bill clinton has become mr. humanitarian in chief. >> when bill clinton's presidency ended in its closing days, one of his close aides confided to me, you know, i'm really worried. i worry that he's going to end up like willie mays. remember willie mays the hall of famer ended his career at an atlantic city casino, because he didn't have the judgment and needed the money. the fear is that without bill clinton, without all the organization, without all the staff aides, would not -- would be directionalist and wouldn't know how to use his platform. that fear turned out to be really misplaced. clinton did, i think, kind of flail around for maybe six months after his presidency ended. but then he took on real purpose, and he's been a phenomenally active ex-president. he's become a much more bipartisan figure than he ever was during his eight years in office. and i think he has -- he's achieved his ambition, which is to be kind of a figure of the world. a representative of the united states, but a figure of the world

don't give bill clinton -- >> they hate clinton. >> i know, but don't give bill clinton an excuse toe righteously in dig anatomy in public and campaign fat the sam time. we take seriodon't take seriouse of the other party. we just don't. he thought he was trying to be clever and stir mischief among the democrats. it won't work and nobody was listening. >> what do you make of that? it was obviously aimed at stirring trouble, but what's it about? >> it's not surprising. actually, hal stein in the huffington post had a great analysis of this. mccain tried to do this to some degree. barack obama remind people of the halcion days. mitt romney is clearly trying to paint president obama as an extremist which is not going to work. >> i'm sorry! they impeached him! how can anybody forget that? two presidents in history were impeached him. how can they go on? does he have any history in that head of his or just talking points? i interrupted you. but i did interrupt you with something important. he was at peace with republicans. >> he was. but institutional memory is a thing of the past. if thi

clinton introduced clinton.ou guys get two presidents for one out of this event which is a pretty good deal. a democratic source described the event as a first date. we have ed rendell, a former mayor of philadelphia, and mark penn who was the chief strategist for hillary clinton 2008 presidential campaign. i always look to you governor rendell for anything about the clintons. you're close, it's a relationship, it's for life. so here is the question, is this a good marriage, will it last through november which is all that matters. >> absolutely, number one, president clinton's belief that president obama did the best out of the circumstances, and second out of a real respect for president obama and the way he handled the relationship with secretary clinton. they have a much value relationship and even friendship, and i think president clinton has been enormously impressed with that. i think it is all out, 100%, not leaving anything on the table. >> so i would like you to go over that event. we don't hear much ab

he says he has more in common with clinton than obama because. he champions tax rates that romney invest will destroy the family. the only thing they have in common is that clinton once had the job that romney wants, and there's a major effort from keeping kathleen sebelius from speaking tomorrow at georgetown. and what we should do if we really want to reduce the number of abortions in this county trp. we begin with dirty angry money. we have chuck todd with us, and major garrett. the "new york times" reports on a proposal from a republican strategist to dredge up jeremiah wright. the point was to show he really is a radical after all. here is some of the language. our plan is to do exactly what john mccain would not let us do. show the world how barack obama's opinions were misguided. chuck todd, front page placement, the times played this baby big today. >> they did and let's look at it as political strategy. just watch how it consumed a day of the campaign. of the romney campaign. the idea this might come up as a potential ad, and it just sho

bill clinton is still alive, he is still a king maker.will disprove what romney is saying about him. they have institutional memory, they remember who their enemies are, they remember what was said about them years ago, months ago, weeks ago, bill clinton is around and he will be out there in the campaign straight not for mitt romney but for barack obama. >> clinton raised taxes on the wealthy up to 39%, and the president wants to return to top rates to clinton area levels. mitt romney wants to lower the tax further. romney has vowed to repeal it, while clinton backed dodd frank financial reform, romney denied it. bill clinton, you're so good, i'm looking in the deep brain of one of my smartest colleges. he wants bill clinton to win because he would like his wife to be president. i don't know what she thinks yet. if this president gets beaten, it will be harder for her to be an incumbent because the business cycle will turn up eventually. >> bill clinton's version of health care was more government oriented than obama's. so the romney com

. >> what a bomb shell about president bill clinton and secretary of state hillary clinton. did president clinton urge his wife to quit her job now and run against president obama this november? plus, is the obama campaign using threats and intimidation against romney donors. critics say the obama campaign has an enemy's list and a man who says he is on it. first, republicans are ripping into president obama for forgetting the recession. here is what president obama said. >> we have seen a record surplus that was squandered on tax cuts for people who didn't need them and weren't even asking for them. two wars were being waged on the credit card. wall street speculators reaped huge profits by making bets with other people's money. manufacturing was leaving our shores. it was a house of cards and it collapsed in the most destructive worst crisis we have seen since the great depression. and sometimes people more get the magnitude of it. and you saw some of that i think in the video that was shown. sometimes i forget. >> greta: sometimes i forget. bad choice of words or is presi

clinton loved it. -- clinton wanted it that way. nixon would have loved it. as they start to write the eulogy, clinton is determined to recast nixon that he's beginning to face this conservative republican attack. he wants to recast nixon as a moderate. as republican from a different time, he had attacked policy that was balanced. nixon uses that eulogy as a way to with nixon back to the sensible center. and then he says made it day by judging one incident alone come to an end. >> i know i'm jumping all over. people come by this book and get chronological. you wrote the truman-eisenhower transition. >> it is not pure friendship or pure enemies. one of the most amazing arts is between truman and eisenhower. eisenhower returned from europe,the great global hero of the world, the men's parade in washington. it is an honor just to meet him. and yet truman is the president. they proceed to work very closely. he makes eisenhower chief of staff. as truman is trying to put together a postwar security structure, he absolutely needs eisenhower to help sell congress on

in a way bill clinton did not. he put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. >> reagan, the patron saint of american conservative was a transformational president according to barack obama, more successful than in the recently successful democratic president, bill clinton. when obama said that, the strategy was pretty clear. mr. obama was diminishing the impact of bill clinton and taking a shot at nominating another clinton and trying to appeal to moderates and liberals who wanted their own transformational leader. o praising reagan is part of what is a common trend now. happens a lot presidents controversial become unifying icons in retrospect. the rallying around the retiree becomes selective forgetting. we forget who they were and forget about the things that divided them when they were in office. the nation's 39th president found himself seemingly out of nowhere in this presidential race just a month ago. >> you would have given the order, governor? >> even jimmy carter would

>> of bill clinton is inaugurated in 1993. he had five former presidents alike. >> which is never happened other than lincoln. his five for nixon, ford, carter, reagan, and bush. >> they had all been turned out of office. >> had to spend much time on them? >> when you could only write a book of so many pages that was the place to start. hoover goes up to truman on the diocese of ike swearing in says let's start a president's club. truman says great. bbv president. i will be the secretary. -- you be the president appeared i will be the secretary. >> they were joking, but that language, reagan uses it with .archecarter their souvenirs. at one. kennedy center's eisenhower a bunch of golf balls with the presidential seal and says i cannot use these in new a the only one that legitimately can. >> when reagan leaves office, here are some rules are going to need to follow. you're going to have to say no most of the time. they what try to drag you into financial deals. you have to ignore this. people will try to take advantage of you.

bill clinton was great. we spent an hour with him in harlem. >> why did you begin the book with him? >> he was so i bought it about his -- e vocative about his predecessors. he said is a presidential library to all of the 41 you came before him. yet the picture of johnson. but he plans to the bookshelf -- >> he points to the bookshelf and says there is my presidential library and from washington through bush. it is of his memoirs and diaries. they all study each other. they all talk about it. it is as though the only people who can understand them are the ones who came before. they devour the letters and diaries. >> george walker bush read 70 -- 17 biographies of lincoln while he was in office. it was in a "times" story. >> i entered bush for a -- i interviewed george w. bush for a different story. i asked him about how his views of his predecessors had or had not changed as a result of his own experience. he said i think differently about all of them. that was not what i expected to hear. >> tell the story

secretary of state, madam clinton. you shattered the glass ceiling like no one else with 18 million votes. and i was struggling very hard with zero vote. when i last saw hillary she was being introduced by meryl streep at the woman of the world summit in new york. and meryl handed her an oscar. i can surely say that nobody has ever given me an oscar. although, inside job got the oscar for documentary films. holy cow. i thought maybe i could outdo madam secretary of state. i worked hard on my twitter account. i have hundreds of thousands of chinese followers. but you know the tweets from lagarde, forget it. they can't possibly compete with the texts from hillary. and i'm sure you've all seen the photo. there she is hillary sitting in a military plane with dark glasses on, reading her messages on blackberry surrounded by very tense and anxious men. very cool. very cool. my favorite text from hillary is the one where rachel maddow asks her who runs the world? 140 character response forget it, one word. girls. love it. let

now, to a clinton bomb shell. did former president bill clinton call president obama an amateur. a book claims he not only did that but also urged his wife secretary of state hillary clinton to run against the president in this year's tournament primary. president clinton's spokesperson calls the book's claims totally and completely false. byron york joins us. >> opens with the scene the summer of 2011, hillary clinton and bill clinton and a few old friends are in bill clinton's office at their house in new york. bill clinton is saying you have to resign as secretary of state and run for president. challenge barack obama in 2012. not wait until 2016, in 2012. hillary clinton is saying that would cut off my he term as secretary of state and it would be disloyal and bill clinton says forget about that, you have to run, you can be president. you have the support, we want to be back in the white house and you should do it. >> greta: and also quoted in the book assaying that she can still run in 20136. 2016. according to the author that she has her eye on 2016. >> he does quote someon

clinton. >> bill clinton has an astonishingly high approval rating for someone so intensely hated by the right and never won in a landslide. he's viewed favorably by 67% of voters against 29% -- only 29% who view him unfavorably. you just compare that just for george w. bush viewed favorably by 52% and viewed unfavorably by 54%. this favorable rating for bill clinton has is not an automatic for ex-presidents. >> no, it's not. remember when president clinton was impeached? remember his approval rating at the time? people were mystified by how this person who was caught in a life, impeached, globally embarrassed and his approval rating was really relatively high. when he left office, he left the country with a surplus. he left the country relatively at people. it seemed like the sky was the limit, and i think there's a lot of nostalgia behind the fact when bill clinton was president, things seemed to be okay and the economy was great. everyone was doing just fine. he happened to be the best politician of his generation to have run for president and won two terms in office. to have pres

clinton can't go there. i think clinton was always grateful for ford's interested in protecting the presidency but also in keeping the country from the worst kind of destruction. >> you said earlier you started with harry truman. what was your column? >> mine was nixon. >> what about the relationship between richard nixon and john kennedy before? >> what i have not understood is those men were friend in the 1950's. they had come to washington at the same time. they shared a sleeper berth on a train at one point. nixon was invited to tender the's wedding. -- to kennedy's wedding. it was one of those rare occasions when eisenhower invited him to play golf. they had a fairly cordial relationship. the 1960 costs and wound up -- the election wound up being incredibly close, we did the 1960 election world of being incredibly close, and many were convinced kennedy had stolen it and were telling nixon to challenge the results. just a few days after the election, richard nixon spoke to herbert hoover and eisenhower,

he brings bill clinton in. clinton stands in the press room, and makes the sale by simply saying, you know, what, if we don't extend these tax cuts, we're going to have a double-dip recession. now, i think that's what clinton's talking about. and i want to ask you what this means that clinton called obama an amateur. >> well, i think he's felt that way a long time, if you read jonathan altar's book on the first part of the obama administration, you see there's a lot of resentment there about the idea this guy just came in, i think the words he uses is, he dropped his bags off at the senate and started running for president, who isn't nearly ready for the job. it actually makes sense that clinton would feel that way about president obama and, you know, to hear a story like that kind of reinforces -- >> this is brutal stuff. this is brutal stuff, from an outspoken president, who obviously he wants his wife to run. i mean, that's in the book. and in the book she says no. but what does it mean? clinton says obama d

george clinton. we'll be right back. (cheers and applause) >> jon: hey welcome back.tion every single day? no? because they don't. but that hasn't stopped one missouri law make frere fight on their behalf, asif man vey has more. >> reporter: the history of civil rights is one of long struggle and long fought victoriesment meet wanda brown of the missouri house of representatives. she's leading a new march of progress with her landmark bill hb-1621. >> this bill creates an environment that an employer can't fire an employee if they own firearms, if they use firearms. if you target-- if you target practice, if you hunt, they wouldn't have the right to fire you for that reason. >> right, but aren't gun owners already protected? >> we have a second amendment to the constitution that should be abided by at all times. >> wanda's bill like a second condom adds another layer of protection against employers who would disregard the constitution. >> i think i understand. you're the kind of person that sees discrimination somewhere, and wants to fight it. >> yes. >> thanks to wan

george clinton. we'll be right back. applause) ♪ [ male announcer ] introducing new dentyne split to fit pack. it splits in to two smaller, sleeker packs that fit almost anywhere so you can take them everywhere. dentyne split to fit. practice safe breath. [ man ]ctronic ] i'm shooting video. [ air rushing ] ♪ oh, superman i can also use the camera button... to take photos at the same time. [ announcer ] the htc one, available from t-mobile. >> jon: hey welcome back. did you know that missouri gun owners face rampant discrimination every single day? no? because they don't. but that hasn't stopped one missouri law make frere fight on their behalf, asif man vey has more. >> reporter: the history of civil rights is one of long struggle and long fought victoriesment meet wanda brown of the missouri house of representatives. she's leading a new march of progress with her landmark bill hb-1621. >> this bill creates an environment that an employer can't fire an employee if they own firearms, if they use firearms. if you target--

. >> let's listen to how they tried to use bill clinton against obama. >> bill clinton that the air of obama was over. [ applause ] it's enough to make you wonder maybe it was a personal beef with the clintons but probably that -- it runs much deeper than that. >> e.j., that's just weird. he is trying to get in there on a personal beef with the clintons like no republican would ever have a personal beef with the clintons. >> right. they only tried to impeach him and, you know, it doesn't count that he made hillary and taxes were a whole lot higher under bill clinton or quite a bit higher. so maybe mitt romney has a secret plan to restore the rights despite what he says here. i think any time romney says that he wants -- bill clinton had government right size, he's going to be asked you must support a 39.5% tax rate on upper income people. >> the thing that i particularly love about this is remember back when we were in primary mode, mitt romney, and he was having to defend the fact that he voted in the democratic primary in 1992 and his justification was that he voted against bill clin

it does is it just validates bill clinton and gives him credibility so when bill clinton criticizes mitt romney, it makes those criticisms all the more effective. and also, i mean, look, the base of the republican party loathes bill clinton. and this is the party that impeached him. so i just think with mitt romney's kind of peak standing with bill clinton. this guy will say just about anything in the course of this election and i think he's glen straiting that. >> it's not an embrace. this is romney making a play for independence in the way that he has been throughout this whole season. it's fairly smart of him and yeah, sure, clinton can fire back, but look, president obama has not been the kind of centrist president that bill clinton was and i think it's important for romney to point this out. that this guy is not a center left democratic president. this is a guy who's been, you know, administering from the hard left, and that at least romney can bring the country together. and i think that that's a valid point. >> i wish republicans said that line when bill clinton was in office

." >> as the dispute over the dissident chen guangcheng continues, hillary clinton called on china to protect human rights. >> end of the road as newt gingrich abandoned his campaign to challenge president obama in november. a monk masterpiece -- a masterpiece that is a price in new york. >> it is 11:00 a.m. in singapore. >> it is 4:00 in the morning in london. broadcasting to viewers on pbs in america and around the world. >> u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton has told china that it cannot deny the aspirations of its citizens. she opened high-level talks between the two countries in beijing. the run-up to the talks has been marked with the run-up regarding chen guangcheng, who has saw refuge at the u.s. embassy. >> the united states raises the importance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. we believe all governments do have to answer to citizens aspirations for dignity and the rule of law. no nation can or should deny those rights. as president obama said this week, a china that protect the rights of all the citizens will be a stronger and more prosperous nation. of course

first, is bill clinton still bill clinton? of course he is still bill clinton.atching "red eye" on fnc. stick around. >>> well, could bill clinton be anymore bill clinton? i refer to this picture of the exprez and a couple of porn stars. slick willy posed at a gala event attended by several celebrities and, yes, a bunch of adult actresses. he has brooklyn lee and tasha rain with him. lee won for best new star let and "mission impossible." and clinton has been seen on a beach in monte carlo. i believe we have tape. now the porn stars make sense. greg, the two actresses told tmc sme were going to take a picture and the secret service brushed them away. but clinton had secret service call them back to take the picture. does it make you love him more or a lot more? >> it doesn't surprise me. by the way the saddest two words together are porn star let. when bill clinton is with those women he is thinking, i am president why not invent the porn pod. it is a thing that would come over him like a sex pod. the minute he was with them it would drop over him and allow him