i could no longer disine reverend wright than the black community. the reverend's recentful. at the be end of the meeting, you ask reverend wright about this and obama says something profound. tell it. and i will play it. >> he says, the trouble with you, reverend, is that you have to tell the truth. and reverend wright says to him, that's not bad trouble to have, mr. obama. >> sean: wow. so in other words, he is saying, you -- he is saying, i don't have to tell the truth. >> that's right. >> sean: all right. listen to this. >> talk to him about being elected? >> at that point, he was -- yes, and he told me as -- as... yes. he was confident, he was very hopeful. but he saw me as a deterrent, which is why he didn't -- >> how did you two leave each other that day in your living room? >> he said, i'm sorry you don't see it that way. i said, oh -- he said to me that day, he said, you know what your problem is? you have to tell the truth. i said, that's a good problem to have. >> sean: so basically, reverend wright is telling the world right now, knowing

saying in his own voice there's no question that this happened ok the president has responded to reverend wright in his association with the reverend and i think that should be sufficient to make. any of the way the president's governor the last four years reflected reverend wright you know i mean why would it be brought up as a new issue other than this kind of got your teacher talking about which really has nothing to do with anything in the country now well that represents a corrupt behavior i mean if his best friend if his best friend really does bribe someone to stay silent during the political side of this unity bribery not the controversial words that reverend wright said i attended i think that for the most part reverend wright has been covered pretty hard unless unless further associations come out where obama specifically has associations with reverend wright i think that those have been covered pretty well it's more like beating a dead horse at this point conservatives like to target the reverend wright stuff to the big stick to president obama using bain or is that's not a fair compa

reverend wright.ne of his books about, you know, how he did study the koran and et cetera and that prayer at sunset was one of the most beautiful things in the world. but when he was a kid. you asked wright if he thought that barack obama at in -- at some point was a muslim. >> do you think he ever -- thought of himself as muslim? >> yeah. >> no. >> no. it's like. i am sure high got some grief not pres leitizing grief, but some grief from that part of his family. i say that based on my wide range of muslim friends. >> sean: what do you think of that? >> well, i was very interested in another part of that, as well, which is, when i asked the reverend wright about this whole question of islam and christianity. he said, well, you know, barack obama was steeped in islam. he knew a lot about islam from his childhood. but he knew very little about christianity. i made it easy for him to feel not guilty about learning about christianity without turning his back on his islamic friends? >> what does that mean?

the plan would bring back jeremiah wright the reverend in a big way. the world is about to see jeremiah wright and understand his influence on barack obama. our plan is to do what john mccain would not let us do. the 54 page proposal before a five minute video would portray wright's black liberation theology, proposal and anticipated charges of race-baiting, suggested hiring an extremely literate conservative african-american as a spokesperson who can argue mr. obama misled the nation by presenting himself as a metrosexual black abe lincoln. give me a break. the proposal also suggested listing a group of black business leaders to endorse the effort. this morning, mitt romney said he hadn't heard anything about it. once his campaign got their act together, he said this. >> as i read the article, i want to make it very clear i repudiate that effort. i think it's the wrong course for a pac or campaign. i hope our campaigns can respectively be about the future and issues and about a vision for america. i've been disappointed on the president's campaign to d

why did he bring up reverend wright? . he brought the ad campaign because he saw this woman play this new guy is desperate to get the job. so why don't i do a 54-page proposal for the guy, get prior approval at a new york meeting, come back for further approval, it hits the "new york times," and wait a minute, oh, now the "new york times" find out about it, he says he's not going to do it. but he indicated before a couple times he would do it, and then we see a little note that says, with your preliminary approval at the new york meeting and then they get caught. thaet my thought. your thought? major. >> it's all part of the public record, everything you said. everything can evaluate romney what he said in february, why he said it then and why he's repudiating it now. >> the concept for rep repudiation -- >> everything for the course of contacts not only invites scrutiny and deserves scrutiny. i'm not saying romney doesn't deserve scrutiny, it's all public record. if you don't like them now or you don't like them then, the

reverend wright preaches no differently than hundreds of black ministers. he's a well educated and well respected man. what he said you would hear on many churches sunday morning. many would say that's just the reverend, he feels excited about these things. i think this is a pocket of nothing, and i'm glad that the man who is going to do it has backed away. he realized it was a mistake and he's not going to do it. >> why would you think that strategist would -- this is something when we were talking about this when i saw it come up, i said, this is so five years ago. why is reverend wright the boogeyman, a big enough boogeyman for someone who bring him up again to scare away voters or to scare republican voters or conservative voters into voting for mitt romney and not barack obama? >> most of us never heard of reverend wright until four years ago and the republicans waved him in front of the electorate and said this is an awful man, a scary man, be afraid of him and he's close to barack obama, so watch out. none of that was true about him, obama never hear

him listening to reverend wright.m saying that we must be a less christian nation. >> exactly. exactly. that's exactly the point. he brought it up on his own in february on sean hannity's show. i have no doubt, mitt romney, the man will say anything to get elected. i know we say that about politicians. but he would use jeremiah wright, if he thought it would work. but it can't. president obama is isn't an unknown commodity now. he has a record to run on. >> the thing that's interesting. >> go ahead, l.z. then, alice. >> the thing i found interesting, too, i doubted that romney wanted to have this discussion. >> about religion. >> especially about religion. herman cain said what influence did sitting in front of jeremiah wright have on the president. and romney was 31 before, the mormons allowed black people to serve in leadership in his church. 20 years has what to bring forth in a president. what does 31 years look like on a presidential candidate? i don't think he wants to have that conversation. >> i don't think mi

>> the issue is not reverend wright. the issue is the economy. >> i saw an e-mail, they're already using that proposal to raise money among democrats. >> this kind of nonsense shouldn't happen. the election is going to be about the economy. getting americans back to work and i think governor romney's prescriptions are a lot better. >> facebook ipo is today. and i know you don't pick stocks. i want to ask you, we saw a couple of senators yesterday, schumer and kasey, introduce legislation about one of the founders who renounced his citizenship, they said, anyone who renounces their citizenship, should pay all of their taxes or they can't come back. >> that's outrageous. >> what's outrageous? >> that someone would renounce their citizenship to not pay taxes. >> how about on the issue of jpmorgan, their losses continue to climb, on this tlad that many believe, many believe it would run afoul of the dodd/frank law, they believe that this is a sign that even tougher regulation may be needed, are you still confident repeeling

and sound policy to have that discussion and that debate. >>> we saw this flurry this week over reverend wrightturn of reverend for a day. you see it right there. a proposal given to joe ricketts to bring back this issue, now, as i said in my interviews, george will, mitt romney's repudiated and john ricketts ended up repudiating. this plan was made and it created excitement for 48 hours. >> john ricketts repudiated the instant he saw it. his group is called end spending. that's what he's interested in. not the seshl social issues, nothing else. he asked some of his people to produce a plan, what they got a plan that ignored what he's interested in. ricketts took one look at it and said, no. "new york times," that didn't fit their narrative. billionaire behaving responsibly. they said he's studying it, they have commissioned this. they have neglected the whole fact that is a small story with a nice ending. an affluent man said no. >> the thing about this, all of us who have been in politics, i know fred davis, i have known fred davis, fred davis worked for me in 2004 in the bush campaign. he wo

so who are they going to use in reverend wright of course. ey have all of these ideas for ads et cetera. let's show you a mock up. they say his spiritual mentor for decades, jeremiah wright the inspiration for obama's book, campaign and his life. how many times do we see this. but what is interesting is how stupid they are. because joke ricketts quote is at the top saying if only america would see this ad about reverend wright. but we did. this group called the national republican trust pac ran thatted a to the tune of $7 million in 2008. here is theed a they ran back then. >> for 20 years, barack obama followed a preacher of hate and said nothing as wright raged against our country. >> he keeps his power base in wright's church. he was his mentor advisor, and close friend. obama never complained until he ran for president. barack obama too radical too risky. >> yeah they tried that they ran $7 million worth of that ad. it didn't work you knuckle heads. fox news gave them all of the free advertising in the world. they ran it over and over and

av -- of all the people in his life, reverend jeremiah wright is the most stable, the most successful, the most normal, kind of surprising and shocking. >> sean: reverend jeremiah wright said he was never a big churchgoer, that this was about political ambition for him and now feels that barack obama abandoned everything. he is not liberal enough, not left enough for jeremiah wright. >> interesting that in his state senator day, chicago state senator days where obama talks about attending church every week, week in and week out and jeremiah wright videos came out and he said, with young kids, it's hard to get to church every week. most illustrative about reverend jeremiah wright is that obam told us, he had never heard the videos we have heard, the incendiary messages of reverend jeremiah wright, but said he had never heard jeremiah wright say anything controversial. this is not a guy who suddenly turns it on and off -- obam's coming, be on your best behavior. >> sean: he said, he is like family to me. >> he married them. >> sean: he appears to praise malcolm-x's autobiography, well k

earlier this week karl rove had this to say about dragging the reverend wright into the current campaign>> trying to dredge up jeremiah wright, right or wrong, after this issue was litigated four years ago by john mccain deciding not to litigate it was stupid. >> joining me now is steve schmidt, msnbc political analyst, former seniored a virz advisor for the campaign. palin told the times in 2008 she wanted to talk about reverend wright. last night she disagreed with mccain's owned a virzs during the campaign. did she ever say to you or john mccain that she wanted to use the reverend wright against barack obama? >> well, she did, martin. she did all time. and i think something that is important to understand here, is this is john mccain's decision. john mccain ran for president of the united states. john mccain won his party's nomination. it was his call. john mccain said absolutely not under no circumstances do i want to inject the poison of race into this campaign. it was the right thing for john mccain to do. this was the right thing politically for john mccain to do. most people unde

i would say the difference with reverend right and bain, which is obama repudiated the things things wright said. will he do that with bain? to get the equivalent treatment he would have to do the equivalent of what candidate obama did with reverend right and the distance that he wanted to put between himself and reverend right with the church itself and some of the things he said. is that the message that mitt romney is trying to say? that he is setting himself up? i get it and i think they thought let's repudiate, but at the same time, let's reemphasize the fact that look, the obama campaign is throwing negative ads our way, let's see if some of this mud will stick to them. i think it's a tough argument to make. i think you can get away with that and sort of believe opponents in the media to not touch the religious issue. it's part of the story he is trying to sell. >> let's take a look at what romney said on shawn hannity. let's put his record and the way he talks up here. let's go back to the hannity performance when he is in that theater. >> what do you make of that commentary there, m

they do feel that we kind of pulled back on reverend wright. it was sort of like president obama will not -- candidate obama said yes, i was -- i was in his church for 20 years but i'm not responsible for what he says and i can't say that characterization -- >> we have to remember mainstream media, the right wing wouldn't have that story if it wasn't for the mainstream media. >> the most important part here is reverend wright is irrelevant to obama now. he's been president for four years. and he has a record that you can attack. it doesn't matter. >> exactly. most americans don't see obama as some militant black socialist. that's just not the image that they have. there might be many swing voters who are unhappen with his record on the economy. but -- unhappy with his record on the economy. but they won't buy into that vision of him. the thing that was owe sod about the furor over -- was so odd about the furor over the wright ads was the discussion of that being off-limits or things being off-limits. in this day and age, nothing's off-limits an

i simply said what reverend wright told ed. all this is happening because they got a pass four years ago and people are still ticked off about that. >> what didn't happen is 150 million -- >> talking about the scrutiny on bill ahers. >> let's talk about that, not from some evidence from a guy that is a liar. >> if you say he's a liar, maybe voters think about this. show me your friends and i'll tell you who you are. that was obama's theme for a long time and you're saying he's a liar. >> case closed. i rest my case. >> coming up, hanoi jane fonda. bill ahers and bob beckel, what do they have in common? all were anti-war activists and have been thrown under the bus by none other than president barack obama. bob will explain how he feels next. if you are one of the millions of men who have used androgel 1%, there's big news. presenting androgel 1.62%. both are used to treat men with low testosterone. androgel 1.62% is from the makers of the number one prescribed testosterone replacement therapy. it raises your testosterone levels