nia-malika, where are we in that spectrum relative to paul ryan? >> you know, as i think the press were at the hmm phase and republicans are at the uh-oh phase, obviously we've got the speeches that are coming up at the convention a week from now. but yeah, obviously there is more picking over ryan's record than we've seen out of the press lately. these reports about him taking stimulus funds for instance. and a lot of reaction from republicans who had this initial burst of excitement. you saw certainly from grassroots folks a lot of money pouring into the romney campaign. still there is a sense, i think, from republicans that maybe this boost of energy and this bold pick might not end up being worth it because of all the conversation now that we're having about the stimulus package, about medicare. because this was a campaign, let's face it. the republicans thought they could win just on the economy. what we see now we're talking about medicare. >> governor, i said before this was announced one thing that united conservatives was a desire that pau

nia malika henderson in studio with us.t want to get you in trouble but i guess i do. i want to at least ask you so with this shooting at this sikh temple on sunday, the second mass shooting in this country within the last three weeks and yet i was at the white house briefing yesterday. and it is pretty clear it is very clear that neither barack obama nor mitt romney are willing to say or do anything about new gun control laws or tightening up our existing laws in any way. what's going on and why shouldn't we? >> i can't speak for either of those two campaigns. but i will just tell you that i believe we can and should have a reasonable dialogue about reasonable controls on dangerous weapons in america. how many tragedies do we need before we can restart that conversation. nobody wants to take away anybody's right to guns. nobody wants to invalidate the second amendment. but the conventional wisdom we have right now any kind of even discussion about it is a threat to second amendment rights. does a disservice to the country

and nia-malika henderson is covering for the washington post. nearly a week after the announcement, what affect has the congressman had on the race. after the choice was announced on saturday, a democratic operative suggested this narrative and i love it. listen to this. here's my prediction. the cycle of reaction will be exactly the one with palin. the press will say interesting. democrats, huh? press, he's so dynamic. what a boost of energy. republicans, what a great speech. the base loves it. democrats, uh-oh. republicans, the big m.o. has shifted our way. and the press, he's breathing new life. then the democrats, but way there's more. press, hmm. republicans, uh-oh. nia-malika, where are we in that spectrum relative to paul ryan? >> you know, as i think the press were at the hmm phase and republicans are at the uh-oh phase, obviously we've got the speeches that are coming up at the convention a week from now. but there obviously is more picking over ryan's record than we've seen out of the press lately. these reports about him taking stimul

joining me now is nia malika henderson for the washington post.t, nia. >> it's great to be here. >> are paul ryan's positions going to hurt him with women voters? >> well, i think b the democrats certainly hope so. they are starting a campaign to really highlight some of these issues and points of view that you just laid out. they had an of end by the woman who was -- testified before congress. so yes, i think they've already laid this out in some ways with mitt romney. now they can double down on it with the choice of paul ryan. we know that women will be about 53% of the vote come november. and also women are often the organizers in these communities in terms of grassroots and organizing and making sure people get out to vote. you'll see a strong push from democrats to get women out there. women typically vote democratic. there was a bit of an evening of the percentage of women who voted for democrats and republicans in 2010. and in some ways, the fact that they switch when to republicans in 2010 handed the congress over to republicans on the ho

join me now is nia-malika henderson for the washington post. a and erin mcpike. thank you both for being here. take us inside the call for colorado and talk about health care in his speech. >> right now both republicans and democrats will tell you that sub bourban women throughout colorado are key to winning colorado. it's a very tight race out there. there's a new poll out this morning by quinnipiac and cbs showing him leading romney by five points. en the romney campaign will say suburban womens are critical to their efforts about winning colorado. the obama campaign knows about that as well. that's why they're specifically targeting them on this issue. >> nia-malika, he goes to colorado where this poll this morning says the president is behind. women are key. and he talks about his mother and his daughters. listen. >> my own mom turned 70 years old this year. and my sister and i lost her to cancer when she was just 52 years old. i often think about what would have happened if a doctor had caught her cancer sooner. or if she had been less worried about how to p

joining me now is nia malika henderson reporter for "the washington post." and margie omero. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> three months to go. will this election boil down to an issue of fairness? is the contrast in the economic policies and the policies of romney as opposed to the president on who has the fairest policy for americans, is that going to be the central decider in this election? >> i think that's one of them. it's certainly going to be which candidate you think has the better vision for going forward. and you have -- under the president you've had 29 months of private sector job growth. and you have romney saying everything that obama's for, i'm against. so he's against 29 months of private sector growth. and the failed policies that got us here. looking forward, voters will look at which candidate has a vision that includes everyone. there's only one candidate who has that. that's barack obama. mitt romney's plan, independent group said, would increase taxes for 95% of americans and give a tax cut to 5%. so those are all things that the american peopl

it's going to be interesting. >> nia-malika, the polling is already showing that the republican ticket a problem with women. romney trails president obama by 22 points with women voters at a rient poll. this is a real problem for them. >> it is. and you saw last night that in some ways it was ladies night. they had ann romney out there. they had nicki hailey the governor of south carolina. nia love who's running in utah. they're trying to address it this way. interestingly enough, they'll have condi rice on stage who is pro-choice. and mike huckabee will get a rousing ovation tonight as will condi rice. i think his position on the stage as well as condi rice does speak to the split in the party. that mitt romney has tried to sort of mepd these fences between the social evangelicals and the fiscal conservatives in this party. we'll see if he's able to do a. paul ryan won't touch much on social issues. try to speak to the budget. but i think they have tried to really try to etch-a-sketch his sort of stance on some of these issues, abortion and these social conservatives issues and try to

. >> so, nia-malika, it provides the bigger opening at a time when mitt romney had a problem with theender gap. what do you think the impact will be on the presidential race? >> you see so far efforts from democrats to tie the bottom of the ticket, paul ryan, to todd ak akin. democrats are happy to have todd akin around. todd akin is mccaskell's friend. it gives them issues around abortion and planned parenthood. they have a 22--point lead in fav favorability among women. you have leaders in tampa deciding on the language on the platform. they will have the language in the platform that bans abortion in the case of rape. you hope they have todd akin to kick around in the race. >> that bill would redefine rape. they call it forceable rape. i wonder, shira, what is the likelihood this is going to stick or hurt paul ryan? >> i don't know it will hurt paul ryan that much in the long term. a lot of republican members signed on to the bill you just mentioned. >> only one is running for vice president. >> that is absolutely a good point. very true. i think when people think of paul ryan, the

nia malika henderson is here, chris cofin analysis, j.p. frers, and it's great to have you all three here. chris, i want to start with you. first, president obama stirring theport over akin last night, saying, quote, this is an individual who sits on the house committee on science and technology, but somehow missed science clack, but its representative of a desire to go backward instead of forward and to fight fights we thought were settled 20 or 30 years ago. chris, how long do you think democrats can ride the akin issue as we ramp up to the convention and beyond? >> well, i don't see it so much as the akin issue, as kind of the difference -- the fundamental difference between republicans and democrats on women's issues. i think on that you have to hammer that point in, whether you're talking about education or whether you're talking about planned parenthood funding or talking about choice. what akin does is provide a much more emotional argument, and, you know, his remarks, you know, they're so outrageous that i think he aliens yates mott

i agree with malika. it's been much worse than palin because it came on much faster. but the reason it came on much faster is because the romney campaign was absolutely unprepared to answer the question, which they should have known they were going to get. okay, governor, you've said during the primaries that you endorsed the ryan budget and the the ryan medicare plan. you still believe that? and of course, you see governor romney backtracking, but hasn't been able to explain. recently, he says he's for it 100%, but said there were some disagreements. it's a mess. all we're talking about is medicare instead of the economy. talking about romney campaign up again. it's brutal. the stimulus, so unprepared. >> want to show you some data. what kind of bounce? actually, a pretty small one compared to past candidates. now, "the new york times" looked at the post announcement polls and found ryan netted the romney campaign about a point. looking at past tickets going back to 1984, the average was closer to six points. so the net net of this so far, whether it's the medicare c

nia-malika henderson and david corn. nia -- >> yes. >> stewart is a smart guy, he's written novels.cations and what works and what doesn't. did he know what that chair meant when they agreed to put it out there? >> no, they didn't. apparently before he was going out asked the convention organizers can i borrow a choir. people maugt have thought he was going to be sitting in it. he didn't. he talked to it. weirdly enough, it was like bad performance art. >> i'll get you opinion in a minute. did you at any point think this is working or no it's not working? >> i thought it was weird from beginning to end. i was uncomfortable. and i was a little sad. here is clint eastwood, american icon. >> you watched the reactions the women even, older women were laughing at that off color stuff. >> they were. i think the crowd in the forum where i was was sort of so jazzed by the presence of clint eastwood, that that just sort of carried them through this performance. people watching at home who don't really -- who don't identify with republicans and don't want to feel like -- >> you're talking abo

. >> nia-malika, i want to put numbers up on the screen. a "the new york times" poll, which shows over the past few cycles the points that generally -- these are the bounce here that candidates ushlg see. nine points for lieberman, seven points for edwards. one point for biden. four points for palin. and susan mentioned polarization. is that all this is about. or something else going on? >> i think it does speak to the polarization and that most people have made up their minds. a sense of maybe 3% to 5% of voters who haven't made up their mind yet. people are very partisan, their minds made up about these tickets. it's hard in this sort of environment for the vice presidential pick to make much of a difference. it has made a difference in terms of the energy you see on the ground, on the republican side. crowds have swelled to thousands and thousands of folks going out to see the ticket. and i think what ryan brings, it humanizes romney. on the stop, much more relaxed and sort of awe, shucks charisma, that has been missing from the ticket.

nia malika-henderson of the "washington post."ohn dickerson, and joining us from boston, neil ferguson who wrote "newsweek" magazine's cover story on first of all. neil, let's start with you. you make the case that barack obama needs to go. >> well, yes, bob, i do it more in sorrow than in anger. we, obviously, had high hopes of this man four years ago. but when you think abou back tot he promised in the inaugural address in 2009, he just hasn't delivered and that's really the key issue. if you look at the economy, it is growing at half the speed that he promised in his first budget. if you look at unemployment, it's more than two percentage points higher than we were promised. and the debt has not stabilized. it's on an explosive growth path. so it's hard to admit that your hopes were unfulfilled, but that's i think what americans have to do now. >> schieffer: i think i should point out, while you say we were disappointed in his record, you did work for john mccain. >> i did, bob, and i disclose that in the piece, and i'm happy t

spend an extra year in prison so he could carry on playing football in two thousand and ten maqsood malika yourself was sent to jail in chile for three years and a day after being caught carrying six kilos of cocaine inside children's books intent to take to europe however the speedy right foot a used to play for a russian second division team to score and soon word of ever russo's football skills in the prison yard reached chile national coach clough the award and former professional turned prison volunteer franklin lobos who arranged for the now twenty four year old to train with local professional team santiago morning. off now trains there every day accompanied by a guard before being back behind bars each evening and this month he could have returned to russia thanks to an amnesty but wouldn't have been allowed back into chile for a decade so instead he chose to finish his sentence and stay with his team. that's a garden. it has been almost two years now playing football in jail we just play baby football and not every day so i need to work and work hard make sure i'm fine physically

. >> nia-malika henderson, thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >>> republicans aching badly. let's play "hardball." >>> good evening. i'm chris matthews down in washington. let me start tonight with sex. we're really talking about gender, but here in politics as in life, the contact point and the battle line is sex. here's how it is and why it's important politically. men and women have sex, only the woman can get pregnant, and therein lies the conflict. okay, the potential conflict. many women watching right now have a problem with men deciding on this matter. many have a problem with the notion that men are often out there saying a woman has no right to deal with the consequences. pregnancy is only the male's concern it seems when men are telling women they have to accept what comes along. they have to accept it, because, again, men say so. now this matter gets more heated with a u.s. congressman declaring that any woman who really doesn't want to have sex can't get pregnant, not even if some guy has sex with her. why would someone make such an argument seriously? why? it's

to help me, john hileman and washington post's rising star malika henderson. went from 2% in early polling to trouncing texas lieutenant governor david dewhurst last night by 13 points in the race to take on a democrat for the u.s. senate seat. and it was a victory for the right wing against whatever's left of the republican establishment. sarah palin took to the race to cheer on her winning candidate. let's watch. >> it's a victory for tea party patriots who want to get our country back on the right track and defend our republic. the tea party patriots who came from all over the country recognizing that ted cruz is the man to not just embrace status quo in washington but will engage in the sudden and relentless reform of our centralized government trying to shrink that government and allow more states rights and more individual rights and opportunities. they recognized ted cruz was the man. >> republicans across the country have been called not right wing enough have fallen victims to the tea party. here are just a few examples. bob inglis of south carolina.

about all of this and where we're going from here, "washington post" national political reporter, nia-malika "the times" deputy bureau chief, michael crowley. how much does this matter? governor romney trying to say, of course i paid some, harry reid saying he had paid none. he's trying to give information, but you have the letter already from jim messina, the obama campaign manager, "you release five years of returns, i commit in turn that we will not criticize him for noteleasing more." >> and we know at some point he's going to reece, i guess it's 2010, the full tax returns. he's obviously hoping to put this to rest. i don't think he will. i don't think most voters care about this single issue. i think what democrats have been pretty expert at doing is trying to paint mitt romney as somebody who doesn't have to play by the same rules as everyone else. and that's what they're -- that's the case they're making in the adds that you see about mitt romney. >> so democrats say, rich guy who's hiding something, and the romney campaign in turn says, it's clear that president obama wants to talk n

. >> joining me now, nia-malika americanson, "washington post" national political reporter.here's nothing like having a 14-year-old girl in the house to make you keep it real, as we've just heard. >> that's right. that's right. and i think that -- you look at that clip and you understand why the first lady's approval ratings are so high. they're 65%. she is the most popular democrat in the country. certainly the most popular democrat in the white house. and she's able to, on the one hand, out on the stump in florida and talk about policy, but then again, talk about what it's like to be a parent. what it's like to be a wife of someone who's struggling to give up smoking. so i think in those personal ways, she's very much able to come across as very accessible, especially to women, especially to parents who, as you said, are dealing with the difficulties of being 14. i sure remember being 14 and i was no walk in the park. >> and then we start at the beginning of the segment, she giving this speech with serious policy items in it that that same person who can sit there on the s

i agree with everything nia-malika just said, but i would add one other thing. stage a vice presidential candidate is in is in their debate. he's going to be up against joe biden. pawlenty was not a strong campaigner in the nomination fight. think in particular about the two republican debates he took part in. he was disastrously bad in those debates. the romney people recognize one of the great question marks is can he hold his own against joe biden? you have to at least come to a draw if not win that debate. i don't think there's a lot of confidence around tim pawlenty in that area. thank you both very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. >>> coming up -- guess who's being wicked hypocritical on the chick-fil-a controversy? mr. bill o'reilly who's called for more boycotts than he can remember. >>> and in the "rewrite" congress is an alcoholic and needs to watch "fight club." you know what i love about this country? trick question. i love everything about this country! including prilosec otc. you know one pill each morning treats your frequent h

brian and mia-malika henderson, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >>> comingy's vp pick is more than happy to cozy up to the richest right wingers around. plus, olympics champ gabby douglas gets motherly advice from the first lady, michelle obama. >> after the competition, i splurged on egg mcmuffin at mcdonald's. >> egg mcfumuffin. >> yeah, gabby, we don't. >> it is all ahead in tonight's summer break. you are watching "politics nation" on msnbc. ♪ [ male announcer ] it started long ago. the joy of giving something everything you've got. it takes passion. and it's not letting up anytime soon. at unitedhealthcare insurance company, we understand that commitment. and always have. so does aarp, an organization serving the needs of americans 50 and over for generations. so it's no surprise millions have chosen an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they help cover some of the expenses medicare doesn't pay. and save you up to thousands in out-of-pocket costs. to fi

to help me, john hileman and washington post's rising star malika henderson.o trouncing texas lieutenant governor david dewhurst last night by 13 points in the race to take on a democrat for the u.s. senate seat. and it was a victory for the right wing against whatever's left of the republican establishment. sarah palin took to the race to cheer on her winning candidate. let's watch.

us to talk more about all of this and where we're going, "washington post" political reporter nia malikamichael crowley. how much does this matter? governor romney by trying to say of course i paid some, harry reid said he paid none. he's trying to give information, but he also adds to the -- you have the letter already from jim messina, the obama campaign manager. you release five years of returns, i commit in turn we will not criticize him for not ing more. >> that's a narrow promise that he's making. he's not saying that they won't criticize whatever is in the taxes. we know th at some point he's going to release i guess the 2010, the full tax returns. he's obviously hoping to put out the rest. i don't think he will. i don't think most voters care about this single issue. i think what democrats have been pretty expert at doing is trying to paint mitt romney as somebody who doesn't have to play by the same rules as everyone else. that's what they're -- that's the case they're making in the ads that you see about mitt romney's taxes. >> the democrats say a rich guy who's hiding somethin

as nia-malika pointed out, some of the thing was that this would bring enthusiasm from conservatives, those people questioning mitt romney's credentials and they would see this paul ryan and believe that will maybe romney is on the right direction on some of those issues. but we're not seeing ta bump here. what do you think of that? >> i think the expectation, the hope had been from the romney campaign that two weeks in, it would be a conversationing about fiscal responsibility. and instead, it's been a conversation largely about the net effect of his plan vis-a-vis medicare and now abortion. that's not where they hoped it was headed going into tampa. >> jonathan, you've got 54% saying it does not affect their vote at all. 23% saying less likely to vote for romney as a result. >> most academic studies show that in total, the vice presidential candidate doesn't do that much to the national ballot. where it counts is if the home state. we saw a poll yesterday by triple p that showed wisconsin, romney is the lead there. there has been a huge jump in wisconsin which is where it's going to

. >> nia-malika henderson, thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> that's it. "the ed show" is up next. >>> good evening, americans, and welcome to "the ed show" live from minneapolis. 76 days until the election. paul ryan is trying to run from his past. tonight we'll expose brand-new details of his akin problem. this is "the ed show," let's get to work. >> you sponsored legislation that had the language "forcible rape." what is forcible rape? >> rape is rape. >> the party of no exceptions is scrambling over forcible rape. tonight, we'll show you why the presidential ticket can run, but they can't hide from their radical positions. todd akin says to mind your own business. michael steele and bob shrum on the explosion of republican hypocrisy before the tampa convention. >> today's seniors, if you will, my plan presents no change. >> "the new york times" exposes another mitt romney lie on medicare. we will correct the whiteboard again tonight. and the president is sacking mitt romney on his education plan. >> governor romney says we've got enough teachers. we do

. >> malika henderson, incredible story about akin. day after day this rape story was on the front page, top of the newscast. did you get the impression the media are trying to keep it alive? >> no. i think it was a legitimate story. you have a sitting congressman talking about rape. then he was of course in this contested seat in missouri. the balance of the senate in -- you know, hangs in the balance with his seat. i think it was a legitimate story. i think, again, we're going to shift to the rnc at this point unless todd akin comes and stages some protest down here. i don't think people will be talking about it. the fact that huck by who in some -- huckabee who in some ways was his big defender might not be on stage is probably a good thing in terms of the republicans trying to get past this story. >> at the same time, the press seemed to me made some attempt to bring paul ryan into the story because of ryan and akin sharing the same position on the question of abortion and rape, talking about that. >> that was a legitimate connecti