when he says something significant but joining us now in washington is democratic strategist julian epstein and with me in the studio s.e.culp. >> i hardly know where to begin. it has been a glorious ride for newt. i am struggling as you know to hold back the tears. what for you has been the most impressive and momentous moment in the campaign. >> to be sure, will you cutaway to newt if he comes on. >> we will do that. >> thank god. you know, newt once held interest among far right conservatives. that time was brief. it was long ago. i think what voters learned is he is incredibly arrogant and politically confusing and untruth worthy whether going after the ryan budget azurite wing social engineering or attacking capitalism and throwing the lunar base kind of stuff, and he just became sort of a mockery and the campaign which was clearly over a month ago evolved into nothing more than a national zoo tour. i think it is, you know, fun to remember newt as chuck todd said earlier, newt, we knew you. >> yes, he has of course been described as an undisciplined meg low maniac. we were going to collect the greatest hits against mitt romney but funnily enough the obama campaign did it for us. take a look. >> the romney machine can drive down and turn out and run over opponents with negative ads and doesn't seem panl of inspiring positive turnout and the result is very, very worrisome if you are thinking about the fall campaign. >> are you calling mitt romney a liar? >> yes. >> mr. cheerful has been pretty brutal on mitt romney, hasn't he, julian? >> yes, and he has been a gift to the democrats in addition to everything s.e. just said. he has shown him to be hollow, tin man with no core that can be yanked to any side of the political spectrum depending on what they needed to do to get a vote. i think also with respect to our friend newt, we finally figured out why it is that he wants a moon colony, and i think the answer to that is he is looking for protection from creditors. he has 4.2 million in debt right now. compare to to hillary clinton who had about 250,000. this guy is an expression of delusional narcissism, and just to the point for a second, this is exactly the arc of his when he was speaker. he came in with a big fanfare and a lot of flash and he ended with a crash and burn with intense dislike for members of his own party and leaving a wake of debt. it is exactly the prototype of what he was when he was speaker of the house. >> before i come to you, s.e., i should say we're waiting for newt gingrich to speak at the hilton in arlington, virginia. those are live pictures. the press is gathered. there are about 60 people there. we believe the vast majority are journalists. we expect him to arrive with his wife callista. i believe his two daughters will also be there. to julian's point, gingrich's 4.3 in debt, also -- just by the way he also owes about a million dollars to moeby dick airways specifically. given what he said about mitt romney, is romney minded to pay off that debt to help them? >> there is some indication that the r & c or the romney campaign will help relieve him of some of that debt if he comes on and endorses. >> even after he called mitt romney a liar, a man who had no core, no commitments? >> i think for either mitt romney or obama to use newt gingrich as some kind of influencer, some or bitter of political sense i think is silly on both sides. for mitt i would be unconcerned with newt's endorsement and for barack obama i think it is silly to put newt gingrich in an ad attacking mitt romney. it is almost like saying, look, even snook i doesn't like mitt romney. it is that silly. it shouldn't matter. newt is no longer a relevant player in this campaign. >> julian, do you accept that, that newt is no better than snooky? i thought newt gingrich did have some sway amongst conservatives in the republican party. >> he does and it is validation of the central thesis. character has many aspects to it, martin. one is like ability. we agreed obama wins that hands down and i think another test is whether you can trust someone, and i think one of the themes you will hear coming from the white house the coming weeks is romney is a guy that you can't trust, a guy that has no center, no core and he can be pulled to the far right which is where the republican is controlled now, the extreme right and pulled from a central position to a far right position in annstant and remember it was reagan that said the 11th commandment, shall not attack a fellow republican and newt gingrich showed that as ron artest showed to his renewed commitment to sportsman like conduct. >> julian epstein drawing the parallels with a basketball player. thank you both so much. we are still awaiting newt gingrich as i said. we will be back momentarily as soon as he gets onto that stage. stay with us. hi, i just switched jobs, and i want to roll over my old 401(k) into a fidelity ira. man: okay, no problem. it's easy to get 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maryland. good afternoon, sir. >> good afternoon, martin. >> your house colleague, steve israel and speaker boehner appear to be in agreement republicans could lose control of the house this november. it would take as you know a net gain of 25 seats but honestly do you really think that's possible? >> i think they both sense both the speaker of the house and the republicans and steve israel that the momentum is with the democrats. as you said we need to pick up 25 seats and people do have buyer's remorse and did not know what 24er7 getting themselves into with the tea party dominated house that is focused on providing tax breaks for special interests and trying to help millionaires at the expense of everyone and everything else and ending the medicare guarantee, cutting education, and so it is very clear the house republican priorities are way out of touch with the country and that's where momentum is growing. >> isn't this really going to be very, very difficult and in the face of an onslaught from karl rove's super pac likely to bury democrats in negative advertising giving republicans far more money to put up a fight for the seats this november? >> a couple things. the good news is that the democratic challengers, many of our candidates challenging republican incumbents raised more money fror the campaigning and the campaign committee, the organized political arm for house democrats just out raised the republicans again. you do highlight a very important issue which is this outside money flowing into campaigns and what we ask all americans to do is look where candidates stand on the question of disclosure. the democrats support an end to the secret money and campaigns and we believe that voters have a right to know who is bank rolling the campaigns. we have a bill in the house of representatives called the disclose act, very simple. it says voters should know who is paying for these campaigns. democrats supported our republican colleagues oppose it and they want to continue to keep people in the dark, so it is very important that voters when they see those ads they ask themselves the question who is paying for those ads and why is it that republicans don't want the voters to know who is financing those ads? >> indeed. so final question. are you confident yourself, steve israel says he is. the speaker says 1 in 3 chance republicans could lose the house. what's your assess snmt. >> i think we're in good shape as steve israel said. we're in range. the good news is the momentum is with us meaning that every day that goes by is additional proof, additional evidence that our republicans colleagues are just out of touch. >> congressman chris van hollen, thanks so much for joining us. we're going to live to newt gingrich on stage with his wife and about to speak. >> thank you all for coming and just about a year ago on may 11th we formally announced candidacy and i want to start by thanking everyone that helped over the last year. it has been an amazing year for callista and me and the entire family. i want to thank kathy and paul and kathy is here. jimmy and jackie here and of course they brought with them -- i think the two best debate coaches. whatever degree i did well in the debates, i subscribe it to maggie and robert who were diligently mop toring and briefing me before each debate. i also want to thank callista's mother who is not here today but who faithfully watched this campaign online, filled with many questions and occasional moments of wondering exactly what was going on. she put up with almost as much as we did. i also want to single out over 179,000 donors who helped make the campaign possible and i should for a second single out my brother and randy has gone all over the country. i want to mention that bob walker's wife barbara was our chairman. we go back all the way to the days in the house and invented the opportunity society and i think we helped co-invent c-span. we did an amazing number of things for a long period in the effort to create a house republican majority. i also want to thank members of the team who are here and some around who stuck with us through the whole process which was a truly wild ride and absolutely despite all of these experiences i had over the years i could never predict either the low points offer or the high points. it was amazing and astonishing. key elected officials i want to thank. i talked to ma jort leader linda in iowa courageous and stayed with us through the whole process from the period when we were supposedly dead to when we rebounded to the massive weight of advertising and linda was just spectacular and solidly campaigning all across the state of iowa. i also want to thank speaker paulson, a tremendous help, and speaker bill o'brien in new hampshire who worked very hard and by the way is a model of balancing the budget the right way in new hampshire. they first get the revenue number and they then appropriate up to the revenue number. so they don't start with a spending number and then try to figure out how to find the taxes. they start with what's coming in and figure out whatnot to spend. it is a remarkably successful program. i particularly want to thank governor nathan deale and the georgia house members forming both in the washington and in the state legislature in the house and senate. i think for callista and me one of the high moments of the campaign was carrying georgia by 156 counties to three, and really gave us a good feeling that back home we had a very solid base and pointed out by my daughters in carroll county where i thought and they both went to high school we got 60% of the vote. it was nice to feel that we had a very strong base of support from the people who knew us best. i couldn't be here and not thank governor rick perry. he and anita were tremendously help skpfl stood with us all the way through. towards the end when things were difficult i called and he said i am with you until the cows come home. he said i am pretty comfortable as a farmer in texas understanding that. he stuck with us and i also want to thank herman cain who was tremendous in campaigning particularly on super tuesday and michael reagan who campaigned for us and i think communicated pretty clearly the relationship we had with his dad and then todd palin who worked very, very hard. of course while they weren't directly associated with the campaign, it would be impossible for me to be here and thank everybody without mentioning sheldon and mary adelson who single handily came close to matching the romney super pac and i am grateful to them and we share a combined concern about the middle east and a combined concern about american security and the survival of israel and they're very, very good friends. finally, on the thank yous, i have to thank the voters of south carolina and i have to apologize to them. we will have broken their tradition of always pinging the nominee. this will make me feel slightly guilty every time we go through south carolina. they were tremendous. they were welcoming. they were enthusiastic. the size of the victory was historic, and callista and i will always remember south carolina and i suspect our whole family will always remember south carolina because it was a tremendous, tremendous experience. today i am suspending the campaign. suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship. callista and i are committed to be active citizens. we owe it to america. we owe it to maggie and robert. in my case i have been an active since august of 1958 my freshman and sophomore years of high school when think dad was serving in the army in europe. this august it will be 54 years that i worked essentially on three things. one, what does america need to do to be free, safe and prosperous? two, how would you explain that to the american people so they gave you permission to do what is needed. three, how would you implement the change if the american people gave you permission? starting in 1960 in columbus, when my dad was assigned to forth better thanning and i was a volunteer in the nixon lodge campaign to the 1964 when i dropped out of college for a year to run a congressional race to 1974 and '76 where we lost twice for congress once in the middle of watergate and once in jimmy carter at the he had had of the ticket in georgia. from 1978 to 1994 a 16 year period of working to build a majority and starting with the capital steps event with ronald reagan in september of 1980 and helping reagan in the eight years he was president with bob walker and others, founding the conservative opportunity society, dropping a generation of solutions and training and building the contract with america, which led to the largest one party increase in american history in an off year election. nine million additional votes because the positive campaign actually attracted people and mattered to them and in that process we won control of the house for the first time in 40 years and we passed welfare reform working in a bipartisan manner with a democrat in the white house and 1996 and even more difficult election we were the first re-elected republican majority since 1928. we did it not by flinching, not by compromising, but by standing firm for a balanced budget, standing firm for lower taxes, standing firm for smaller government, and standing firm for reform. in that period we were then able to work with president clinton on four consecutive balanced budgets for the only time in your lifetime and did it in a bipartisan manner because we represented the will of the american people. not the will of washington, d.c. from 2001 to 2006 i worked as a volunteer on national security and health issues in the bush administration, and in 2008 we developed an american solutions drill here, drill now, pay less and began to raise for the american people the central importance of an american independence energy plan so that no future president would ever again bow to a saudi king and so that we would not be dependent on the strait of vermoose and dealing with the iranians. over my lifetime i have tried to move the national debate including 24 books starting with window of opportunity in 1984. we have done seven documentaries. they entered the author phase of trying to lead and educate with sweet land of liberty in which ellis the elephant introduces 4 to 8-year-olds to american history and an effort to fill the vacuum left by all too many modern educators and we're now going to put down the role of candidate and candidate spouse and take back up the roles of active citizens. i actually thought today i happened to get an e-mail and i thought congressman tom cole of oklahoma who i worked with for many years and once been the head of the congressional campaign committee actually captured this moment when with he said the following. i quoted i think in the column today quote, newt it liberated to do what he does best, adapt conservative views and values to the challenges of the 21st century. in some ways his best days may be ahead of him. callista and i are going to focus on aers so of key issues and find ways to help educate and move the country and educate and move policy in washington, d.c. probably central to all of this is our deep commitment on american exceptionalism and american history. in our sense that we can't truly be americans if we have amnesia about who we are, where we came from and what principles have made us great. in addition, we'll spend a great deal of time on religious liberty and in fact my newsletter today at gingrich productions is specifically on the whole issue of religious liberty and i appreciate very much the working relationship we have with human events in developing issues like this. i am going to continue to work on american energy independence. this is central to job creation. it is central to our balance of payments. it is central to the strength of the american dollar. it is central to our ability to deal with radical is islam and if we do it right we will not only create energy independence with millions of new jobs but we will create trillions of dollars of royalties which if we impose discipline in washington could be put into a fund to repay the national debt and could leave magazine and i robert's generation debt freebie the end of their lifetime by having a disciplined serious approach to first balancing the budget and then using american energy to pay off the national debt. in a very real sense we could be free of both radical islam, saudi kings and chinese bond holders all with the same strategy. in addition, we're going to go to college campuses and talk about personal and social security savings accounts for maggie and robert's generation and the historic reality of how brilliantly chile and greenville and two other texas counties have used that model so that people in their generation can have two to three times as large a retirement account while growing the national economy independent of political influence and interference in a system fairer than the current system. we're going to also reemphasize the work ethic, something i know was controversial in at least one of our debates and one of the proposals for reemphasizing the work ethic is going to be to modernize unemployment compensation to attach to it a training component so that if you sign up to get the money, you have to sign up to learn because by definition if you are currently unemployed, you need better job skilsz and if you look at north dakota, where 3.5% of the population is unemployed and there is 16,000 jobs they can't fill in the oilfield, because the people unemployed don't have the skills for the people in the oilfields. well, there is no reason you should give people 99 weeks for doing nothing. this is an important national debate about a country which is founded in 1607 by captain john smith saying to aristocrats, not the poor, sighting st. paul, if you don't work, you don't eat. congress let all the aristocrats to adopt work as a behavior and you will see us come back and talk about that. beyond that, i want to come back on one of the projects i feel saddest about not communicating with l and talk about brain research and regene active medicine. if we reorganize the national institute of health and the food and drug administration, we can have in a remarkably short time absolute revolutions of better health, more independent living, longer living and dramatically lower costs. part of the great challenge of washington is how do you take an idea like that and move it from the scientific world where everybody i meet with says it is right into the political and governmental world where nobody has a clue what it means. this is an enormous challenge to us as a society and i will also focus on a post obama care personal health and health care system should be like and take back up something i worked on my entire career going back to 1958 and i was before i ran for president the longest serving teacher for one and two star generals in the military, 2023 years at the national defense university and the air university. i will focus again on national security in three zones, radical islamists where we still do not have a grand strategy and nice that the president broadcast in afghanistan and the center of al qaeda today is yemen. the fact we assuming our opponents is very dangerous and we have to recognize we do not have a grand strategy. >> we have to deal with the rise of china not automatically a threat and is a reality. we have to deal with new technology that is do in fact threaten us whether it is cyber warfare or electro magnetic pulse or nanoskill science and technology. on that topic new technologies i want to say i am cheerfully going to take back up theish auto of space. my wife pointed out to me 219 times give or take three that moon colony was probably not my most clever comment in the campaign. i thought frankly in my role as providing material for "saturday night live" it was helpful, but the underlying key point is real. the fact is if we're going to be the leading country in the world we have to be the leading country in space. the fact is our bureaucratic red tape system doesn't work. what i called for is beginning to happen. you may have noticed in the last week the founders of google are talking about a private sector effort to mine an astroid and they pointed out it is less red tape than to get through epa in the united states. the space adventure program hopes to have a private sector opportunity to circle the moon by 2015. there is a low earth orbit project under way in the private sector and the nasa building on something george w. bush started and obama has expanded on. nasa will actually be launching a private sector rocket that has a great deal invested in an effort to broaden our capacity. it is not a trivial area. it is a fundamental question whether they dream and go out to pursue great adventure and has the courage to say to young people you ought to go into math and science because there is a wonderful future doing really important things. i happen to think it is a better future than methamphetamine and cocaine and i will argue for a romantic american future of doing things that matter that get to the human spirit. we also need to have new models of effective affordable lifetime learning. we have to replace the 130-year-old civil service model with modern management systems. this is a big issue that is fundamental to the functioning of the united states. we have an obsolete bureaucratic system that is impossible to make work effectively. yet the forces that support it are going to fight every inch of the way against modernity. this may be too big a challenge even for somebody that used to be speaker of the house. we do need to have a national discussion about how to get congress to be effective. congress has decayed dra mangtly in the last 20 years. the senate in particular has become a stunningly dysfunctional institution. this is a really big problem. under our constitution in the long run if congress doesn't understand things, and can't legislate things, you can't fix it. it is really important that we have a much bigger national debate about what an effective 21st century congress will be like and something that we will be involved in. because we're going to pursue solutions, we want those solutions to be real. that's going to lead callista and me to campaign for a republican president, a republican house, a republican senate, republican governors, republican state legislators, and we have to recognize america is a complex mosaic of self government. the presidency matters. so do all the other offices of self government. if you are truly going to have a wave of change in america that, wave has to occur in many, many places simultaneously. as to the presidency, i am asked sometimes is mitt romney conservative enough? my answer is simple. compared to barack obama? you know, this is not a choice between mitt romney and ronald reagan. this is a choice between mitt romney and the most radical, leftist president in american history. if you simply take judges and ask yourself who are the kind of people governor romney would be incled to appoint and on who are the people that we know barack obama appoints? the gap is as wide as any point in american history, wider than between reagan and carter. if you look at romney's pledge to cut spending, something which we're going to cheerfully help him with, to balance the budget, something i have had some involvement with, to work with paul ryan and others on the entitlement crisis, to focus on economic growth by creating private sector jobs, something i would suggest governor romney knows about 60,000 times more than does president obama, just think about appointing common sense regulators as compared to the obama epa regulator who said it is nice to occasionally crucify an industry because it teaches them a lesson. it will nice to have somebody this says it is nice to work with an industry so they can create jobs. you can't get a much bigger gap than those kind of things. a republican sweep this fall would revitalize america just as the reagan sweep of 1980 revitalized america. we have done it before. we can do it again. i always tell people that economic recovery will begin late on election night when people realize that obama is gone. by the next morning people will make new decisions about investing, hiring, but beyond this election and remember, i say this to everybody, having been through this a long time. the election is just an interim step and then you have the next struggle. we had to work for eight months in 1981 to pass the reagan tax cuts. i mean, look what scott walker is going through in wisconsin. if you want really big change, the election just starts the dance. it doesn't end it. so every conservative should be prepared to work every single day, long beyond this election to bring to bear the best ideas and to develop the best future. now, i think in the reagan tradition that there is a shining future ahead. i think maggie and robert's generation will live in a freer, safer, more prosperous america with greater opportunities. i am not totally certain i will get to the moon. i am certain magazigie and robe will. i think it is almost inevitable in the sheer scale of technological change. i think they will live in a generation that resolved the challenge of autism and the challenge of alzheimer's and resolved the challenge of parkinson's and that has mastered mental health and i think their generation will look back and the olden days and people didn't have hollow grams at home and actually had to do so many things manually and they will live in a very different world. i am confident about this future and because i read three novels on george washington and i know what he went through for us to become a country. written four novels on the civil war and i know what we went through as a people to preserve this country. you know, kaiser was con convinced when we entered world war i we were a weak and helpless country and didn't matter much. they grotesquely under estimated under the circumstances and thought we could never mobilize and didn't know how to fight. the soviets said as crush chof said publicly they will bury us. the japanese in the 80s were going to be the next super power until the system collapsed in 1989. currently the chinese are the latest example of somebody else whose magically going to appear, who is going to take on 305 million free people and somehow be more innovative and more effective and more clever. i don't believe it. i think with every great challenge americans have reinvented themselves and their country. building within the framework of the declaration of independence, the constitution, and the federalist papers we are liberated to use common sense and courage to create a better future. callista and i pledge to work with you and with every american who wants to create that better future. to once again challenge the institutions that don't work, challenge the premises that don't work, to create new solutions, new opportunities, so that the 21st century will not third century of freedom in american exceptionalism. thank you all very, very much. >> that was newt gingrich delivering a speech that lasted almost 26 minutes. he said it has been an amazing year. he thanked his 179,000 donors, and he also spoke of this being a truly wild ride, amazing and astonishing and also thanked three individuals particularly, rick perry, herman cain and todd palin and also thanked sheldon adelson for the money that enabled him to match mitt romney. he said although he was suspending his campaign he is not suspending his citizenship. he also then proceeded to explain that he would focus on a number of things, american exceptionalism, american history, religious liberty, american energy independence, and also said he will be going on college campuses to teach people about personal social security accounts and joining us now is contributor crystal ball and dr. james peterson, a professor of i think english at lehigh university. crystal, you were listening. what's your immediate reaction? >> leave it to newt gingrich to find a way to go through his entire career from the very early days. >> he did. he spoke about 54 years of public service and he went through every decade. >> in case any of us had forgotten he was there to remind us. >> absolutely. >> he ended the campaign in a similar way to the way that he started it, very grandiose and a little delusional and he clearly does not want to relinquish his public role and i think that's the real reason why he hesitated to end the campaign is because he enjoys being in the public spotlight and enjoys the visibility so he is trying to set the table for all of the things that he is going to do now that he is done. >> dr. peterson, he did make one reference to the presumptive nominee mitt romney. he said i am sometimes asked is romney conservative enough? compared with president obama, he said, he is the most radical, leftist president we have ever had. >> wow. >> your reaction to that? >> yeah, number one, so first he dodges the question and he puts it in the context of ronald reagan and incidentally if you consider ronald reagan's positions versus the positions that mitt romney has taken, you might actually argue that rop ald reagan is less conservative than some of the positions that mitt romney is being forced to take in this particular environment but obviously president obama is not the most radical president we have ever had. this guy is fairly hawkish on foreign policy, number one, and number two, he has been much more centrist and sort of consensus oriented thannal loug himself with either of the political parties so once again newt gingrich gets it wrong. >> he does sadly. he also talked about the need for a national discussion about how to make congress effective. he said the congress is ineffective. i thought it was newt gingrich who introduced that poison vial into congress in the 90s that resulted in what we have today. >> i think it is exactly right. norm ornstein and thomas mann wrote a piece written over the weekend making exactly that argument, the seeds of our dysfunctional congress can be found in two men, newt gingrich and grover navigator kwis. gingrich really was the architect of the extremely divisive, extremely far apart, hateful, v il ify your enemy kind of approach to legislating we have seen over the past two decades. he really is the father of that mentality and his vision that he brought to fruition in the house has creeped over into the senate as those members of congress have gone on and run for higher office and run for statewide office. he really is at the heart of what's wrong with congress today. >> indeed. crystal and james, do stay with us. with that, our final word for the speaker. sleep, dwell upon thy eyes, peace in think breast. >> this is a country which elected a peanut farmer and elected an actor who made two movies with a chimpanzee. >> why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself? >> what? >> we will have the first permanent base on the moon. >> go get a job right after you take a bath. >> this is a goofy thing. that check was drawn in december. >> we are very frugal. we in fact live within our budget. >> i was charging $60,000 a speech. >> i got bit by a penguin. >> are you calling mitt romney a liar? >> yes. >> she says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take time to respond to that? >> no. >> can we drop the pious baloney. >> i am thinking about getting it up here. >> i am going to be the nominee. [ male announcer ] this is coach parker... whose non-stop day starts with back pain... and a choice. take advil now and maybe up to four in a day. or choose aleve and two pills for a day free of pain. way to go, coach. ♪ way to go, coach. so i test... a lot. do you test with this? freestyle lite test strips? i don't see... beep! wow! that didn't take much blood. yeah, and the unique zipwik tab targets the blood and pulls it in. so easy. yep. freestyle lite needs just a third the blood of onetouch ultra. really? so testing is one less thing i have to worry about today. great. call or click today and get strips and a meter free. test easy. introducing gold choice. the freedom you can only get from hertz to keep the car you reserved or simply choose another. and it's free. ya know, for whoever you are that day. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. welcome back. with us are crystal bawl and dr. james peterson, professor of earring english at lehigh university. i want to talk to you about mr. romney's backbone. mitt romney's backbone. it is a question raised over the resignation of romney's openly gay spokesman on foreign affa s affairs, richard grinnell, on the job for just two weeks and grinnell and the campaign say the sexuality has nothing to do with his decision. there was a lot of opposition from conservatives to this appointment. it was led by the anti-gay radio host brian fisher and he is taking credit for forcing mr. grenell off the romney team. take a listen. >> ladies and gentlemen, this is a huge win and it is a huge win for us in regard to mitt romney. i will flat out guarantee you he is not going to make this mace take again. there is no way in the world that mitt romney is going to put a homosexual activist in any position of importance in his campaign. >> that sounds like the republican party welcoming diversity. >> well, it is tragic for him to refer to it as a mistake and just the negative energy around that. i hope that the romney campaign can open their eyes and understand that when they see this and sense this discrimination it seems to out dated and out moded to them and they look like dinosaurs and this guy was an extremely capable and articulate spokesman and capable at what he was trying to do for the campaign. i am not sure why anybody would celebrate this. seems like they should get out in front especially with voter that is don't understand discriminating against gay folk. >> to the point, wouldn't it have been in mitt romney's interests giving the deficit with latino voters, the deficit with female voters to say i am going to welcome this individual and he served the u.n. for six years and he is a knowledgeable man and i will keep him on. >> i am so fan of his policies but you're right. i think this is emblematic of how mitt romney has run his campaign. every single decision is about the short-term political benefit. go back to his response to rush limbaugh's hateful, disgusting misogynist comments about sandra fluke. what was his response? same thing here. if you feel he should not have left and the campaign is pushing back and saying we asked him to stay, if you felt that was the case, if you wanted him to stay, why didn't you issue a statement in his support? why didn't you call on other social conservatives to come out and support him? why didn't you in the two weeks that he was on the campaign put him out even once to speak on behalf of the campaign? they didn't pit him out to talk about foreign policy even once. clearly the romney campaign which i think brought him on in a sort of cynical political move to try to make romney look like an independent and appeal to young people, that back fired and they ran away from the decision as fast as they could. >> awful politics. >> thank you so much for joining us. thank you. we have breaking news at this hour. the san diego chargers have confirmed that former national football league star junior seau is dead in what police are investigating as a suicide by gunshots at his home earlier today. his mother spoke about her son during a press conference moments ago. >> i don't understand who would do this to my son, but i pray to god, please, take me. take me. leave my son. it is too late. it is too late. that's all i say. thank you so much. god bless you for everybody. drive carefully. i don't know what -- >> seau was a standout linebacker at usc, selected in the first round of the 1990 nfl draft and played with the bulk of his 20 year career with the chargers and later the dolphins and patriots earning 12 pro bowl selections. in 2010 seau drove his suv off a cliff in carlsbad, california, just hours after being arrested for an alleged attack on his girlfriend and at the time he denied trying to kill himself and claiming he fell asleep at the wheel. seau leaves behind his ex-wife and three children. he was just 43 years old. does aspirin even work on headaches? 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>> actually, not. because the base of the republican party is made up of evangelical conservatives and conservatives roman catholics. if you looked at the resignation or be a decation speech a moment ago, what he said he would work on was religious civil liberty issues. roman catholics are suing the administration to turn their desire to deprive women of contraceptives who work for them into a religious civil liberties issue. that's not going to go away. the fact that romney is a hormon and evangelicals will be uncomfortable about foet voeting for him won't go away and the consistent lies about obama being a muslim, a radical, these won't i go a way. so the religious aspect of the race will be there and stay through the entire election season. >> what's interesting is that while mitt romney is virtually silent, on his, you know, on his own mormonism, he keeps making bogus allegations saying that president is running awar on religion. now, to me this seems the very height of hypocrisy. he complains when people describe him as the member of a cult. yet he wants to be free it make fraudulent accusations against the president. >> well, essentially what they are doing is using the code that the bishops and conserve tifr evangelicals led by the recently deceased charles colton cooked up, folks who read my book "crazy for god", will see the that the religious right will try it paint the religious writeright as bigoted, as if it is a poor minority, they happen to control one house of congress now. they have put numerous people in the white house, the last being george w. bush. but they have this victimology. so they will talk about the fact they don't get everything they want, like depriving women of contraception, and they call that anti-religious bigotry. it is an outright lie. >> indeed. frank shafer thanks so much for joining us this afternoon. >> thank you for having me. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement available only with liberty mutual auto insurance, if your car's totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. to learn more, visit us today. responsibility. what's your policy? 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[ femalennouncer ] nefrom stouffer's. farmers' harvest steam meals taste so good we'lbet the farm on it. thanks so much for watching on an historic day when newt gingrich suspended his campaign. dylan ratigan is here to take you before. dylan, were you saddened by the news of mr. gingrich's withdraw? >> as you know, martin, my thing is to look past of what i see as a corrupt election funded by 196 people, and the whole thing is a pro wrestling joke. my focus is on our schools and hospitals. things we can actually fix. i find that as waste of our time. and it makes for good tv. you can make money off it and stuff. the show starts now. well, good wednesday afternoon to you. i am dylan ratigan. we are devoting the first half of this program it a singular number, 2014. 2014. that is the year that america is expected to finally be out of afghanistan. >> the goal that i set to defeat al qaeda and deny it a chance it rebuilt is now within our reach. international troops will continue to train, advise and assist the afghans, and fight alongside them when needed. but we will not build perpent in bases in this country. nor will we be patrolling at cities and mountains. our goal not to build a country in america's image, our goal is to destroy al qaeda and