. >>> up next, how bill clinton became bill clinton. have a guy that went to school with bill clinton. let's talk about this guy. he went to georgetown. he's also a writer of great fiction. he's not going to give us fiction now. this is "hardball," only on msnbc. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. i knew it'd be tough on our retirement savings, especially in this economy. but with three kids, being home more really helped. man: so we went to fidelity. we talked about where we were and what we could do. we changed our plan and did something about our economy. now we know where to go for help if things change again. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get free one-on-one help

i have a guy that went to school with bill clinton. we love bill clinton. e talking about him. hillary clinton may be the next president. who knows. let's talk about this guy. he went to georgetown. he's also a writer of great fiction. he's not going to give us fiction now. this is "hardball," only on msnbc. investing technology is now within your grasp with the all-new e-trade 360 investing dashboard. e-trade 360 is the world's first investing homepage that shows you where all your investments are and what they're doing with free streaming quotes, news, analysis and even your trade ticket. everything exactly the way you want it, all on one page. transform your investing with the all-new e-trade 360 investing dashboard. transform your investing i'm always looking for new ways to help me manage my diabetes. take a look at this. freestyle lite test strips? they need just a third the blood of onetouch ultra. really? and the unique zipwik tab targets the blood and pulls it in. wow! look at that! and you can get these strips for a $15 monthly co-pay simply by joi

bill clinton was pandering, frankly, to the right, when he did welfare reform. we all love bill clinton, but he was pandering for the right, and was excoriated on the floor of congress. i do not think anyone has the appetite -- this particular congress is one of the worst we have seen in a very long time, especially around issues for women and children. they do not mind cutting anything. they are running around the country, talking about austerity at the same time we are seeing people falling into poverty. [applause] tavis: so, you say this is the worst congress in recent memory, with regard to the rights of women. and what he specifically to collect -- connect this war on women in washington with poor women and their babies specifically. >> there has always been a war against the poor. this is not a country that has had a tremendous sympathy for poor people. the notion that somehow we have slipped into an era in which poor people do not matter is not quite the way our history would define it. we really do not care much about poor people. when we think about wha

bill clinton thought pipeline was a strip club.e pipeline. >> kimberly: you're kidding right now. >> greg: it happens. >> bob: listen, obama and clinton had disagreements obviously. but clinton understands something here. he needs obama to win again. and because i think there is still some hope that she will run in 2016. and he is doing everything he can to make sure it happens. he has also done trial balloons for obama. since they had the disagreements. bill clinton has been as strong obama supporter and interpreter as anybody i've seen. >> dana: now both sides are trying to neutralize each other's best arguments. so john boehner and the house republicans agree to the payroll tax cut. they get it behind them. that happened three weeks ago. nobody even remembers it. that was obama's number one legislative priority for this year. now i do think that because the bad policy on keystone ended up being terrible politics they will figure out a way to cut the losses quickly. >> kimberly: doesn't he get to say that on the way to obama, he

>> reporter: did bill clinton start the ugly mess?i come here tonight as a mom. >> reporter: what about michelle obama. she let the accused into the house that night. and where was her husband 44? he was reportedly upstairs sleeping. >> i know what you're thinking. >> reporter: and what about sarah palin? did she slip off and go rogue? >> am i a moose hunter, a vice presidential candidate? i don't know. i'm asking. >> reporter: as with politicians, even with the fake ones, it might be tough to get a straight answer. we spoke with the bill clinton impersonator he couldn't believe what happened. at first, he thought that the whole thing was a sick joke that was happening. he's hoping that everyone will just forgive each other. and work out their political differences. >> thank you, dan. bizarre story. good work. >> all right, coming up on "good morning america" -- you have heard of snakes on a plane, but how about penguins? that's right. penguins on a plane. we'll be back with the story on these unusual passengers. these unusual passeng

was bill clinton ever bound by laws or regulations? reaction, former special counsel to president clinton and one of his chief defenders in the monica lewinsky days. look, i will say it. bill clinton's right. >> i think he's right. but he is talking about facts. he can disagree with president obama on -- >> sean: you can't even say it with a straight face. >> i don't understand the president's position on this pipeline, no matter -- >> sean: you know what -- [overlapping dialogue] >> the race card on me from the very beginning. >> president clinton is supporting president obomba's re-election, as i am. -- >> sean: they played the race card on me. everybody's talk about this g.o.p. hopefuls fighting. >> to finish my sentence, i am still supporting president obama for re-election. >> sean: of course. let's put us in another $5 trillion in debt. >> you had me until you had the support of obama. i don't think he deserved the support the first time and he has proven to us conclusively that he doesn't deserve to be re-elected. we would be be

the only exceptions to that rule really were bill clinton and hillary clinton as they were campaigning over the course of the last 72 hours they felt like they could feel something shifting in the electorate. bill clinton new politics in the electorate better than in place on the planet. everywhere they went he felt the tide turning. they were the only ones who d when she won that victory. she bounced out of new hampshire with one of the most remarkable comebacks anybody has seen in le at that point -- it would change shortly but people thought hillary clinton is on the way to restoring, put together her place as front-runner. as you know things got a lot more complicated after that. >> mark halperin maybe with mitt romney's february win in michigan a parallel to what barack obama faced two months after hillary clinton winning the primary essentially clenching the nomination. having dodged bullet after bullet, mccain clinched his party's nomination march 4th, including one of the greatest political comebacks in modern american history. here is my question with a direct relation to theo

what role did bill clinton play in hillary clinton's campaign? how did barack obama really decide he could run for president and make a credible effort to beat hillary clinton? lots of questions like that we didn't know the answers to. we said what if we went back and almost as archaeologists tried to figure out what had actually happened? before too long we'd taken that original conversation, shaped it a little bit. but what we ended up writing was very close to the idea we had on that day originally and we're basically doing the same thing for the next cycle, for this cycle. there's no republican to tamper with a formula readers seem to like and tell the story of a campaign people are focused on minutely this time as they were last time. again, to try to go back and tell the story through the eyes of the people involved in a way that maybe is impossible to do in daily, weekly or monthly journalism. >> what we have done is gone back through your book and selected a couple of quotes and some accompanying moments that maybe best reflect what happe

bill clinton. i hope it's the call i would have made.now, it is -- this is an un -- we know that the relationship between the two is -- it's at least a friendly rivalry, as i think that presidents of the same party -- can't help themselves. >> it's more than a friendly rivalry, it was a real rivalry four years ago at this time. the relationship between the two was quite strained. and it's gotten better, obviously, and the president has turned to the former president in some difficult moments, he did it after the 2010 election. so it's not surprising he's trying to bring him in on this. >> this is different, though. this is bill clinton deciding, i am going to come out and not just say i'm in favor of, but he's doing the kind of things that i would hope i would have done when i was in office. that -- >> serving as a verifier on the presidency. >> not something we heard before. >> how important do you think it is to voters? >> incredibly important. because there is an excitement level issue with even president obama's base -- >> have you n

>>neil: do you think romney has to do what beck -- beck -- bill clinton came on your show, candidatesman moment or to this case is it not ins in these times, not necessary at all? >>guest: o'reilly had him on and he knows him fairly well and that is what o'reilly said, you have to, and i know him a little bit. >>neil: so you are copying bill o'reilly's opinion? >>guest: can i yet o'reilly? >>neil: i thought it was your opinion, i would have backed o'reilly. >>guest: he would not come on your show. number one were o'reilly said the same thing, because romney has a remaining which sense of humor, she a lovely guy but he is terrified of everything he says and you go down to tennessee and sing davey crockett that is so lame ... it makes you ... oh, god! >>neil: does it bother you that most of our presidents with few excepts have been wealthy? and a lost people say time to get over the elitism thing, we have to even have the candidate would run for this office, it is not a purview for the rich regardless of whether we have had our fdr's or john f. kennedy's or ronald reagan's that is not r

you obviously have a much younger bill clinton. president clinton there.with the hair style. >> a little heavier there and i was too, at that point. bill clinton did a lot of donut stops in that campaign. that was also the boxers or briefs campaign.

he is talking about bill clinton. he knows where to put pipe liens because he is so unbelievably smart. everything would be easy if everyone listened to me. aren't i clever. aren't i special. sort of classic bill clinton where he is very cleverly makes it sound like only guy in the room that can make everything work. he casually ever so subtlely throws obama under the bus. and even complains about how no one is paying enough attention to him in the full video clip from that speech. he complains no one pays attention to ex-president unless something controversial and makes the secretary of state mad. this is pay attention to me classic bill clinton moment. bill: that may be. i think there is more at work. he says you can say whatever the heck you want if you're a former president. but his wife has a big opinion on this matter. it crosses an international border which sfwos to the department of state. she is the secretary of state and she was asked about his comments. listen here. >> the former president bill clinton sa

>> i posed that question to them and the question is, well, bill clinton is already the nominee. chris: the creation of this problem they've got. >> i think in a weird way, the problem that romney faces now is not that unlike mccain. mccain faced a problem with women, but he faced a lot of other problems that sarah palin was supposed to solve. romney has a problem with female voters, independent voters and hispanic voters. i think the campaign is going to be inclined not to try to solve those problems. there's no one who solved that problem. >> there aren't going to be enough vice-presidential slots for romney. chris: when we c@ >> tell me something i don't know is brought to you by charles schwab. let's talk about the personal attention you and your money deserve. talk to chuck. chris: welcome back. john, tell me something i don't know. >> over the course of the next two to three weeks, a lot of people we hope will watch the "game change" movie. a lot of people think it's a hatchett job, but when they watch the movie they'll realize they're wrong. >> george we'll idea that some

>> i posed that question to them and the question is, well, bill clinton is already the nominee. chris: the creation of this problem they've got. >> i think in a weird way, the problem that romney faces now is not that unlike mccain. mccain faced a problem with women, but he faced a lot of other problems that sarah palin was supposed to solve. romney has a problem with female voters, independent voters and hispanic voters. i think the campaign is going to be inclined not to try to solve those problems. there's no one who solved that problem. >> there aren't going to be enough vice-presidential slots for romney. chris: when we come ba [ female announcer ] pillsbury presents: how to solve a brother-sister standoff. ♪ pillsbury chocolate chip cookies, warm out of the oven. another sweet idea for bringing families together from pillsbury. here's a better idea... pillsbury grands! flaky layers biscuits. in just 15 minutes, the light delicate layers add a layer of warmth to your next dinner. pillsbury grands! dinner ideas made easy. >> tell me something i don't know is brought to you b

he's not going to be bill clinton. he's not going to be a brand like barack obama even as the nominee and raise hundreds of millions of dollars on the web but he doesn't need to be. people reacting now to some polls i think are right as a snapshot. if he's the nominee and he probably will be, he will have a chance to use the convention to rebrand himself. i think he will be the underdog till election day. it's hard to beat an incumbent with the skill of barack obama. he has a chance. he's in the game. i don't see the electoral college map radically different than it was months ago. his hispanic problem is a big problem. i don't see a path to fixing that easily. but everything else, when the reset happens, if he and his campaign are skilled, the stuff we're talking about now won't matter all that much. i will say on the garage, i think there's way too much made in the press about that. we should be talking about serious things. he's made a series of choices. the way his blinds trust handled suggest he doesn't really, re

>> well, for one thing bill clinton wrote his own book and is an extremely clever writer and a good writer. that, by the way, is notten common among presidents. grant's memoirs is probably the most eminent work of literature in a nonfiction field in america. it's by any definition as much of a classic as "moby dick" is in fiction. ike's story of the second world war is to my mind one of the best written and certainly the most fair minded books about the second world war that anybody has ever written. >> did he write it? >> he wrote it himself. absolutely wrote it in long hand. i know that because his editor joe barnes is a friend of mine at simon & schuster. it sounds like ike. it's a wonderful book. you could pick it up today and recommend it to anybody as a book to read about the second world war in europe. >> did jimmy carter wrote his own book? >> he wrote his own speeches. i believe he wrote his own books, yes. i know his editor. and he's very much a stickler for having his books exactly the way he wants them. he wrote a big novel which i helped edit some time ago and he was, though,

and how becoming a vegan changed bill clinton's life. >>> and the da vinci code. an art detective cracks the 500-year-old mystery, tracking down a lost master piece. >>> good evening. we begin tonight with the news of that american soldier accused of putting on a night vision goggles and then methodically going door to door, killing children and families in their homes in afghanistan. it is a slaughter that threatens the already fragile future there. and tonight we are learning more about who he is. but we begin with abc's nick schifrin in kabul. an exclusive new video from that village in shock. >> reporter: americans and afghans agree on this much, this crime was unforgivable. it was a methodical massacre, 16 civilians, including 9 children, most shot through the head, their bodies wrapped in blankets and burned. "are these children taliban?" asks this woman. "is this 2-year-old a taliban?" the shooter, identified as a 38-year-old staff sergeant, slipped away from his base at 2:00am, armed with at least two weapons. he walked south more than a mile and began sta

>> i posed that question to them and the question is, well, bill clinton is already the nominee. chris: the creation of this problem they've got. >> i think in a weird way, the problem that romney faces now is not that unlike mccain. mccain faced a problem with women, but he faced a lot of other problems that sarah palin was supposed to solve. romney has a problem with female voters, independent voters and hispanic voters. i think the campaign is going to be inclined not to try to solve those problems. there's no one who solved that problem. >> there aren't going to be enough vice-presidential slots for romney. chris: when we come ba how did this small colorado town get through tough economic times? freight rail. it attracted large companies, like vestas. we built four factories to make turbine blades, towers, and generators. creating over seventeen hundred jobs. then suppliers, stores, more companies followed, creating more jobs. economists call that the ripple effect. i call it the freight rail effect. freight rail connects every corner of america, bringing jobs and economic gr

and now you've got bill clinton out there, you know, he's a -- i don't think bill clinton is particularly president obama don't have a very close relationship. >> he's not. >> so, you know, you can't -- this is not exactly a terribly controversial statement. i mean, he has held his tongue for the last three years. he hasn't given obama too much trouble. even when he wrote a book recently on what to do about the economy, which had some subtle jabs at the white house, it wasn't so bad. so i don't know. this is a little overblown. you've got to give clinton some credit for keeping his mouth shut, which must be very difficult under the circumstances. >> but that seems like a statement from somebody who doesn't have a political dog in the fight. this does seem like sort of a common sense solution, like, oh, yeah, why didn't everybody think about that before? and the reason is because each side had their bases to play to, and this became about nothing but politics. and a democratic congressman mentioned to me, do you know this oil will eventually be sold to china anyway? this is not for domesti

point 20 years ago, we were talking about -- people were talking about what a terrible candidate bill clintoncandals around them. gennifer flowers and all of that. clinton was a talented politician, is a much more talented politician than romney. but what changed for clinton that year, may, june, july, august, the unemployment rate really spiked. it went from around 7.2%, 7.3% to up near 8%. and that really changed the way people looked at the election. they were suddenly a lot more open to the idea of voting for the opposition party. a lot more hostile to the incumbent president. we haven't reached that point yet. if something like that happened with the unemployment rate now we'd see a similar effect. >> i think that's a good point. the fact that the republicans were building a lot of their presidential campaign hopes around the economy going bad and it seems that the economy is headed in the right direction. in fact, according to this poll, 57% of americans feel the economy is going in the right direction. so i think that part of the problem that romney's having and the rest is that they e

one of these candidates is bill clinton. unfortunately, so is the other. >> there is a simple explanation for why this happened. >> so, lynnwood, let me go to you first. the compare and contrast ad, which we have seen in the last 30 to 40 years. >> well, i mean, i think it's very strong ad, it's a very good idea to call people out on them flip-flopping issues because people general little do not like people that flip back and forth. you see this when a person switches party, there are a lot of times, that's really not taken too well. and you have to question somebody's, you know, morals and, you know, question why they flip-flop and wonder if they truly believe what they're saying or if they are just saying what needs to be said to get elected. >> i mean, this is one of the most effective ads, when you can take what a candidate said at one point in time and show that the position has shifted. it's a way to make that individual look unprincipled, not having firm values, not really being a strong leader and so we've certainly

>> did bill clinton start the ugly mess? >> i come here tonight as a mom. >> what about michelle obama she let the accused into the house that night. where was her husband? he was upstairs sleeping. >> i know what you thinking. a what about sarah palin? did she go rogue? >> as with politicians even the fake ones this might be cuffed to get a straight answer. >> god bless you all and god bless america. thank you. >>> that is crazy. all right. we'll be right back. we'll show you the saint patrick's day parade right down our street. stay with us. >>> these guys cal ripken, jr. and bill ripkin are working for you to help disadvantaged children with life lessons. >>> let the parade roll down on this sunny sunday. ♪ they did it. more than 50 years sitting on the curb watching the saint patrick's day parade. >> i love those horns. >> you can hear those all the time. >> just makes me think of a parade. it gives me a feeling i am going into spring and nice weather. >> wait until you feast your eyes on this seven day. 64. i could not

there you got bill clinton giving democrats a nice talking point for when they eventually cave on theone x.l. pipeline? but he's got a problem at home which is what gretch was referring to earlier. hillary clinton who is the secretary of state, keep in mind, it's the state department that figures out whether or not a pipeline can go across an international boundary, she's not so fast to say let's build it. listen to this. >> even the former president, bill clinton, says embrace it. >> very smart man. but he, unfortunately, is not bound by the laws and regulations any longer of the united states to make decisions that follow a certain procedure and that's what we have to do. >> is it a mistake for the former president to say embrace it? >> of course not. i think it's not a mistake for people -- this is america. people say they embrace it. people say they hate it. our job is to, you know, take a very clear eyed look at what the facts are. >> 2 1/2 years. >> her job must be tough from time to time because she has to -- >> her boss is the president. >> she has to defend president obama ov

they love bill clinton, but did people get excited about bob dole's? did people get excited about bob dole in 2008, even though they barack obama. campaigns are one when you have someone who excites the days. it is not enough to say, i do not like a rock obama. i am going to vote for mitt romney. you have got to have a candidate to get people so excited they are willing to make phone calls. they are willing to pass out bumper stickers and signs may have in the back of their van in a church parking lots. i do not see that happening for mitt romney, because he has flip flop on social issues. he has flip flopped on health- care issues. he has flip flop on just about every issue there is out there. does that mean mitt romney cannot win this raised salmon and a does not mean that, but craig -- as that mean mitt romney cannot win? that does mean that real conservatives, mitt romney, george w. bush, that energized the base. people like john mccain, bob dole, george h. w. bush, they usually do not win close elections. tavis: i meant that they hate the presiden

there's a fine line between confident and cocky, but bill clinton was confident.y timed knocked down in the campaign. most of my bosses thought he was done had to get out of the campaign. he kept at it, kept trying and willing to stay at it and had a team, people were getting information in different ways. you could think outside the box. my question to you, how did you pull it off? >> well, at that time, because he was a governor, i didn't really see the magnitude of what could happen. i tried to book a governor. when he said yes i asked him to wear my tie. when he said yes, i asked him to wear my sunglasses. when he said yes, i said, would you play saxophone? i kept asking for things and learned to never assume there will about no, because there might be a yes. back to you, again. we're interviewing each other, buddy. let's talk about specific things that the public can see right now that that affected? the first thing i think about is al green. the al green song that obama sang. snt i'm so in love with you ♪ ♪ for amber waves of grain ♪ for purple mountains maj