dr. willke? cticinged tobraggedto the associated press that about willke had his back. he said this. >> you know, dr. willke has just released a statement and mart of his letter i think he just really stated it very clearly. he said, of course akin never used the word legitimate to refer to the rapist but to false claims like those in roe versus wade. that simplify it is. >> cenk: dr. willke. dr. willke. this is the guy who came up with these crazy ideas. you think you know them? you don't know the half of them yet. here is dr. willke speaking in 1989. >> there is a majority in the united states who would favor an abortion in the case of assault rape pregnancy or incest. yet there are only one or two maybe 300 assault rape pregnancies in the whole united states in a year. [ buzzer ] >> cenk: wrong again, doctor. "doctor." 32,000 of pregnant because of rape per year. it's not .1%. it's actually 5% that leads to pregnancies. he is 100% wrong. but we're just getting started. he also has a theory in h

dr. willke thing. really, you have never heard anyone else espouse this that has no connection to your campaign. and he also said, quoting from the same interview he did today, nobody is proposing trying to deny birth control to anybody. we're going to be dealing with that walk later on in the show, but the broader issue here is this. this is a test for the american press. paul ryan and mitt romney are actively trying to rewrite and distort their own record on the issue of abortion and rape and pregnancy at a time when the country is focused like a laser on this issue and the republican party is trying to distance itself from its own members and their policy positions on this subject. this is just like the medicare issue. paul ryan said he wants to turn medicare into a coupon system. and even when some other people in the republican primary had issues with that, at least for a second, i'm talking to you, newt gingrich, mitt romney said he would sign the paul ryan plan to end medicare as we know it, he

dr. willknly candidate who can lead our pro-life and pro family conservative movement to victory. while congressman akin did not name willke as his source, many have pointed to insane theory to this very doctor who was linked, connect the dots to romney at one point in time. >> right. yeah, mitt romney was endorsed by him in 2007 and the romney campaign touted that endorsement. and as you noted, called him a leading voice in the anti-choice movement. this is a theory that you know, we're facing a real problem in the country in that a lot of pseudoscience is replacing real science for the purposes of policy making. >> when you say a lot, do you have any specs on this? i've heard a lot of people even on air, but you hear people on air say "a lot of people believe what this man, dr. willke or even akin who now retracted it, his initial words are somehow believed by. what proof do we have this is not just a fringe group of people. >> i don't know that we have numbers or proof it's not just a fringe

dr. willke. is he just -- is politics driving him? is his religious beliefs or political beliefs driving his perception of science? >> dr. willke is an 87-year-old general practitioner who was once president of national right to life. he has no scientific credentials. >> for you, you're saying he's just -- he's taking a political stand or a -- just a stand based on his beliefs, he's not actually looking at science? >> correct. in medicine, opinions count only to the extend they're born out or supported by evidence. no evidence at all supports dr. willke's bizarre theorys. >> doctor, appreciate you being on. >> my pleasure. >> let's turn to the political fallout. kelly ann conway who did polling for akin during the primary but is not working for him now. also paul begala who is currently advising the top pro-obama super pac. paul what do you make of this? how likely do you think it is akin is going to drop out? >> i don't know. i mean, the republican establishment is bringing all of the weight it can bear to drive him out of the race.

dr. willke from their own press release. they said dr. willke is a leading voice within the pro-life community and will be an important surrogate for governor romney's pro-life and pro-family agenda. that was the mitt romney trying to disavow the massachusetts governor mitt romney and embrace the conservative wing of the party because on social issues, he felt obviously some vulnerability but he clearly embraced john willke. >> this is the problem with the whole akin situation. whether or not he stays in or gets out, the train has left the station that john willke quota tributed to the romney campaign or romney himself will come up, you can be sure, in a super pac ad or maybe a president obama campaign ad. it's already going to be in there. the script writers are hard at work. >> finally, the platform. the platform has been adopted. we know platforms are meant to be thrown out but the platform has the complete language which is no exceptions on the ban on abortion. it was adopted, will be adopted monday but it was adopted preliminarily by

dr. john willke, the man who came up with the discredited rape theory akin was citing, a theory he cited two days ago saying rape victims were unlikely to get pregnant. saying, quote, this is a traumatic thing, she's uptight, frightened, tight and so on. sperm are less likely to be able to fertilize. not what mitt romney wants to focus on. >> mitt romney took pains to make sure he never talked about abortion, whether to me or others. he just didn't want to have anything to do with it. here he is having to talk about it. >> meanwhile democrat claire mccaskill now has a chance. i'm going to run against todd akin and we're going to draw the contrast necessary so voters know he's outside the mainstream. >> reporter: if republicans thought they could escape the platform committee has adopted a strong anti-abortion plank with no exception for rape victims. but the important thing for voters, mitt romney has clearly made it clear he disagreed entirely with todd akin's view. >> in our nbc newsroom, andrea, thanks. >>> this week the american death toll in the war in afghanistan passed 2,000. it l

dr. john willke is an endorser of mitt romney. todd akin is not an exception to the rule in the republican party. he is the rule. the only way mitt romney and paul ryan can distance themselves from akin is to lie about their own records, which is exactly what they're doing. they can't tell the truth about how they would govern when it comes to women's health. and this is the big problem for the republican party tonight. legitimate rape, the president was spot on today to hit this right on. to defend women in conversation in this country, but i think that this is a cultural issue for the republican party as well. this war on women, if you didn't believe it was real before, you must believe it now. this is how they think. the republicans. they are archaic in their view when it comes to women in our society. get your cell phones out. i want to know what you think. >>> tonight's question, who is a better leader on women's issues? text a for president obama, text b for mitt romney. to 622639. you can always go to our blog at ed.msnbc.c

dr. willke will be an important surrogate for romney's pro-life and pro-family agenda. >> i'll say this.kind of thing. they didn't know this guy that well. they certainly were not trying to endorse these views. there's something there that you get somebody tied to something that didn't know they thought this but this what happens when you get into bed with everyone from every part of the party. you end up coming into the fray years later when something else they said becomes a huge deal. i feel somewhat bad for the romney campaign for this. this isn't the conversation they want. i'm sure they had no idea what he believed. this has been to some degree the cost of capitulating to every segment of the far right. this is not good and not the campaign the former moderate governor of massachusetts could have run. it's a campaign he did run to win the primaries and now these are long-term costs of it. >> that's the problem, right? he was trying to pretend, trying to prove he was no longer the moderate former governor of massachusetts. he was trying too hard. if you have a candidate who doesn't