mary todd lincoln was a fascinating woman. she was flirtatious, love politics, witty, controversial but she was also high maintenance, chronically depressed. she loses almost all of her male relative string the war. she lost her mother which was a child is like lincoln did. the north does not trust her because her family -- and the self does not trust her because she marries lincoln. she uses -- loses for sun center life. she was high maintenance and was all over the place. the movie depicted that. they had a strange marriage. it was almost like people who could live with one another but couldn't live without one another. animal instincts but fought all the time. he did fall -- he did honor her opinion. at one moment she would be offering it vice in the next moment embarrassing him in public. the movie did a good job of wringing out the complexities of that. i am robert watson, "affairs of the state" and i appreciate your attention. thank you. [applause] >> wanted you things you learn when you read about children of alcoholics

mary todd was looked at as kind of bipolar before it was diagnosable. that in his film and how his personal life is affected by so many outside factors and we just decided to make those factors vampires. >> the movie stretches reality a little bit. but you don't actually play abraham lincoln. >> yes, i do, with modern technology, yes, i do. >> you basically played abraham lincoln's political consultant, you're like the james carville of abraham lincoln -- >> very good. i'm the robin to his batman. william h. johnson was actually abraham lincoln's chauffeur and caddy -- >> o no, he's a real guys, a real guy. >> he was with lincoln when he gave the gettysburg address. on the way back he died with small position and lincoln with money out of his own pocket had him buried at arlington national cemetery, the first black man buried at arlington national cemetery. and on his headstone he had "william h. johnson citizen." i think it's remarkable, he didn't call him caddy, he didn't call him driver, he called him citizen. >> we'll be right back. it's t. time for

my wife, mary todd, found them so fetching. >> he looked so fine i started to call him babe-raham lincoln i was like, mary, please. >> you look like a baby, a literal child. i bought a pair online, shipped to 115 main st., that's my gettysburg address. i'm funny. i find them to be affordable frames, of the people, for the people, and, not, by the people, that's part of this freedom thing. end slavery, let people buy awesome sunglasses. who's behind those foster grants? abraham stinkin' lincoln. >> i came up with that slogan myself. view want the great bargain for the holiday season? i got one for you and it's the number of the day. two for one. that's the deal the country gets from spending on infrastructure. this is not just some ginned up number from the lefty group interested in trying to make the government bigger. the federal reserve bank of san francisco looked at a classic kind of infrastructure project. road construction. it turns out for every dollar of federal highway grant that goes into a state that state's annual economic output goes up by at least $2. that's much better retu

a local fixture, todd's convenience store where mary todd has been working the front counter for more. >> when my husband is not there, i like to be there. if problems arise, i take care of it. >> on this lazy friday afternoon, the great-grandmother twice over retreats to the store's back office to indulge her twin passions. >> i was crocheting and watching television, and that's a good thing to do. >> seven security cameras roll as two teenager cashiers work the registers up front while long time employee michael wallace stalks the shelves. >> come to work at 2:00 in the afternoon. i was stocking some beer to put on the shelf. >> just another routine day. >> everything was real, real smooth. going smooth. >> until just before 3:00. three masked men rush in. >> they were dressed in a lot of clothes. they had things on their faces. they were carrying guns, big guns. >> they wanted the guns to be seen. they wanted to hurt somebody. >> they were going to clean us out of all the money. >> the men immediately split up. one guards the door. another makes a beeline for the back of the store,

. >> but for mary todd, it's just another day at the office. >> i never did get nervous about it. i was doing my job. i always try to handle any situation in that store. i had protection, and i was willing to use it. >>> are you going to move out? >> do you want to get along tonight or do you want to start a war? >> cici doesn't have a right to say get out. >> it's her home but my home, too. >> good night. >> good night. >> do you still think i'm your wife. >> i don't want drama her. >> this is not your house. you said you would not come back unless i wanted you to come back. >> he's like a squatter in your house but you put mints on the pillow. >> she could leave, take her rent money and leave. >> christian and cici are stuck in purgatory. >> nothing is resolved. >> this isn't going to be resolved today. >> will i ever make the right decisions? >> i'm christian. i love that breeze. so amazing. >> yeah. >> i live in sherman oaks. >> and so do i. >> i work in film financing and i'm also a professional hand model and actress. >> i create art with writing and film and photography and

my feeling was that he knew that if you married mary todd you weren't going to stay a circuit lawyer in illinois and that she was going to make him step into his role. i don't think it's the thing pascal says, anyone who's a genius and doesn't know it probably isn't one, i think lincoln knew from the time he was a boy that he was able to do things intellectually that most people couldn't do. and i think he knew that his particular genius weirdly was not so much as a writer because i don't think he could have written just essays he wasn't emerson. i think he knew that his genius was in politics which is a strange amalgam field. and i think he knew as everyone knew in the middle of the 19th century the main issue was going to be what was going to happen to slavery and could the country cohere. we knew this from the really from the constitutional era on. and i think he was terrified. it's a garden of gethsemane moment, it's like do i have to take up this cup of poison? he knew what would become of the person who stepped into the center of that crucible. and he also knew that it was prob

henry clay was a friend of mary todd lincoln's father. as they grow she had known the great man. she was like uncle henry practically. and i pictured this raw character coming in off the frontier into springfield, illinois. no more education than what he was able to teach himself, worshiping the man henry clay and suddenly maybe somebody knows him. interested in thinking. that was fascinating. she was immensely, physically strong and left to show off that day. he's on a ship and trading stories we send young sailors, passing the time. there is this three-foot long fire asked, but a heavy head at the end. he just reaches over and grabbed the end of the acts between two fingers and left it fully extended with the head of the acts six feet, but set up that holds it there and slowly puts it back down consist of these young men, can any beauty that? a couple of them tried, nobody could do it in this punchline is one of his story chickadee two at a time. it was endless. it really draws to a. anyone else? don't be shy. >> what do you feel the changes happening in the country, the women'

. >> but for mary todd, it's just another day at the office. >> i never did get nervous about it. i was doing my job. i always try to handle any situation in that store. i had protection, and i was willing to use it. >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the world's longest running television program, this is "meet the press" with david gregory. >> good sunday morning. it's been nine days since the tragic shooting at sandy hook elementary in newtown, connecticut and the debate over gun control has been revived. here with us exclusively this morning, the man at the ten ter of that debate, the ceo and executive vice president of the nra, wayne lapierre. i want to get right to it. >> the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. >> you proposed armed guards in school. we'll talk about that in some detail in a moment. you confronted the news media, you blamed hollywood and the gaming industry but never once did you concede that guns could actually be part of the problem. is that meaningful contribution, mr. lapierre, or a dodge? >> david, i said what i

. >> let me give you some advice here, todd, mayor hall has considered getting an accountant to tell her what she will be paying. but what does it mean to marynd other small business owners out there who are in similar situations. >> with mary, i would say not to take any extreme actions, because we heard that boehner and president obama were meeting so we hope there will be a resolution by the end of the year, and when we do have that resolution, because we still don't know what the ramifications what the impact is going to be to that small business owner, so i would recommend a wait and see approach to see what happens with washington. eventually, moving forward, it is going to hit everybody, i can definitely sense some frustration from everybody on the screen today, we really hope that is resolution, hopefully washington is listening. >> okay, todd, everybody out there's been tweeting their questions to me. what's your question, if you want to go ahead and tweet, allisoncossack, todd is going to be sticking around to answer those questions. volution and switch to olay pro-x. get cleansing results as effective as a $200 system. guaranteed