>> "new york times" columnist frank bruni says he received an invitation in the mail to attend one ofit as a bargain basement offer. just $10,000 a person, frank bruni wrote about it on sunday in a column headlined "2012 financial free-for-all." he joins us here in studio 57. welcome. what's the story coming out of this? >> it's just amazing. the pace of fund-raising. when you watch it, what worries me is we have candidates who have to spend as much time worrying about the money they are raising as the problem they're going to confront when they get into the presidency should they get there. so you know, have you a situation where in order to push back against the super pac money on one side, president obama did six fund-raisers last week. is that really how we want our candidates spending their time? >> what's the answer? >> we have all tried to come up with an answer. there used to be fund raising limits and regulations people were beholden to. some of those have gone away. people complained those weren't fair. i don't know what the exact solution is but i know the situation we have

do you see a grin of truth in what frank bruni rights? >> americans got the impression when george w. bush was president that the president could simply do whatever he wanted and that was the impression because what bush wanted to do was things like war and those renot that difficult to get through congress, frankly. when you are looking at policies highly divisive, congress has a big role to play, they are the first branch of government. a minority in congress in the senate, republicans, also the house majority they do have the ability to stymie what the president wants. that said, this president was able to get through some pretty big things in his first term. he was able to get through the health care reform bill. we will see how much of it survives. and so some of the things that happened actually were against congresses' wishes or the republicans' wishes there is a balance there i think people forget that. >> wouldn't you kind of like to think, dana, at least some people would vote on what has been done and not necessarily what the s

joining me today, "new york times" columnist frank bruni and "born round" story of food and a per forbes a time. a voice of russia radio and contributor to "washington post" block she the people, natalie foster, co-founder of rebuild the dream and new media director

joining me to talk about the is frank bruni and political correspondent for "the atlantic" molly ballank i have been a huge fan of your columns. thrilled that you are here. >> thank you. >> this presidential race is getting ugly early. >> yeah. >> does that pose a greater risk for president obama that he the notion that he is a positive force? does he risk losing that last vest age of hope and change. >> he risks some damage here, because he is not the first one to say i'm going to try to float above all of this. but i think he was more heavily invested in that persona that other politicians have been. so he risked losing some independents who liked his message back in 2008. >> the notion of the obama presidency was things will look different. and the more typical things begin to look the more he and romney will be on the same playing field. >> i think most voters understand this is a brawl, and people found him insufficiently truculent, they wanted him to be more of a fighter. >> there certainly was a universe of people i included, who wanted him to be tougher. >> during the debt cei

we have frank bruni a fascinating writer sallie krawcheck one of the most senior women ever on wall streetnd compensation structure on wall street to prevent the next crisis and the care of the fcic who gave a speech saying break up the banks. more and more people are saying the banks are too big to manage and succeed, so this is part of a new momentum. >> the sheriff is trying to fix the mess on wall street. watch the shoate at 8:00 and see how they do it. thanks elliot. >> thanks. we'll have a good time. >> when we come back an actual victory for progressives. >> we have witnessed extrordanaire changes >> we're not through just yet, mr. vice president. >> they're swimming against the tides. (vo) brought to you by pradaxa. i have the most common type of atrial fibrillation, or afib. it's not caused by a heart valve problem. i was taking warfarin, but my doctor put me on pradaxa instead to reduce my risk of stroke. in a clinical trial, pradaxa® (dabigatran etexilate mesylate) reduced stroke risk 35% better than warfarin. and unlike warfarin, with pradaxa, there's no need for regular blood

joining me today, "new york times" columnist frank bruni and "born round" story of food and a per forbes a time. a voice of russia radio and contributor to "washington post" block she the people, natalie foster, co-founder of rebuild the dream and new media director of the democratic national committee, possibly our first ceo at the table and my colleague at the nation magazine and the associate editor of the wisconsin newspaper capital times and author of "uprising are, how wisconsin renewed the power of protest from madison to wall street" from john nichols. >>> mitt romney and the gop announced this week they had raised more money, a lot more, than president obama and the democrat t romney campaigned along with the romney victory fund, a joint account with the republican national committee, said combined they had raised $77 million in the month of may alone. the obamas and the democrats were beaten by nearly $17 million. taken from the results this week from wisconsin where republican governor scott walker survived a recall election partly by outspending his opponent seven to one. the

. >> chris, i want to read to you and everybody frank bruni's op ed in the "new york times," how many presidents act least in recent decades have known something precisely like the supreme court's possible erasure of the affordable care act? how many have confronted a congress this wholly paralyzed by partisan rancor and steadfastly unyielding? chris, how much pressure is the president under, could the court's ruling be the real game changer for re-election? >> i don't know if it will be the game changer. at the end of the day, i think it is still going to be about the economy it is going to be about jobs. going to be how people feel about the future and the comparison between these two candidates in terms of who they think is going to do a better job. listen, if health care goes down and in particular, the individual mandate, yeah, will it be a blow to some degree? of course. but i think the perspective i think from the president as well as democrats is to kind of turn that lemon in lemonade and here's where i think the strategy s you focus on the key provisions that are incredibly p

in the media at obama, when it comes to foreign policy, was actually sounded by none other than frank brunisident and it came as a surprise and said on cnn, after a news conference, to obama gave, he doesn't seem in command. and that really, even though he wasn't writing it, he was saying it i must say he hit it right on the head. that is the general impression, if you go over all the writings, left and write in the media, broadcast and print, that nobody really thinks he's in command. yes, he can kill people by drones and that is the easy way out, for many, many think, even though of course there are those on the right who can't kill enough people with drones but as far as a delicate and informed foreign policy well let's go back to 2008, when he said what he was going to do was engage syria and iran. well there has not been any engagement at all. maybe the cia is running weapons into syria, to the opposition, but you know, there's a lot of people who wish he'd get in there and actually be able to talk. he said he'd establish smart diplomacy and it turns out he cannot only not talk to syri

. >> "new york times" columnist frank bruni says he has received an invitation in the mail to attend wrote about it on sunday in a column headlined "2012 financial free for all." he joins us in studio 57. >> thanks. >> what's the story coming out of this. >> it's amazing. the pace of fundraising. when you watch it, what worries me is we have candidates who have to spend as much time worrying about the money they're raising as the problems they're going to confront when they get into the presidency should they get there. we have a situation where to push back on the super pac money you have president obama doing six fundraisers in as many hours last week. that's crazy. is that how we want our lead candidates spending their time? >> what's the answer to that? >> we've all been trying to come up with an answer. there used to be fundraising limits people were beholden to. some people complained that those weren't fair. i don't know what the exact solution is, but i know the situation we have right now i think is untenable and it's not democratic. as it is now, we have billionaires who ca

. >>> from new york, i'm chris hayes, with me, "new york times" columnist frank bruni, jamila bey, michaele operators" and john nichols from the nation magazine. we are talking about leaks, attorney general eric holder announcing he has assigned two u.s. attorneys to look into leaks after a week of recriminations on capitol hill about a series of stories, some of which appeared in the "new york times," about secret programs in the white house and the obama administration and you talked about this term of war on whistleblowers, which has been invoke ready. we mentioned at the top of this topic six people have been prosecuted under the 1917 spawn act for leaking classified material, more than all previous administrations. >> nine cases in u.s. history since 1917, six have come in the first term of the obama administration. >> whistleblower has a very specific meaning, right? in some cases -- i guess the point is what is the intent of the leak. >> right. >> is there any place for prosecution of leaks ever? >> i'm going to say -- i guess if someone is revealing specific troop movements and dir