governor of mississippi, haley barbour, "new york times" columnist david brooks and historian doris kearns goodwin. also, who do you blame for high gas prices? even as republicans begin to close ranks around mitt romney, this energy debate may overtake jobs as the economic fight of the fall campaign. >>> finally this morning, a conversation with msnbc's rachel maddow, author of the provocative new book "drift" which asks when did this country make peace with the perpetual state of war? vi . l state of war? captions paid for by nbc-universal television >>> good morning. a big win last night in louisiana for rick santorum. >> we have won our 11th state in this primary fight. and i want to thank you for that. >> 49-27, that is how it looked in louisiana over mitt romney. and it shows santorum's continued strength among conservative voters but romney still has the upper hand in the overall delegate race, as we say, week in and week out. this is where it stands. romney at 490 delegates and everybody else well behind. meanwhile, the president is in south korea for a nuclear security summit. he m

you know, like doris kearns good win has been pushing them to take up the t.r. model and those kind of things. >> oh, god. >> i think the more interesting question is whether not he started to look at t.r. in particular, but does this movementack to this argument, is this consistent with argument per se which is as he chooses to go to the progressive speaker here as to other options he had, i think it would have been more unifying. but he chose to do this. presidential speeches aren't chosen for no good reason. these are serious questions and i don't think he was merely passing through the precincts of kansas looking for a place to give his speech. so there's -- there's some unseriousness to it, which we pointed to. but i think it suggests that this is very much in line with his own thinking. >> well, it will be interesting -- >> there's more to call out. consistent with his earlier comments going back before he was president, before he comes in. talking about the, you know, the transformation of american politics and, you know, and his references to the declara

joining me "new york times" columnist david brooks, presidential historian doris kearns goodwin, nxzz 's initial norris, haily bar boar and the president of the naacp, ben jealous. welcome to all of you. this trayvon martin story is so painful for so many people and the president talked about it, as we say, in such personal terms. this is a portion of what he said on friday. >> i think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen? that means we examine the laws and the context for what happened. as well as the specifics of the instance. >> ben jealous, what does it mean that the president lent his voice to this in the way that he did? >> look, he spoke to the specific pain felt by the family when you look at the whole remarks. universal felt by the human family but he also, i think, put out a call for us to really look at how this happens in our country. the reality is that for too many years in too many places in too many cases, it's been the case that we've given permission to target and even kill black men. i held hearings this week. y