david gergen, ari fleischer, roland martin and dana lash. want to play some of bachmann's back and forth with rick perry about over the 2007 decision regarding the hpv vaccine which played well. >> governor perry, as you well know, you signed an executive order requiring little girls 11 and 12-year-old girls to get a vaccine to deal with a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cervical cancer. was that a mistake? >> it was. indeed. if i had to do it over again, i would have done it differently. i would have gone to the legislature, worked with them. but what was driving me was obviously making a difference about young people's lives. cervical cancer is a horrible way to die. >> i wanted to add that we cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order, there is a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate. we can't deny that. what i'm saying is that it's wrong for a drug company because the governor's former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company. the drug company gave thousands

roland martin has been participating.27 year high last month for african-americans. and this was shocking. you got to go back to the reagan administration to see a situation that's been so difficult for this particular group. what's the problem, what solutions are being discussed, or are we not discussing race specific solutions and that's a problem? >> first of all, we're not discussing race specific solutions. do understand there's a common phrase used that when america gets a cold black america gets pneumonia. so whenever there's an economic downturn, folks who are at the lower end are always impacted. first of all, when you talk about black men, you have to tie the job situation to education. and so when you talk about detroit and chicago and other cities where you have 25, 35, 40% of black men graduating from high school, what that means sue have people who are not even -- not even a having high school diplomas where they are in a position looking at lower wage jobs important,ly customer service jobs or opting for jo

that's what i'm afended about. >> roland martin, obviously, that played very well to a very conservative. how do you think it played to maybe independents? >> well, look, here you have a governor who is saying, first of all, he said if he had to do it again, he won the do it, he think one of the mistakes he made was trying to keep coming back and defending it. once you've made clear, look, i would not have done it, i would have gone to the legislature, you leave it there. sometimes you have to take a hit, when you know it's there. trying to explain it is not a really good idea. but look, i still don't think -- you know, they can spend as much time as they want talking about this vaccine and this whole notion of a mandate, this election, though, when you appeal to independents will still come down to the issue of the economy. when they spend so much time on these issues, and you're not really dealing with the whole notion of what is your specific jobs plan, what is your point when it comes to education, what are you dealing with the poor, those who are impoverished, that's who's going to

and cnn political analyst roland martin. thanks for joining us. eric, i will start with you.isn't backing down from calling social security a ponzi scheme. how will that play in peoria and florida? >> a lot of people understand what he means. the right-leaning nobel prize winner milton freeman and left-leaning nobel prize winners also said this. there is word michele bachmann may try to attack perry over this. i think he may be able to couch it in a way he doesn't want to end the system, he wants to fix the system. polls suggest senior citizens get it. >> we'll see tomorrow night. but he said it. ponzi scheme. was it a bad term? may not have been the right term but social security is on shaky ground. >> it's a dumb term. you don't want to fall for the bumper sticker slogan and not adequately explain yourself. here you are going to another debate and now if you're governor rick perry you have to explain yourself further. the previous texas governor who was president, president george w. bush talked about private security accounts. it was a logical thing that republicans suppor

last year roland martin and will kaine spoke out. >> the past racial discrimination is unforgivable. cally, roland, it does not follow that a harm was done to person a by person b so you will give a benefit to person c by injuring person d. do you understand that? that's what you do today. you exclude students based upon race because you're giving favor to other students based upon race. based upon things fun dift years ago. the if you're going to tell me there's legacy existing today. that exists in de facto. that exists out there in society and it's not part of law that's in place today and you don't cure that by embracing racism. you don't cure that by having the state embrace racism. >> roland? >> legacy is okay. preference is okay with legacy because, will, guess what. if you're grandfather went to a university 75 years ago, you get an opportunity to be able to write that down and you get credit. but my black grandfather couldn't have gone to that university so i don't get to use that legacy. so you tell me who now has a preference. >> the bake sale is expected to take place tomo

also senior legal analyst, jeffrey toobin, senior analyst, roland martin and bj bernstein, a former prosecuteare a lot of experience in the georgia courts, including with the state superior judge who denied davis' appeal today. roland, were you surprised that the supreme court took so long? were you surprised at how they ultimately ruled? >> i'm very surprised. i did not expect them to take this long. obviously, we expected his attorneys to file an appeal and filed in court, many people look at it as [ inaudible ] folks on the left or right, right in there in the center but clearly the amount of time they took, very surprising, more than three hours. look, i'm born and raised in texas, stood outside of prisons covering executions and i will tell you, it was very surprising to watch people, a lot of people on social media who thought that was -- that there was a ray of hope that the court would have a stay, further conversation, felt everything had been exhausted and simply did not rise to the level [ inaudible ] >> jeff, given that it was basically one line from the court, you had thought may

joining us now is erick erickson and roland martin and gloria borger. erick erickson, you think that he went too far with this last night? >> i thought she scored sizable points against rick perry last night. had she stopped there, she probably would be okay. but to go on to the mental retardation issues today without knowing the woman was i think the quickest implosion of a candidate since the dean scream in 2004. we learned at redstate.com today that michele bachmann was in the minnesota legislature and they did, bascially on the similar grounds of hpv, they did the hepatitis b vaccine. and not only did they not include a parental opt-out, they didn't include an opt-in. it was mandatory for children without parental consent. we can't find a record that shows that michele bachmann either sponsored, drafted, submitted or wrote legislation to include a parental opt-in or opt-out. this makes the issue in texas moot when she was in the minnesota legislature to fix the hep-b vaccine issue and she didn't attempt it. >> that's interesting, erick. really her a

ari fleischer, roland martin. thank you both. >>> let us know what you think, we're on facebook, follow me on twitter, @andersoncooper. up next, a cnn reporter caught in the crossfire in libya. >> i've been shot! >> down, down, down. >> they drove to the hospital. what happened there is incredible. we'll show it to you. >>> sea world versus federal investigators in court today. investigators say the park willfully put its whale trainers at risk. there was a hearing today. a judge will decide if that is true or not after the death of a sea world trainer in front of a horrified crowd. let's also check in with isha sesay. >>> dramatic new video that shows the mosts just before and after that deadly crash during an air race in nevada. it happened so fast there was no time to get out of the way. the death toll has risen. we'll have the latest. that's just ahead. [ male announcer ] this...is the network. a living, breathing intelligence that is helping business rethink how to do business. in here, inventory can be taugh

with roland martin, kevin madden and erik erickson. who has to stop complaining?eality is when you look at unemployment at 27% in terms of essentially young folks. actually 40%. it's a huge number. black men as well. so look, as a return on investment, african-americans made it perfectly clear when president obama was elected 96% of the vote. a lot of people say, well, hey, he really can't do certain things, wait for the second term. no second term is guaranteed. it's a question of this administration recognizing that there are some issues with his base. if you look at the washington post last week, those numbers have been falling. the administration says that's okay. things will work out. he needs a dramatic turnout in virginia, in georgia, in north carolina and in florida and those critical states in order for him to win re-election. he has to shore that base up. he has some work to do. >> let me add ohio and michigan and maybe some others. >> and pennsylvania. >> i want to show our republican friends some numbers here so see what they think of the difference he

roland martin is a contributor.mulus, does president obama really have an economic record to prove republicans wrong here. >> how in the world can you continue to sit here and say oh, we've supported these things in the past. but now we don't necessarily like it. this makes no sense to me. this is the fundamental problem when you talk about how did you come to a conclusion. i crack up when will said, well, he put something forward that he knows will fail. the point is you put together your best proposal and duke it out. you can't even guess what they think on the opposite side. they thought the debt ceiling and speaker said, no, we don't like it. it makes no sense whatsoever. this is actually the gop being object stinnent. there are republicans on the record in the political piece that say we don't want to give him a win. that is shameful rhetoric. >> hold on. i see you bristling. i want to bring in ben white, correspondent for politico. both sides want to convince they care more about creating jobs. election 13 mon

ari fleischer, roland martin. thank you both. >>> let us know what you think, we're on facebook, follow me on twitter, @andersoncooper. up next, a cnn reporter caught in the crossfire in libya. >> i've been shot! >> down, down, down. >> they drove to the hospital. what happened there is incredible. we'll show it to you. >>> sea world versus federal investigators in court today. investigators say the park willfully put its whale trainers at risk. there was a hearing today. a judge will decide if that is true or not after the death of a sea world trainer in front of a horrified crowd. let's also check in with isha sesay. >>> dramatic new video that shows the moments just before and after that deadly crash during an air race in nevada. it happened so fast there was no time to get out of the way. the death toll has risen. we'll have the latest. that's just ahead. [ male announcer ] this...is the network. a living, breathing intelligence that is helping business rethink how to do business. in here, inventory can be tau

contributor roland martin. well let's talk about this all the way china sort of threatened the u.s. if they would have agreed to that fail of new were more advanced and you could say you know if the u.s. economy suffers china will suffer but it seems to me that this is not just business when this is personal this is geopolitics actually was what is going on here taiwan and china have had actually had pretty good relations considering the fact that the claim each other's territory for their for their own and national is on taiwan and communism of aging through a process called the cross streets negotiations however china looks at the united states interference as something that they don't want to deal with they have no problem dealing with the government in taiwan especially the current president who is a big advocate of this cross street dialogue increasing trade between taiwan and china for example but whatever happens out of this fight or deal china will get four point two billion dollars in military aid from the united states maybe not the advance of sixteen's maybe in a package

. >> roland martin is a cnn contributor. roland, the unemployment rate for january 2008 was 7.8%. today, it is 9.1%. last month, the economy didn't create any net new jobs. republicans argue this is because of his policies, not despite them. roland, why aren't the president's policies then creating more jobs? >> first of all, that's if you accept the republican rationale which is absolutely idiotic because somehow it ignores the rest of the world. so we're sitting here acts as if what a president can do alone somehow can fix the economy. look, we gave banks money under the view that somehow they were going to lend the money out. they didn't. they shored up their balance sheets. also, our economy is all based upon consumer demand, consumer spending. if you don't have the confidence, they don't spend. you're in the going to add more employees if you don't have more customers. it's ridiculous to somehow think that a presidential policy alone somehow would drive this. we're operating in a whole new world these days. and politicians don't want to accept that. any time you hear republic

numbers with eric eric son, republican start gist and from the 2008 campaign, kevin madden and roland martin the simple horse race numbers, perry was doing this and has now done this. in your take and in your conversations with fellow conservatives, as people learn more and more about the record, they get a little pause. >> it's not so much his record, except on immigration. the hpv thing has been overplayed. it's giving people a lot of pause. what is giving more pause than anything, is the third debate performance. i suspect the polling was done starting the friday and saturday, sunday after the debate, had it gone on a little longer, although obviously you couldn't because of the calendar, perry's numbers would have been down even further. his debate was horrible and people are willing to give him one more chance to get it right and move on to someone else. >> i want to shoi, before i bring kevin and roland into the conversation, governor romney and his wife. they were out in michigan over the weekend and i'm going to call this, no disrespect to anybody intended, al gore liked. >> you want

joining us, roland martin and tara wall. land, the president gets his back up when he's asked this question. i've been around him before when it comes up. no, that's not my job. my job is not just to help the african-american community, my job is to help america. right answer? >> wrong answer. latinos talk about the dream act, we know what they're talking about. gays and lesbians talk about don't ask, don't tell, we know that they're talking about. there is a way to answer the question. there is no need to go defensive. part of the reason is the white house is sensitive to white criticism of who are you helping? tea party study that was done showed that 25% of them felt he was doing more for african-americans than any others. but black voters are his constituents. so therefore you can target programs so don't be afraid to answer the question. >> i think the president certainly is correct. he does represent all the people. it is the same argument president bush made when he was asked the same question among minority constituen

also with us, roland martin, a cnn political analyst and author, columnist and host of his own show onble. and john avlon is a cnn contributor, senior political columnist for "newsweek" and the daily beast. we got all that out of the way. mary, to you first. are african-americans brainwashed to lean left, do you think? >> well, there are certainly -- if you're a conservative black american, as herman cain was saying -- and i've -- we've all seen said about other conservative blacks -- you are, to use clarence thomas' unforgettable phrase -- subjected to high-tech lynchings. you're k5u8d called an uncle to. you're called an oriole. the democrats practice a kind of identity politics. you're a black american, you're a female, it is your sexual orientation. so rather than debate the policies for ascribe to failure policies, they say it is not that our policies aren't working -- you need to be continually aggrieved because if you're not, your problems continue because they hate you, they're racist, it is a patriarchal society. that's what herman cain is saying and everybody knows it. he's u

. >> roland martin is joining us outside the u.s. supreme court. roland, are there still a lot of people out there? >> well, absolutely. you got about 100 or so people here. they are gathered around listening to broadcasts on their cell phones. they are, of course, standing here waiting for the word when troy davis actually is put to death. you have had a number of people who have come and gone and folks, you know, lighting candles, they have been praying, it is extremely quiet out here. not much noise at all. also, you look over my left shoulder, you got about seven supreme court security guards who are standing of out here as well. you don't have a significant police presence along this street but again, folks carrying signs, wearing "i'm troy davis" t-shirts, again, expressing their view point. anderson, if i could talk on a couple of thing also jeff said, i think it is important there is no doubt that people have conflicting feelings when it comes to the death penalty, when they see a case, anger with the casey anthony, people say how dare she g

so let's check in with cnn contributors james carville and roland martin to see what they make of theme out here. david axelrod says guys like me, and i know he means you too, mr. carville, that we're wrong. he says the president is strong, especially among the base, but if you look at the numbers we just showed, overall approval rating down. among democrats down. among african-americans the president's stable. women, he's down. whites he's down. independents he's down. is there any other way to read this, james, as the president's in trouble? and why is mr. axelrod pushing back so quick -- so hard? >> well, first of all, i really like and admire and respect david axelrod top so get that out of the way. in fact, i don't think david really believes that. i think he has a job to do, and i've had the same job before, and sometimes we try to put as positive of a spin as we can on things. my point i'm trying to make here, things are not well. we're losing elections. the opposition, we can't let them win this race. let's recognize that and make some changes and get this thing on the right t

joining me now is andrew weed, justice and roland martin, a texas native. andrew, you've been covering governor perry for many years in texas. how close are these two? >> well, i think for all practical purposes, mike toomey and governor perry are attached at the hip. they've worked together for 25 years. they were roommates when they both served in the texas house together when mr. toomey worked as a chief of staff for the governor. and he had a nickname and that nickname was governor toomey. there's a sense here in austin that mr. toomey, very bright and hard working, is the power behind the throne of governor perry. >> roland, you're saying this sort of -- we're seeing underbelly of politics playing out here? >> absolutely. i hate to suggest that this is what we're used to but that's a fact. i think the voters are saying, my goodness, we're used to this revolving door, whether it's in texas, illinois, or washington, d.c., where people that work for politicians go to corporate america, come back to politics and go back. i remember when president george w.

. >> roland martin joins us outside the u.s. supreme court. are there still a lot of people out there? >> well, absolutely. you have about 100 or so people here. they're gathered around listening to broadcasts on their cell phones. they are, of course, standing here waiting for the word when troy davis actually is put to death. you have had a number of people who have come and gone and folks, you know, lighting candles, they have been praying, it is extremely quiet out here. not much noise at all. also, you look over my left shoulder, you got about seven supreme court security guards who are standing of out here as well. you don't have a significant police presence along this street but again, folks carrying signs, wearing "i'm troy davis" t-shirts, again, expressing their viewpoint. anderson, if i could talk on a couple of thing also jeff said, i think it is important there is no doubt that people have conflicting feelings when it comes to the death penalty, when they see a case, anger with the casey anthony, people say how dare she get away

joining me now is andrew weed, justice and roland martin, a texas native. andrew, you've been covering governor perry for many years in texas. how close are these two? >> well, i think for all practical purposes, mike toomey and governor perry are attached at the hip. they've worked together for 25 years. they were roommates when they both served in the texas house together when mr. toomey worked as a chief of staff for the governor. and he had a nickname and that nickname was governor toomey. there's a sense here in austin that mr. toomey, very bright and hard working, is the power behind the throne of governor perry. >> roland, you're saying this sort of -- we're seeing underbelly of politics playing out here? >> absolutely. i hate to suggest that this is what we're used to but that's a fact. i think the voters are saying, my goodness, we're used to this revolving door, whether it's in texas, illinois, or washington, d.c., where people that work for politicians go to corporate america, come back to politics and go back. i remember when president george w.

my guest today, cnn political analysts, roland martin, and steven moore, my friend as well.t me start with you. if congress does exactly what the president wants, and i know it's fantasyland to think they will pass it exactly how he sends it, but if they did will it actually work? >> i love the promise of this segment called holding washington accountable, and that's something that never happens in washington. call me a skeptic. we add a billion-dollar stimulus plan 2 1/2 years ago, and that was never paid for, and before you can pay for this stimulus bill you have to pay for the last one. there is always these promises of being fiscally chased in the few dhutur future. if you have a fat person that says i will go on a diet and first eat these hot fudge sundaes, and then go on a diet. it's skeptical. >> roland, if it was passed the way he wanted and the money goes out into the economy with the tax breaks and infrastructure, roland, can it work? >> first of all you have to define what work means. at the previous stimulus did not, it did not work. if we did not have that, we w

joining us now, cnn political contributor, roland martin, also, former bush speech writer, david frommend it seems like we've been there before. osama bin laden was eliminated. there was some thought he was going to get president obama a big bump because he did something no one else was able to do. now, we've got anwar al-awlaki. is the president going to get a bump this time? >> how this helps the president, it removes the national security conversation out of next year's presidential campaign. at the end of the day, the election going to be about the economy. you can talk iraq, afghanistan, you can talk about killing as many terrorists as you want to, it will boil down to folks'folk pocketbooks. >> churchill, won world war ii, saved civilization and lost the next election. people don't use tbat lot to sa thank group vote business the future what the economy's going to look like in the next four years. >> a failure could hurt you as president jimmy carter, what took place with the hostage rescue in iran. so again, this kind of issue with the economy driving everything, it's going to ov

. >> joining us is cnn political advicer roland martin and david frohm.u just wrote a piece, i just read it, david, suggesting that there already is a chris christie in this race and his name is mitt romney. >> chris christie is a good governor. if he wanted to run, he would make a good president. the fact is, the guy who is the real alternative to rick perry battling it out for that top space, he also was a good govern not and would be a good president and republicans should be more satisfied with the field that they've got. >> with mitt romney? >> with mitt romney. >> you'd be satisfied with mitt romney as a presidential candidate? >> i think he brings a lot of brains and minimum vulnerability to what president obama is going to do. things are not better. he is going to become after the republican nominee on medicare and social security, unemployment insurance, if you're someone opposed to those things, you're going to be vulnerable. >> when chris christie says, i'm not ready to be president of the united states, why can't they just say, okay, we'll do

playing, roland martin, pete dominick, giving a thumbs up. and talk show radio host dana loesch. ll you what, roland, the biggest self-promoter. it kills me. the first question, a cnn/orc poll says only 50% of americans believe the federal government will do what's right, quote/unquote, always or quote/unquote most of the time? what needs to happen to turn that number around and restore more faith in our broken government? roland, start with you? >> stop taking these damn polls. look, everybody hates government. everyone trashes whether you are you're still council, county, state, federal. you know what? when people get in trouble, when there's a disaster, they are looking for government. so, look, no one will ever say they love government, except when they need it. >> dana? >> well, it's difficult to love government and to really have that bff relationship with it when they don't listen to you. we had the american populace overwhelmingly disapproved of the health care law and that went ahead anyway. they were going to deem it to pass. and the balance, a bipartisan effort. cnn's o

roland martin, a cnn political analyst, went one step farther. he called cain's remarks stupid. rican-americans reject republican outdeals outright -- many african-americans are socially conservative. but martin says there hasn't been any real effort on the part of this year's republican candidates to actually reach out to the black community. as for why historically african-americans vote mostly democratic, they fully embrace the party back in the 1960s when a democratic president lyndon johnson pushed through the civil rights act. today, according to james peterson from lehigh university, when republicans talk about cutting things like entitlements and being tough on immigration, many african-americans see a subtle form of racism there. still, he says, to say black voters never vote republican is simply wrong. it's a complicated issue. so the "talk back" for you today -- was herman cain fair when he said african-american voters are brainwashed? facebook.com/carolcnn. i'll read your comments later this hour. >> sounds like a good discussion, carol. thanks. >>> here's what's ahea

in a piece on cnn.com, roland martin writes that republicans expect to one all ten of these states in did win north carolina by a slim margin in 2008 and west virginia is usually considered democratic. he points out despite the red leanings in these states, you don't hear a lot about poverty. in fact, the word, poor, has rarely come up at the debates thus far. ron paul suggesting the u.s. get rid of the minimum wage and rommy using the phrase, energy poor. many in the gop are quick to blame president obama for the rise in the poverty rate. but how about addressing the root causes of poverty more directly, especially when millions of people in these so-called red states are suffering. the census bureau reports 46.2 million americans live below the poverty line. that's a record. that translates to the grand total of 22,000 bucks a year for a family of four. minorities are especially hard hit. 27% of blacks live in poverty. 26% of hispanics, 10% of whites. here's the question. what does it say that most of the ten poorest sates in the country are all republican? go to cnn.com/kafr fifile

contributors roland martin and mary matalin.lp himself in a republican contest or hurt himself? >> he continues to be the front-runner, that's a good thing and a bad thing. the front-runner, you're in the bull's-eye. this is not rick perry's first rodeo. he's going to stand up and be a punching bag, pinata, because that's the nature of being a front-runner. he certainly didn't hurt himself. these things get analyzed instantly and they sink in, and what sunk in is that he's still the front-runner by substantial and solid margin, and there's a reason for that and it's his record in texas and it's he walks, he talks, and he looks and sounds like what conservative is and what should be and what the republicans are looking for. but this things far from over. we have many more debates and many more contests in front of us. >> he refused to walk way from some of the controversial positions that he had, positions that some of those tea party supporters aren't very happy about, for example, allowing that in-state tuition for children of

also joined by cnn contributor will cane, and krnl analyst roland martin. get to specific comparisons between the two, is this all just an image his team is trying to sell to the public? is this a good thing? >> those are two questions. one is he george bush cubed, not just 2.0. he everything is we thought george bush was, the caricature of bush. he really did grow up on a west texas farm. he really is kind of a west texas boot scooting aggie like another member of this panel, an aggie. that would be row lan. >> woot! woot! >> yeah, right. he's really more conservative than bush, he's more partisan than bush. he is actually politically more savvy than bush. is that a good thing? well, it depends how you see george w. bush. some think it is not. >> is the fact that he could be more conservative be a problem? would that mean little crossover appeal or not? >> no. first let me say, he is not george bush 2.0. he is maybe stylistically george bush 2.0 as wayne suggested. all i heard were style issues from wayne right there. meaning, yeah, he's boots and swagger