got played off by the keyboard cat. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> love the keyboard cat. remember, always follow what's going on in "the situation room." i'm on twitter. get my tweets, twitter.com/wolfblitzer. @wolfblitzercnn. all one word. thanks for watching. i'm wolf blitzer in the situation room. "john king usa" starts now. thanks. going, everyone, it's five weeks to election day. it's a dramatic night in politics. president obama is at the university of wisconsin in madison, looking to reignite the campus energy that played such an important role in his big 2008 win. it's part of an urgent, some democrats used the word desperate attempt to close the gap enjoyed by republicans this midterm year. the white house is trying to

help disconnected voters. stop whining was the president's lecture yesterday. on the penn state campus today, don't write that obituary yet was the vp's new message. >> the reports of the death of the democratic party are premature. we're going to do just fine, folks. >> tonight's event, the prerally is already under way. we're told it will be a return to full campaign mode for the president. we'll take you to madison, live, once the president gets under way and break down his big and difficult challenge this year with the best political team on television. let's set the stage. our exclusive political duduo, james carville and mary matalin from new orleans. here in washington, joe johns and gloria borger. james carville, let me start with you and tell me upfront we could interrupt you at any moment when the president takes the stage. you have run campaigns. you've seen the polling data. republicans are energized. part of the democratic issue is that the younger voters tend to check out in midterm elections.

what's the challenge? >> well, the challenge is, you're right. the republicans are more energized than the democrats. the white house has calculate they need to do something. there's not much of a risk they're going to energize the republican or tea party people anymore. it would make some sense here. they close enthusiasm gap three, four points, they'll save a couple, three senate seats and save house seats. it's a reasonable calculation that they're making. there's not a lot of risk to it. >> not a whole lot of risk. can he get younger voters who tend to say this doesn't matter to me, it's not a presidential election? can he get them out to play this year? >> you know, it's got to be more effective than telling them to stop whining. kids never like to hear that, but it's not just their enthusiasm gap. it is that their number one concern is that he hasn't done what attracted them in the first place. and that's change the way things are done in washington.

which was specifically to their ears and to many independents' ears to get past partisanship and he's really become the most partisan, as ed gillespie said, it's hard to know when he went from post-partizan to most partisan. so he's cross pressuring when he goes to energize them, by what i'm going to be predict is going to be a partisan speech tonight. it's going to be equally offsetting to those other voters that he needs. and particularly in wisconsin where feingold is almost double digits behind, which is a seat democrats are not expecting to have to defend. >> let me agree. there's going to be a -- i'll agree with that. i'll defer to the great nonpartisan ed gillespie on that. >> i'm thrilled i got you guys to agree on something. let's show the live picture. you see the milwaukee mayor, tom barrett, speaking right now. he'll introduce the president. he's important to note he's not just the mayor, he's the democratic candidate for governor. senator feingold, the democratic senator spoke a few moments ago.

he's trailing. so is mr. barrett. republicans looking to turn the state that years back was a swing state, that has been reliably blue in recent years. i'm going to go to the magic wall. underscore how important the youth vote is. number one, this is not just the president's day. see the vice president, the democratic party chairman and health and human services secretary on college campuses with the same message to young people, don't sit this out, we need you. let's take a quick look before we get to the event. i want to underscore this matter. in the presidential election voters between the ages of 18 and 29 made up 18% of the electorate and they voted overwhelmingly 2/3 for barack obama. in the 2006 midterms when the democrats surged and took control of congress, 18% to 29% was 12% of the electorate. 12% of the electorate versus 18% of the electorate. 60% for democrats at large. 66% for president obama.

what the president wants this year is to try to recreate something like that, to get that number up. many democratic pollsters tell you this number, they're worried, could go below 12% this year. as we wait for the president of the united states, gloria borger, this is one piece of the pu puzzle. they've been lecturing the liberal base. they need african-americans, younger people and liberals disaffected. >> i think they're going to show up at homecoming weekends this week, maybe go to fraternity parties to get out the vote. the other group of voters, john, that we need to talk about are independent voters. you look at polls independent voters say they're more energized to come out in this midterm election than they have been in previous midterm elections. and overwhelmingly they've turned on barack obama. and so, you know, that's another group of voters they have to talk to. but going to these college campuses and if the president is partisan, partisan, partisan, it may turn off some of those independent voters, so there's a

double-edged sword here. >> joe, many democrats, i'm sure you get the same reaction. we'll bring james and mary in on this as we wait for the president. they believe most of those independents are gone. they're mad at the president, democratic party, maybe it's the spending, maybe it's the health care bill. if you lost a universe you know is going to play in the election, the challenge for the president and politics, it's math at the end of the day. get these people who are not going to show up at moment to come out. >> they're trying with independents who used to identify with democrats in trying to reach common ground on certain issues like corporate greed and so. on at the end of the day they're trying a surgical strike, if you will. listen to axelrod and others. they say we want to pick off a few obama surge voters and the other half of it is hope that you can do something with those races that may have been made more vulnerable due to tea partyers in certain parts of the country. so a little bit of this, little bit of that. >> let's listen live for a minute. we're going to listen for the

moment to get a sense of the energy in the room and what the president says off the top. i suspect he'll have a long list of friends he wants to say hello to. we'll drop out for a second during that. ♪ >> hello, wisconsin. oh, hello, wisconsin. thank you.

thank you. thank you so much. thank you, everybody. i am -- i don't know about you, but i'm fired up. i'm ready to go. couple of people i want to acknowledge. first of all, a great mayor, somebody who's fighting for working families each and every day, tom barrett. please give him a big round of applause. >> we're going to continue our conversation as the president goes through the list of the dignitaries he wants to say hello to. we'll get back to the speech. i want to return to a point, mary. you heard the ft. there, i'm fired up. he knows one of the challenge to fire up people who were with him in 2008 who are mad at him now for whatever reason. he gave an interview to "rolling stone" magazine. you say he's lecturing people. this is about health care

mostly. "i could have had a knockdown drag-out fight on the public option. it might have energized you, remember, he's talking to rolling stone, and the huffington post, the liberal website and we would not have had the health care legislation now. what are we trying to do? keep everybody ginned up for the next election? at some point do you try to win elections because you're trying to govern?" the president's point there, president bush faced this from time to time and james knows president clinton did. president saying i got the best deal to get a health care bill and now the liberals who wanted me to get more are saying, forget about you'd. >> just to go back to square one, they -- they misread the mandate. 2008 which was a -- he ran a great campaign and his victory was not a mandate for health care. there are problems with health care. it needs reform, et cetera. the mandate from the election was to stabilize the economy. so he did something that the overwhelmly majority of the population didn't want in the

first place and did it in a way they didn't like. and all the way along they were saying stop, stop, stop, we don't like this. the only thing that changed in the polls in the past year is the intensity of opposition to it. so attacking arianna huffington, my buddy over there, or the liberals, i don't -- it's such -- he's cross pressuring his own people. he's trying to get out. >> help me on that, james. you know, and you know from firsthand experience, you're sitting with your wife right now, when somebody's mad at you in a relationship, you don't fix things by saying, you know, you're wrong to be mad at me, get over it. >> you don't? >> that doesn't work. >> well said. what a good husband you are. >> i think he's trying to explain -- i think he's trying to explain the situation. i saw a t-shirt one time in austin that said liberal about everything but other liberals. sometimes liberals can be somewhat annoying. certainly not arianna. she has a great website there. but he's trying to make the case and i think it's a reasonable

case to express some frustration with the fact that they're under attack and try to do the best they can. it's a point that he's trying to make. i give him credit. they're going out there and trying to do something and, you know, who knows? what see what happens. if they get enthusiasm they could save a few seats. >> we live in a town now that one of the criticisms, a fair criticism, that the town has not changed. you can't blame it all on the president. because he said it would change there's anger and frustration aimed at the president. in this polarized environment he has to deal with both polls. both the left and the right. >> he's talking to the left now. they're the ones that can help them. his message is get real, folks. >> let's listen. sorry to interrupt. the president is getting real on this speech. let's step in and listen for a while. >> two years ago you defied the conventional wisdom in washington. the message out there was no,

you can't. no, you can't overcome the cynicism of our politics. no, you can't overcome the power of special interests in washington. no, you can't make real progress on the big challenges of our time. no, you can't elect a skinny guy with a funny name, barack hussein obama. they said no, you can't, but what did you say, wisconsin? >> yes, we can! >> you -- you proved that the power of everyday people going door to door, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, was stronger than the forces of the status quo. it made more difference than pac money, it made more difference than all the tv advertising. you tapped into something that this country hadn't seen in a very long time. you did that. and every single one of you is a

shareholder in that mission of rebuilding our country and reclaiming our future. and i'm back here today because on november 2nd we face another test. and the stakes could not be higher. think about it. when i arrived in washington 20 months ago, my hope and my expectation was that we could pull together, all of us as americans, democrats and republicans and independents, to confront the worst economic crisis since the great depression. i hoped and expected that we could get beyond some of the old political divides between democrats and republicans, blue states and red states, that had prevented us from making progress for so long. because although we are proud to be democrats, we are prouder to

be americans. and this country was confronting a crisis. instead, what we found when we arrived in washington was the rawest kind of politics. what we confronted was an opposition party that was still stuck on the same failed policies of the past. whose leaders in congress were determined from the start to let us deal with the mess that they had done so much to create. because their calculation was as simple as it was cynical. they knew that it was going to take a long time to solve the economic challenges we face. they saw the data. they were talking to the economists. they realized that obama was walking in and we had just lost 4 million jobs in the six months before i was sworn in, 750,000

jobs the month i was sworn in. 600,000 jobs the month after that. 600,000 jobs the month after that. so before we -- our economic policies could even be put into place, we'd already lost most of the 8 million jobs we would lose. they knew that people would be frustrated. and they figured if we just sit on the sidelines and just say no, and just throw bombs and let obama and the democrats deal with everything, they figured they might be able to prosper at the polls. that's what they've done for the last 20 months. they have said no to just about every idea and policy i've proposed. even ideas that historically, traditionally they agreed with. so now the pundits are saying the base of the republican party is mobilized.

the prediction among the pundits is, there's going to be a blood letting for democrats. that's what they're saying in washington. and what they're saying is -- and the basis of their prediction is that all of you who worked so hard in 2008 aren't going to be as energized, aren't going to be as engaged. they say there is an enthusiasm gap. that the same republicans and the same policies that left our economy in a shambles and the middle class struggling might ride right back into power. now, that's what they're saying. i'm not making this up. you guys read the papers. you guys are watching the television. they're basically saying that you're apathetic, you're disappointed, you're, oh, we're not sure that we're going to turn out. wisconsin, we can't let that happen.

we cannot sit this one out. we can't let this country fall backwards because the rest of us didn't care enough to fight. the stakes are too high. for our country and for your future. i am going to get out there and fight as hard as i can, and i know you are, too, to make sure we keep moving forward. the other side would have you believe this election's a referendum on me or referendum on the economy, referendum on anything except them. but make no mistake, this election is a choice. and the choice could not be clearer. understand for the last decade the republicans in washington subscribed to a very simple philosophy. i want to be clear. this is the republican leadership in washington, whole bunch of republicans out all

across america are feeling pretty disaffected, too, by what they saw when the republicans were in charge. but their basic theory of the republican leadership was you cut taxes, mostly for millionaires and billionaires. you cut regulations forspecial interests. whether it's the banks, the oil companies, or health insurance companies. let them write their own rules. you cut back on investments in education and clean energy and research and technology. so basically the idea was if you just put blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play it by their own rules, if we leave everybody else to fend for themselves, that america would automatically grow and prosper. but that philosophy failed. because in the period when they were in power, understand this, from 2001 to 2009, job growth

was slower than it had been in any decade since world war ii. between 2001 and 2009, middle class incomes fell by 5%. the cost of everything from health care to college tuition just kept going up. and a free for all on wall street led to the very crisis that right now we're digging ourselves out. so it's not like we don't have a controlled experiment here. we have -- they were in charge. we saw what happened. so i've got -- i've had two main jobs since becoming president. to rescue the economy from this crisis, to clean up after their mess, and to rebuild our economy stronger than it was before.

that's been my job. and over the last 20 months, over the last 20 months we've made progress on both these fronts. we're no longer facing the possibility of a second depression, and i have to say, wisconsin, that was a very real possibility when i was sworn in. we had about six months where the economy was teetering on the edge and we could have plunged into a second depression. now the economy is growing again. now the private sector has created jobs for the last eight months in a row. there are about 3 million americans who wouldn't be working today if not for the economic plan that we put into place. those are facts. by the way, i emphasize those are facts because the other side isn't always interested in

facts. to rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation, we passed wall street reform to make sure a crisis like this never happens again. so that these reforms are going to end the era of taxpayer-funded bailouts forever. reforms that will stop mortgage lenders from taking advantage of homeowners. reforms that will stop credit card companies from hitting you with hidden fees or jacking up your rates without any reason. but we didn't stop there. we started investing again in american research and american technology and homegrown american clean energy because i don't want solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars of the future built in europe or asia. i want them built right here in the united states of america with american workers. >> arousing applause for the president of the united states there. he's at the university of wisconsin at madison. see the sea of red behind him,

badger country he's in, trying to rally the youth vote to vote in this election. impassioned case from the president. he listened to 13 minutes from the president. because we spent 13 minutes listening to a democrat, i want to be fair to our republican friends. to mary matalin in new orleans and get your take and erick erickson from redstate.com. he says the other side is throwing bombs. here's my question. when the president says in the next five weeks he's going to fight and fight and fight and be out there, that's good for the democrats, he's their best weapon. does it run the risk if he's out there so much and they lose big, does it diminish him? >> yes and no, but you know, he looks good. it was an energetic event. he's a one-trick pony. it was like a retro one-trick pony at that. what worked in 2008 in a campaign perception is reality, he's in 2010 and it's been two years of his being in control

with the majority of both chambers and large ones at that and he owns these policies. reality is reality. he can talk about he can make straw man arguments, distort the republican philosophy, distort the cause of the economic crisis. the reality and the fact that is facing all americans today is 9.6% unemployment and the highest unemployment among the youth demographic in the history of counting such things. so yes, he gives a good speech, but as is always the case, and now we recognize this more, what we say in politics, he's a chinese dinner. you're hungry an hour later. >> erick erickson, redstate.com. mary is going to make the partisan rebuttal to the president there. that's what we expect. when the president says the republicans said no and no and no, on that ground, that's not a distortion from the president. that is what happened. the republicans said they disagreed and said no, no, no, because they had philosophical

disagreements with the president. you don't take issues that the republicans by in large have said no? >> absolutely they've said no and it's worked well for them this cycle. the president campaigned on yes, we can in '08. the republicans are campaigning on no, you can't. they have the independent voters, senior citizens and the like with them. he's become humpty dumpty and all of his student supporters and college kids and democratic strategists aren't going to be able to put him and his coalition together again for nor. >> stand by with us. james carville is with us in new orleans as well. gloria and joe with me here. when we come back, we'll break down the president's message. we know for certain friday the white house chief of staff rahm emanuel will say good-bye and head back to chicago where he's most likely to run for mayor. a lot more to come. please stay with us. >> make people's lives better. i haven't talked about the fact we made sure -- sure i'd like to diversify my workforce,

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and his party. let's continue our president of t . we have james carville and mary matalin in new orleans. erick erickson from redstate.com. and amy of democracy now. part of the effort from the president is to convince people like you, frankly, who have been not happy with many of his policies to set that aside for five weeks and vote in this election. i talked to james and mary about this earlier in the program. i want to read what the president said to "rolling stone" magazine. he said "i could have had a knockdown, drag-out fight on the election that would have energized you and the huffington post. what are we trying to do here? keep everybody ginned up for the next election or win elections because you're actually trying to govern? you have heard, amy goodman, that from the president. the vice president said last night stop whining, get out and vote or you'll get the other

side. is that enough to convince you to set aside differences? >> it's interesting the mascot of the university of wisconsin is the badger. i think that the president has gone to madison to badger his base. i think the issue is what he promised leading up to the election and what he has delivered. and there's no one better to symbolize that than the senator of wisconsin who now faces a real battle. that's russ feingold. look, russ feingold did not support the surge in afghanistan. he did not support the usa patriot act. he didn't support the financial reform package of the white house because he said it didn't go far enough. these are the issues that people care about all over this country. i wouldn't just say it's progressives. this is what president obama has to deal with. it's not just the rhetoric and energy he has when he goes to a young voter rally. it's about his record and that's what people are measuring him against. >> but the question is, would

you rather he lose? russ feingold? i mean, russ feingold, you say, stands up for things that lots of liberals believe in, but he could get booted out of office rit now. >> i think what he's up against is a man who never did serve in office, ron johnson. business executive, he's dominating the airwaves. self-financed campaign. it's not about would we rather he lose. russ feingold, who's been extremely popular in this land of bob la folet, right, who was senator, who was governor, extremely progressive. you have the land of mccarthy. the question is, where is this country going right now? feingold likes this uphill battle right now. he hasn't had it for a while. he has very much a strong devoted base because he has stood strong on these principles.

i think obama would do well to do that. he doesn't have to fear people voting against him i don't think. i think president obama's fear is people won't come out at all, that they're going to feel un uninspired, that they're going to feel disillusioned. >> james, you lived through this in the clinton white house in 1994 when the left was demoralized and upset with president clinton for a long list of reasons and the right was energized. i want to read you something else the president told "rolling stone." he says "right now we have a choice between a republican party that's moved to the right of george w. bush and looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place. versus an administration that with some admitted -- the idea we have a lack of enthusiasm in the democratic base, people are sitting inting on their hands complaining is irresponsible. you have the president, to use

amy's words, badgering his base saying essentially what else do you want? >> yeah. and i can sense the frustration. financial reform, that's not good enough, he not health care reform, that's not good enough. in a sense he's saying, look, i'm struggling with this and this is what's going on. to some extent this makes him look for human to me. a cool, detached thing and i don't get angry at anything. i can sense it sort of coming through to him and if you saw the speech tonight, he seemed a little more jazzed up than normally seen him. and you know, at a point i think the man is somewhat vexed by somebody else and trying to make his case and he's being told that the 2008 electorate, that went to the polls as opposed to what's right now, what's likely to go to polls in 2010, the democrats would do something like six, eight points better. they're trying to get some of these people back in.

whether or not this is the most effective way, we can certainly debate this. i kind of like the fact he's human about it. >> mary, you lived this in 2006 when you were helping the bush/cheney administration. you had many of the same dynamics. president bush's base. some of the base was down. didn't like the spending in washington. some had grown tired of the iraq war. independents was the group that said, sorry mr. president and went to the democrats. that's why nancy pelosi is speaker of the house because of the shift of independents and liberal-based enthusiasm in 2006. can you do anything five weeks out? you see a more animated president today. that's probably part of it. especially that group in the middle. is there anything you can do to get them back? >> the reason, and i'm glad you brought this up because it goes to my earlier point about misreading mandates. the reason the republicans lost the house in 2006 and the base was depressed was because they weren't behaving as conservatives. this country, forget republican/democrat. this country self-identifies 2-1

conservative to liberal. the republicans were not behaving like good conservatives, particularly fiscal conservatives. one-third of the new congress in 2006, which is the reason nancy pelosi is the majority leader today, were democrats who ran specifically and full -- with full-throated enthusiasm for a specific conservative ideas and issues. including culturally conservative ones. this is a center right, more conservative country. amy brings up the good point. she says the point of this election is where's this country going? those conservatives who where identified 2-1. independents who identify 2-1 are saying we're not going where you liberals want to take us. that's what it's about. she's right. that's where the country is. >> i wanted to jump in and ask amy goodman one more question. we talked about the words whining and irresponsible. do you think the left is whining? do you think they're irresponsible? as the president and the

administration have asserted? >> i think people are organizing all over this country. i don't think it's about whining. the administration wants to characterize it that way. you know, it's interesting. you don't have the conservatives going after the tea party movement. you don't have them saying they're whining. when it comes to people who are deeply committed in their communities, whether it's the issue of health care, whether it's the issue of people fore closed out of homes and seeing the president siding with the banks, our money bailing them out and yet not bailing out the people who are being foreclosed by banks that are supported by taxpayer money. people see all of this. and yet you have the white house attacking progressives all over this country. calling them the professional left. calling them the whiners. saying buck up. i think it's progressives who are saying to the president, why don't you buck up? why don't you stand up for what you said you would represent? of course, it's not just up to the president. it's up to people, grassroots

movements all over this country. to make their demands heard. and the white house is beginning to hear them and getting scared. they're hearing that people are angry. and that's why president obama is out there in wisconsin right now. >> competing calls to buck up. the president's to his base, the base back to the president. there's a help wanted sign at the white house. the president needs a new chief of staff. among those we've talked to today, the son of the vice president of the united states, a man many thought would be the next democratic senator from delaware. no, not this year. we'll get some of his thoughts. [ male announcer ] even before science was science,

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all right. the president of united states

still speaking giving a speech at the university of wisconsin in madison. we're continuing to monitor that. the president trying to get out the vote, aiming his pitch at younger voters. see the college students behind him. let's go back to a moment early on in the president's speech, if you read the polling in every state in the country, the polling shows you young people are not as excited, tuned in this campaign as the last campaign in 2008. the president says that must not stand. >> basically saying that you're apathetic, you're disappointed, you're well, we're not sure that we're going to turn out. wisconsin, we can't let that happen. we cannot sit this one out. we can't let this country fall backwards because the rest of us didn't care enough to fight. the stakes are too high for our country and for your future, and i am going to get out there and fight as hard as i can, and i know you are, too, to make sure we keep moving forward. >> we got a great group with us. one of the points mary matalin

was making earlier was this is not the same electorate. two years have passed. 20 months have passed. many of the same voters who supported the president then might not be with him now. let's break down the polling. to the magic wall. we'll start a conversation with our group. rock the vote which tries to convince young people to get out and vote have done a lot of polling. who do you want to control congress? 34% of young voters 18 to 29 want the democrats to retain control. close, little smaller group, 28% want the republicans to take control. this is an interesting number right here. this is what the president's getting at when he talks about apathy. 36% say it doesn't matter to me. they essentially think congressional elections, same old chatter in washington, gridlock in washington. doesn't matter to me. that's a problem for the president and his party. let's move town down. would you be more or less to support a candidate backed by the tea party? 54% say less likely. this is not a tea party crowd the president is trying to rally for this year's election. that's important. there are tea party candidates on ballot in critical states

this year. more or less likely to support a candidate endorsed by sarah palin. not a sarah palin crowd either, 18 to 29-year-old voters. 64% say less likely to support a candidate backed by sarah palin. how about this, more or less likely to support a candidate endorsed by barack obama? the president's in relatively safe territory. half of voters say essentially they'll listen to the president. here's interesting here. 42%. 42%. so four in ten younger voters, the very people he's speaking to tonight say that's less likely. james carville, if these voters were overwhelm. >> i for the president in 2008, has he lost his mojo for them? sounds like he has a smaller universe to work with. >> certainly, he may -- not doing near as well as he did in 2008. i don't know of a demographic we would be doing better in.

we seem to be doing a little less bad among younger voters than other demographic. again, it makes sense to him to go out and do the things that he's doing today. but look, there's no doubt if you go from winning an election by, you know, eight points to, you know, where we are now. you're not going to -- you're going to lose altitude across the board. apparently lost a little bit less with younger voters than other folks. >> mary, to that point, james is going through the important math of a midterm election. after a presidential election you have a fallout. the groups that fall off the most are african-americans and younger voters. the biggest drops are among african-americans and younger voters. big part of the president's base. the groups that tend to be steady are older voters, the mobile reliable voting bloc. that's not trending well for the democrats. in terms of the math, the legos of building a successful coalition, what's the president's challenge with five weeks out? >> well, the reason that there's falloff is not -- it's not

arbitrary, it's not capricious, it's not unattached to anything. and it is -- those words -- margin of victory, it's true, young people and african-americans. but to get to have a margin for victory, had all those independents. there is -- the reason they're falling off has nothing to do with his communication skills or his energy or any of the other things we've been discussing because he looks great and he sounds great. there's not one single policy, not one that enjoys majority support amongst independents or amongst all americans. for the first time, five weeks before the election, over 50% of the american likely voters do not approve of his job. they like him personally, there's a -- in some polls it's 20 points more than his job approval. they don't like the job he's doing and don't support any of the policies, so they're voting against him. that's what this is. it's a referendum on him.

he can say it's a choice but it's a referendum on his policies. >> we have to sneak in one quick break. president on the university of wisconsin. there's a help wanted sign at the white house. we're going to ask our group whether they think the president should stick with his team inside or find somebody new, a fresh voice from the outside. stay with us. >> that involvement can't end with the vote that you cast -- ♪ to know, know, know you grandma is the bestest. the total package. grandpa's cooooooooool. way cool. ♪ grandpa spoils me rotten. ♪ to know, know, know you ♪ is to love... some people call us frick and frack. we do finger painting. this is how grandpa and i roll. ♪ and i do [ pins fall ] grandma's my best friend. my best friend ever.

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welcome back. let's check in with joe johns for the latest political news you need to know right now. >> on the recommendation of his doctors, former president jimmy carter is spending the night in a cleveland hospital. he developed an upset stomach as he flew into the city today. president obama phoned carter at the hospital. a presidential spokesman said carter sounded like he was doing great and will resume his book tour tomorrow. during presidenobama's earlier stop today in new mexico, he was asked why he's a christian and answered, by choice. listen to this. >> so i came to my christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts jesus

christ spoke to me in the terms of the kind of life i would want to lead. it's fascinating the way religion continues to percolate up surrounding the president of the united states. >> and given the opportunity to answer that question, he gave a lengthy answer which convinced me number one, it's important to him, number two, the poll that 20% of americans think he's a muslim. i want to go to the magic wall. the pew research foundation had a survey about religion. here was the religion poll. this is fascinating to me. they asked a number of questions. they asked 32 questions and average number of questions people got right, the after ram was 16. who did better on this test about religion? atheists and agnostics know more about the faiths than people who practice the faiths which was this appointing perhaps. see protestants, hispanic catholics doing the worse.

white evangelicals doing this. out of 32 questions this is what you get. let's go through some of the data. half of americans knew the golden rule was not one of the ten commandments. ramadan is islamic holy month. 52% knew that. martin luther inspired the matt luke and john, about 45% of americans knew that. these are some of the questions. joe, i'm going to give you the quiz. what's the first book of the bible? >> genesis. >> he's a winner! one more and we'll get back to our conversation here. when does the jewish sabbath begin. >> friday. >> friday, sundown. the man is a winner. we'll stop that conversation there. joe johns is up on his faith. that's a good thing. let's get back to the big challenge facing the president. by the way, he just wrapped up his speech at the university of wisconsin. she's shaking hands now. one of his challenges when he comes back to washington, his chief of staff, rahm emanuel, on friday will announce he's leaving. we have a great cartoon, todd,

if you could pop that up on the screen. this was in the "chicago tribune" on saturday. if you look closely at that, axe, the license plate, rahm for mayor. our work is done here -- leaving the wous in shambles and you see the president in the rubble. i could watch this and laugh for a little while. let's start with amy goodman, a progressive who has had issues with this white house. amy, hiring a new chief of staff is a chance to hit the reset button. give us your advice. most indications are he'll pick somebody from within. is that the right strategy? >> well, i mean, we look at who has been within. who president obama has surrounded himself with. and you hear that speech he gave in washington. i think president obama's, by the way, best hope is the tea party, because all he could say is, don't vote for them. whether you're talking tea party or republicans. but about his own record, and that goes to the people he surrounds himself, his advisers. look, from larry summers to rahm

emanuel, who the bold progressives organization is saying, dump rahm. he was is instrumental in ensuring there was no public option. it is a very big problem, who he surrounds himself with. because as we know with all presidents, they get very insulated. and president obama is no different. yet, he surrounds himself with the old guard. with the very people, the vested interests that he attacks when he's at a young voter's rally at the university of wisconsin. >> so eric erickson, the next chief of staff will have who challenges. helping the re-election campaign get under way, but also dealing with a more conservative, more republican congress. give the president some advice, and be nice. >> oh, boy. you know, rahm emanuel was, if you believe "the washington post," one of the guys who moderated some of the white house overreach. i'm afraid if he surrounds himself with more people on the inside, he's going to overreach dramatically, which is good for my side. probably bad for the administration. frankly, i'm just kind of shocked that all these people are leaving before the election

instead of after the election. that's the stunner for me. larry summers, christina romer -- what's her -- >> romer. >> romer. rahm emanuel, it's amazing. >> well, rahm emanuel's leaving because of the filing deadline. got to get petitions in chicago. you both know rahm well, both know the pressures the white house chief of staff face. i'm going to go the republican first, mare matalin. you've been through this. rahm emanuel's only be there 20 months. what is the pressure on the job and what does this president need right now? >> rahm, i like rahm. he is not an ideological progressive, he's a practical politician, which we will see in his mayoral run in chicago. ic he was a first rate chief of staff, had a few bobbles, and he knows what they were. but that's a very critical job, and i don't think they can just have a coasting guy. they got to have somebody as strong as rahm, because this president needs it. he's got to navigate a lot of tricky waters.

>> so, james carville, you're not volunteering for the job, i don't think. so who's your recommendation? >> no, i don't think so. no. well, first of all, i'll make the point that rahm has always said that he wants to run for the mayor of chicago. that's always been a dream of his. so it's not surprise that he's doing it. you know, the president seems to trust a small cadre of people, and if the past is any indicator, he'll pick something from that. i don't know, at some point, sometimes, you know, you've got to put layers on the onion. maybe at a point he'll go outside of that, but i don't know if he's going to do that with this next pick. >> james and mary in new orleans, eric and amy, thanks for being with us tonight. joe johns, our thanks. a lot of time taken up by the president's speech, but it's an important night in politics. and when we come back, here's a question. what are you whining back? pete on the street, he's asking it. when i had my heart attack, i couldn't believe it.

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earlier, she had an all-over, achy cold. what's her advantage? it's speedy alka-seltzer. alka-seltzer plus. rushes relief for all-over, achy colds. the official cold medicine of the u.s. ski team. alka-seltzer plus. in 2008 i quit venture capital to follow my passion for food. i saw a gap in the market for a fresh culinary brand and launched behindtheburner.com. we create and broadcast content and then distribute it across tv, the web, and via mobile. i even use the web to get paid. with acceptpay from american express open, we now invoice advertisers and receive payments digitally. and i get paid on average three weeks faster. booming is never looking for a check in the mail. because it's already in my email. coming up at the top of the hour on "rick's list primetime," let's check in with with rick sanchez for a preview. >> there's a heck of a story that's going on right now in

mexico. it's in what hackka, mexico, there's been a landslide. the governor said there may be as many as 1,000 people that have perished in this thing. and toughest thing is, they can't get there because the roads are closed. we've got correspondent there is and chad's going to join me. we'll have it coming up on "rick's list" in just a little bit. stop whining. that was the vice president's advice to democrats, and maybe borrowed that line from me. i say it all the time from our offbeat reporter, pete dominick. pete, stop whining. >> reporter: john, i'm glad you finally said it on camera. i appreciate it. yeah, i mean, listen. i want to encourage people to keep whining. i went out there to ask them what they were whining about and i actually got so people to literally whine. take a look. what do you want to whine about? >> taxes. >> reporter: taxes. what specifically? >> just taxes. >> wah! >> i think he should do more with this health care plan, and i think we should save with what

we have instead of taking more money from working americans. >> gay rights, i guess. >> reporter: what do you want? >> everyone to be equal. >> i'm tired of saying the same things that everyone else is saying about jobs and everything else. it's too depressing to even talk about. everything's depressing. >> wah! >> people are concentrating a lot more on the celebrities and on unnecessary things. >> reporter: your whine is that americans are distracted by unimportant things? >> absolutely. >> reporter: the british, do they whine? >> do they whine? only occasionally, about the weather. >> reporter: what do they do? >> try and get on the train when they can't fit. >> i'm not going to whine at all. >> reporter: what about in your personal life? >> yeah. >> reporter: what's wrong? >> i need a date. >> reporter: you need a date? yeah, right! >> we can keep whining. i don't know what good it's going to do. maybe we can get rid of the democrats and bring something better in. >> i'd love to cry, but i'll whine for the vice preside.