting in respective corners of the news media tonight that seems like bull pucky. maybe i'm wrong or maybe it's

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there is something going on in the news room right now that i think is bull-pucky, not that i'm opposed to it or offended by it. but i think it is a lie, we are being swindled, snookered. you want to call bull pucky. about one of president obama's nominee for the cabinet. the nominees for second term happen every day, usually around lunch time. yesterday, the president picked richard cordray, and he picked mary jo white to run the s.e.c. today, dennis mcdonough was chosen. they are known to be very close.

he was very close in the most recent photo. that is him two seatsory from the president, right next to hillary clinton during the raid that killed osama bin laden. in his previous life, he headed the committee that authorized the iraq war, which could prove troubling at a confirmation hearing. but a chief of staff hearing is not the kind the senate has to confirm, not like, say, secretary of state. john kerry is the choice for that post, he had his confirmation hearing yesterday. and a greater love fest has never been seen before in something less than a p-g rating. honestly, the only surprise will be if it is not unanimous. and no, rand paul's vote does not count. really, there are just two nominations thus far that has annoy suspense with them. one is john brennan, the president's counter-terrorism adviser, he has many, many allies, they are lobbying hard

to any perceived problems with his choice. before that, he was chief of staff to cia director george tennet, in the george w. bush days. that is why john brennan didn't get the nomination to run the cia in the first time around. so his confirmation hearings this time around, february 7th, should be very interested. there is controversy there. the other nomination, where there used to be suspense, is former republican senator chuck hagel, i say there used to be suspense, because there were questions about whether there would be fight from the left have dried up. chris coombs, all have met with mr. hagel this week, he assuaged their worries, ditto, charles schumer, of new york, he addressed criticism of his hard-line anti-gay and anti-abortion political past. he addressed that criticism, where they largely neutralized it.

ahead of his confirmation hearings on thursday, republicans are making noises about chuck hagel. the only strange remaining might be evidence of any interesting and therefore important resistance to chuck hagel is probably this ad, you might have seen from an unknown group called "use your mandate." >> chuck hagel, he has been nominated to be secretary of defense. and president obama nominated him with the best of intentions. but it is still a bad choice. hagel is anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-israel, anti-gay, and pro assault weapon. that is just not what we voted for in november. chuck hagel doesn't share our values. there are other people who can

do the job, why do we need someone like this? >> so that ad ran on the three network sunday shows last week, not to mention this network, msnbc, apparently multiple times. that is what they tell me, basically, everywhere but fox news. it is not a huge ad buy, but they are counting on lots of free media to further their message. free conservative media, in particular, so in the national review, look, liberal groups, anti-haggle ad hit tv screens. liberal group releases no, on hagel ad, the washington free beacon, democratic group airs ad blasting hagel. supposedly these ads are being run by liberals and democrats, against hagel. but these liberals against hagel are anonymous, telling the press they are "allies" with the obama administration, who are staying anonymous because they fear

retribution or fear from the white house. scooby sense tingling yet? this whole thing just seems off, right? i mean there are obviously two intentions with setting it up like this. they're trying to convey the impression that this is a white house who attacks and tears up anybody who disagrees with them. that is the way the right likes to think about this white house, that is the way they operate. they may be more effective if they did, but that is not what they do. more broadly, they're asserting there is broad opposition to chuck hagel, we're just not allowed to know who it is. i'm not buying it it, i say bull-pucky, i might be wrong, but i call bull-pucky. and if i am wrong, there is an easy way to prove it. come out, come out, whoever you are. if you are not bill kristol, liz cheney or the log cabin republicans, i'll