this term out? >> no, that's not my intention. behind sme is a portrait of jant reno. i was her deputy attorney general for four of those years. there's some things i want to do, things that i've discussed with the president, once i've finished that, i'll sit down with him and we'll determine when it's time to make a transition to a new attorney general. >> but to be clear, you are not going to do so now? >> no, i am not going to do so now. >> i don't see why he would. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. in your face -- let's play "hardball"! good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with

this. i don't know if president obama is mad as hell, but he is certainly not taking it anymore. yesterday he nominated a trio of judges for the d.c. circuit court. the one right below the supreme court. he did it knowing the republicans would go ballistic and guess what, he did it anyway. today the president picked susan rice, the seat of the hurricane as the right wing is concerned, as his country's national security adviser. the person coordinating this country's foreign defense and overall national security policy. she is going to be the one with the strong defense, she's the one who made the strong defense on "meet the press" after benghazi and hence forth she will be the person with the president's ear on defending this country. i think it's smart. first of all, he's right. the d.c. court of appeals has three vacancies. he's no the packing the court as the jackal pack is barking. he's doing his job of filling it. second, it's a better narrative. would you rather be the story here of the jackals attacking even some of the back-benchers piling on? or the story of a tough-minded

president, whacking his enemies back with a stick. it's a smart move and he's making it. what do you like better, by the way, nothing to do with left-white politics, a president seen as weak or a president seen as tough. simple. that's the simple american answer that barack obama is working is smart right now on forcing the other side to take it. the dogs bark, the caravan moves on. howard fineman is the editorial director of "the huffington post" media group and byner is senior political writer for "the daily beast." the president praised susan rice for her dedication and service. let'sv >> she is at once passionate and pragmatic. i think everybody understands susan is a fierce champion for justice and human dignity. but she's also mindful that we have to exercise our power wisely and deliberately. >> susan is the consummate public servant. a patriot who puts her country first. she is fearless, she is tough.

she has a great tennis game and a pretty good basketball game. >> mr. president, thank you so much. i'm deeply honored and humbled to serve our country as your national security adviser. i'm proud to have worked so closely with you for more than six years and i'm deeply grateful for your enduring confidence in me. >> you know, i want to start with peter on this. it looked to me like one of the times where the president is doing exactly what he wants to do. they're very close, she was his top adviser during the campaign on foreign policy. that's great background. has a ph.d. from oxford and of course the role of assistant secretary for afghan affairs way back under clinton. she's got a great resumé. he likes her and he also is picking somebody that's going it make the others, he's just rattling their cage with this one. >> right. i think the message is that obama is no longer afraid. i think it's quite possible he wanted to appoint susan rice to this job right at the beginning but he was convinced he needed

james jones, a guy he didn't even know, why? because jones was a marine general. people said he's going to give you the cover, the hawkish cover you're going to need with the military and republicans. he tapped robert gates as republican for defense secretary for the same reason. now i think obama has said you know what, they've tried their best over four years, the post vietnam, democrats are soft, it doesn't work. i beat mitt romney on foreign policy. i can nominate my own people and the republicans can scowl, but the country doesn't trust them anymore. they trust me. >> is there any republican hesitation, you and i have watched this game for a long time, hesitation about beating the hell out of an african-american woman again. don't they feel hesitance on the gender and the ethnic front. here they are, old white guys, kicking the hell out of another african-american candidate. don't they say, wait a minute, this isn't going to look good for republicans? >> mostly that doesn't occur to them. it might possibly have occurred to john mccain, whose comments were muted. he said, well, i disagree with the choice but i'm going to do

my best to work with her. so he had the right, you know, tone for that crowd. but to answer your specific question, most of them it doesn't occur to them. >> we'll do more in the show tonight about women in the republican party. the stupid comments about young guys, sexually aroused or whatever, therefore's there's going to be a lot of rapes. what stupid charges. >> quickly, look at the people that the president has put forth yesterday today in terms of gender and racial diversity. >> two women and african-americans. >> i think he's saying, live with it, buddies. some republicans showed no sign of being willing to let this benghazi thing against the congressman go or the new nominee for the appointee for national security adviser. jason chaffetz -- and take a look at the ridiculous statement from senator rand paul. on fox, let's watch. i think the president has been struggling to regain the moral authority to lead the nation and this doesn't really encourage anyone. to reappoint or to promote basically the person who is guilty of misleading us over the

benghazi tragedy. let's watch. >> i can't imagine keeping ambassador rice in any position much less promoting her to an important position. how are they going to have the authority for people to believe what they're saying when he's promoting someone who directly and deliberately misled the public over benghazi?+oñi the benghazi tragedy is really not going to go away until we have some answers. really why was there this elaborate coverup? >> you know, i used to think rand paul had at least a philosophy that you could justify, the ayn rand, objectivism and now he's just a poll. the president is struggling to regain the moral authority. the president's numbers on personal ethics are excellent. there's no struggle here about his personal integrity.

anyway, also on fox karl rove talking about integrity. the man who said that president obama didn't win the election. even after fox called the race, went after the president this time for his choice obviously of rice. also questioned about rice's, well, why not, honesty. let's watch. >> we saw the today statement by the president's people that he was going to get more partisan and that he was going to get more in the face of republicans. this is clearly -- >> this is the first example of that, do you think? >> one of the examples of it. and, look, i don't understand it. she's a capable, able person. but she went out and lied. not only did she go on television, less than two months before the election and tell a lie in order to protect the president's political position, but she did so at the risk of undermining our relationship with libya. >> the word lie now of course the jay carney, the president, much-respected press secretary is a paid liar. susan rice is a liar. the discourse coming from that side, i don't use that word liar, i don't like it being nb used. you never know what is in

another person's heart. you never know unless you go into a court of law. how do these people get away with talking like this, even on fox? >> because i think they're talking to themselves and i think there's a passionate minority of people in this country who do believe this the problem is it's a clear minority and probably getting smaller asá we found out during the election. what happened is all of these scandals have given republicans a kind of allowed them to believing that somehow because democrats are going to implode and hillary clinton will be brought down by this, they're not going to have to do the hard work of figuring out how they start to attract the new america demographically that's emergingo they're taking cover from that in these scandals. >> why do they get the idea, if

it isn't ethnic, i'll leave the possibility that it's not. why do they just assume evil on the part of obama? he's raised his whole life has been crystal clear and clean as a whistle and transparent. we know his whole life through r all the great excellent education he's had. the good pro bono work he's done through his life. he's never been a money grubber. never doing anything wrong. his family is picture-perfect. everything is clean as a whistle. and yet, they just refer to him as evil. they refer to him as a liar. i've got to believe it's ethnic with these people. they got a problem with this guy being president, is there any other evidence to justify why they keep calling him a bad man? that's what they do. >> on benghazi, they're up against a desperate to believe that barack obama doesn't take terrorism seriously. it plays into that narrative. i think that's why benghazi is so appealing for them. because it plays into a larger narrative. despite the fact that he killed bin laden that actually he's a guy who is a typical liberal who

doesn't recognize terrorism when it's staring him in the face. that's why benghazi is just catnip for them. >> i think he sits with tom donalan who can be tough, too. a tough public official. those guys went after the bad guys on that list of al qaeda people. >> earlier this week on the house floor, first-term oklahoma republican jim bridenstine delivered a blistering attack on barack obama, had this to say. let's watch. >> mr. speaker, the president's dishonesty, incompetence, vengefulness and lack of moral compass, lead many to suggest that he is not fit to lead. the only problem is that his vice president, is equally unfit and even more embarrassing. >> what is this, this villainization of the president? what is it about him. >> it's desperation. >> these back-benchers -- >> trying to impress the hardest of the hard-core of their base. not just the base, but the hard-core of their base.

>> what's interesting to me is that the president has decided to heck with it. to ignore them. >> to just to ignore them and to pursue his own vision of foreign policy. don't forget, he just gave that speech where he talked about sort of the post-war post terror war age and he's picked and susan rice and samantha power, two advisers that go way back to the beginning of his national campaign. who believe his vision of how to proceed in the world. and he's basically saying the heck with the right wing hard xd core base i'm going to pursue my vision of foreign policy. the way i enunciate dd in cairo in 2009. i'm going to try to do it. >> it's the day of the jackal right now. thank you howard and thank you, peter. i've never seen this kind of carping and negativity. who is going to hurt more from this so-called scandal politics, president obama or the republicans? i think we know. we've got new poll numbers on how americans view these so-called scandals and how the republicans are finding the old gop adage, start each day with a prayer and end it with a probe.

also, when you hear republicans these days talk about women, you'd be excused if it you thought we were going back in time. in the last two days alone, we heard two gop senators talk about things that sounded more like 1913 than 2013. and getting hammered for playing politics, i think it would cost new jersey $2 million a day to have a senator elected in october rather than in november. i've done the math, checked with the senate, there's only six working days in the senate between those two days. i just checked. that's $2 million a day, governor. finally, another republican makes the mistake of saying aloud what he really thinks, that republican would be actually really prefer it if african-americans just stayed home on election day. i'm glad somebody on that side saw what the game really was, keep them out of the voting booth. this is "hardball." just like you. with angie's list, i know who to call, and i know the results will be fantastic. angie's list -- reviews you can trust.

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welcome back to "hardball," the game of scandal politics now back-firing on republicans. an amazing idea. one thing for sure, the republican party has put all their eggs in that scandal basket. here's a sample of the recent accusations. darrell issa, the white house has is made up of paid liars. mitch mccome, it's a culture of

intimidation. hal rodgers, they're assembling a nixonian enemies list. would why this rhetoric? it turns out they have nothing more to talk about. thanks to divisions within the party, they have nothing else they want to talk about and there is a problem. and because it might not be the benghazi or the department of justice or the irs which determines their political fate, instead it's an issue where they've shown little or nor leadership, the economy. not that democrats have been a shining beacon of economic hope, but at least they put together a budget, something that party leaders are slowly realizing which score them much-needed political points, according to politico in a great piece and in the "washington post," dana milbank writes that the republican party is acting like its 1999, you remember back in clinton's time, a time when quote, the indicators kept pointing to booming economy andx support for president clinton climbed steeply through 1998 as

house republicans marched towards impeaching him. in terms of scandal, house republican so far have significantly less to to work with than they did in 19 8. so the big question is will democrats see the political benefits from the economy if it really takes off? dana milbank joins us. along with david corn. you call green, not everybody is in the stock market, but everybody, if they are lucky up to 65, has a5he 401(k), has som investments and that market has almost doubled in the recent year, almost doubling your wealth in that kind of asset. you point out that the consumer confidence is the highest it's been in years. >> it's a whole bunch of things altogether so consumer confidence, housing, the jobs picture has gotten better. we've had false starts before in this economy. but it's beginning to look at this one is real. it's a very ominous position for

republicans to be in. there's not much they can do about it. the incumbent president and his party are going to get credit for it. >> they aren't talking it database. now they're talking scandal. >> you can't talk it down. if people recognize it's getting better. you're left with talking about scandal. that's great if you get a watergate or something. but if it's just a bunch of noise about what somebody in cincinnati did with the irs, it's not going to win you an election. >> i'm a nut on history. you point out they made a mistake under clinton. they made a mistake when they came back into power after world war ii, they spent the whole congress, all they did is began every day with a prayer and ended it with a probe. stop and shop on the hill. everywhere you went there was a xdaring and tha on now. >> and if you go back to the bill clinton years, you'll find there was a real scandal. now they are having trouble connecting the white house to the irs scandal and even to the benghazi scandal. they went right to the oval office and on the floor of the

oval office and even then, bill clinton's approval ratings at the end of '98 hit 70, the low 70s, the more they screamed about impeachment, the higher his numbers went up. so even when you had a real scandal. >> if they only knew that newman was messing around at the same time he was leading the impeachment. >> if they could go up and up. >> this was the party, the republican party this he don't believe in government. they don't believe in doing anything and they're divided amongst themselves on what the issues, on immigration -- they can't come to an agreement and on the budget thee fighting amongst themselves going to conference. this very wonky issue. >> president obama's job approval rating numbers are holding up. in a new recent nbc/"wall street journal" poll, he notches that 48% job approval, that's unchanged since april. but the devil is in the details. this is problem for him. the current environment his bases rallied. among independents, the president's approval rating is plummeting, 41% in april. so independents, who generally skeptical of government, more so than democrats, they don't like this irs crap.

i don't like it, either. they always pin it on the president, but they have pinned it on the government. the government of the united states isn't looking too good. >> who is an independent is a shifting thing. i don't think we should read too much into that. because the president's top line number is staying pretty high there. but you certainly, if people are angry at government, that gets taken out on the incumbent party. if people are pleased with what they're feeling in the economy. that, as david was suggesting during the 1990s, is a much more stronger effect. they may be irritated about the irs, but if they got a promotion at work or they got a raise, they're going to like this president, no matter what else he's been doing. >> is that happening by the way? >> ed schultz territory. is it possible, are the unions getting a little feistier, are they starting to make demands, trying to get higher wages? >> i don't know if that's turned yet. people are still cautious about the own positions, not a lot of economic security in terms of what people are feeling. but the other thing, too, is,

people are looking at washington, washington looks really silly now. you know, the scandals, nothing being done, the president can't pass a gun safety bill that's supported by 80%. i do believe that the public by and large blames the president rightly or wrongly about what it thinks of what is happening in washington. so republicans, all they have to do is make things look ugly. they don't care -- >> dana, when are they going to start paying a price for sitting on their butts and just having hearings. lately i've been thinking about it okay, we may have some problems with obama care. what's the republican health care plan? we may have problems, what's the republican job plan? they don't feel the need to have an advertisement for anything. >> we have five house committees looking into benghazi and three house committees at least by my count, looking into the irs. including ways and means, which perhaps could be doing tax reform. >> do voters want to pay $170 year plus expenses for their member of congress to be doing this?

>> they're disgusted with washington as a whole and i think that's part of the republican strategy, again mike rodgers, the chairman of the house intelligence committee saying it's not really the specifics of any of these scandals, it's the whole atmosphere of scandal. >> but -- >> this is what you talked about the other day. we talked about this conflationr they just keep trying to -- it's basically insinuation. there's a scandal. well, the details don't matter, but scandal, intimidation. use these big words without being able to prove them. >> it didn't work with clinton, obviously, bill clinton's approval rating held up remarkably well back in the '90s, considering the political environment we're talking about, when republicans were pummelling him every night. take a look at the chart. even in the throes of the lewinsky scandal in the '90s, bill clinton's rating never went, disapproval never went above 35. he wasn't getting jammed by the

voters, what likely saved clinton was this, an unemployment rate which dropped to around 4% at that time.1=3hç now take a look at obama's approval rating. it tracks fairly consistently with the economy and employment. even though the economic recovery hasn't fully translated into jobs, here's the hope for him. home prices are up 12%. that means you can sell a house. over the past year. the stock market has boomed by nearly 60%. if you're a 401(k), you're saving money in the market. it's gone up a lot. since 2009, consumer confidence, six-year high as you pointed out in your piece today. people are taking notice, in an nbc/"wall street journal" poll, 36% of americans said they were satisfied with the economy. that doesn't seem high, except it's the highest reading since 2006. we've been through a gloomy period. >> more people than in recent years are saying they expect their own situation to improve. what's not important is where we are now. it's where they're going to be right before the midterm elections and where they're going to be in 16. so if these green shoes actually mean something, you don't want to be on the other side of that, of a booming economy. there's no winning hand for the republicans. >> except you can't get away

from the fact that the republicans as democrats do when they have a chance. have so gerrymandered the districts, there are only a few -- >> okay, don't be a whiner about it. >> here's the problem, they're not going to have another redistricting -- the democrats blew their chances by not taking 2010 seriously. all of these guys like scott walker -- they all came in with legislation. >> it gives the republicans in the house particularly and these districts -- it gives them the luxury of continuing down this crazy path without having to act reasonably as you keep expecting them to do. >> i just want to -- you know, the good guys have to win. thank you, dana milbank, you can't change the past. >> coming up, stephen colbert takes a look back at the political career of michele bachmann. this should be hilarious. this is "hardball," the place for politics. with o ur "

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call 1-800-ishares for a prospectus, which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. read and consider it carefully before investing. risk includes possible loss of principal. back to "hardball," now to the sideshow, after a week off, stephen colbert return does the

news that michele bachmann won't be running for re-election. >> she broke the news in a web video recorded at i believe the sears portrait studio. so tonight, folks, we say good-bye to michele bachmann. and look fondly back at some of her very -- moments. >> documents, worked tirelessly until slavery was no more. in the united states. there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas. >> taxation without representation was bad, what would they think of representation with taxation? >> i will miss her. >> well, all of the voting w3 restrictions pushed by

republicans in the last election. things like requiring specific photo i.d.s and less early voting.b?zqj specifically affected minority populations. they were surprise, more likely to vote democrat. we turned to a dallas county republican party event last month. the progressive group battleground texas posted what one party leader said. ken he man emanuel said, what the local republican party was doing for african-american voters. >> what are the republicans doing for the black people to vote? >> well, i'm going to be real honest with you, the republican

party doesn't want black people %2zu$ey're going to vote 9-1 for democrats. >> don't you love candor? there you have it. the solution to losing the black vote is losing black voters. emanuelson said later he had misspoke. what do you think he really meant to say? what do you think? what he said. next the case for steven seagal, members of congress travelled to russia to investigate ties that whatever the boston marathon bombers may have had to that country. steven seagal, the star of the 1990s action movies like "out for justice" well apparently segal seagal was invited because of his friendship with russian leaders, but california

republican dana roarbacker said here he is with cnn's wolf blitzer. >> you had the actor steven seagal on your trip. what was his role? >> because he's a black belt and a well respected actor and because of his black belt and karate and things, he's gotten to know many of the leaders of russia, including putin and was able to use that influence to make sure that we got to talk to the very top people, sometimes actors can actually go out and other than just act, they can actually do good things, he i worked for one, his name was ronald reagan. >> well steven seagal. putin likes the rough stuff, i can't say it's a big surprise. a big moment for the michigan state senate yesterday, but only if you're an avid pirate enenthusiast. the michigan state senate adopted a resolution to officially recognize international talk like a pirate day. well state senator roger khan took to the floor in celebration. >> thank you, matey. today we have passed, speak like a pirate day. it's time to now recognize the state of michigan. acknowledges this holiday, and grants it recognition it truly deserves. as a great lakes state, one of michigan's main duties should be promoting worthy maritime initiatives and this of course

is one. >> don't you love babbitry? earlier this year president obama said it's politics 101 that presidents don't look very good wearing stuff on their heads. the same might someday be said for applying pirate paraphernalia during your speech on the senate floor. up next, three more reminders that republicans are in a time warp when it comes to women this won't surprise you, but it will educate you what's coming here, you're watching "hardball." ♪ blind spot warning. ♪ lane departure warning. safety, down to an art. the nissan altima with safety shield technologies. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪ ♪ there you go. come on, let's play! [ male announcer ] there's an easier way to protect your dog from dangerous parasites. good boy. fetch!

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hello, everybody. here's what's happening. the philadelphia fire chief says a 35-year-old woman was killed, 13 others injured when a four-story building that was being don't m being demolished collapsed. the first tropical storm of what's expected to be a busy hurricane season has formed over the gulf of mexico. tropical storm andrea is expected to make landfall over florida on thursday.

now it's back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball," you might be forgiven if when it comes to women, you think republicans are living in the 19th century. consider some of the comments at yesterday's senate armed services hearing on sexual misconduct in the military. some seemed to missed point that the issue was the crime of sexual assault and rape in the military. first you have, senator saxby chambliss of georgia. >> we've got to do a better job of screening folks before they come in and the other thing we have to remember, is we think about making changes to the ucmj in this respect.

the young folks that are coming into each of your services, are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 3, gee whiz, that's the level of the hormone level created by nature. sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. >> well republican congressman mike turner of ohio co-chair of the military sexual assault prevention caucus rebuked the senator in a statement that reads in part -- quote, it's simple, criminals are responsible for sexual assaults, not hormones. but a few hours later, senator jeff sessions of alabama joined the hearing and introduced the issue of pornography, information he had been provided by the group, morality in the media let's listen to him. >> mr. chairman, i just had a letter, a document here given do me. morality in the media. pat truman used to be in the department of just us is, i knew

him when he was there. points out that a picture here of a newsstand in a air force base exchange. with you know, sexually explicit magazines being sold. so we live in a culture that's awash in sexual activity. if it's not sold on base, it's right off-base. there are videos and so forth that can be obtained in recreating, and it creates some problems, i think. >> well some republicans you just heard him, appear to be unable to absorb the reality ht that comments like these are considered tone deaf, if not crazy in fact. and compounds the problems that republicans have had with many voters, especially women. susan milligan has been reporting a spokesperson for emily's list. this should make it easier for you. here's the thing -- both of those guys are southerners.

they represent states, alabama and georgia, that where it used to be a capital crime. you were hanged by the law if you committed rape. rape is not something you had a bad day. it's almost a capital crime. only because of sympathy of some kind we decide not to make it a capital crime any more. it's not saying hey, cutie, what are you wearing today? it's not bad office behavior. it's absolutely criminal. it's right near murder and these guys, oh, it's the girlie magazines they got at the base or the guys are morny. give me a break. >> every once in a while republicans forget th¥rr(áq catastrophically bad at talking about these issues. and this week has been one of those weeks. and you think they would have learned their lesson after 2012. when women voters turned out by historic margins for democrats. >> they know it's about rape and by the way, assault is assault. whether it's sexual assault -- it's assault. it's a serious felony. five or six years in prison. why do they say i'll hit the

guys get a little out of hand, horsing around. what are they talking about? >> the subtext of this is they still think of the military as a man's domain. they don't want women there a lot of the men in the military don't want women there. all of the subtext of that comment is, well it's dangerous for you, you really shouldn't do it you know this is a very male environment. you know you're going to turn their heads, they're not going to be able to control themselves and you might get assaulted. it's bad enough they don't know now a days that rape is not sexually motivated. it's a crime of domination and power. >> the idf is one of the best armies in the world. it's had women, i remember back in the '70s, sitting there in the movie theater with a woman next to me with an uzi. it's -- that hasn't hurt them any in israel. >> i'm glad that the armed services committee is not an all-male dominated world right now. we have a record number of women sitting on that panel and hearing them offer their perspective it goes to how ]za much -- >> you're game. though, every time someone talks about legitimate rape.

here's some of the greatest nits recent years. not exactly been politically correct. remember, todd akin says that women don't get pregnant from rape because quote if it's a legitimate rape if she's telling the truth, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. darrell issa infuriated women when his house oversight hearing convened a panel on birth control with no women on it. this led one congresswoman to ask, where are the women? and who can forget santorum, supporter of foster freeze, lamenting all the hub bulb on contraception, back in my day, they used contraception, the girls put it in between their knees. phil bryant appeared to blame working mothers. >> tell the truth, you know, i think parents became both parents started working. and the mom is in the workplace, it's not a bad thing, i'm going to get in trouble and i can just see, i can see the e-mails[fqç

tomorrow. but now both parents are working, they're pursuing their careers, it's a great american story now, that women are certainly in the workplace. >> so it's the mother's place to teach them to read? >> no, no, but i think there was the loving, nurturing opportunity that both parents had a little bit of time. >> well you can argue that point but you're going to lose the t( audience. it's a point of view. mary jordan, has been a reporter for the "washington post" for the last quarter century and she's been raising kids. does he know who he's talking to, women working outside the home? >> no this is a problem that the republican party is having for a period of time. they have a different view on what women should be doing. they want it to go back. now i think they actually have no idea what women -- >> that's the bottom line. >> they don't even know how women live now. whether it's mitt romney saying you have to be flexible when you hire women because they need to

be home at 5:00 to cook dinner i don't know any woman who is home at 5:00. well people talking about women, men they're sexual aggressors and women just want to get married and we have to worry about them tempting the men this he have no idea what member's lives are like. >> there's a real political price. as that was happening last cycle, emily's list which supports pro choice democratic women quadrupled in size. >> thank you for joining us, up next, new jersey governor chris christie is under fire perhaps the usual suspects, he moved an election up by three or four weeks at the cost of something like $13 million and guess what, the new senator who gets elected in october rather than november will serve through six senate days of session. at the cost of $2 million a day. so it may be a good thing for the governor, not necessarily a good thing for the pocketbook of new jersey, this is "hardball," the place for politics. this day calls you.

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with all of that ad spending, it's the anti-obama care message that is obviously getting through. and we'll be right back.

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glass on floors. daily chores. for the little mishaps you feel use neosporin to help you heal. it kills germs so you heal four days faster. neosporin. use with band-aid brand bandages. we're back. chris christie is expecting the special heat to replace frank lautenberg. that election will be separate from the general election three weeks later which comes in november when christie himself will be on the ballot. that moves that christie will not have to share the ballot with new york's cory booker. they say $24 million for the primary and special elections. with headlines like special elections with the dollar sign

as an "s" and $24 million special vote there. the star ledger, a paper that endorsed the independent candidate in 2009 for chris christie and his opponent jon corzine, wrote a scathing editorial that wrote, skillful political spin obvious to all. christie defended himself at a press conference yesterday afternoon. >> i don't know what the cost is and i, quite frankly, don't care. i don't think you can put a price tag on what it's worth to have a person elected to the united states senate and i'll do whatever i need to do to make sure the costs are covered because all of the people of the united states are not going to be punished for it and we're not going to be penny wise and pound foolish. my colleague, steve kornacki, and sean trende is the senior election analyst for real clear politics. gentlemen, thank you. i've done the calculation. what is going to happen, because

of this election being held in october, being held three or four weeks before the normal time when christie is running on november 5th, six senate days will occur. in other words, calculating $24 million, cost of the elections, we'll be able to get a guy in there, a woman in there enough times to vote six times on the floor. that's $4 million a day, steve, to have a senator come in a month early. that's hard to explain if you're 8c(%)gj(r)is christie. 4 million bucks a day to have a senator on the floor when probably nothing big is going to come up. >> right. it almost makes you think this is not about having somebody from new jersey in the senate. >> you're laughing. you're laughing. >> he does have -- i mean, he's being disingenuous. clearly if you want to understand what chris christie's motive is, it's this. if you have a senate race that occurs on the same day as the gubernatorial race, it means that chris christie is sharing the ballot with cory booker,

he's suddenly not a shoe-in to win re-election. he's in really good shape for re-election. what it means is the entire new jersey state legislature is up for re-election this year and republicans have an opportunity they have not had since 1985 when tom kaine won 70% of the vote to bring in republican candidates into the assembly and state senate that he can use in 2014 and 2014 that he can then brag up in 2016. >> sean, do you know whose name appears at the top of the ballot? it would be much more concerning to him if it's senator because cor cor cory booker will get a big vote. what's going on here? >> i don't know about the ballot question. if cory booker is on the ballot

with him, that turn as 20-point christie win to a 10-point christie win. it turns the dynamics of the election. >> do you think it would go against christie, not something that happens after people vote for christie? >> absolutely. people are going to turn out to vote for booker and they are going to he can which the vote for the gubernatorial candidate. >> the good thing going for cory booker, if he's the ñ ñrc we don't have any african-americans in the united states senate. which i think is a disgrace. it's one of the reasons i voted for my friend michael steele when he ran.

booker would have been running ahead of them. >> ah. >> there's an issue there for democrats in new jersey where there's going to be a primary now. frank palone, congressman for the shore, russ schultz wants to run. one of the factors -- booker's pop lay popularity is in a different league. >> only one guy could be -- you have two or three congressman running against -- let's go back to sean here. if you have two or three congressmen running against him, he wins for sure. >> absolutely. if there's some kind of booker vote out there, which i don't know if there is to begin with, having it divided three ways, booker would win. >> is this going to hurt christie for running for president? was this a smart move, separating the elections? >> my guess is this is a smart move. is the grief your going to take

going to be more or less than having him on the ballot? >> same question to you. do you know? what's the smart move? what he did or not did? >> it's a smart move. brings coat tails into legislature so he can bring more things through. >> thanks sean and steve. we'll be back after this. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover, and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company.

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let me finish tonight with this. i sometimes worry that i'm not keeping up with the times. i don't know anything about the current music scene. >> reporter: and i do know a number ofñi truly spear you're young actresses like jennifer lawrence. why would a senator say that rape is understandable because boys get excited during their late teens and 20s. of course they are. what does that have to do with section i' sexual assault and that you blame sexual assault on the presence of sexually explicit magazines. every airport in america has a magazine rack with women provocatively photographed. they talk about rape and vaginal