you have claire mccaskill getting hit. she's facing a tough re-election in missouri. it's always a tough state. it's right down the line politically. they are going after her in radio ads already. let's listen to what one of your colleagues is taking for agreeing with you. let's listen. >> first, they took over the banks. then they put government in charge of our health care. now what are barack obama and claire mccaskill focused on? regulating the catholic church. obama and mccaskill want to force the catholic church and americans of faith to abandon tenets of their religion. obama and mccaskill already forced us to pay for government bailouts and obama care. tell them enough is enough. >> what would you say in response to that viewer in missouri? >> the ad is outrageous and a bold-faced lie. you're saying we're telling the catholic church what to do? we're not. president obama made such a reasonable and very respectful compromise. he excluded churches and synagogues and institutions that are primarily for religious purposes where people who work there are primarily

senator mccaskill, i really apologize. i think senator blumenthal in terms of original arrival is on the list first. >> i'll wait. >> if senator mccaskill has another -- >> absolutely not. go ahead. >> thanks. senator blumenthal. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. i want to add my thanks to both of you. and the men and women under your sle leadership for your really extraordinary service which i had the privilege to see a bit firsthand during my second trip to afghanistan last february with senator mccain and senator graham and others of my colleagues. and as i mentioned to you, admiral mcraven, i was particularly impressed by the really remarkable achievements of our special operators there. the numbers tell a powerful story, but so do the more anecdotal information, particularly about turning over a lot of this work and training the afghans themselves, which i think is a really unprecedented achievement in our military history in terms of special operations. and i hope that we all keep sight of that work and also, ge

and claire mccaskill stood for the women of her state. many women take it for noncontraceptive women. she stands up for women's values and their access to basic health care and access to medicine. and for the basic principle that bosses should not decide what medicines an employee should be eligible to take. it's really quite simple. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. i think you missed a point. not only did he compromise by accepting churches, he went further and said insurance companies would have to pay for the coverage and not require the churches to sign on to something they can't within their own religious believes do so. i think he really went the extra yard here. you're great to come on the show tonight. i didn't know you'd be coming on in the face of rush limbaugh, but i think you did a good job on that new character of the republican party. thank you so much. coming up, mitt romney was against the blunt. that's the one who said no coverage for birth control in this health care bill. he said he was confused by the question that was put t

senator clara mccaskill, thank you very much. senator hoeven, i appreciate your time very much. >> thank you. >> folks, coming up, stocks do swing higher today on greek optimism. i'm still a short-term bull, and i've got a list of worries i'm going to share with you in the next segment. please don't forget, free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. the future of that free market capitalism kind of worries me. in america, we believe in a future that is better than today. since 1894, ameriprise financial has been working hard for their clients' futures. never taking a bailout. helping generations achieve dreams. buy homes. put their kids through college. retire how they want to. ameriprise. the strength of america's largest financial planning company. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you, one-to-one. together, for your future. ♪ hey, it's sandra -- from accounting. peter. i can see that you're busy... but you were gonna help us crunch the numbers for accounts receivable today. i mean i know that this is import

i agree with senator mccaskill, hank you for coming by yesterday. i did want to go over a question that we talked about. several public reports have indicated that you are seeking several new authorities to give you more control over the deployment and utilization of the special operation forces. for example, "the new york times" recently reported that you want authority to deploy the special operation forces without going through the traditional force generation process managed by the joint chiefs. as i said, i know we've discussed this. but if you could also go over again, are you seeking authorities that would provide you with additional control over the deployment and utilization over the special operation forces? >> i appreciate the question. i appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight. as you said, there's been a lot in the news about this lately. every two years the joint staff goes through a staffing drill to look at the unified command plan, the ucp, which is -- defines the roles and responsibilities, missions of the combatant c

yet over the last week we saw claire mccaskill, chairwoman of the senate committee where the processwould begin basically say no, carl levin -- i mean, everybody pretty much has said no, is base closures dead or is it the first step of the long tango? >> it sure did for this year. because the problem is all the difficulties, all the objections come in the near term and the payoff comes way off in the future. in fact, beyond obama even if he's reelected. there's no incentive to go forward. >> the other thing is you never get it in an election year. they're also going to demand that we look at overseas bases before we look at the bases here at home. i think that's a good thing. we ought to take a look at our forces around the world and if we want to keep the same kind of deployments. >> i think what you're hearing on the hill from former brac officials i've talked to is pretty predictable. you introduce the topic, congress asks for studies, asks for overseas closures and then in the following year it might authorize it or not. so it's not -- i don't think it's dead yet. >> it's the fir

claire mccaskill of missouri. thank you. >>> our new poll shows that suburban women want democrats in charge of congress. 48% say democrats. 37% say republican. that number has completely flipped by the way since the middle of last year. last year they wanted republicans to control congress by a 7-point margin. what does it mean for the republican party? let's bring in michelle bernard, she's an independent and is president of the bernard center for women, a think tank. michelle, thanks for coming back on the show again. tell me what you think all this talk about contraception, all this rush limbaugh obnoxiousness is doing to the party label of the republican party? >> this is a complete disaster for the republican party label. it's a throwback to literally hundreds of years ago. there's absolutely no reason to be having this discussion within the republican party. i would imagine if i were president obama and getting ready for my re-election campaign, i'm thinking what an incredible gift. are you really giving me

in this case steelman has 51 and mccaskill has 41. in ohio, josh mandel is four points ahead of sharon brown the democratic senator. from florida, connie mack is 6 points ahead of nelson the democratic senator. if the election were held today the republicans with probably pick up eight seats, lose one or two and end up with a net of six which is incredible. >> greta: missouri, senator mccaskill that is a.b. interesting race. embraced healthcare and no sooner embraced and sort of one of the saw it wards of it suddenly they passed something i forget what it was in august 2010 where 93% of the people in missouri were opposed to healthcare. she is really on the rail. certainly looks like if she is losing ten points now missouri doesn't look like it will be a stronghold for president obama come november. >> and my whole point, greta is right now the head-to-head of the president against romney is a little bit obscured because romney is not the candidate and they are going through this civil war going on in the republican party. once that e

anybody, claire mccaskill? amy klobuchar? anybody coming up that could break in or is hillary clinton going to be the candidate in 2016? >> i can't predict who will be the candidate in 2016 and with hillary clinton, i don't know what to make of it. but all the examples, claire mccaskill, there's some incredibly talented and brilliant women politicians, almost all of them in the democratic party, at least at the high level. and i'm sure one will break through. i think the glass ceiling is far from permanent in the presidential race in this country. >> good for you, frank. you're a great writer. we love you. you're now with "new york" magazine. thanks for this piece. >>> when we return, let me finish with the prospect that the supreme court could actually overturn health care by one vote. imagine what that's going to do if that happens. one person deciding something we've all been fighting about for centuries, it seems. you're watching "hardball." what makes the sleep number store different? the sleep number bed. the magic of t

. >> thank you senator mccaskill.i really appreciate at. >> senator mccaskill. >> thank you, and thank you both. i think only our military could be accomplishing what we are a congressman and the most difficult of circumstances. everyday, the passes, i stand and not of the leadership of our military and the sacrifices that you will make. some of my colleagues have touched on some of this, so i won't feel the need to go into it, but as you know, i have spent time looking at contracting, and i know auditors are pesky, but you are aware. >> thank you for that. >> we have $20 billion of reconstruction money in iraq that can't be accounted for. we can't find $20 billion to be spent on reconstruction. we know and i can cite in this question and a number of projects that we built in iraq, that prisons that are sitting empty, healthcare facilities that never opened, water parks that stand crumbling, some of this was a i f., this new thing that we are doing, it is that the military is engaging in infrastructure construction, a

that might help mccaskill. it's going to be a republican state and she's going to struggle. >> she needs president obama to get 47. she needs him to go get it. if he doesn't, then there's trouble. >> you saw her breaking with him on energy on the keystone pipeline. >> the question is if you look cable television ever in 2008 campaign, she was his main surroga surrogate. that's a problem. >> with the decision in maine by olympia snow, so goes control of the senate. we have virginia. nevada. you can throw in michigan. definitely ohio. it is clear. wisconsin. presidential battleground, new mexico even. the senate battleground are intertwined. >> we polled 12 states. seven of them have competitive senate races. that's got to be some kind of record. the overlay of the states with competitive senate races. that's why republicans are alarmed about rick santorum getting the nomination because in these battleground states he could have a really hard time. >> so many of them are going to be so close. the senate races. it

anybody, claire mccaskill, amy klobuchar? is hillary clinton going to be the candidate in 2016?speculation, i don't know what to make of it. look, the examples like claire mccaskill that you mentioned, there's some incredibly talented and brilliant women politicians, almost all of them in the democratic party, at least at the high level, and i'm sure one will break through. i think the glass ceiling is far from permanent in the presidential race in this country. >> good for you, frank. you're a great writer. we love it. you're now with "new york" magazine. >>> when we return, let me finish with the prospect the supreme court could actually overturn health care by one vote. imagine what that's going to do if that happens. one person deciding something we've all been fighting about for centuries it seems. [ male announcer ] in blind taste tests, even ragu users chose prego. prego?! but i've been buying ragu for years. [ thinking ] i wonder what other questionable choices i've made? [ club scene music ] [ sigh of relief ] [ male announcer ] choose taste. choose prego. yeah, but the

to get into individual names or length of conversation. 11 democrats including max baucus, claire mccaskill and bob casey broke ranks with the party to support the republican proposal that did fail. the senate defeated an amendment that would have given the white house more leeway on the issue while banning exports of oil from the pipeline. >>> a measure helping small businesses heading to the senate after cruising through the house with rare bipartisan support. aimed at helping start-up companies hire more workers and rage capital from larger pools of investors. the republican backed bill passed by 390 to 23. only opposition came from a handful of democrats who say the effort falls short of the comprehensive plan president obama has been pushing for. house minority leader nancy pelosi openly mocked republican reaction to the bill's passage yesterday. >> because it's so meager. trumpet. here comes the little king. this is -- this is -- yes, it's bipartisan. when we pledge the flag, that's a big thing. that's a big thing. we are -- we have a oneness about us in many ways here. but when it co

. >> senator mccaskill a few minutes because the vote started. i appreciate it. i hate doing that. >> thank you, and thank you both. i think only our military could be accomplishing what we're accomplishing in the most difficult circumstances. and every day that passes i stand in awe of the leadership of our military and the sacrifices that you all make. i am going to, some of my colleagues have touched on some of this. so i won't feel the need to go into it, but as you know, i've spent a lot of time looking at contracting and i know those auditor, pesky, but you are aware, i know -- >> thank you for that. >> that we have $s 20 billion of reconstruction money in iraq that can't be accounted for. can't find $20 billion that we spent on reconstruction. and we know and i can cite in this question a number of projects that we built in iraq that prisons that are sitting empty. health care facilities that water parks that stand crumbling. some of this w project. some was serp, and what i affectionately call ais, son of serp, a new thing we're doing that the military is

mccaskill: mr. president, you know, we just had a vote. imagine for a minute you had a government that was spending too much money. and imagine for a minute that we needed to spend less money. we needed to change our tax code to a tax code that was fair, simpler, didn't pick winners and losers. imagine for a minute that this was a crisis. and imagine for a minute that this crisis was being wielded like a political two-by-four, by a majority of the republicans that serve in the senate, this debt crisis. then imagine for a minute that you had the most profitable corporations in the history of the planet, and they were booking $30 billion in profit every quarter. over $130 billion in profit year after year. it didn't matter whether the economy was bad, good, or indifferent. amazing profits. and then imagineor

i heard the remarks from my senior senator from missouri, claire mccaskill, who sits next to me. i was intrigued by her response to the vote that had just taken place on -- from my colleagues who preach every day about deficit reduction. they had, as senator mccaskill said, they had an opportunity to pick the lowest-hanging fruit there there is, take away the tax breaks and the tax dollar subsidies that go to the oil doctorinterests in this country. taxpayers are spending hard-earned tax dollars coming from workers in dayton and springfield and akron and canton that go directly to the most profitable industry in the history of the world perhaps, and that's -- particularly the big five oil companies making billions afned billions and billions of dollars. yet we are just simply saying that's okay to give them those kind of tax breaks and tax subsidies. that's even putting aside the fact that every time there's a pipeline outage, every time there is a fire at a refinery, every time there is turmoil in the middle east, the oil companies appeared speculators use it as chance to spike

mccaskill voting against the effort. >> the issue why the gas prices are s high is complex.ical issue is simple. people will take in charge. when they see the energy secretary it's not our goal to get gas prices down, they see energy secretary doling out this huge loans for alternative energy that end up very obviously failing. they see the no-brainer in keystone and the president actively lobbying against it. i think it makes a difference. >> bret: it's important to note that oil prices are complex, it's a world commodity. it's not just supply and demand. there is are world demand issues, but on the simple term, who is winning this back and forth politically? >> i think politically no question republicans are winning. in part they are making, everything you just said there is true about the way that oil is priced. however, it doesn't mean that the united states and u.s. government in particular can't do anything to affect those prices. if you look what president bush back in july 2009 when he lifted the moratorium in the east and west continental shelf you saw prices come d

in virginia, there is the fight and then claire mccaskill. guest: judge mandel -- josh mandel is also funning. he is -- running. he is a fiscal conservative. brown is to the left of almost all the democrats in the senate. this provides a stark contrast between -- on policy. thus, ohio is a -- plus, ohio is an important state. the turnout will be high. with obama and the gop nominee at the top of the ballot, this will be very serious race. in virginia, you have got george allen, who is the likely gop nominee, who is going to go against tim kaine, the former dnc chairman. the two candidates with a very extensive records where the voters will have an opportunity to see two very different candidates. in missouri, things are a little bit unsettled there because the gop primary is unsettled. you have former state treasurer sarah steelman and todd aiken. once this get settled, the eventual nominee will be very competitive against clerc mccaskill -- claire mccaskill who portrays herself to be a moderate democrat. missouri may not like those. host: if

. >> senator mccaskill, i really apologize. senator bloom in all >> a senator mccaskill has another commitment, i'd be happy -- thank you. >> thank you. senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to add my thanks to both of you and the men and women under the leadership for your relaxed with her service, which i have the privilege to see a bit of firsthand during my second trip to afghanistan with senator graham and others in my colleague. nothing mentioned to you, admiral mcrae then, i was particularly impressed by the really remarkable achievements of our special operators they are. the numbers tell a powerful story, but so do circuit of organic dodo information, particularly about turned over a lot of the work in training and the afghans themselves, which is an unprecedented achievement in our military history, in terms of special operations. and i hope that we all keep sight of that work can also general, the work that all of our men and women there are doing, despite the incidents that may sometimes cloud the c

. >> this is senator claire mccaskill yesterday. >> we've had these subsidies for what?nk most americans have figured out the price of oil has gone up just fine all of that time and they have the subsidies and how is that working out for us? those subsidies are keeping down the price of gasoline, aren't they? >> ha, ha. we're doing away with the subsidy, rick? would that make the gas prices go down and would that have any kind of impact as far as what we're paying each and every day? >> i think this is a silly distortion that's typical of an election year, and i think these subsidies have probably nothing whatsoever to do with the price of gas. the price of oil and the price of gas is set by supply and demand in the global market, for the most part it's that simple and if these tax subsidies were eliminated. the oil companies would keep pulling the same amount of oil out of the ground because we're making a profit out of that oil especially with gas prices over $100 a barrel and that wouldn't affect the supply which means it wouldn't affect the price. >> we have a graph

-- we're not even going to get into that with rush limbaugh, but 2006, you did an ad for claire mccaskill, running for senate, and wheler take a look at mr. limbaugh's reaction to the ad, as it may be. >> they say politics is local, but it's not always the case. what you do in missouri matters to millions of americans. americans like me. >> in this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease. he's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. this is the only time i have ever seen michael j. fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has. he can control himself enough to stay in the frame of the picture, and he can control himself enough to keep his eyes right on the lens, the teleprompter, but his head and shoulders are moving all over the place. this is really shameless, folks. this is really shameless of michael j. fox. either he didn't take his medication or he's acting. >> yeah, i thought that was great, he really did a good thing there. >> again, i don't want -- my tendency is to want to make jokes about it, he says remain in the frame of the picture. lo

. >> just bear with me here. 2006, you did an ad for claire mccaskill. she was running for senate. we look at that ad and mr. limbaugh's reaction to that ad as it may be. >> they say all politics is local, but it's not always the case. what you do in missouri matters to millions of americans. americans like me. >> in this commercial, he is exaggerating the effects of the disease. he is moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. this is the only time i've ever seen michael j. fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has. he can control himself enough to stay in the frame of the picture and enough to keep his eyes right on the lens, the teleprompter but his head and shoulders are moving all over the place. this is really shameless, folks. this is really shameless of michael j. fox. either he didn't take his medication. >> that's what is great. i thought he did a good thing there. >> i don't want to -- my tendency is to want to make jokes about things so i have to laugh when he says remain in the frame of the picture. maintain within the frame of the picture. when

if you remember the blunt amendment they tried to push through that senator mccaskill voted for and regretted, would have gone so far not just in undermining women's health but health care bill altogether and allowing employers broad ability to deny coverage for anything they found objectionable. >> this spiralled out of control as far as being a big campaign issue. democrats are attacking mitt romney on women's health issues. here is the latest ad, let's look at it. >> romney says he wants to get rid of planned parenthood, ending federal support for critical health care services like cancer screenings for thousands of women here in illinois. >> planned parenthood we're going to get rid of that. >> supports legislation to allow employers to deny women affordable access to health care services like contraception. he supports extreme policies that would take away a woman's right to choose and ban many forms of birth control including the pill. despite his attack, he's being supported by the prominent local politicians. what are they thinking? >> the democrats couldn't be asking for a better ad

i have claire mccaskill from missouri. i have ben nelson from nebraska.o my caucus has these extremes on both sides, but it has also the mixture that gets us to where we are. and that's why we're able to stick together and do things that we believe are right for this country. we want to work together. we understand legislation is the art of compromise, consensus building. nothing wrong with that. and republicans throughout the country also believe that. but they don't have republican leaders that are leading them down the path that we used to have to bring about good things in our country. >> harry reid, thank you very much. >> you bet. >>> still to come, my evening with ann. it is impossible to prepare for a debate with ann coulter, as i discovered last night here in washington. there is just no way of knowing what she's going to say next. we'll get the reaction from some people who were there. >>> and later in "the rewrite," if mitt romney becomes the republican nominee for president, president obama will trap him with the lie he has been getting away w