it's. gone tomorrow to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture that romney won the most states last night which is increasingly disliked by the american electorate so what's going on with this and why don't democratic primaries for democratic candidates weigh republican primaries for republican candidates also america is the safe it's it's been in decades arguably in centuries the president is calling out the republicans for the constant drumbeat for more war the bigger military so why that steady drumbeat of terror from republican primary and that's and our media and

greece is on the verge of collapse and in a crisis in that crisis are both lessons and warnings for america on this richard wolffe away them all off for us tonight. you need to know this he did what he needed to do but it was not so super tuesday for mitt romney last night while taking six of the eleven state primaries including the most coveted state of ohio and dabbing the lion's share of delegates in tuesday night's primaries romney was still unable to take control of the republican race in a way that the establishment of hope for the republican establishment santorum stayed in the game by winning four contests last night and even new gamer's was able to pull a victory under his belt under the hope state of georgia the biggest primary state up for grabs in every state mitt romney underperformed based on poll numbers heading into tuesday. knight and you know i owe you just barely avoided

a catastrophic loss by beans into our by a mere one percent so as mitt romney actually in better shape to win the republican nomination after super two super tuesday is results let's find out it's time to rumble. joining me for tonight's lol liberal is mike brown field editor of the foundry and the morning delap assistant director of strategic communications at the heritage foundation and vince colonies senior online editor with the daily caller thanks for joining me tonight because mitt romney not on the most states the last bus that says that's not yes i may have we thought of the six states he won only his victories in idaho massachusetts and virginia were definitive and in virginia he was basically the only guy on the serious candidate obama still trying to figure out of gingrich's assert but in any case if you figures in santorum or on the

ballot massachusetts was a solemn state in idaho has a disproportionate number of mormons compared to other states in the union so. you know with these kind of numbers and is this one convincing win and you know the couple states coming up looks like he's not going to win is romney going to be the the delegate for you guys his party. well look i mean you can look at the numbers and you can say is he underperforming in the number is look at the raw delegate count right and romney is well ahead in that raw delegate count but is there if he's got to get to eleven forty four he's like it was two hundred some if you want to talk about an underperforming candidate running for president talk about president barack obama his polling numbers last month were at forty five percent for incumbent presidents running for reelection everyone who has won has been over fifty percent in february running up to the election so if you want to look out i guess i would say this is not a good sign for barack obama but i'm curious as to who is going to be competing

against him it seems to me that the newt gingrich was never actually running for president but he was running to jack up his speaking fees and sell books that's why he doesn't have a nationwide you know. campaign really and even santorum i think santorum just thought hey i'll throw the rice and see what i mean i think there's some cognizance of the fact that running a presidential campaign is a win win i mean look how many people jumped into the race there like were never any factors i mean buddy roemer gary johnson he will well the reason he got out of the debate but these are message candidates candidates who want to get in an absent sort of influence i think everybody had you know everybody had a hustle michele bachmann was trying to raise money for her congressional campaign and she did believe that every single one of them they sell books they want to make money the idea is like look there are people in here that actually are trying to run for president i think given the longevity of the race how the mitt romney who even longevity the race look i think ron paul as crazy as it might seem is actually running for president i think newt gingrich is running for him here running for i'm pretty sure and look he's running to call the question is the question is is mitt

romney on his way to becoming the debt the nominee it looks like it yes although it's not going to be an easy road you have a serious opposition coming at us in terms of gamers if a lot of those guys get to the race what does that do for their delegate counts i think santorum has a very reasonable case to make that gingrich leave this race right now or very soon same for him can actually be a very very holy a rocky romney has got to be slippin newt gingrich money in the back. here don't tell anybody there's a there's a million bucks stay in the race please look i mean this is talk about this primary this contentious primary the president is loving speakers it's a distraction from his record and where he stands and it's a delay for him having to get in the race and talk about what he's doing for the ground well you know obama care that's polling over fifty percent his record has forty five percent twenty one through jobs here at his sector job creation if you want to talk about a good projects called for working people salary of america if you want to talk about the economy you can look at the fact that we still have a point three percent unemployment this suppose i know there's a we do so we have is it six hundred fifty thousand government workers laid off by

republican governors in red states around the united states the supposedly great you guys are you out everything you can to destroy the recover this great recovery that the president is bragging about is the worst the slowest we. seen in the post war era yeah we have absolutely the reality of the only large extent great effort when nancy pelosi got a piece of legislation passed that would have just stopped giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs offshore the republicans filibuster this is us the presidential connell said his number one job is to make obama one term president and what's the president proposing to do raise taxes by two trillion dollars and an economy that's lowly plodding along trying to recover it like when bill clinton raised taxes on those rich folks really killed it looks he gave us a balanced budget and even though the rest out of resident himself said that the last thing you want to do in a recovery is raise taxes and that's the first thing he's proposing in his twenty thirty forty one percent of americans say this primary season has made their view

of the republicans less favorable to the romney forty six percent say they want congress and that's a majority you know there's those that undecided there. forty six of the say they want congress to be run by the democrats next year in two thousand and eight and this point in the election or in the primary the democratic primary now requite and barack obama would beat each other up but they both had favor ability numbers i mean president obama's was sixty two percent at this point in two thousand and eight and he and hillary clinton were pretty much at the point where santorum and romney are right now i mean it wasn't it wasn't decided nobody knew why is it that compared to mitt romney's twenty eight percent approval rating right now why is it the republicans drop during primary debates and democrats rise it's because the exposure of the media i mean there's if they don't think there's any question about because the agenda of the republican agenda is exposed by the media no matter how the idea is that you have a liberal media who is looking for glaring faults in these candidates and is looking for ways to create in the case of republican candidates to show that

they're out of touch as opposed to showing which one is the most in touch with america to actually are out of touch that because a negative assessment every single reporter and every single editor in mainstream liberal media outlets is coming out saying ok how can i show that this individual out of touch today. as opposed to the opposite which is to show how in touch they are now remember you talk about barack obama and hillary clinton there was never a race to be seen like this or a primary race where you had a white female and a black male as close to the presidency as ever get it will have a lot of attention for maybe a lot of all of the a lot of owning attention from the media and that's the distinction and that's not what we're seeing this look this is all sides and the president again is eating it up and loving it the old axelrod came out this week and said oh this is you know republicans are beating each other up and they're tearing each other apart this is exactly what happened in two thousand and eight you said chris dodd come out and say this contentious primary season is causing is undermining democrats' chances at

the alleged at this point two percent you know howard dean come out and say this is terrible for the republicans even mccain's senior media dies or said hey this is this is i'm sorry bad news for the democrats mccain senior media advisor said this is great for republicans in two thousand and eight this is the same thing voters have a short attention span a short memory and once the general election arrives and attention is focused on president barack obama his record the slow economy the unemployment the thirteen million people out of work you're going to see a change of tone you're going to see focus and it's going to be a different campaign but you know vince says on the issues that we're this is bringing the issues into high relief and the liberal media is somehow distorting it or. if please correct me if i'm misinterpreting or misunderstanding what you said but let's look at some of the issues the majority of americans want social security actually want the cap lifted on social security taxes so that mitt romney pays the same amount as as janitor and social security will be solvent for the for the rest of the work of. eternity the majority of americans want social on medicare to be

able to negotiate drug prices a majority of americans want you know agree with the idea that we should have laws that say the transnational corporations don't have tax breaks for sure. jobs majority of americans believe the oil companies should make three billion dollars a year in government subsidies i mean these are all positions that the democrats are taking in these are positions that the republicans are on the wrong side of your cherry pick cherry picking one it will give me a list then i'll give you a list if you look at the primary yesterday and every single state the economy was the number one issue of six or seven not a single once the result would be a nominee some of us in solution forgot if the economy is so great under president obama why is the economy the number one issue for these vote because i've got i've got a republican control of the senate and for three and a half years they have not allowed any of the legislation that actually would have helped the economy for through but what is your solution i mean i've heard no no no from the republicans but i haven't heard and we're seeing other than about your

eyes medicare services sane conservatives are saying no it's a higher taxes from the president in the middle of the recession by the way this is one half of one third of government that the republicans are holding here we have the rest of the government the senate and the presidency is not blocking these new one half of one third of which don't see no way but already i just laid the president is going to make a case as you are tonight that the republicans have something to do with the state of the economy is the only thing he can do we can run a negative campaign that's all he's going to have to do and the problem is there's no way that you can say that with any sort of to think that anybody but you know what i'm a shoulder to blame for this is over two hundred pieces of legislation that came out of the house of representatives nancy pelosi was speaker of the house that would have affected positively if i could because it was all a filibuster by republicans in the senate you think republicans have noble no are going to take no blame for that the very people are going to hold them accountable if you're asking if you have some answers the republicans conservatives in congress are the only ones in congress who have managed to pass a budget i still or over three years or jacket do this for it was two or three

hours or no budget it was a it was a it was it was a it was a spoke of no it was a budget that reaffirmed entitlements was a crisis for our people first of all it isn't that it was a budget is a magic here but in fact is that was a pro your insight today was the president's budget the senate would even take it up. own democratic senate wouldn't take his budget up so you're telling me that the one solution you guys have to fix the economy is about medicare that's the only i've heard so far no that's the solutions to deal with the fact that we have an out of control deficit so what you want i want to show a deficit which is the real deficit problems country has eight hundred billion dollars a year was. six hundred fifty billion and it was that is going out of the country that the only way it comes back as one foreign country companies are countries by us some one the president had a controlling idea about white house when the senate when he had control of the senate when he had control of the house what did he do about it he did not and was solutions he certainly never had sixty democrats and so he had majority in all in. he didn't even need that pass a budget. he did i'm not talking about the budget no but i mean it's you know i'm

with you but the idea is the president had the opportunity americans didn't like what they saw two thousand and ten comes around republicans take over the house and now is this the republicans are shall taking the stand we're going to go with what will be back but we'll see how this plays out is not rebut any of more of tonight's along with the rubble coming up. we just put a picture of the mead when i was like nine years old so if you tell the truth. i confess and i am going to get it i'll grab him because he's sick and. he was kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of. its place.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you don't i'm sorry is a big issue. for .

all about the rise in the liberal world will join me that i might brownfield editor of the foundry and the morning bell and system directors or teacher communications over the heritage foundation and vince colony's senior online editor with the daily caller the group of americans the least likely to fall into poverty in the united states and it has been this way for about forty years is people over sixty five why because of social security we have a social safety net that catches people when they fall if they're elderly their social security cut poverty denies it but more than half back in the thirty's when

it happened everybody else according to census bureau was doing quite poorly although l.b.j.'s great society lifted fourteen million people out of poverty and basically cut poverty in half in the united states and for half years bill clinton ended well. as we know it and turned it into a four year time limited program and people are sliding back and already know the number of households living on less than two dollars a day in the united states bubble it went from a little over a half a million to a little over one man half million in the last according the last census this is pretty astounding and fifty percent of americans are now either raw income or living in poverty after all this country is very much was not the case twenty thirty years ago before reaganomics so given the the details the extent of these you know horrible details about poverty in america unemployment underemployment underwater homes people can't even afford to buy cars anymore they're renting them calling leases what are conservatives offering as i mean we know what the democrats are offering it's basically f.d.r.

recycled let's let the government be the employer of last resort you know bring back those programs let's build some infrastructure it's there it's all out there one of the one of the conservatives are well look there's some numbers that you're leaving out one of those numbers is that since nine hundred sixty five sixteen trillion dollars has been spent on the war on poverty the number its spending has been increased thirteen times president obama has pledged promised or try to increase it by something like forty percent and yet despite all that spending this poverty is continuing as you say in your numbers so the problem isn't not enough money being thrown at it with the prop the problem is that your government policies aren't tailored in such a way to help bring people out of this cycle of poverty so like we just in solutions sure ninety ninety six we saw with welfare to work that you got children but that was the child on our own child partly probably poverty level drops the number of poverty the number we were in we were in

a bubble economy so would it not that's that's what you we've got to encourage people to get back to what it was you are going to get out of the middle of the bush great recession you're drinking you're going yourself have a good economy is to get people out of poverty given that the goal of it shouldn't have been to go in as might noted. as a second ago voters in every state became anything that are coming out to vote care about the economy so the economy recovers so do people get as author want to make the economy work better than why not drive up to ban by putting money in people's pockets by having for example unemployment benefits the ninety nine weeks since those seventy six weeks why do the republicans dial back on unemployment benefits that's money that stimulates the economy for the same reason that it's all jobs every year all there are for consumers place to try to get people out of the cycle of welfare. so you're suggesting that if people are unemployed right now in america you have four people looking for people excuse me for who are looking for every single job that's out there and you just want to cut them off from unemployment benefits less going to unemployment benefits serve an important her purpose it's a safety net but the notion that throwing more money through unemployment

benefits will stimulate the economy as it is a false one what you need is not is a creoles if you put money in consumers' pockets they spend it that stimulates the economy and if you don't have a lot of the ideas they don't get the wheels moving at all anywhere else that i mean i know people i'm sure you know what people that are going to similar situations where they're taking unemployment evidence take a full time job it pays less is not advantageous to them so they will go back and job they was less than one of them doesn't exist yes it does they do if you've been on america's or they visited or a wal-mart that's a plus and they descend into a part time job and they take on employment benefits because that is more advantageous to them i saw it happen what you're calling for more stimulus spending is what i understand we're going to get it we've got to wrap it up books are open said we're just reduced time for a last question during his latest attack on clean energy mitt romney told a crowd ohio monday that since you can't drive a car with a windmill on it we should be investing in wind power so if we can put a windmill on top of a car is mitt romney says it what can we put on top of the car question a dog and there's no more room for the car for a family road trip or be here plugs to give your top endorsers some fresh air or

see a cadillac since ann romney can drive a couple of cadillacs or de i.d.'s if it's a chevy volt try to put some solar panels on top of the a lot safer than the batteries that are catching on fire in the models that are out on the road right now but one that caught on fire because it was in a car accident actually i'm cool with it and i've been on it all i put a dog on top of a car through a crowded the road trip you're doing it together ok my answer is man on a dog this is rick santorum is idea his new line of attack against me and i'm going to throw any of my crown field in scholars thanks love you guys thank you richard. if you listen to what the republican candidates say you think our nation was an imminent danger that it's time to crawl under the desk and put your hands over your

head pray after all ran is out there. listen john we have a president who isn't going to stop them he is going to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon if you think a madman is about to have nuclear weapons and you think that made man is going to use those nuclear weapons then you have an absolute moral obligation to defend the lives of your people by eliminating the capacity. we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon if they do the world changes america will be at risk and someday nuclear weaponry will be used only mitt romney can save us from danger you hear the same talking points when the subject comes up of cutting the defense budget which has tripled since one nine hundred ninety seven and accounts for more than half of the world's total spending on weapons were can't cut the pentagon's budget or else will be vulnerable to attack the odd thing about these frightful talk any talking points is that they're just talking points and they're not true the truth is

americans have never been safer in history than they are today and the number of violent conflicts around the world is at an all time low really despite the warnings and so-called threats one times al qaeda attack innocent since nine eleven zero so if we're not really in danger then why are politicians in washington and members of the media trying to scare and alarm americans training now to discuss this is michael cohen cohen columnist with foreign policy and a fellow with the century foundation and author of the book from the campaign trail michael welcome to the program. thank you good to be here why why does the government write of politicians actually maybe it's both consistently exaggerate the level of danger that americans face well i think there's two things going on here you have a political benefit for both parties and sort of play up the notion that there are great dangers out there if you republicans you constantly benefitted from. from

sort of pointing out global billion dead whether it was you know the communists now the terrorists but when the chinese maybe if you know things go forward and so you have a kind of advantage for them in sort of promoting this idea that the world's unsafe because they're sort of the mappin of actual security party they're seen as the party that is is better able to handle foreign policy and the flip side democrats for fear of being portrayed as weak or feckless on national security tend to overcompensate and so they don't want to be portrayed as weakened feckless so they end up sort of playing into the idea as well that there are all these great dangers out there so there's a situation where there's a political benefit for both parties to play up this idea that you know we're risk when reality we're not really i've always in this is a conversation for another time i imagine but i've always wondered how the democrats became the not or a party when the democrats won world war one in but never has won world war two. but in any case are they are the threats of the perceived threats of iran or china

or anyplace else in the world real threats to the united states and specifically those countries to begin with. no not really i mean sure these are challenges i mean china's economic growth is it is a challenge to the us their security position will transition in the in the far east is a challenge it's not a threat it's not next essential threat it's not a great power threat it's not going to you know cause any americans should cause you know americans to lose and sleep at night iran getting a nuclear bomb is certainly a challenge to the region as a whole to challenge two key u.s. allies in the persian gulf in the middle east but you know it's not really a danger to the u.s. and concern the fact that iran doesn't really even have a nuclear program at this moment to develop a bomb it's hard to argue that it's the greatest danger to the world as some problems could argue david for yesterday or the day before mitt romney wrote an op ed in the washington post saying that iran was developing a bomb and then i believe it was yesterday afternoon or early this morning the

former head of mossad came out and said ok you have mr romney just sped up the process that the iranians are going to do because now you're telling them if you happen to get elected president they damn well better have a bomb. has as mitt romney's rhetoric changed the dynamic there. i don't know if it is that manic i think the iranians sort of you know they they they operate by whatever they think is in their best interest but it's not helpful i would say they're probably. might in fact for the process of them doing this but i still think what the real problem with it is that it creates this false sense in this country and these are terrible threats to us that and then to take a step further must be responded to with some use of military force and i think that's where it sort of it ends up harming our national story debates when we're not able to look at these challenges in a kind of sort of sober and pragmatic way if we did we would say this is something to deal with is not a continental united states how can how can you say that the united states is right

now at a time of less danger and threat than it has been through most of its history or much of its history and certainly to recent history of what's what's to back it up . well i mean just look at the world around us i mean there are fewer conflicts then than ever before and certainly in recent memory there's no great power rival to the u.s. there's no extension of threat to the u.s. there's no goal power that even has the inkling to threaten the u.s. and the us global hegemony we also live in a world that has more democracies never before that is more prosperous than ever before people live longer they're better educated all of those attributes all of you know more democratic countries more economically liberalized countries tend to be a countries that are are less inclined to go to war with each other so we look around the world right now and in fact the threats the u.s. are minimal certainly not nowhere near as difficult as they were during the cold war when the threats were real although you know slightly distant but certainly

they existed we live in a very safe world we live in a world where the dangers are not significant to us and they don't represent real huge threats to us but if you listen to policymakers that you get something very very different or the media for that matter it seems with michael we've run out of time thank you so much for your observations and for your brilliant writing for shipping which thank you my pleasure where the land of the free and the home of the brave not because our glee in frightened time to stop listening to the fear mongers and war profiteers who make millions of scaring us into a never ending war on terror and what not and intrusive security state. after the break if you want to know what's in store for the future of the american economy and there's one country need to behave in a close eye out on was richard wolfe explainer all through the.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then glimpse something else here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok. i'm charging welcome to the big picture.

mr.