in the course of our reporting, we were told by media matters employees that ben smith at politico was of their go-to reporters and leak things to, someone they felt was a useful pawn for them. and so, we asked ben smith about this and in the course of that information, it turned out that he had obtained a cape of a 90 page mm mow and he we also have a copy of this memo, about a year ago, and never printed the vast majority of its contents a now, that's a bee traul trayal core idea of journalism and bring material to your readers. and he did not report that information. we think that's one of several examples of mainstream so-called mainstream reporters doing the bidding of media matters. >> mike: you know, tucker, i want to be fair to all of our viewers to explain that what media matters reports, it's their business, that's fine. in a country where we value free speech, they're free to say things, even if they're untrue, irresponsible and reckless all of which they've done. here is the rub and i think the heart of this story that needs to be told. and needs a thorough investigation. i

joining me now, ben smith. ben, welcome. from a media point of view, great stuff. it keeps the story going. it is exciting. the lead keeps changing. is it as good for the republican party? >> it much better for the media than the republican party. yes, the media has been cheering frantically all week for rick santorum to have a rise. i think the republican establishment would like this whole thing to go away. you've seen these candidates kind of get smaller and smaller and smaller as the primary proceeds. as obama gets larger. by comparison. >> that seems to be the big issue. until the republican party really finds their man, and they seem to be dithering and changing their mind almost state by state. until they make a decision and go with him enthusiastically, very hard for the republican party in the wider sense to really feel excited about the real election with obama. they've got to find the right candidate. >> they basically have chosen mitt romney. it is very hard to see how he doesn't get nomination. they seem to torture and humiliate him to make it hard and

and in the course of our reporting we were told by media matters employees that ben smith at politicoere oner their go-to reporters. someone they would leak things to, someone they felt was a useful pawn for them. we asked ben about this and in the course of that it turned out he obtained a copy of a 90 page memo about a year ago and never printed a vast majority of its contents. that's a betrayal of the core idea of journalism, which is find news that's newsworthy and bring it to your readers. for whatever reason he did not report that information. we think that's one of several examples of mainstream, so-called mainstream reporters doing the bidding of media matters. >> i want to be fair to all of our viewers to explain that what media matters reports is their business. that's fine. i mean, in a country where we value free speech, they are free to say things even if they are untrue and reckless, all of which they have done. but here's the rub and this is what i think is the heart of the story that needs to be told, and needs a thorough investigation. it's one thing if you do that as

. >> pj, it's ben smith.nk there's going to be pressure on obama this year from mitt romney to confront china, if he is the nominee, is there a right way to do that are there the appropriate opportunities to do that right now? >> two ways to look at it. yes, the united states and both in in administration and previous ones have had very honest direct conversations with china, particularly on economic fronts. time geithner has made a number of trips this talking about china. what it has to do relative to its currency. by the same token, china is now a rising power, it's a force in the united nations. when you look at a situation like syria, you have to do business with china, because china and russia have blocked intervention with respect to syria and when you think about t environment, chain a has to be a part of the solution. there's a balance of being forceful with china when you need to but normally as most leaders have come to discovery, while you have, you know, direct conversations publically you do a l

congratulations, i want to call to your attention a tweet from the ben smith of buzz feed that said, somewhere in the sky over ohio the romney death star is reving up its ion cannons. how worried are you guys about the romney money machine and organization going forward? >> well, two things, being an expert on star wars, the empire loses, in case you are not aware. >> spoiler alert. >> isn't that sad, isn't that your kmecommentary that today, know the empir that is mitt romney will fire up his money machine to target rick santorum. that is what he does. he did it in 2008, and he did it today. we saw it a couple days before minnesota and also colorado and missouri of course, that he began to attack us as he always does. he turned his sights on anybody that poked their head up early on. i got so many e-mails and tweets last night of people that said are you ready for the machine and ready for the attack s of course we are ready? we will not let him do what he did to other campaigns. santorum is a fighter and he will not take this from romney. at this stage in the game, for you to ask m

your article came out, and there's already been some pushback, in particular from ben smith saying youacts right on that. can you speak to that? >> absolutely, we have immediate matters -- media matters insiders with these claims, they said, hey, look, we can rely on ben smith to be able to publish the things that we had, and we could rely on greg sargent of "the washington post." and one of the, one of the sources that we had actually said, yeah, greg sargent's always game if there's nowhere else to place us it. so they had allies in the media -- megyn: you're not just talking about left-leaning, you talk about the huffington post, i don't think that would shock our viewers, but you're talking about mainstream, you know, media organizations like, you know, the washington post taking talking points from media matters? what evidence is there of that other than just these claims from media matters folks? >> well, greg sargent is a liberal blogger, he definitely has been available to their mailing lists and producing their stuff from time to time. that's not exceptional. but the fact is t

ben smith tweeted this of rick santorum's campaign last night after he lost. frustrated gop operative e-mails me, all santorum had to do was turn his iowa speech into a tv ad and stick to it on the stump. and yet, mark, i've heard this since iowa, rick santorum seems completely incapable of being disciplined enough to deliver a stump speech. that will stick. he keeps going down rabbit trails. >> on this set, we talk about him as the grandson of a coal miner more than he does. >> exactly. >> and last night was a great example. he gave like a 40-minute speech that was rambling all over the place. that is not how you send a message on election day. >> how undisciplined. >> you write a ten-minute speech with the help of an adviser, give your web address as mitt romney did last night i think maybe for the first time and you drive a message going forward. you don't say everything that's on your mind in 40 minutes. it is emblematic of the fact that he is not a great political athlete. >> lacks discipline. >> and the fact that mitt romney can only be that guy performi

we found ben smith received a 90 page media matters memo a year ago and never reported the key details kept that information from his readers. >> and you also have evidence that they also fed it to nbc news, the washington post columnist, the new york times . >> and we've had hostile reaction we've received has been from the legacy media, the old going out of business. >> the dan rather media? >> that's exactly right. >> and that what, you didn't talk to enough source? >> that's right. we have the document. of course, no, some of this is shoddy, right? but keep in mind media matters to this day, you know, eight or nine days later has not rebut add single thing we've written, not one single thing. >> i don't know if you were on the enemy list, and by the way he's number one now on the enemy's list, but they talked about hiring private investigators, but they have this relationship with the white house. and they meet with valerie jared and other white house representatives once a week. does that mean that they ever corroborated, discussed, collaborated on the issue of this minute's list?

capable of getting this material into the hands of people that we know, people across the board, ben smith formerly of politico, msnb c, they claim they wrote their entire prime time lineup. >> anybody who has head ben's stuff over the year sees he's a fair reporter. what you didn't have was, okay, here is a litany of things that so-and-so wrote and this matches the media matters talking points and they didn't tell the other side. you just had again these sources saying that these folks in effect were in the tank. >> and these are source that is are unimpeachable. >> but what's very impeachable is the notion you didn't connect the dots by demonstrating ou these reporters were unfair. >> unfair to whom? the idea is this, that media matters employees, former and current, claim that these people will run their content. now wrshtion do we go from there? you're right. you have to look and see to the extent to which these people have done it. in our coverage you will see something inside our story where we talk about a media matters source who claims they have something called fingerprint covera

>> you know, i heard ben smith in the previous segment talking about mitt romney being the fete accompleave seen teams lose that which was a given. i'm looking at c pac, the big conservative conference at the end of the week which starts on thursday and goes through saturday. you have people like sarah palin showing up, newt gingrich speaking there. you've got i believe rick santorum's going to be there and even mitt romney is going to be there. i think you'll going to see speeches and a coing a youlation of thought that's going to change the dynamic that you see here. until mitt romney reaches out to conservatives, which he's chosen not to do, this thing is not over. >> yeah, michael reagan, i mean, this is obviously a pretty bad night for mitt romney. not a great night for newt gingrich. i mean, all the talk tomorrow is going to be about rick santorum. no sign of newt gingrich anywhere in these three states. he said it's about super tuesday and texas, but it might be all over for him. >> i tweeted is giuliani running the newt gingrich campaign? the southern strategy, which did not work

representing brooklyn as always, ben smith.t mitt romney is in a statistical dead

ben smith is editor and chief. thank you to you both. good economic news on friday, the 8. 3%. and as we move forward, do you see romney losing one of the major points he could make during the general? >> yeah, the early signs of real recovery mean that the debate has changed a little. it's not who we blame for the economy. you're starting to see romney make the case, don't believe those numbers, there are other numbers, the real case is 15%. >> as we look at the real numbers made over the last couple of days or so. now, jonathan, the other interesting number we've been looking at so far. the poll we're just bringing up, do you think president obama deserves a second term? 49% saying yes, 49% saying no. and in fact, here's what president obama said on this issue. take a listen. >> i deserve a second term, but we're not done. when you and i sat down, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. in fact, we had found out just a few days before we sat down we had lost that month 750,000 jobs, now we're creating 250,000. we've created 3.7 million jobs over the last 23 months. we've created

. >>> bring back the panel, ben smith, and alex wagner and errol louis.ner was olympia snowe and that was reflected in the statement. >> she didn't even tell the staff. and they have to get all of the petitions in, and a couple of thousands which is difficult in maine by the 15th. >> and they could be stuck, alex wagner, and she would get a tea party challenge or whatever, but she had a serious, semi serious challenger, and she had the support of even the conservative status, and governor paula page who won with the tea party support was going to help her out and plow the field, so nomination was not going to bes a difficult as dick lugar, but she sent a message that could not be worded better. >> i am done here, and boom goes the dynamite. the message here and thomas mann and dave ornstein have a book coming out about how the republican party are moving right proportionate, but i don't believe she is off of the stage. >> and the roll call votes that was the s-chip and children's health care and there were nine republican senators who crossed over. judd g

greg sergeant you say at the "washington post," ben smith when he was at politico and msnbc, media mattersa matters and a lot of news organizations. we were shocked by the degree of that coordination. you got to say, whatever else you say about the group, media matters has been awfully effective in getting its message out. there are a lot of liberal reporters out there. a lot of willing hands, eager to do the bidding of media matters it turns out. >> meanwhile, the guy at the top, david brock who makes a lot of money doing this, you describe him as viciously mean, unstable. you talk about mental illness. this guy, he's paranoid. he's got a couple of bodyguards with him all the time because he's positive that he is the target of an assassination attempt. >> yes. that there are right-wing, unseen right-wing assassins lurking in the shadows trying to knock him off. we open the story with a scene where he's smoking a cigarette on the roof of his building in downtown washington, a very safe place and his two bodyguards rush up and whisk him downstairs for fear of snipers. his personal assistant

. >> smith: mary catherine gallagher and you know honestly the fact that there's a ben and jerry's schweddyalls flavor now tells you, right? tells you how this stuff has a long life. >> shannon: yes it's so true. >> smith: so obviously your experience there, it really huge moment, maybe the biggest moment in your career. >> shannon: yes. people don't know that it's a, it is a really hard job, though, because you have to write yourself into the show. it's not like you just hang around. >> smith: yeah would you talk about that? i don't think people fully. >> shannon: yeah. >> smith: appreciate how responsible you were for your own time on the show. >> shannon: yeah, it's a writing, it's a writing job. >> smith: right. >> shannon: and i had you know -- i had written my show, but i would kind of write it orally. i would, i would work on it in my head and kind of write the beats and walk around the block and, then i'd do it in front of the audience and, okay they like, or they like that, that didn't work, i kind of edited it in my head and just perform it and learn it orally. so i went to snl, i