and then when ambassador nancy brinker came and talked to me yesterday on the program, she came withnother explanation which was that they wanted direct referrals. so they had a credibility problem with their constituency. and i think it's wise that they apologized and reversed themselves so quickly. >> nancy brinker told you yesterday she was upset by the questions of whether this was a political decision by them. let's listen to her. >> i am troubled that it's been labeled as political. this is not a political decision. we operate from one set of standards every day. and it is to our mission. and if we don't advance and revise and make grants that meet the mission and bring real care to vulnerable populations, we won't be doing our job. >> senator boxer, it's great to have you on as always. what were the pressures coming from the pro-choice people that really seemed to reverse this decision lickety-split overnight. >> can i just say, pro-choice, not pro-choice, this is about screenings for breast cancer. there is no room for politics in this at all. and we all know we face attacks

in a statement, nancy brinker said, "we want to apologize to the american public for recent decisionsoubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women's lives. our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. we will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. we'll continue to fund existing grants, including those of planned parenthood and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants while maintaining the abillities of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of our communities. so what exactly was the motivation behind those words to drop the funding to begin with, with the politics at play. andrea mitch ceell is right on s story. she has been. she's the host of "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. also joining sussenat ining sus boxer. it seems to me that they were under some pressure, i don't know where it came from, to make this decision to no longer fund planned parent

and nancy brinker is still here. know we're out of time, but is there any chance that you would respond to the senators and change the policy? >> well, i'm troubled that it's been labeled as political. this is not a political decision. we operate from one set of standards every day, and it is to our mission. and if we don't advance and revise and make grants that meet the mission and bring real care to vulnerable populations, we won't be doing our job. again, these grants -- >> i think there's a lot of communication -- >> there's a lot of communication that needs to go back and forth, you bet. >> we will follow up with you, the senators, 22 senators have now signed that letter, and we will continue to report this story and there'll be more throughout the day on nbc and msnbc as well. and we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] what's the beat that moves your heart? how about the beat of a healthy heart? campbell's healthy request soup is delicious, and earned this heart, for being heart healthy. ♪ feel the beat? it's

>> nancy brinker needs to resign. the board needs to be replaced.round the country can become active in deciding who should be on the board. so that we feel there is good representation. and really so that there is a respect for a 501-c-3. this should not be about partisan politics. really, the step that would get me back on the team are those two. the third piece i want is for carol handle to be terminated. she resigned. that's okay. it doesn't matter to

. >> the strange thing is i don't know anybody aside from nancy brinker who runs the foundation who has done more for women's health. kimberly, this is now probably going to blow over over the weekend, but how do you think this will set in with the american people thinking, wait a second? if you're a private organization, can't you decide if -- can't you make your own decision about who to give your money to? >> absolute will he. susan g. komen foundation is an excellent charitable foundation which is a model essentially for many that are throughout the country. many people feel that they have bowed down to politics. nancy pelosi, democratic pressure, people that are siding with planned parenthood. it's one thing to stick to your gun, but then they reversed it right after they had someone speaking on their behalf, even on this air. it's confusing. >> i wonder, bob, if they had listened to your counsel about if you're in a hole, hand me the shovel and stop digging. >> i think that when you start getting yourself in the controversy like this, just stop digging. i mean -- what i don't unde

in a statement, nancy brinker said "we want to apologize to the american public for recent decisionsn our commit mement to our missiof saving women's lives. our original desire was to fulfill fiduciary obligations. we will mend the criteria to make clear it must be criminal and conclusive in nature. we will continue to fund existing grants including those to planned parenthood while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make decision that meet the needs of our communities." what was the words behind that news? andrea mitchell has been on the story. she's our chief foreign affairs correspondent. we e also have joining us senator barbara boxer, who is a democrat from california and very much involved in this dispute. let me start with andrea. it seems to me they were under some pressure, i don't know where it came from, to make the decision to no longer fund women. it's a comparable place to go. it's like a clinic. it's a real public service. for them to drop their support for that because some congressman is messing around with them with some kind of hearings is a thin reading.

nancy brinker founded it when her sister susan komen died of breast cancer.the first out there in terms of looking for a cure but, a, she was appoint head of protocol in the bush state department. that's not a job you get unless you're, a, extremely politically connected. she's another texas republican and you raise ton of money for the party and for the presidential candidate. why is she tried to pretend all this time that she's not partisan politician? >> maybe so. she might have partisan meanings but sheenies not run the komen foundation that way. this decision was made first of all let's be clear about what the policy is. they decided to revamp their criteria for funding, determining who they give their grants to. $93 million worth of grants what they have to distribute. they dided that they were no longer going to allow organizations who have any kind of financial impropriety going on or any organization that was under investigation. so, out of the 200 or 2,000 organizations that they fund only one fell in to that criteria happened to be planned patient

does nancy brinker or anyone else from komen need to take further action for damage control?ey certainly acted i think ultimately quickly enough, but their statement today sort of magnified the problem in places. they went back to trying to justify the original decision. they should have just said look, we made a mistake. we apologized. we're moving on rather than sort of replowing old ground. >> at this point do they open the betrayal dies down? >> that's one. >> or should anybody lose their job? >> if i were on the board, i'd be questioning the people who brought the decision to the board and made the recommendation. i mean i think somebody maybe should go as a result of this so that they can show that they take this seriously and it won't happen again. that's another major lesson of crisis management. you want to make sure that the public believes that you have learned your lesson. >> absolutely. les francis from the washington media group, appreciate you being here tonight. >> thank you. >>> talk about bad pr, hackers hit the highest levels of law enforcement intercepting

nancy brinker comes from the republican background in dallas. made such an effort to reach out and to include democrats. i've run in this race with joe lieberman and al gore and joe biden and his wife, have been significant supporters for susan g. komen. david rubinstein was the chair of the gala in which i presented an award posthumously to betty ford. it's very painful. 26 senators, most of them democrat, 26 united states senators calling for susan g. komen to reverse this decision. two of them, patty murray and robert boxer on our show, directly to her. and she is not backing down. they say that the reason is because, as you just showed, they have changed their procedures for grants. but the bottom line is, it's only planned parenthood. out of 2,000 grantees being targeted this way. the suspicion among critics is this relates directly to the hiring of this woman from georgia who ran on an anti-planned parenthood, anti-abortion platform for governor and has been very outspoken on this. >> the resignations now are coming in at the komen foundat

the group's ceo nancy brinker was concerned. some 6,000 people have given $400,000 in small donations in just a matter of 24 hours. again, we are just minutes away, though, from president obama and his remarks in arlington, virginia. he's going to be announcing another new initiative to get vets back to work. our mike viqueira is standing by for us at the white house. mike, this comes, the speech, that is, on the heels of this really resounding jobs report that is out today. how likely is this going to play into the original remarks that president obama had scheduled for this morning? now it's probably going to overshadow that. >> reporter: well, thomas, there's no mistakes the white house regularly schedules these things every first friday of the month. when the jobs numbers came out, ever since august, largely by and large it has been a downward trend and the trend is certainly the president's friend, not only economically but politically for the president during this election. down 0.2% from 8.5% to 8.3%. some 240,000 jobs cr

that is what karen handle did. >> what about nancy brinker's role in this?n't she lie about who was responsible? >> certainly seems like she did. the insider reports what i have read is that in fact karen handle drove the decision she was very insistent they could find out -- come up with some kind of excuse to defund planned parenthood. the excuse she preferred the most was the purely political investigation that is going on in the house of representatives against planned parenthood. then they came up with another excuse, having to do with direct services for mammograms which by the way, nobody's ob-gny offers that. then back to the investigation excuse. the whole thing is really shabby, and karen handle's resignation would be a good first step. but komen has to decide if it is going to be a breast cancer organization or will it change its mission and tell the funders it has changed the mission to continue on this path of being an political anti-abortion organization. >> why did it take so long or was this about the timing you expected? the public pressure

first nancy brinker is their ceo, and here's what she said earlier in the week. >> we're always lookingt our policies and procedures to be sure we're doing the right thing for the supporters and women that we serve. regrettable this strategic shift will effect any number of long-standing partners but we have always done what is right for our organization, for our donors and volunteers. we will never bow to political pressure. we will always stand firm in our goal to end breast cancer forever. >> well, a lot of people disagreed with that. they felt that they were binding to political pressure by taking money away from planned parenthood, and some discharged that they were right wing and they're using politics to interfere with their main mission. one person who was very upset was representative jackie spear. hears what she said on the floor yet. >> why would susan g. koman take the remarkable step saying they're no longer going to fund planned parenthood? i suppose when we review nih and bring them under investigation they will stop funding nih to the tune of $1 million. no longer do the

dvocacy.tuesday - komen said planned parenthood no longer met the criteria for its grants.here's how ceo nancy brinker are working to elimiiate duplicative grants, bring more dollars for higher impact programs - and wherever possible we wwnt to grant to a provider who is actually providing a life saving stringent eligibility and ore performance criteria to support these new strategies 11:27:01butt to 11::8 the scurrilous accusations being hurled at this organization many of us who put our heart, soul and lives into this organization 11:28:20that didn't quite quell the online charity navigator and tings n guidestar... plunged as page after page of negative posts rolled in.several online petitions gottstartee... congressman jjm moran -- and other lawmakers publicly asked meanwhile -- former supporters said they were moving their money -- to planned parenthood. that orranization now reporting... it raised more than 400-thousand dollars in just one day. a short time ago -- komen held a conference call -- ceo naacy brinker said these grant criteria changes were two years in the making. a... sheriff's deput

. >> her statement contradicts what komen ceo nancy brinker said just last week. >> karen did not have anything to do with this decision. >> yet, sources from inside koim mendel the huffington post handel was the prime instigator the in the effort. komen says its original decision was due to a change in grant funding criteria, not pressure from anti-abortion groups. handel, who ran for governor in georgia on a defund planned parenthood platform, says the moouchl by komen was never political. in fact, she puts the blame squarely on planned parenthood. >> the only group that made it political is planned parenthood. it's no secret that foundations had been under some pressure for some years long before my time. komen was doing its level best to move to neutral ground. i was asked to look at options for doing that, some alternatives to do that. i looked at it and i did. >> i'm joined by teri oneal. thanks for your team tonight. i want to say that i think that your voice made a real difference in this entire conversation in this country. so i think that what i really want to know and that v

do you think that politics did not play a role when nancy brinker said it did not play a role?

. >> let me play you a bit of the interview, i was trying to press nancy brinker to the reason for this and some of it was of because of the so-called investigation cliff stearns. >> investigation is not the only issue, in 2010, we set about setting excellence in our groups, community and science grants putting metrics and outcomes and measures to them so we can translate all the science that we funded over 30 years. many of the grants we were doing with planned parenthood do not meet new standards of criteria for how we can measure our results and effectiveness in communities. >> senator boxer that whole issue was notably missing. that was noticeably missing from her explanation, the statement today. >> andrea, as i told your viewers yesterday, i was not born yesterday. and that was a trumped up excuse. and, you know, you don't need a degree in medicine to know that you need to have a breast screening and by a qualified physician and then if there's something found in that clinical exam, you are referred for mammograms and other kinds of procedures to find out if it's a suspicious brea

. >> yeah, and nancy brinker is the sister of susan g. komen who died of breast cancer.ng you to lora sessions, a pulitzer prize winning author and the campaign to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy. all right. i was so blown away by this story and i don't know why the susan g. komen foundation wasn't as blown away or did they know it was coming and not anticipate this much blowback? >> obviously they didn't anticipate the blowback. they had no idea of the kind of support that's out there in the country for breast screening particularly for poor and underserved areas. this is not a story about middle class women not being able to get breast cancer screenings. it's really a story about those women who need it most. >> all right, well, help me out with the timing here because while everybody is screaming this is politics, that nancy brinker is a real, you know, pal of president bush and this was just an opportunity for her to get out of the partnership with planned parenthood, i went back to find out how long the planned parenthood and susan g. komen relationship has bee

. >> but, a closer look at the statement released by komen founder nancy brinker has some wondering, this really a reversal? komen says the decision to stop funding cancer screenings at planned parenthood was not political. komen also states it will continue planned parenthood's current funding, but current funding was never the issue. komen maintained all along existing grants would remain untouched. the issue and outrage was next year's funding. we will fund existing grants including those of planned parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants. a komen board member confirms what greg sergeant the anounsment does not means planned parenthood is guaranteed future grants. predictably the right wing is outraged over the non-reversal. >> susan g. komen bunch, the race for the cure, they have caved big time to the nazis at planned parenthood. >> this is quintessential confusion. >> who is providing abortions, that is what this is coming down to. >> yes, the pro-choice militant lobby did a smear campaign against the komen foundation. >> it worked. >> it worked. >

. >> nancy brinker struggled to contain the damage. first on msnbc. >> it's not true. >> there is an explosion of anger among your long time supporters. >> there is a tremendous amount, lisa, of emotion, whenever you're dealing with issues of vulnerable populations. whenever the idea of a change. >> a lot of folks see this as a political decision. >> we're not a political organization, this is not based on political decision. >> she says komen stopped new grants to planned parenthood because the group is under investigation in congress and some states. and because much of that money was passed on to other providers, didn't meet new grant criteria designed to measure and improve effectiveness. however, sources knowledgeable about the decision claim these are excuses, komen was trying to find a way to stop funding planned parenthood because of pressure from anti-abortion groups. they say komen's top health official, molly williams, recently resigned in protest over the decision. brinker would not comment. >> your own organization said pl