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joining me now, the chair of the democratic national committee and cgresswoman of florida, debbie wasserman

schultz. congresswoman, welcome back. >> thank you, david. great to be with you. >> as we talk about the republican debates, and the president said this week that he effectively could campaign by just showing these debates, and that he thinks he comes out in favor, whatever people think about the republican fild, the way they feel about the economy is incredibly pessimistic. here were t personal views of folks, acrding to our latest poll, in terms of their own economic situation, and you have 84% who think their personal economic situation has either gotten worse or stayed the same. americans e simply not better off after president obama's leadership. >> well, david, i think also reflective in your poll is a recognition by the americ people that president obama is focused on trying to make sure that the middle class and working families get a fair shake, and that he's fighting really hard to get the economy turned around, and has made progress. taking us from leading hundreds of thousands of jobs a month to

now having 20 straight months of growth in the private sector. that's why your polls show that president obama would defeat any of the candidates in the republican field right now. simply because they understa that he is fighting for the average middle-class american, to ensure that there's some prosperity to them, and the entire republic field is focussed on helping keep the wind at the backs of the wealthy. >> congresswoman, he's had the jobs, there hav been his policies. you concedeamericans are not betr off after his leadership? >> well, what i concede is that we do have a long way to go. but we absolutely have begun to turn things around, and we have made steady, but not quick enough, progress. i mean, before president obama took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month, david. and now we've had 20 straight months of growth in the private sector. we've added 2.8 million jobs in the private sector alone. we've gone in to add millions of jobs in manufacturing. we're starting to focus on making things in america again. that's what we -- it needs be

all hnds on deck. we need president obama knows and believes that we need to put the partisanship aside. we need republicans and democrats to work to the. that's what he's pushing so hard for. why he proposed and is pushing for the american jobs act. and why? because he knows we can't wait that he signed executive order to move the economy forward on his own, since the republicans won't work with him. >> and yet, fks are overwhelmingly pessimistic about dealing with the debt situation in this country. this is an exclusive politico poll. the full results will be out tomorrow on politico.com. 69% do not believe that the super committee will reach its goal. if he's so committed to bring being down the nation's debt, why is he not in tre drivi toward a solution? my own reporting tells me, from people involved in those talks, that the white house has had much more of a hands-off approach to dealing with what the super committee will agree to on reducing the debt. >> well, david, the president, as you probably know, called both of the co-chairs, patty

murray and deb the otr day and made it unequivocally clear that they need to come together and put forward a solution and do everything they can to make sure that those triggers don't kick in. and he also has proposed his own detailed pl. he has laid out for the super committee how he believes that we can reduce our debt, do it in a blanced way, make sure that we ask more from millionaires and billionaires, and balance that with cuts that we know are painful, but that are absolutely essential in these tough times. preside obama has absolutely been engaged. but you know, thi is a congressional committee. and there's the members of congress on that committee need to come together. and we need reblicans to step up to the plate, and agree to come to a compromise, and not engage in the m way or the ghway politics that they consistently engage in. >> liste they did agree for tax increases that democrats have not accepted this week. but i want to ask you specifically about -- >> well, no, no, no. because that wasn't a serious --

come on. david, that was not a serious proposal. what they proposed was, reducing the number of itemized deductions, in exchange for a package, an extension of allthe bush tax cuts, which actuly would have resulted in less revenue, and brought the overall tax rate, top tax rate down to 28%. so that was not a serious proposal. we need a serious proposal with sound basis -- >> if there was new revenue that was proposed, but i realize that's still a subject of debate. >> there was less revenu overall. >> well, again, that's in dispute, according to my reporting on that. on the debt, how iesponsible is it that this president has allowed america's national debt to increase by 41% over his of office? >> well, president obama inherited a -- a significant, significant debt. one that president bush handed him after receiving a record surplus from president clinton. so, i mean, what we're talking about is president who inherited the results of two wars that werunpaid for, a prescription

drugs program unpaid for, and 2001 and 2003 tax cu that went to the wealthiest, most fortunate americans, unpaid for. and had the most significant economic problems that the republicans hadriven us to the brink of economic collapse of any president probably since fdr. so, making sure that we could make investments to get this economy to begin to turn ound was incredibly important. and this president did that, and that's why we've had 20 straight months of growth in the private secr. and he stopped the decline. that was critical and began turn things around. >> well, but, he certainly didn't stop the decline when it came to the debt. the debt has gone up. and this was candidate obama in july of 2008. watch. >> the pblem is, is that the way bush has done it over the last eight years, is to take out a credit card from the bank of china, in the name of our children, driving up our national debt fr $5 trillion

the first 42 presidents, number 34 added $4 trillion by his lonesome. that's irresponsible. it's unpatriotic. >> that's his rhetoric. should it not be turned on him now? >> no. what should be turned -- well, what we should be turning on is that mitt romney, for example, who was -- who purports to be the alternative to president obama would have allowed detroit to go bankrupt. would have allowed more than a million jobs in the pipeline to just evaporate. we wouldn' have had an american automobile industry. he's also said that housing is something that we shouldn't address. we should just let investors come in and buy up all the properties, and leave people who are struggling to remain in their homes out in the cold. i mean, so in the alternative, in the fields of repuican candidates, they continue to focus on making sure that millionaires and billionaires continue to have it good. and president obama has focused on trying to make sure that the middle class gets7 differt tax cuts for small business owners.

95% of americans got a tax bak at the outset of president obama's adminiration. we are focused, under his adership, on getting things turned around. a we've mad 20 straight months of progress. so while, yes, we have increased our debt, we have done so in a waythatas made sure that the economy can start to turn around. so we've made progress. and we've moved forward. we would make even more if the republicans just stop rooting r the economy to fail, and join us in trying to focus on all of america's jobs, not just on the one job they care about, which is barack obama's. >> we're going to leave it there. the debate will continue. congresswoman, thank you. >> thank you. >> and coming up, a busy weekin the republican presidential race as the candides were back together o the same stage for two debates. one just last night. anwe have a brand-new, exclusive, nbc poll that will tel us what, if anything, changed this wk in the race forhe republican nomination. that's next. plus more on the penn state candle. was there a conspiracy of silence within the football

program and the university overall to protect one of their own? joining us to talk about it all, e.j. dionne of "the washington post," and david brooks of "the new york times." teamwork. when it comes to preparing for your financial future, it helps to have a team that performs well together. pacific life offers life insurance, annuities for lifetime income, mutual funds and retirement solutions. ask a financial professional about how pacific life's more than 140 years of experience can bring strength to your team. pacific life - the power to help you succeed. [ man #1 ] i was fascinated by balsa wood airplanes ever since i was a kid. [ man #2 ] i always wondered how did an airplane get in the air. to design and create the next greatest thing, takes a lot of imagination and a lot of courage. [ man #3 ] i always wanted to be one of those guys

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e.j. dionne. the famous cowboy. let's talk republican politics and lookat the republican field in the nbc poll. this is where we stood as the poll came out this week. romney and cain on top. gingrich impressively at 13%. ron paul hanging tough at 10%. perry, bachmann and santorum. now what we did this week, we recontacted some of the previous respondents based on the cain allegations and his denials and the perry debate moment, and w tried to gauge how it had chang the race some. and this is what we found and we can report this morning. an uptick for romney. slight erosion of support for cain. bi uptick for gingrich, who seems to be an emerging story. perry, down 4. some real trouble for his campaign. so, david, where are we now in this republican field? >> today the big news is cain not going down as much as i would have thought or most people would have thought. why is tt? peter hart who does the nbc/"wall street journal" poll with you guys asked people what sort of schoolkids would the

candidates be. and when they thought of rick perry they thought, i think he's a bully. when they thought of mitt romney, oh, he'd be the rich kid. when they thought of herman cain, they thought he'd be the popular one. so cain has a reservoir of support that the others don't, so even with these scandals. i think at the end of theay it will hurt him. the second question is what kind of campaign are we running here? usually people are raising money doing ground support. this year it's all based on the debates. i happen to think eventually it will turn into a normal campaign. but maybe it doesn't. maybe cain willtill be sticking around here. so his resilience is impressive. >> let me talk about the debate cycle. so perry's big moment in the debate had to do with really an unforced error as heas trying level an attack, this is how it went. >> it's three agencies of government when get there that are gone. commerce, education, and the -- what's the third one there? let's see. the third agency of government, i would do away with, education, the --

>> commerce. >> commerce. and let's see. i can't -- the third one, i can't. sorry. >> the oops oment. last night, the cbs news debate with scott pelley made some light of that. have a look. >> governor perry, you advocate the elimination of the departmentf energy. if you eliminate the department of ener -- >> i'm glad you remembered it. >> i've had some time to think about it, sir. >> me, too. >> e.j., can perry recover? >> you know, i think that that moment is painful every time you watch it. and i think that's the worst thing for perry. whh is that you can get by if voters can't -- if some share of voters can't stand you. you can't get by when they start feeling sorry for you. so i think this is a huge problem. ido think the democratic national committee is going to put up some money so that you can have a republican debate

everyther day. because i think, in general, these debates have not helped the field. and i think that the -- what you're seeing is something very interesting. the cbs poll, which has more undecideds, given the wayhey conduct it, their last poll showed at if you combine the number of republicans who are undecided with the number of republicans that s- who say they want someone else, you get 31% of the vote. e field is losi as this race goes on. and while the conventional wisdom is, it's going to get to romney eventually, what you're seeing pretty consistently is that romney is having a lot of trouble getting much beyond a arter of the republican vote. you still feel there's an oning for anher republican candidate. even if the process won't make it easy. so i've been thinking, there is room for some kind of draft movement. again, maybe a light in new hampshire. that's why out there. but i just cannot see a race

that haso much trouble gelling, and i think it's because conservatives are having trouble getting to mitt rney. >> and that's a continuing problem. but it's also sort of, while the president has said this week, look, i could just -- i don't have to attack the republicans, i just playhese debates, the reality is our poll and an analysis showed that he suffers from the lack of a defined image in ters' minds. he should be more defined at this stage. >> right. people still don't know -- e.j. and i don't agree on who he is. and that's generally a problem. among independents, still 38%, 39% support. it's reallyard to win without independents. 45% approval ratings. and then finally, the field is pretty weak. mitt romney is really strong. and i thinke's goin to be the nominee. and a lot of democrats are basing romney's weak,e'll show he's a flip-flopper. we'll show you. they're judging romney by the way he was four years ago. he's a very differentcandidate, much stronger. they're underestimating hi >> you know, he is strong mpared to this field. i was struck by how bellicose

his rhetoric was last night about foreign policy in iran. >> he would stop iran from getting a nuclear weapon. >> and i think everybody is obsessed with moderate and independent voters. after the war propaganda that got usnto the iraq wars, i think moderate, independent voters in america are very wary of that sort of talk about foreign policy. and you know, it's the one area where president obama has been strong in the polls. so again, this may help romney start rallying some conservative support in the republican primaries. but i think it's very dangerous for him in the long haul. >> i want to talk about penn state. shift gears to something so horriblend disgustinas the allegations there. and you know, when i read t maureen dowd's column this week, she brought it home to me and brought homehat is so sturbing about the report. like the roman catholic church, penn state is an arront institution hiding behind its mystique. and sports, as my former fellow

sports columnist at the washington star david israel says, it is an insular world that protects its own and operates outside of the societal norms as long as victors and cash continue to flow bountifully. penn state rakes in $70 million a year from its foball progm. that is what alleged toave happed at penn state. a conspiracy of silence protect their own. >> no, and i was actually listening to the penn state/nebraska game yesterday while i was doing some errands. d then i thought, this is really eerie. i'm listening to this football game, when you have something here that defies words. horrific, disgusting, abusive. and it makes you say that self-protection, institutional self-protection in these matters are always seen to win especially where powerless boys are concerned, 10-year-old boys are abused. so a penalty must be paid here. and the question is, what is the proper penalty? certainly football programs

suspended for far less than this. and we do use the word alleged. but you read that indictment, and you see how penn state has already respoed. they know that this was a rime, and they covered it up. and yes, y say, you don't want to punish this generation of kids, theseootball players on the field yesterday. they had nothing to do with this. and yet, you've got to have a penalty extracted or else there is no penalty to be paid. >> and look at the scenes out of penn state this week. paterno -- paterno with the shifting statements, you know, and sort of hanging onto his job. kids rioting on campus, protecting joe pat earno. not understanding what's really going on there. do they get it there? what does accountability look like? >> itis not just a penn state problem. we've lost our clear sense of what sin i so when people see things like that, they don't have categories to put itinto. they vaguely know it's wrong but they've been raised in a morality that says, oh, it's probably okay. so that waters everything down. the second thing is a lot of the

judgment is based on the supposition that if we were there would have intervened. that's just not true. >> is it really that we don't know ght from wrong? is there anybody who doesn't know that sodomizing a 10-year-old boy in a shower by another man is wrong? >> if you're -- to what evil is. what the evilis within yourself and what the evil is in society you have a script to follow. it's not a vague sense. you have a script to follow. and this is necessary because people do not intervene. there's been a ton of research on this. they ask people, if you saw something cruel, if you saw raci and sexis would you intervene? then they hire actors and they put it right in front of them. people do not intervene. it's called the bystander effect. it happens again and again, people don't intervene. that's why we need these scripts to remind people how evil can be all around. >> i think david is way too abstract here. i think he really underestimates hum beings. you know that what was happening in that swer as alleged in the indictment was wrong. and, yes, the people may be uncertain about what to do. they may worry about their

standing and their job, but, god, you hope that if you had been standing there, and i think most people feel this way, you would have gone in and you would have tried to stop tha from happening. so, yes, i agree that maybe we don't have as full, as rich a sense of evil as we used to, but that was evil. >> we had a murder where we live in thesda, maryland, and people heard it, did not intervene. there's case after case where people don't intervene. and so you've got to arm yourself before hand about that. anwe haven't done a good jo of arming people. >> we have to take a break here. we'll be back. ♪

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so far this year. because the more we help them, the more we help make opportunity possible. just closing moments he with e.j. dionne and vid brooks on the penn state scandal. so you heard the governor on t program saying that laws have to be changed. what he's talking about are reporng laws. most states require anybody who finds out about a sexual crime to report it to the police or department of child services. this case,f you were in joe paterno's case, all you have to do is go up to the head of your department, and it's their responsbility. and all know, i mean, in this situation, there was nobody more powerful than joe paterno. not the president of the university was more powerful than him. is this the script you're lking about, in part? more robust state law? >> well, i think they obviously, you can make the law more robust. but we can't rely on law and rules. it's up to personal discretion. we've taken a lot of moral decisions and tried to make them all legal-based.

but there has to be a sense of personal responsibility regardless of what the rules are, here's what you do to stop it. if you try to make everything legalism and rules you'r going to get people doing the minimal and thinking it's not my responsibility, it's somehow lodged in the rules. >> given how much of this has gone on, and somehow we haven't taken child abuse as seriously as we should, i was shocked to learn thayou weren't required to report that to the authorities. >> in the catholic church, you covered this, this has bn a huge national issue. >> right. and you know, it's odd that in the catholic case, because people could point to particular things in the church, particular things they might have seen as wrong the church, or that were wrong in the church, this may actuallynd up having even a wider resonance, which might get us to take this more seriously. because you can't just say, well, the church is one thing, sports is something. no, this is a big problem that we have. and that institutis try to get off the hook too easil >> all right. i'm going to leave it there.

thank you both very much. before we go, you can watch an interesting conversation on "prespass" this week, a person who our viewers know well from this program, longtime former senator chrisodd who knows head up the tion picture association of america. we talked about politics and hollywood. at presspass.msnbc.com. that is a congratulations. congratulations. congratulations. today, the city of charlotte can use verizon technology to inspire businesses to conserve energy and monitor costs. making communities greener... congratulations. ... and buildings as valuable to the bottom line... whoa ! ... as the people inside them. congratulations. because when you add verizon to your company, you don't just add, you multiply. ♪ discover something new... verizon.

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i got on the phone. and they told us jenny was gone. >> a house in flames. the body of a woman inside. >> we have a body. i need medics. >> but it wasn't the fire that killed her. she was dead before it started. >> accidents will happen. this was no accident. >> who wanted her dead? her boyfriend said he knew. >> there's people after us. >> what's that mean? >> they're trying to get us. >> but police knew better. >> strangling some one is a personal, angry killing. >> "burning suspicion." thank you for joining us. i'm ann curry. at first the fatal fire that swept through the home of a young couple looked like an accident. then investigators took a closer look. and what they discovered about the fire and this couple left them burning with suspicion.

here's keith morrison. >> is everybody out of the house? >> i don't know. bit but it is on fire. >> the fire on addison avenue was hungry, devouring almost everything in the bedroom. >> all right. we'll have the fire department on the way. do you see smoke coming out of the windows. within 15 minutes. fire fighters knocked it down. the smoke clearing. sooty water running in the streets. then as the mop-up began, the word flashed out like something electric. the house was occupied. someone didn't get out. and up through the ashes a mystery flared. like a stubborn ember, glowed, smoldered. and demanded an answer. the inhabitants of the rented cottage, as investigators soon learned were two young beautiful

peop people, the sort of glossy successful types you may expect on a reality show. paul and jennifer. jennifer an ambitious award winning real estate agent who lived like a rock star or so said her buddy roy endeman. >> she would pbe like i am knocking them out. worked out. on the way to starbuck's. it's 6:33. >> paul seemed just the right kind of guy for jennifer. said roy. >> he was an entrepreneur. he seemed like he was a very driven person. that's definitely a quality that jennifer was looking for. >> jordanian american, sleek, attractive, educated, engaging. paul owned a hangout, a cafe, unusual place by north american standards. where customers could smoke flavored tobacco through water pipes called hookahs, the place and paul were popular.

this woman was a fan. >> he is a good-looking guy. he looks good. he smells good. he presents well. he is witty. he's smart. and he any just, he's affectionate. >> so love at first sight? well, maybe said their friends. >> from the minute that he told me about her he talked how wonderful she is and how she is perfect. >> he was definitely charismatic and liked to joke around. >> and money? >> there was a lot of it around apparently too. and jennifer and paul having worked hard to get it seemed only too happy to spend it. >> when jennifer and paul first got together. paul took jennifer to new york city. >> and i remember, he was, like a kid in a candy store. planning all these elaborate wonderful things they were going to do together. >> they were passionate, these beautiful people. they both had strong personalities.

their love burned hot. >> jennifer was a very strong, independent woman. and sunhe would not accept anyo disrespecting her or even looking at her inappropriately. and she was very strong willed in that. >> me, like i always did, told him you need to be careful. because girls can be evil. so he said no she is different. i love her. i already love her the she is great. >> and so in september 2009, paul and jennifer moved into the charming little cottage on addison avenue here in palo alto. time to playhouse. paul started to think about marriage. and for paul's 36th birthday, jennifer planned a party full of promise. >> she invited most of his close friends to dishdash, one of his favorite restaurants. and i think they had over a dozen people there, almost 20 people or something. and jennifer created a cute cable setting, she created --

the perfect party for paul. cake and everything. >> in fact people who were there described the party as almost like a wedding reception. it lasted through the evening, into the wee hours of the morning. and now here it was just the very next evening and it was gone in ashes. all of it, the excitement, the glamour, the promising future of in smoke along with the house on addison. and the person inside -- >> we have a body. >> i need medics in place. we have a body. badly burned. >> the next day, jim skipsi was driving with his parents to a dinner engagement. his phone rang. it was an old friend. he picked it up. >> i said, jake you are going to tell me something bad, aren't you? he said, jim --

>> kept repeating your name. >> i said jake, hold on. i got to pull over. i didn't want to hear it. i didn't want to hear what he had to tell me. i gave the phone to my dad. and he told my dad. my dad hung up the phone and -- he just held out hiss are. me and my mom we were like all holding each other. and he told us jenny was gone. >> it was his jennifer, his daughter, who died in that fire. and now along with almost unbearable grief, something else started to burn inside jim. something searing. it was suspicion. >> accidents will happen. there is a lot of tragic things that happen to a lot of pecople in this world. this was no sdeveaccident. it didn't have to happen. coming up. police give paul the bad news.

>> i don't know how to tell you this, man. but there's a body in the house. that's been burned. >> when "burning suspicion" continues. no problem. you want to save money on rv insurance? no problem. you want to save money on motorcycle insurance? no problem. you want to find a place to park all these things? fuggedaboud it. this is new york. hey little guy, wake up! aw, come off it mate! geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance.

>> while the deadly fire was burning at his home on addison avenue, paul was at his hookah lounge, minutes away. someone called, told him about the fire. he rushed over, but could pace helplessly back and fort h, as fire fighters did their job. soon after that he sat down with police to help sort out what happened. as you can see on the video recording of the meeting, sat is probably not the best description. paul was full of nervous energy and frantic questions. at this ponint. nobody told him about the fire. i'm worried about my house. >> so, together, police talked

about the hours before the fire. where had she been? what had she and paul been doing. paul explained to police that he spent the afternoon at an appointment in san jose. got back to palo aclto and got back in time for his cafe to open.

>> then in the middle of his conversation with detectives, paul's phone rang. it was jennifer's mother. who told him she hadn't seen or heard from his daughter. you can see what happened. paul fell to pieces. >> yeah, i know, i know. i know. i know. i can't find her. they're not telling me anything. to this point he told detectives he had been cling to the hope that jennifer might be with his mother. anywhere really but at home. but she wasn't with her mother. wasn't anywhere. and that's when the officer broke this news. >> i don't know how to tell you this, man. but there's a body in the house. that's been burned. and we have no way of knowing who that is.

>> i have to get out of here. >> okay, and i'm trying to be as sensitive as i possibly can be, because i understand. that this is your -- i don't know that this is jennifer. >> i hope not. i hope not. >> okay, listen. it's a really, really odd set of circumstances, okay. we need to figure out is this on purpose? is this an accident? okay? this is just -- unfortunately, this is just the beginning for all of us, okay? to try to answer some questions. okay? >> but of, of course, it had to be jennifer. and it probably wasn't an accident. as that news sank in paul

thought about who may have wanted to harm jennifer and came up with some potentially harmful information. two brothers, had already threatened her, said paul. there had been a confrontation just weeks earlier. >> so what happened is he called me threatening me he's going to kill me. spoke in arabic. and i speak arabic. we called the police. he said he and jennifer had fired restraininged orrers again against -- filed restraining orders against them. so i know those guys like this. now yesterday she walked home and she said, hey, somebody probably was stalking me. >> had the brothered killed her too? police listened, took some notes. and then, just as a precaution of course, had paul give them his clothes for forensic testing. questioned by police, his home destroyed, his girlfriend dead, paul was very nearly in shock.

said his friend nikesa. >> his mind was, are they sure jennifer gone? oh, my god she is never coming back. >> as the weeks went by, said nikesa, paul was in a days. >> the gist of our conversations for the first few weeks were that jennifer is not coming back. he was completely distraught about the fact that jennifer was in that fire. >> meanwhile, as the weeks went by, investigators went quietly about their task, picking through the cinders of the fire and coming to the conclusion that none of it smelled right. literally. was gasoline there? >> no question at all. in her hair, you could smell it. you could smell it when you walked in just with your own the nose. >> investigators now knew the fire was not an accident. what they discovered next -- was an even bigger shock.