kelly o'donnell, chuck todd. we'll keep watching, and thanks to you both. >>> of course, we are just back from washington where we spent yesterday on capitol hill, all over capitol hill in fact. nbc news cameras were given special access for a special broadcast this sunday night. we talked to nearly every member of the leadership, including the gop leader in the senate, senator mitch mcconnell of kentucky. and i asked him about a hot topic, no tax increase in any of these plans being discussed. >> why shouldn't rich folks pay more? >> they do. they pay an extraordinary amount more. and, in fact, about half of americans don't pay any income taxes at all. that isn't a sticking point. the president, in signing a continuation of the current tax rates back in december, made the argument that republicans have made, which is that raising taxes in the middle of a recession is not a good idea. i don't know that anybody thinks the economy's in better shape now than it was six months ago. but all of those issues are being d

kelly o'donnell on the hill for us tonight. kelly, thanks. >>> there's another standoff tonight between the national football league team owners and the players. both sides trying to avoid a season-killing strike. as you may know, a whole lot of fans and a lot of cities are waiting for a resolution here. darren rovell covers the business of sports for cnbc. he's with us from atlanta where the owners are meeting, and darren, what can you tell us? >> reporter: good evening, brian. for 132 days the owners locked out the players in the nfl, but at 7:00 eastern time today in atlanta the owners voted 31-0 to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement. that brings it back to the players who in washington, d.c. will have a conference call to vote whether they will now drop the antitrust litigation and then recertify so that they can have a settlement, and they could then vote on a new collective bargaining agreement. a lot of money on the line if they don't get it done in the next 48 hours. they will lose at least one preseason game

>> kelly o'donnell setting the stage on capitol hill for us tonight. kelly, thanks. >>> our chief white house correspondent political director chuck todd is with us tonight from the white house. chuck, it seems to me there are almost two planes going on here. number one, the problem itself, and it couldn't be more important the various plans and solutions and theories on how to fix it. but number two, the toxic event this has become in our country. >> reporter: that's right. and the president is going to talk about the toxic part of this to declare that washington is at a stalemate. he's going to make the case that boehner's plan can't pass the senate, may not even be able to get through the house, that's still unclear. and that reid's plan probably won't even get through the senate and certainly can't get through the house. so the purpose of the speech tonight is not substance. there isn't going to be a new plan that the president is going to lay out. there isn't going to be, for instance, a plan to talk about how the government is preparing for defaul

nbc's kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill to bring us up to speed. kelly? >> reporter: well, lester, no deal. speaker boehner told that to his house republicans today in a conference call. and while both parties have raised the concern about how markets might react negatively without a proposal in place, one aide told me that speaker boehner does not believe he is responsible for asian markets. boehner is setting a new target deadline now, hoping to have something ready by 2:00 tomorrow. no new photo ops to show the country both sides actually working together. instead, negotiators stayed behind closed doors today while the speaker and the president's top men staked out turf in duel interviews. >> i would prefer to have a bipartisan approach to solve this problem. if that's not possible, i and my republican colleagues in the house are prepared to move on our own. >> today? >> today. >> reporter: treasury secretary tim geithner insists the cloud of default must be lifted. >> default would be a tax on all americans. it would cause irreparable damage to the am

we begin our coverage tonight in washington with nbc's kelly o'donnell on the hill. kelly, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian, the deadline is getting closer and a deal seems far off tonight. aides say no new progress. the president did try and increase the sense of urgency saying he could not sign any kind of short-term extension, like a 30-day one for example. he said forget about that, he won't do that. getting more face time than ever before. >> hi, guys, this is the same shot you had yesterday, except we're wearing ties again. >> reporter: the third in what may be daily debt crisis negotiations. the president called congressional leaders back down to the white house. earlier the president made a pre-emptive strike at a news conference, saying republicans are refusing to budge. >> it's not going to get easier, it's going to get harder. so we might as well do it now. pull off the band-aid. eat our peas. >> reporter: house speaker john boehner countered that any tough love approach toward a deal still requires enough votes. >> i want to get there, i want

kelly o'donnell who covers the hill for us here every day, starting us off tonight. kelly, thanks. >>> there are two parties to this. the other would be the white house. that sends us across town to our chief white house correspondent chuck todd. chuck, of course, listened to it from up here. they think they have the momentum, all of it on this side of washington. is the view the same where you are? >> reporter: the view is the same. the reality is setting in that the best the white house can hope for is that the democrats in the u.s. senate stick together and stay by harry reid, even if the boehner bill passes. clearly john boehner was rallying conservatives today, on talk radio trying to rally votes. now, tomorrow, if it passes, we're going to expect harry reid to do one of two things. he will either hurry up and introduce boehner's vote, let it get its up or down vote and get it voted down and move to his plan, or i'm told he could very well accept the boehner bill and then start amending it and trying to get rid of what is the major sticking point, which is this i

nbc's kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill to tell us more now. kelly? >> reporter: well, lester, the drama has been down to the wire, the political kind with all the fiery talk. the real world kind with the cc: threat of default in the air, and so late today, john boehner was finally able to do what he had been stumbling through for days, bringing that vote to the house floor. and with no democrats on board, boehner had to bend pretty far to get even some of his own republicans on board. speaker john boehner flashed a smile this morning. >> good morning. >> reporter: but the mood was sour and uncertain. >> is there a chance we'll become adult leaders and we'll run the government the way you would run your household budget? i hope. >> reporter: house republicans were summoned to a strategy session. >> do you think it will get done today? >> i sure hope so. it is getting late in the game. >> reporter: after thursday night's late night arm twisting failed to get a debt deal that would pass. then more controversy, boehner added a balanced budget constitutio

with us today, "new york" magazine john heilemann, cnn's gloria borger, nbc's kelly o'donnell and "time" magazine's joe klein. first up, narrative has been about trying for a big debt reduction deal this year but the political consequences for barack obama and g.o.p. nominee next year are the real story here. if there's no grand deal what are the 2012 consequences? for the president, there are some 2012 upsides perhaps even without a big deal. for one, he claimed the higher ground through all of these debates. for looking more reasonable and he also championed the middle class because he proposed more taxes on the rich. the downsides for the president would include looking weak for failing to get a big compromise. also keeping the big spender tag. for the republican running for president next year, the up-sides of not getting a big deal are, keeping big spending charge against the president, good for them, and denying him a big victory. but there's the downsides for them, republican presidential candidate, by virtue of kicking the can down the road again. the tea party that looks like i

. >> nbc's capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell has the latest for us. good morning to you. where do things stand? >> reporter: after we saw the east room versus the speaker's ceremonial office last night, it comes back just to the hill today, a fight over what to do next. it's expected the house will take its vote tomorrow. that will not be an easy thing to get across the finish line. there are about three dozen conservatives tea party affiliate affiliated is that kind of a sour feeling about the bill, the same as voting against it, we don't yet know, but democratic candidates say that harry reid is pulling back a bit. he wants to see what will happen with the house bill, not calling his own, the competing plan for a vote, because if the boehner plan goes down, then harry reid may be in a better position to try to get his compromise package to be the only thing left standing, therefore the urgency of the moment might get more people to go along. we're at a point where it's not only a message war, it's a strategy war, and there's a contingency plan popping up as well. we'll

boehnor gave us -- we heard kelly o'donnell giving the gop tick tocks, so there will be lots of tick coming out. you have to step back, lawrence, and not get caught up in the tick tock. we'll be interested it, but look at the big picture. the big picture here is the president had decided to play on the republican field of deficits, spending cuts, and only, you know, somehow squeezing revenues in at the end and intermittently. the republicans -- i just got a speak from speaker boehnor, as did everyone else, our position is no tax hikes. we won't lift the debt ceiling with tax hikes, then he walks away. so listen, you can keep talking. if there's a $1.2 trillion versus $800 billion difference, it seems to me that's still negotiatable. there's other things that came up, triggers and so on, but we have -- how many days left before the august 2nd deadline? i don't understand why boehnor finds it politically to his advantage to leave the table rather than complain publicly, but stay in there. >> richard wolffe, david corn, david frum, thank you all for joining us tonight. >> thanks. >> we

. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell is joining us from capitol hill. kelly, you interrupted us earlier and said this is not a good tellment. you weren't kidding. >> reporter: we got a lot of the behind the scenes from them and i can tell you that the tone from the president and tone from the house republicans, this is a divide not only in not being able to get a deal but how they view this. you heard what president thinks went wrong. what we were told is that the house republicans do believe that the white house was willing to make some big structural changes to how things work. giving them credit for that. what they say really derailed this is when the gang of six came back. that group of bipartisan senators working for months on their own deal. they were considered to be own the side lines. they burst back on the scene tuesday with a package that differs from what the white house and speaker boehner had been talking bp gop aids say then the white house pulled back. and began to change its demands and change what it wanted. so speaker boehner is saying

kelly o'donnell or capitol hill for us. thanks. wall street is looking to end the week on a high note but depends on a whole pile of new data coming in today. becky quick has an early look at the markets. i'm a cynic. i assume most of the important wall street guys are already at the hamptons. >> you're probably right but the computers will let them trade from there too. there is active trading this morning there's a big number coming later. you mentioned it already, the ism, the manufacturing report for the month we've been watching closely. heading into this week there were a lot of expectations that the ism would come in a reading below 50 that would indicate we're seeing retraction in the economy. since then we have a numbers thinking it would be a positive number. the dow actually ended the quarter which ended yesterday and the second first half on a positive note. .08%, you couldn't believe from the losses we saw in the month of june, already people are coming in with the expectation we could get good numbers today. it looks

. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell joins me now, and break it down, kelly, because it does change by the second, it seems. where do we stand right now? >> well, this is one story where news is instantaneous, because things have been changing, and things predicted have fallen by the wayside and a new set of realities has merged today. so, here is where we are. the house has worked to try to change the bill that bears speaker john boehner's name, and to make it more attractive to hard-line conservatives and absolutely critical to bring it to the floor to get it passed. that is important because what happens in the house moves to the senate for them to act. much of what is happening here really involves the intricate rules of congress that most of the time we don't get into in the stories that we cover here, but it matters immensely now. so to give you a sense of this, the rules committee, people might not have heard of that before, but they decide when the language of a bill is ready, and how to bring it to the floor and what the procedures will be, and they have played a huge role. they were at

, and with we have team coverage with all of the angles of this developing story with msnbc's kelly o'donnell, and kristen welker. i want to start with kelly. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell now saying he supports boehner's plan, and what does that mean for the reid plan? >> well, one of the things that we have been watching is what would mitch mcconnell say publicly, because he and majority leader reid had been working on the super duper fallback we were talking about a week or so ago, and for a while, he has allowed boehner to be the front man for this, and the comments that mcconnell made today are important, and what it suggests is that there are people in the senate who believe that the boehner plan must go first meaning that the house has to vote, and see where the votes actually end up, and that will determine what the senate can do. so, it was an important push today for the republican speaker john boehner to try to get his folks in line when mitch mcconnell said this. >> that is why we will continue to press for the legislation speaker boehner has proposed and that is why we w

nbc's kelly o'donnell is live on capitol hill. kelly, michele bachmann addressed this right away. what is she saying? >> one of the things i found so interesting is there have been other controversies that have hit her campaign, that comes with the territory, and at times she's avoided talking about it, refused to talk about it. but when it came to her health, she wanted to respond right away. >> don't give up. >> reporter: this time the questions have nothing to do with her politics. >> the prescribed medication that i take on occasion whenever symptoms arise and they keep my migraines under control. >> reporter: a report on michele bachmann's struggle with migraines is a political headache on the campaign trail. >> but i'd like to be abundantly clear. my ability to function effectively will not affect -- will not affect my ability to serve as commander in chief. >> reporter: in south carolina on tuesday -- >> this is a bold step. >> reporter: bachman took questions about that report, saying her migraines can be, quote, incapacitating. a conservative website, the daily caller, ba

kelly o'donnell live for us on capitol hill. thank you, kelly. >>> and president obama today officially nominated former ohio attorney general richard cordray to lead the consumer financial protection bureau. the bureau will serve as a watchdog over credit card, mortgage and other financial agencies and opens thursday. there is a heat advisory or several heat advisories or warnings in 17 states and the thermometer will top 100 in 40 states, so that the humidity with temperature combined in minnesota felt like 112 degrees. no relief in sight as cities like chicago and omaha will be near 80. and that is the lows. maria is tracking the heat wave from the headquarters in atlanta, and the sad thing, maria, is that we could see this for a few weeks and no relief in the immediate future? >> no, tam rron. you can think of this as the boss of weather systems and as long as it stays put, it is going to have the heat stay put. it will stay through the central partf of the country, and we will see minneapolis and st. louis stay over the 90

kelly o'donnell, that brings us to capitol hill. first of all, the strong reaction up there to the rhetoric of the president that took place at the news conference, republicans really reacting strongly. is this just more theater, or are they really offended by the way the president took them on? >> there certainly is a theater quality to it, but underneath that, there really is a frustration, even an anger. possibly even a resentment, if you want to go that far, that they believe the president is not being realistic. they're trying to say that something that would include tax increases in order to come to a deal would not pass the house where there are a lot of independent spirits who would not be willing to vote for it and also in the senate. they think that raising taxes is an argument not only popular among their republicans to not see that happen, but also some democrats who are up for re-election in tight places. so they think the president chiding them in a way that painted them kind of like schoolgirls because he referenced h

msnbc's capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell is here. >> i'm so thrilled to have you here. we need you here more often in person. >> this is really a huge play. john boehner has to bring along his republicans he's not going to do it without democrats. nancy pelosi is a key player now. >> absolutely. one of the things we've been hearing from john boehner is he will refer to all of this as it must be bipartisan. which is code for i need democrats to help me on this. one of the challenges have been what can nancy pelosi do and steny hoyer who are able to count their votes effectively when they ran the house and need a way to get this done for the president. one of the things the aides have said to me the ideas are imembraced by the senate or president the harder it is to sell to the house republicans. it looks too washington. that's really tough at some point an idea has to be embraced. the fewer minutes left on the clock the greater the chance of some final deal. >> what i'm hearing is there isn't enough time for the congressional budget office to quote score the gang of six

. >> kelly o'donnell is nbc's capitol hill correspondent. what's surprising to me is apparently how little conversation actually is taking place behind the scenes between reid and mcconnell, reid and boehner, as much as we thought there would be say a week ago when we would have been at this point? >> well, it's one of the things that aides don't necessarily want to shine a big bright light on. what we have been told is that certainly the senior level staffers who, as you understand, are critically important in that, they do a lot of the heavy lifting in negotiations, so the top man for speaker boehner, top man for majority leader reid have had some communication. it kind of hit a wall when it seemed like there wasn't a heck of a lot left to say until the house sort of worked through this process that we think will come to a head today and kind of the wave, point where it seemed like boehner didn't have the votes then the rejiggering of the plan. aides tell me they think that the new number coming from the congressional budget office scoring

so it's all where we begin tonight with nbc's kelly o'donnell on the hill and kelly, what has changed from last night to today? >> something new. >> reporter: a setback for speaker john boehner. his plan which promised a trillion dollars in cuts, the congressional office ran the numbers and says it falls short by $150 billion. so boehner aides tell me they're looking at it and rewriting, red pen out, looking for more cuts. that's a new hurdle as so much frustration is aimed right here. >> reporter: congress and the country on hold. >> i'm asking you all to make your voice heard. >> reporter: and hundreds of thousands did. >> there are 212 people waiting on hold. >> if you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of congress know. >> reporter: today a flood of phone calls and e-mail to both parties saying -- get something done! much of the pressure to get a deal that prevents default falls on house speaker john boehner who blamed the president in primetime. >> i gave it my all. unfortunately, the president would not take "yes" for an answer. >> reporter: and to

with us "new york "is magazine john heilemann, glory borier, nbc's kelly o'donnell and "time" magazine's joe klein. first up, president obama faced critical decisions on the debt and afghanistan the last few weeks and all the while the geniuses who ran his 2008 campaign have been huddled with their maps and polls, figuring out how to put together a repeat victory. what's the anatomy of a re-election win for obama. he has 4-5, 81% of the people who voted for him last night according to a june nbc poll. what happened to the other 20% of obama's 2008 voters and how does he win them back? let's look at three skenl elements in the anatomy of the obama electorate. in the 2008 exit polls, obama got 66% of voters under 30. now he has just 56% of the under 30's. good? maybe not good enough. another key in the anatomy, suburban voters. any 08 exit polls, 50% of suburbanites went for obama. now he's down to 141%. final will laveragee pin in the obama win n '08 he had 52% of independents. now he has just 43% of independents. john, you wrote game changer about how he did it last time. how do they put

kelly o'donnell, nbc news, washington. >>> and when we come back here tonight, another sign of our economic times, as thousands of people anxiously wait to hear if they have won a shot at a job interview. >>> and later, wit and humor and speaking the truth, it's not always easy, but betty ford always seemed to find a way. >>> we mentioned this next story briefly at the top of the broadcast tonight as well. this will be a nervous night in and around louisville, kentucky for tens of thousands of people who filled out applications for a job interview. ford motor is retooling, reopening a production plant. that means 1,800 new jobs there. demand for the jobs is so high, they're holding a lottery tomorrow to decide who they can talk to about filling them. our report from nbc's mark potter. >> reporter: in the early morning heat, the line is already long at the state employment office in louisville, kentucky. ron heinsman drove an hour and a half from cincinnati to fill out an application, afraid if he doesn't find work now, he'll be foreclosed. >> i'm currently losing my house. my wife's working

i want to get to kelly o'donnell.t the wealthiest needing to contribute. >> based on what we've seen in the past few weeks, we know what to expect six months from now. the house of representatives will once again refuse to prevent default unless the rest of us accept their cuts-only approach. again, they will refuse to ask the wealthiest americans to give up their tax cuts. or deductions. again, they will demand harsh cuts to programs like medicare. and once again, the economy will be held captive unless they get their way. this is no way to run the greatest country on earth. it's a dangerous game that we've never played before. and we can't afford to play it now. not when the jobs and livelihoods of so many families are at stake. we can't allow the american people to become collateral damage to washington's political warfare. >> kelly o'donnell, the president laid out an equation there about what the republicans don't want and what the democrats are willing to give. is he right? >> well, what i am so struck by when y

nbc's kelly o'donnell has late details now on where things stand. kelly? >> reporter: good evening, lester, a major meltdown in these talks to keep the kun friday from going into a default. boehner sent a letter to house members explaining that those talks were off and that the negotiations would come back to capitol hill with a goal of solving that this weekend. well, president obama was clearly angry. he made a surprise appearance in the briefing room and the blame game began. clearly upset, the president said he thought he had given a fair deal to house republicans and felt he was left at the altar. >> this was an extraordinarily fair deal. if it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue. it is hard to understand why speaker boehner would walk away from this kind of deal and, frankly, if you look at the commentary out there, there are a lot of republicans that are puzzled as to why it couldn't get done. >> reporter: speaker boehner says he can explain that, and he came to the podium with his own hastily called news confere

nbc's kelly o'donnell joins me live. kelly, give us the scoop on this latest meeting the president plans to hold within this hour. >> reporter: well, he'll have the democratic leadership over to the white house, not everyone. he did speak to speaker boehner last night, and they are doing incremental meetings to find where people are and where they can get the vote count, all of the kind of behind-the-scenes work. one of the interesting things is last week the meetings were a bit more public. we got to have a picture of it, and aides would describe what would hatch on the inside. that would change. perhaps not all that helpful on either side. fewer details are coming out at the moment, but they are looking at these different options and when you were talking about a heat dome, the rotunda is a different kind of heat dome for sure because there's this time pressure, and there's still a lot of disagreement of these three plans what could possibly go forward. the white house also signaled that the president would change his v

nbc's kelly o'donnell joins us with the latest from capitol hill. major change to be announced in how the debt talks will go forward. we all know the deadline is pressing and we know from the house gop leadership aides that the speaker sent out a letter to lenders, contacted majority leader harry reid and the republican leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell to talk about changing how this is being done tp. that is prompting the president to come forward and make his own statement about where things stand. as you know, the big, big divide has been over key issues. taxes and entitlements. republicans don't want to see any tax increases. democrats do and on the other side there has been a lot of discussion about how could there be shared pain for both parties to get a deal where there would be some changes to entitlements. that's tough for democrats and some change in the tax code that would increase how much the government takes in but do it in a way where they would change the systems so rates could actually go down. that can be tough for republicans

nbc's kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill. kelly, some tough words from john boehner for his house republicans today. >> reporter: well, contessa, what happens is the house republicans meet they do that on a daily basis and today it took on the air of a locker room coach trying to get his team on board or maybe at a sales meeting trying to bump up the in your opinions. it had that kind of quality from what we're hearing. in political terms boehner is trying to tell his member this is the bill we've got. i need you behind me in order to get the job done and essentially to get in line. that's the tone of what we're told was coming outs of that meeting. why is that so important? because he knows that the numbers needed to get this bill across the finish line just aren't there. and what's unusual in this kind of crisis you have some of the newest members of the house who have come out to say they don't want to support it. really tipping the way things usually work in washington where the newest members sort of get in line behind th

chuck todd's and richard wolffe and kelly o'donnell up on the hill. we begin with her. let's hear. kelly, give us a sense of the smell an actions right this moment it trying to get this vote ready for the republicans. snrs well, the place to be outside the speaker's door. because those who are nos, publicly nos are called it see the bosses even trying to get a since if they can be moved to a yes. this came to a lurching halt, chris, within 15 or 20 minutes of when we expected the vote to happen it knit. they switched to naming post offices, which is standard businesses. everyone went scrambling, what is going wrong. we hear it is a single digits. a handful of republicans that speaker boehner and his team need to get this thing through. it feelt like some of the momentum was moving his way. so what have we got? people who come out strongly against this. namely in the tea party wing. then you have someone like jeff flake, republican of arizona who wants it run for senate. he might be someone more movable because of his longer tenure here in congress. things like that. did comes down t

kelly o'donnell is nbc's correspondent for us at capitol hill. kelly what i understand, the clock starts, which means we'll see vote on wednesday, and house republicans say, i understand they want to be able to do this without any democrats? >> reporter: well, you're making the assumption he's actually going to do it at 2:00. we're not getting absolutely clear signals of that. he said on sunday he'd be ready to act alone with republicans today, means sunday, and that didn't happen. so the target now is 2:00 when members return here to washington for them to be filled in on the plan and then for us to find out about the broader details, too. so that's assumption one. if that goes forward, it is still a problem with the clock, because they do have to post it. then there has to be the vote. then it would be to go to the senate. they'll about whole dance this week of all of the things we need to learn about procedure, but can you imagine if we have to do this again, in a matter of months? that's what democrats are saying. their frustration is they bel

they are calling the e-mail equivalent to sexual harassment and kelly o'donnell has more on this feud reporter: a florida feud. two members of the house in a debt limit dual that got personal. congresswoman debbie wassermann schultz who is also the chair of the democratic national committee and a tea party star, congressman allan west, a freshman republic who hit send on a nasty e-mail to schultz. you are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable person in the house of representatives. here is what set him off, he voted in favor of the republican bill, and then schultz got up and accused him of betraying the sen senors. >> the gentleman from florida who represents thousands of beneficiariess as do i, have voted for this plan which is unbelievable for a representative from florida. >> and he told her to shut the heck up, and he said, you have proven repeatedly, you are not a lady and you are not afforded the due respected to me. and congresswomen accuse him of sexual harassment. >> we are told once again that in order to be a lady we need to just stay in our places. >> in any other

that's what luke russert and kelly o'donnell's report say. when they send it to the senate, harry reid wants to file something called cloture by midnight, why? because he's trying to, at some point, get a bill passed, sent back to the house by monday, giving the house about 24 hours to pass an amended version of whatever bill the senate sends back to meet the august 2nd deadline. so that's the clock they're working with, and the calendar that they're working with. what does that mean? as soon as boehner files this bill there's going to be a serious amount of back room negotiations between reid and some republicans. there's some sort of quiet negotiations now with some moderate republicans, possibly people like tennessee senator bob corker, alaska senator lisa murkowski. some folks like that who publicly said they're talking about working with reid on some form of a compromise. right now the senate republican leadership is not engaging in these talks. they want to wait to see what happens in the house until boehner comes over. and this is very

. >> kelly o'donnell, thank you. >>> a new uproar on a ban on late term abortions signed into law yesterdayvernor john kasich. women's groups saying the law is a dangerous violation of their rights made at the expense of a political agenda. i'm joined by melissa harris, professor of political science at tulane and columnist for "the nation." what is your reaction for this? >> i'm a reproductive rights advocate. i'm always distressed when i see reproductive rights infringed on. in the context of the piece you did around sexism in the u.s. government, for me and many other reproductive rights advocates, this is a violation of privacy rights of women and their doctors and late term abortion, families and their doctors. >> and ohio late term abortion law, by signing this critical pro-life legislation, governor kasich is demonstrating to all ohioans that the health and welfare of mothers and their unborn children are of paramilitary perhaps to the state of ohio. this is a faith-based issue, emotionally charged across the board. for women, what facts and circumstances are not being taken into con

the latest with kelly o'donnell and john harwood.ebbie wasserman schultz and her war of words with fellow floridian, congressman allen west. british p.m. david cameron faces off with a rowdy house of commons. the latest on the hacking scab dal. all that and more on "andrea mitchell reports." >>> here's your business travel forecast. i'm bill karins. the heat wave is the big story out there. not many areas are going to see wet weather today. atlanta chance of a late day storm. everyone else very hot. 90 easily from new york to d.c., chicago, detroit right through the ohio valley. and dangerous heat continues around minneapolis and all the way down through dallas. have a great day. oh. see if we can "stitch" together a better deal. that's a hint, antoine. ooh! see what anandra did? booking your flight and hotel at the same time gets you prices hotels and airlines won't let expedia show separately. book it. major wow factor! where you book matters. expedia. on every surface in your mouth. but did you know those same germs can build up a

let's start the conversation today with mike at the white house and kelly o'donnell on capitol hill. i notice that it's mike that's out in the heat. let's start with you. >> put up the list of symptoms again for mike. >> what was that about lightweight clothing and dark-colored clothing? >> yeah. somehow you didn't get the no tie on friday thing. let's start with all these reports that the president says obama and the speaker, john boehner, no deal. what is going on then? >> you know, chris, it's one of the cliches of washington. nothing is done until everything is done, and it's really never more true than what we've seen play out over the last couple of weeks. a grand bargain on the table, a grand bargain off the table after john boehner, the republican speaker, pulled the plug. off the table again. the fallback plan everybody hated coming out of the senate and now on the table again is a grand bargain. and the focus for the most part has been on what would house republicans do, how would they react, would they have the votes there. the last 24 hours that paradigm has been turned o

. >> let's run up the other end of pennsylvania avenue, kelly o'donnell. on duty tonight on capitol hill. what's going to break it here, kelly? they've walked out. they've yelled at each other. they've not spoken. phone calls have gone unreturned. what's going to happen? >> reporter: now it's the counting of the votes, brian. harry reid may back up a little bit. they've both computed their competing plans today. they may want to see if speaker boehner can get the votes to pass the plan he just described. if he can't, harry reid hopes his plan is the only left thing left for the president to consider. >> we wake up tomorrow morning, we'll have the same discussion. big consequences here in the end. more on your late local news and tomorrow morning on "today." i'm brian williams, nbc news, new york. >>> it's been a bitter debate for weeks and tonight the stalemate played out on national tv. president obama and speaker john boehner addressing the nation. >> let's talk about highway this impac impacts. >> we bring in business and tech reporter linked to the stoc

>> kelly o'donnell, fascinating profile, interesting tod hersel the senate and barack obama.d a page from boat. and rubio will be a host on telemundo hosted by jose diaz-balart. >>> who's winning and who's losing for 2012 as congressional maps get redrawn across the country? up next we're geeking out on "the daily rundown," busting out the redistricting map with the two best in the business. >>> plus, rupert murdoch's troubles follow him across the pond, the u.s. justice department is getting involved. you're watching "the daily rundown." [ male announcer ] walls can talk. but it's our job to make them say something interesting. so how about this weekend we learn some new tricks of the trade... then break out our doing clothes and get rolling. let's use some paint that helps us get the job done in record time and makes a statement when we're finished. we're lowering the cost of a new favorite color. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. glidden premium paint has been rated a best buy, and you can only get it at the home depot. >>> welcome back to "daily

. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell on capitol hill and mike is at the white house. mike, president obama made his case today at a town hall meeting in maryland. what's his next move? >> reporter: it's interesting the president continues to put the onus on house republicans calling them out for what he regards as intransigence not willing to compromise and shared political pain. to listen to this president at the university of maryland you would almost think that all the events of the last week have really not taken place. the on again, off again nature of the so-called $4 trillion grand bargain. the fading star, if you will of the mcconnell reid plan in the senate is sort of the scaled back option seems is very much up in the air. one of the thing it's curious why the president continues to hit house republicans it's house and especially senate democrats who are fuming over what has been put forward at least that has they understand it what is on the table now in terms of entitlement cuts in terms of what they regard a lack of concrete specificity on tax reform and

. >> thank you, kelly o'donnell. joining me now is chris matthews host of msnbc's "hardball." and as this is unfolding are we seeing another red herring play out and ultimately distracting us from the deal to be done? >> no, we are seeing the beginning to the end, because the festivities are over. and this afternoon 5:00 to 6:00, the beginning of the end. a house bill formally reject and bipartisan compromise back to the senate with 60 votes, and that goes to conference in the house, and no taxes in it, because the republicans won't allow it, and no balanced budget amendment procedure and the democrats won't allow it, and the only level of spending cuts are what has to be raised to get it down to one vote, and the question is how many votes there will be and whether this is the end of it. and something that was written this afternoon by james garrett, but it looks like the democrats may have to have larger spending cuts to pay off the republicans for not having another vote on this for the end of the year, and if the democrats want to have this overwith, they may have to give

. >> kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill. has west apologized?and his office tells nbc news there's no reason for him to apologize, because they believe that congresswoman debbie wassermann-schultz is the one who really provoked this and went too far. the back story on this is that allen west was on the floor speaking about this whole debt fight, advocating for the republican plan. a short time later, congresswoman debbie wassermann-schultz who is also the democratic national committee chair, got up and referenced him without naming him but said the gentleman from florida, and you knew who she was referring to, was in essence planning to harm seniors in a state like florida, where seniors are so important. he was very, very upset about that, as you can guess by the tone of the e-mail and what he wrote really was blistering in many ways. the other women congress members were upset that he had referred to her not acting like a lady and therefore, not deserving respect. so this is one of those things that seemed to really go off the rails. allen wes

kelli o'donnell is our capitol hill correspondent. lli, good morning to you. >> good morning to you. this is a test of john boehner's leadership. he delivered a blunt message to his own republican members to get in line. aides tell me they believe that was more credibility, that was their word, with some of the most conservative members when they retooled their proposal to raise the debt limit and cut spending by going deeper with the cuts, and now, after so much talk, that vote comes today. >> reporter: the politics of chronic gridlock hurts. >> i've had kidney stones that are easier to pass than this. >> reporter: and the prognosis from democrats is dire. >> the speaker's plan is on life support and it's time for him to pull the plug. >> reporter: but house speaker john boehner claims his debt limit plan has been revived after a big last-minute fix. republicans reworked the package and now it's projected to cut more. $917 billion over ten years. >> it is a test. this is a big step trying to get control of our deficit and our debt. >>

nbc's kelly o'donnell is on capitol hill for us this morning. kelly, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, well, this started with a slow burn, a disagreement over the debt and then it caught fire quickly. many democrats are asking a republican congressman to apologize. his office said, no apology needed and that it was the democrats that went too far. a florida feud. two members of the house in a debt limit duel that got personal. congresswoman betty wassermann schultz was also the chair of the democratic national committee and a tea party star. congressman allen west, a freshman republican who hit "send" on a nasty e-mail to wassermann schultz. you are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the house of representatives. and there's more. but first, here's what set him off. tuesday, west spoke in favor of the republicans' debt-cutting bill. then wassermann schultz got up and accused him of betraying senators. >> the gentleman from florida who represents thousands of medicare beneficiaries as do i is supportive of this plan tha

. >> over to the hill we go, kelly o'donnell.lk about washington ease and washington langage al. david gregory just used revenue. that a tough nut for a lot of folks in this. >> they try to soften it by calling it revenue, which seems a bit more benign. one thing republicans on the hill are trying to give attention to. the crisis is not just the default deadline, but the bigger issue of trying to solve a long-term problem. and they're trying to say that the experts, including secretary geithner, are focused on that, too. trying to shift attention a bit off august 2nd because everybody here tells us the country will not default. privately we hear that again and again. certainly progressives will have noticed that the president did hint that he would be open to means testing. if you make more, you would pay more for something like medicare. that will get a lot of attention, as well, brian. >> kelly o'donnell on the hill. david gregory at our nbc washington bureau and chuck todd leading the questioning there in >> but they don't lik

>> kelly o'donnell this morning. kelly, thanks. chuck todd is nbc's political director and chief white house correspondent. good morning. >> good morning. >> so much at stake. the president is about to speak. what's he going to say, chuck? >> reporter: he is going to try to do the same thing harry reid did on the floor of the united states senate, say it's time to compromise, time to bring this together. no one party can do this. he's simply going to try to put a little bit of a shoulder into this and seeinging if his words can help bring a deal together here at the last minute. that said, i think we're seeing harry reid decided he's going to act on his own regardless of whether he gets a bill out of the house. politically, ann, what's going on here is if boehner can get a bill out of the house, republicans think they have have a little bit more leverage going into these final days and shaping this deal. what is the sticking point? this idea of a second debt ceiling vote in six mos. you know what, this rhetoric the democrats have b

kelly o'donnell's nbc's capitol hill correspondent. good morning. >> good morning, matt. michele bachmann is somewhere between contender and front-runner and with that comes a lot of attention and some negative stories. it's sbreging that bachmann and her campaign have often avoided or refused to comment about some of that criticism. but when it came to her health, she responded quickly. >> don't give up! >> reporter: this time the questions have nothing to do with her politics. >> i prescribe medication that i take on occasion whenever symptoms arise, and they keep my migraines under control. >> reporter: a report on michele bachmann's struggle with migraines is a political headache on the campaign trail. >> but i'd like to be abundantly clear, my ability to function effectively will not affect my ability to serve as commander in chief. >> reporter: in south carolina on tuesday -- >> this is a bold step. >> reporter: -- bachmann faced questions about that report saying her migraines can be, quote, incapacitating. a conservative website "the daily caller" based its story

kelly o'donnell is nbc's capitol hill correspondent. y, good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, matt. the summer heat must really be getting to them around here with more than the usual frustration in both parties over the debt limit showdown and more personal in gilroy. in gilroy. day preside over canada. from the minute the superstar royal couple landed, it was a rush to identify kate's dress. in a polite nod to her host country, the duchess chose a canadian designer. the couple's first stop -- canada's national war memorial. said to be william and kate's personal request to pay tribute to the country's combat role in afghanistan. >> i'm really excited. yeah. >> reporter: canada rolled out the red carpet for these royals. spectators, young and old, showed up for a glimpse of the glamorous pair. some waiting more than six hours. and kate's fashion influence filled the crowd. how important is she as a fashion icon? >> pretty important. >> pretty important. >> reporter: from fascinators to a tennis dress, and of course there were

i heard last night on nbc, kelly o'donnell had a report that they could be talking about at the last 11th hour a 30-day extension. we could be doing this all over again at the end of august. >> and the other thing to keep in mind, too, this still might be the sentiment for the grand plan. >> that's right. >> john boehner could have walked away because they took $800 billion in tax reform that could be revenue increases and he was ready to do -- sign off on that and pitch it to his people, to the republicans and then the president came in, i need $400 billion worth of cuts and boehner ends up leaving. >> the republicans in the house don't like the current boehner plan, they're really not going to like that one. >> i wouldn't be so sure. >> we know -- >> we don't know anything at this point. but we do know that the countdown is on. six days left before this supposed debt ceiling deadline. coming up on our show, on live tv, anything goes. just ask this reporter. >> as well as the owner of this home apparently outside. hey! hey! >> i'm getting -- >> hey! >> whoa! why an angry viewer atta

capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell has the latest for us. kelly, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, lester. the deadline they set for themselves keeps slipping. now speaker boehner says he hopes to have some kind of proposal to show his members when they get back to washington this afternoon around 2:00. majority leader harry reid says he thought he had an alternative ready to go of $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction. but so far, it's a no-go. no deal yet. the word went out to house republicans in a conference call on sunday led by speaker john boehner, a pep talk and call for unity after this message on fox news. i would prefer to have a bipartisan approach to solve this problem. if that's not possible, i and my republican colleagues in the house are prepared to move on our own. >> reporter: no deadline needed for the washington blame game. treasury secretary tim geithner laid it on tea party republicans. >> the problem is they have a vocal, loud, frankly irresponsible minority in their party who want to take this country to the edge o