our chief foreign correspondent richard engel is there. our chief white house correspondent chuck todd starts us off, traveling with the president in jerusalem. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. it has been a busy first day for president obama here in israel. while the trip itself is designed for the president to improve his personal relationship with the israeli

>> richard engel in israel prior to the president's arrival there. richard, thanks. >>> now we turn to the vatican. a remarkable scene today in st. peter's square. pope francis, celebrating his inaugural mass, was out and about in the crowd, kissing babies, hugging the faithful, issuing a call to action, signaling a new emphasis for the church. nbc's anne thompson was there. in fact, anne, you got caught up in it briefly this morning. >> reporter: we did, indeed, brian. and, in fact, by vatican standards this was a much simpler ceremony and certainly one that was much shorter. an hour less than benedict's mass eight years ago. another change in style revealing more about this pope named francis. today pope francis preached with action as well as words. climbing out of his open air jeep to bless a disabled man, stopping to kiss children, and urging the 200,000 people in st. peter's square to be protectors of the poor, the weak, and the environment. >> i think he's going to challenge all of us to live a deeper life of faith. >> reporter: as dawn broke,

>> richard engel back in the region for us tonight.huck todd prior to that traveling with the president starting us off. gentlemen, thanks. >>> back to the press conference, both leaders had opening statements. the actual press conference part was limited to two questions from israeli journalists and two questions from the visiting americans. so when our own friend chuck todd asked a multi part question he got called out for it. >> another question i have for you is -- >> chuck, how many you got? do you guys do this in the israeli press? you say you get one question and then you add, like, five? you see how the young lady from channel 1 had one question? she was very well behaved, chuck. >> this is not a kosher question, but don't hog it. >> chuck, i mean, you're just incorrigible. >> he is incorrigible, come to think of it. our own chuck todd called out in jerusalem and guilty as charged. truth be told. >>> back in this country, there is an intense manhunt under way in the state of colorado after a high profile figure in that state wa

. >>> up next here this evening on the eve of electing a new pope, richard engel uncovered just whats fuelling all the speculation about just why it is the pope stepped down. >> so the only way for him to bring down those around him was to fall on his own sword. >> this was not just his resignation. it was a way of firing everybody. [ male announcer ] i've seen incredible things. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air. suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ of "got my medicare drug card" and "gotta get savings," bring in your prescriptions to walgreens. as a preferred pharmacy provider, we may help you save with lower co-pays. walgreens. at the corner of happy and healthy. got you ! you cannot escape the rebel forces ! ahhh. got you ! got ya ! gotcha ! got ya. that's all you got, brother ? take that. never having to surrender the things that matter. gotcha. that's

our chief foreign correspondent richard engel is covering this. effective with netanyahu saying at the airports thank you for standing with israel. the business of this trip may have been accomplished meaning getting there was part of the issue. >> reporter: it certainly was. the president received a lot of criticism for waiting until his second term to come to israel. so much has changed since the president's first visit to the middle east when he went to cairo, addressed the arab world and talked about the need for democratic change. now in his second term he's coming to israel. it is surrounded by hostile nations and surrounded by chaos. a country that's walling itself off. to have the president here expressing support for the prime minister, for the state of israel right now is something israel feels is very important and a bit long time coming. >> in fact, one of the first stops the president made before leaving the airport, before leaving the tarmac was to inspect the iron dome missile defense system. both leaders have entered the room. let'

the idea was to make israel feel secure in an increasingly insecure region. >> all right, richard engel, just back from the region. he's in new york this morning. thank you very much, richard. to david] and e.j. dionne. what did the president accomplish in terms of how did he perform? that's a big aspect of the trip. >> it was a triumph. he hasn't brought peace to the mideast but the right loved it. the left loved it. he gave a strong, really strong endorsement and vocalization of what zionism is all about. politically or policy wise he moved us away from settlement issues back to a pre-obama policy which says israel is not going to be giving away land as long as extremism is on the march. we have to have some peace process so the moderates in the region can be strengthened. that's where america should be. that's where people on both sides want to be. he achieved that. >> e.j. dionne, there is the prospect of conflict that can roil the region from syria as well as the threat from iran. the president also has to prepare the american public for some kind of u.s. engagement. >> well, you k

with some analysis about the president's trip this morning with our chief foreign correspondent richard engel back from the region. he is in new york this morning. i have david brooks of "the new york times" and e.j. dionne with the "washington post" here with me in washington. richard, let me start with you. the president called on israel to renew efforts to the creation of a palestinian state. he helped restore the israeli/turkish relationship. so what else do you think he can return with that he can actually build upon? >> well, i think the reconciliation between turkey and israel is something that's very important, because i wouldn't see the chances right now of an israeli/palestinian reconciliation, but i do think the middle east recognizes that there are urgent regional matters as syria implodes that the region needs to have some sort of summit and turkey is going to play a big part of that. so i think coming out of this, you're going to see istanbul emerging as a major destination for diplomatic relations. i think that was the way to view the middle east trip right now in a regional co

. >> reporter: nbc's richard engel who covered the war from beginning to end. >> iraq didn't become a stable u.s. friendly democracy. but a shiite led state with close ties to iran. still at war with itself. >> reporter: kerry warns prime minister that courting iran risks his partnership with the u.s. >> i also made it clear to him that there are members of congress and people in america who increasingly are watching what iraq is doing. >> reporter: kerry's tough warning to iraq's leader today. americans did not invest so much of their blood and treasure in iraq to have iraq now help iran prop up assad in syria. andrea mitchell, nbc news, traveling with the secretary of state in baghdad. >>> imagine for a moment that the u.s. government closed all the banks for more than a week, tried to impose a huge tax on large deposits and restricted how much cash you could withdraw from an atm. that's exactly what's going on tonight in cyprus. a member of the eurozone as it tries to raise enough money to qualify for a big bail-out from european lenders. cnbc's michelle caruso-cabrera has the late

with some analysis about the president's trip this morning with our chief foreign correspondent richard engel back from the region. he is in new york this morning. i have david brooks of "the new york times" and e.j. dionne with me in washington. richard, let me start with you. the president called on israel to renew efforts to the creation of a palestinian

we have invited richard engel to talk about some of those questions. new pope, still a lot of questions about the last one, why we left. people talk about scandal. we think about the sex abuse within the church. you're talking about another scandal too. >> this is what all the italian papers are talking about. for the last couple years in the united states we talked about the abuses by priests. but according to italian authors and journalists, the scandal with the most impact inside the vatican, inside its management is one of finances. it goes back to the vatican bank. and according to journalists what ultimately led to the pope's resignation goes back to the vatican bank and the attempt to reform it that went wrong. >> for a minute forget that the vatican is a church. it's also a state. a very rich one. its real estate alone is worth billions. and that's just the buildings, palaces and monasteries, not the art they contain. much of it priceless. the vatican also runs a bank. >> if you follow this crisis to its basic core it's about the money, isn't i

i share richard engel's ke skepticism because of what colon powell called the pottery barn rule, once get involved in breaking the system or breaking the status quo, then you're responsible for fixing it. >> for fixing it. >> and that's on the -- given the fact that we're just ending the war in iraq and about to pull out of afghanistan, there's very little interest in the united states, whether it's republicans or democrats, for getting involved in a third middle east conflict where it could involve a long-term and very costly presence. so i think the administration will move very carefully on this one. but it is, indeed, a game changer if, in fact, chemical weapons have been used. >> robin wright and professioner jaims peterson. thank you both for joining us today. >>> next, 20 dead first graders, not enough to move an assault weapons ban through the senate. crazy. stay with us. >>> they can call me crazy. they call us crazy. they call us crazy. they call me crazy. they call us crazy? they say we're crazy? ♪ [ coughs ] [ angry gibberish ] i took something for my sinuses, but i still

nbc's chief correspondent richard engel is looking into them at the vatican. ood morning. >> reporter: good morning, lester. just the first bit of news today. vatican spokesperson said we should know the date of the start of the conclave some time this afternoon, rome time. that's the process by which the cardinals will elect a new pope. but what we still don't know, not definitively anyway, is why pope benedict decided to retire. and the main theory is that it wasn't just because of his age and health, but that he became aware of a number of controversies among the vatican's top leadership, first exposed by an italian investigative journalist. >> are you the man who brought down the pope? >> translator: no. how can you think a journalist can bring down a pope? >> reporter: but many believe that's exactly what happened. this journalist exposed some of the vatican's most guarded secrets. a scoop seen in italy as big as watergate. italians call it vatileaks. the pope's butler passed about 100 pages of documents he photocopied and smuggled out of the pope's own ap

richard engel covered it from the start, he's in jerusale sta.d morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, savannah. we are in jerusalem where president obama tomorrow will begin a visit to boost relations with israel, the palestinian authority, and jordan. for the united states, the war in iraq began ten years ago, but for iraqis, it never really ended. it began on a clear night, with military precision, as guided bombs brought shock and awe to baghdad. u.s. troops charged up through the desert, and soon baghdad was falling. iraq's oil money was supposed to pay for the war. it didn't work out that way. from now on, the war set its own agenda, an insurgency erupted that became a religious civil war. sunnis versus shiites, americans now stuck battling to keep the two sides from killing each other, and u.s. forces. iraqis accuse the united states of invading to find weapons of mass destruction that were never there, and destroying a delicate religious balance. the white house stopped claiming all was well in iraq, and thousands more troops surged.

. >> you know, richard engel a couple of years ago, i asked him what was going on in iraq and asked himhat they thought about george w. bush. and he said not much. not much. but they would put statues of david petraeus up on every square if they had a chance. >> well, richard haas, we have this from daniel dunby. who writes in part, turkey is the economic winner of the iraq war. the americans won the war, the iranians won the peace and the turks won the contracts. with iraq's kurdish region seeking to reduce the dependence on baghdad, the relationship with turkey may soon move to another level. tensions are increasing over turkey's plans to invest in the northern iraqi energy sector. maliki said such an agreement would be unconstitutional. so, look at the winners and losers overall. and looking back, i mean, how do we assess our decisions? and some of them were so flawed anyway. >> history, i think, is going to be somewhere between critical and brutal of what we decided to do as well as how we did it. to use the language i introduced, this was a war of choice. it was ill-advised and poo

richard engel who is over there now says we have a new kind of war fare between the shiite and the sunniarily chaotic. we know tensions against maybe netanyahu and the president of the united states. nobody should have any illusions how this is going to advance, the common interests of israel and the united states. >> your father, mika, the architect of the one great breakthrough in 1979. two years later the man he helped strike the deal with was dead. it is one step forward, two steps back. >> i guess the question always is, jeff and alex, you know, how much of a lead this country should take. there are those who know a lot about this who say we should lead the way in the path to peace. >> i hate to sound a skeptical note but just to underline what tom said, several years ago i went back and tried to count the number of piece plans, you know? even before huntley/brinkley back from john cameron swayze days as the anchor of nbc news. there is the other neutralists. outside of a couple of breakthroughs, sadat and decision to sign a peace treaty probably the one -- to peace. my feeling is a

she also backed great candidates like christine o'donnell, sharon engel and richard murdoch.eo you didn't show that your viewers will be spared from is basically a bunch of media clips, seeking to validate that she is still relevant. and the thing that i really like about that is she has basically made her career blasting thethe clips from the lame stream media to claim -- desperately claim she is still somehow rely availability. >> unfortunately, there is no clip of me in there asserting her irrelevance. but this is exactly the kind of thing that republicans worry about. because, you know, there she is, out there, draining -- will drain money, surely. she'll have some success raising money. and that's money that, you know, the karl roves of the world, her new rival, are also out there trying to drum up so people -- and karl rove would say, they could direct it toward more candidates with a better chance of winning. >> well, that's exactly right. and not only that, she is the image of the republican party that they want to move beyond. it's no surprise that she is against the

if you looked at the nevada race, sharon engel and richard murdoch in indiana and i forget the name, the witch in delaware. >> chris: kristine o'donnell. >> thank you. we could have functional control of the united states senate. >> chris: there were a lot of establishment republican candidates who went down in the last the election, too. >> went down from the standpoint that they lost to democrats unlike some of these mr. murdoch for instance. we are supposed to wonder chris richard murdoch, indiana. >> why we don't have the women's vote when we have a candidate suggesting that a child born as a result of rape is a gift from god. i'm not wondering why we don't have more women voting for republicans. >> chris: let me ask you about that. karl rove called the conservative victory project to try to get into the the primaries to make sure there are more electable republicans. congressman you are about to start your own super pac to promote electable candidates in republican primaries. have any problem with that. first of all, why do you think that is wrong? >> i think the definition of e

for the republican party in terms are running candidates that are not todd akin or richard maurer dock or sharon engel is putting money behind other candidates. establishment candidates have money. what has changed is the todd money, grass-roots support. i can understand how that is a frustrating feeling, trying to throw money at the problem and solving it that way. it highlights this divide between those who do want to broaden the party and those who say, you know what, our problem with john mccain, our problem with mitt romney was not that they were too far to the right, it was that they were not clear about their conservative principles. there were the mainstream candidates. they were the establishment candidates. they did not do so well. i would argue that mitt romney's problem, he had a number of them, but one of them was that got killed so far to the right and things like immigration that he could not come back to the center. it is a remarkable illustration of the divide in the party. host: michael has this on twitter -- working people call you on twitter? .uest: @krystalball host: this is from