coming up, we'll get reaction from democratic congressman emmanuel cleaver.urn to a high profile murder case out of detroit. after five days and more than 20 witnesses, today the prosecution rested in the trial of theodore wafer. he is charged with manslaughter for shorting to-year-old anisha mcbride on his porch. the defense tried it offer a startling noou new theory on the case. while cross-examining the chief examiner, they suggested another person might have been on the scene trying to break into wafer's house with reneesha mcbride. >> you got information there could have been someone else at the scene. did you tell the officer you thought there was somebody else. but he said somebody else was running from the scene at 5:00 a.m. >> this is the defendant out there at like 4:00, 5:00 in the morning. >> he clarified with the police that the investigators have the wrong day. he did have information that there could have been somebody else there. and he didn't follow up. and i can just do it like that. >> you're going to lie to the jury and say it is someone e

emmanuel cleaver said i hope he comes to the realization that african-americans are the reason are i year ares so i will try to be more responsible than i have been. another african-american leader looking for more support from senator cochran is naacp president derek johnson. alex burns is a senior reporter for politico. two questions i want to establish for people. last week in the run-off in mississippi, did you vote? did you support either of the republican candidates? >> no. i did not vote. i voted in the democratic primary election so i could not vote in the run are-off election. >> the second thing is have you spoken with senator cochran since the election last week? >> i have not spoken with senator cochran since the election. >> okay. if you do get the opportunity, if you were to get him on the phone now and he had a chance to talk to senator cochran and say, african-american democrats put you over the top last week, what would you tell him? what do you expect from him? what do you want from him in his next six years in the senate? >> i would like for him to do what he did i

joining me now, congressman emmanuel cleaver, democrat of missouri and richard wolf of msnbc.com, executive editor. thank you both for joing me. five years after the manl was last raised paul ryan and the gop are attacking it. how do you fight back? >> first of all, paul ryan is sincere. he's sincerely wrong. what we've got to do is tell people around this country that they are the ones being hurt. if you are making $7.25 an hour working eight hours a day before an entire year you will earn less than $16,000 a year. that's poverty. it means poverty is contagious. you can catch it from members of congress. the country will have to change the minimum wage. the way is to change congress. people can do it by going to the ballot. >> less than $16,000 a year. wow. you know, president obama took direct aim at republicans. listen to this. >> what's going on is republicans in congress are directly blocking policies that would help millions of americans. just this year they voted to give a massive tax cuts to the wealthiest americans. just last week they voted to gut the rules in place to make sure b

joining me now is congressman emmanuel cleaver, democrat are from missouri, and salon.com's joan walsh. >> thanks, rev. >> good to be with you. >> congressman, we have seen ugly attacks on the president before. i just played the reaction of a 9-year-old who saw the parade float in nebraska. what impact do these public displays on our politics have on our young people. what impact does it have on our politics and our young people seeing these things? >> one of the things i believe it says is that it's okay. when a 9-year-old girl sees something so improper, so demeaning being done by adults and people who are in authority, in a parade, then says it's okay. rather than the united states moving away from the kind of bitter divisions that we have had. we seem to have gotten upset because we are moving away from it. now it's like full speed ahead. let's see if we can recapture some of the nastiness of days gone by. this is sad. every american ought to be upset about it if they want an america that's going to use the diversity to stay the most significant super power in the history of the pl