. >> brown: david brooks and e.j. dionne analyze the week's news. >> suarez: and we close with poet rae armantrout, whose new book, "money shot," deals in part with the financial crisis. >> is to write about the intersection of the public and private. or what's left of the flight our lives. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by bnsf railway. and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> suarez: tuesday's florida republican primary looked to be a two-man race with the latest batch of polls showing former massachusetts governor mitt romney leading former house speaker newt gingrich. judy woodruff has our report. >> wo

e.j., what impact will the marianne gingrich interview have? >> well, the key is forgiveness and redemption. i can't resist, ed, because i share your fascination, the iowa caucus results always felt like florida 2000 to me, only this time they allowed a full recount of the votes and we got the actual result. i think that it ain't going to help gingrich, i think the question is how much does it hurt him. the right point is newt is already doing less well among evangelical women than he is among evangelical men, surprise, surprise. the question is, does he sort of lose a lot of votes from this, probably santorum, or does he suffer a small loss and that gets made up for by the momentum and the swing away from romney? given how much people know about newt, i bet on the small loss, although in this campaign, i've given up making bets on anything. >> jonathan, how much has it helped gingrich to have perry out of the race but also endorsing him. he can raise money. he's got access to oil money in texas and has got some big donors. will he get them to

and e.j. dionne is a senior fellow at the brookings institution, a columnist for the washington post, and a professor at georgetown university. welcome to you all, and happy new year. >> happy new year. >> e.j., the iowa caucuses take place in just a few days. what do you see there and what is the role of religious conservatives in the republican campaign? >> well, in the iowa republican caucuses religious conservatives always play an important role. and what's been striking for most of this campaign is how fragmented they've been. there's been a real argument among them about who the better candidate is. there's no national champion as we talked about last week, mike huckabee, four years ago really emerged as a unifying candidate for christian conservatives. some of that also i suspect has to do with other forces in the republican party. there is the tea party which includes a lot of evangelical christians, one should say, but is a kind of different thrust and you have a campaign built much m

e.j. dionne and ari melber of the nation magazine on the chaos in carolina. >>> jim demint goes rogue with his white house pick and lands in "psycho talk." and so far, mitt romney has stayed under the radar on the issue of race. tonight that's all over. mitt romney and his mormon faith are being called on the carpet. good to have you with us tonight, folks, thanks for watching. ultraconservatives are not buying mitt romney's claim of being a job creator. last night, sarah palin defended attacks on romney. >> governor romney has claimed to have created 100,000 jobs at bain. and people are wanting to know, is there proof of that claim, and was it u.s. jobs created for united states citizens. >> it's that old reporter coming out in sarah palin, so much for sports. newt gingrich isn't stepping on the brakes either. watch this testy exchange he had with the kids on fox and friends this morning. >> there are a series of cases that don't look right, i'm saying for a guy to run for president, use

e.j. dionne in a bit. we have a lot to talk about tonight. this is "the ed show," let's get to work. >> all totaled the tax rate is closer to 45 or 50%. >> mitt romney unveils a brand new misleading defense for his sweetheart tax rate. robert reich will set the record straight. >>> newt gingrich is stepping on mitt romney's back to climb the polls. >> i think you have to live in a world of swiss bank accounts and cayman island accounts to have this fantasy. >> sam stein is here with the latest. >>> nancy pelosi a grim prediction for gingrich presidency. >> it isn't going to happen. >> why are you so sure? >> there is something i know. >> she lives in san francisco environment, a strange fantasies fantasies, if she knows something, spit it out. >> alan grayson is here with the latest. >>> we want walker. >> big developments in wisconsin today. scott walker is raising loads of cash to fight the recall, but that money could mean trouble for the governor. state senator lena taylor is here on e

e.j., let me go back to you.seems that some in the party establishment are trying to circle the wagons and help willard out with all of these attacks around bain. let me show you how they are starting to gang up on these attacks that mitt romney's been suffering from newt gingrich. mitt romney's include mike huckabee, rudy giuliani, john mccain. all of them defending him. and then mccain even went way over. let me let you hear what john mccain said in defending willard's time at bain. >> attacking him on bain capital, which has created thousands of jobs, i don't think, is going to work. >> now you came out this morning and suggested there's an alternative to the way bain does business and it's called communism. where everybody gets a fair share. >> keep everybody in business. keep every industry, no matter how bad it is. and that's what communism does. unfortunately, it doesn't work. >> now, but that is not what mr. mccain was saying in 2008. he seemed to have /d problem, e.j., with bain then. well, don't believe

e.j. dionne. on saturday i watched the debate with locals in new hampshire, to get their take on the gop field. >> i think the republicans are a bunch of phonies. >> john nichols of the nation magazine and huffington post jennifer donahue are here with full analysis. a hard-working american is calling out newt gingrich on his race problem. >> will you stop using blacks in general as a stepping stone or a punching bag? >> you don't want to miss newt's response. >>> good to have you with us tonight folks, thanks for watching. mitt romney is doing anything he can to run away from his history as a job killer. it could be the last chance for his opponents to stop him from winning the nomination. tomorrow night is a big one. during romney's final swing through new hampshire, he played the role of middle class mitt once again. >> these are experiences many of you that many of you know. i know what it's like to worry whether you'll get fired. there were a couple of times i wondered whether i would

. >> the latest with e.j. dionne. >> bill burton and joan walsh >> bill burton and joan walsh with the problem with the latino vote. >>> the fight for fairness headed to the floor of the senate. robert reich on today's big news for the buffet rule. >>> good to have you with us tonight, thanks for watching. newt gingrich is taking a pounding in florida. he's been outspent by mitt romney 5-to-1, poll numbers have taken a dive. but even gingrich knows what kind of red meat the conservative republican audience wants. >> something very, very important, something i want to take a minute to talk about. the obama administration is engaged in a war against religion. >> gingrich has no proof that president obama is waging a war against religion but proof with these guys is not necessary. the top two republican candidates have been saying all kind of extreme things about the president for the past two months. >> he wants to turn america into a european-style social welfare state. >> president obama has been historically

krystal ball and e.j. dionne join me. romney may be ahead of his polls but his favorability ratings are in the dumps. stay with us, we're right back. [ dennis ] switch to allstate. their claim service is so good, now it's guaranteed. [ foreman ] so i can trust 'em. unlike randy. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. [ female announcer ] new and improved swiffer dusters with dust lock adhesive can clean virtually every surface in your home. ♪ its thousands of fluffy fibers pick up dust here, there, pretty much everywhere. and swiffer dusters traps 3 times more dust than a feather duster. and locks it away. ♪ swiffer cleans better or your money back. ♪ get around swiffer cleans better or your money back. the best approach to food is to keep it whole for better nutrition. that's what they do with great grains cereal. they steam and bake the actual whole grain while the other guy's flake is more processed. mmm. great grains. the whole whole grain cereal. >>> coming up down to the wire in florida the latest fro

joining me now, "washington post" opinion writer and msnbc political analyst e.j. dionne, also joining us, former minnesota republican party chairman and former chief of staff to congresswoman michele bachmann, ron kerry. thank you both very much for joining me. e.j., how is the stop-romney movement feeling tonight? >> not great, is the answer to the question. i think that with jon huntsman pulling out, he was getting 4% or 5%, just behind colbert, as you pointed out. and the general sense is to the extent those people vote, they're more likely to vote for romney than any of these other candidates. i think the problem is that rick santorum, as those evangelicals suggested and conservative christians suggested in endorsing him is probably the guy with the best shot of uniting everybody. but newt gingrich is still running ahead of him in south carolina, at least according to most of the polls i've seen, so there's no incentive for gingrich to get out. there's got to be a gathering together among the conservatives if they're going to have any chance at all of beating

let's bring in e.j. dionne. there are now reports that mitt romney has millions, for example, in offshore accounts, in the cayman islands. i mean, this whole idea of mitt romney and all his money, is it a big problems? >> i think it's a bigger problem in the fall, but it's been a terrible week to be a rich guy if you're mitt romney. that's not usually the case. >> i didn't know there was such a thing, you can never be too rich or too thin. >> unless you're running for president. there have been stories that he may have paid taxes at a 15% rate, he didn't make much on speaking fees. >> and let me interrupt you for a second. we have a graphic there. newt gingrich paid -- it was also not doing badly. he paid 31% rate. there you see barack obama paid over 25%, and there's newt gingrich down there at 15%, and he's the richest of them all. >> it reinforces the whole story line that's been breaking out all week. this cayman islands thing does not look good. i saw a statement from the romney people where they say this w

. >> joining me now is e.j. dionne, columnist for "the washington post." and msnbc contributor. and professor melissa harris perry, also an msnbc contributor and columnist for "the nation." thank you both for being here tonight. >> thanks. >> good to be in your quiet room, reverend. >> well, we're going to make a little noise in the quiet room tonight because i couldn't get over that comment last night dividing america like america's not divided. we're trying to end the division. let me start with you. how can republicans succeed when they don't want to talk about the defining issue of our time and that is the economic disparity in this country? >> well, i think it's a really interesting tactic that they are pursuing. it's okay to divide us between the real america and the rest of the country which presumably lives in some other place. it's okay to divide us between pro-european socialists or something like that against people who uphold traditional american ideas. but it's not okay to describe a real problem which is growing inequality over the last 30 years. i think this kind