>> well, greg sargent is a liberal blogger, he definitely has been available to their mailing lists andtuff from time to time. that's not exceptional. but the fact is that media matters knows it has places they can get it, and when they get it to greg sargent, they can widely tout, hey, we got this from "the washington post." they're able to tell their donors, hey, we got this in "the washington post." they went so far as to claim that nbc news' operation was writing their entire prime time lineup based on media -- megyn: msnbc. >> that's right. megyn: not nbc. >> excuse me, yes, msnbc. megyn: you speak a lot about david brock, he's the guy who essentially runs the show other there. >> that's right. megyn: and he merges as an interesting figure. >> he does. you know, we open the story by talking about an anecdote of david brock at the end of 2010 was standing on the roof of media matters smoking a cigarette when his personal body guards, he had as much protection as a third world dictator one of our sources told us, his personal bodyguards whisk up to the roof telling him there's sniper

now, you spend some time on this guy greg sargent another worthington person who has a close relationshiph media matters, right? [ laughter ] >> there wasn't one person virtually we interviewed from media matters who didn't say the following: if you have got something and you can't place it, no one will take it give greg sargent a buzz on his cell he will take anything. person after person told us that. >> what does he do. >> he a columnist for the "the washington post." he writes a blog called the plumb line which is liberal i didn't know. he was actually an object of ridicule among the media matters people because is he so easy to turn. >> bill: finally the organization says it will spend $20 million trying to influence media coverage in favor of president obama. they make no pretense that's what they are going to do. where are they going to get the money? >> well, they get it from big democratic donors. keep in mind that media matters, and we just demonstrated this in the piece has been co-lewding with the white house. david broke met with valerie jarrett the president's chief advisor

wouldn't pre-judge, there is a bigger investigation going on, schneiderman is a fan, i was talking to greg sargent, freedom to move elsewhere, it should be said is one reason the deal is fairly limited in terms of the money because if they didn't take all the liability off the table, didn't get the banks out from everything, it dealt with the robo-signing element where they had automatic signing of the mortgage documents when they should have been signed by humans. it was limited so the banks will be exposed to further legal liability going forward, we don't know how much, also homeowners are not -- it's not like the tbacco settlement. >> ezra klein, thanks so much. >>> let's turn to bob shrum, democratic strategist and professor at nyu. the numbers are not big, why did the president do this? >> i think he's being pragmatic, he learned the lesson of the 1930s, unprecedented situation, you have to do what you can do, you can't live by the old rules, just i reject the idea we shouldn't help some people because we couldn't help all people. i think the president understood we don't gain anything, we c