in custody in the maximum security prison at fort leavenworth, kansas. we're learning things more about sergeant bales, his family and career. john yang is there with the very latest. good day, what it is the latest? >> reporter: hello, alex, bales is making his first day on u.s. soil since he was deployed in afghanistan in december, but he is not back in his own house in washington state. he is in fort leavenworth in solitary confinement. staff sergeant robert bales seen here training at a military facility in california is housed in a pre-trial detention facility. he's awaiting formal charges in connection with the shooting rampage that left 16 afghan civilians dead including women and children. he's the married father of two young children of his own who have all been moved on to a military base in washington state for their own protection. >> they're suffering a lot. they're confused a lot. more than anything, everybody is very concerned. they're scratching their heads more than anything else. >> neighbors in his washington state community are shocked. >> super nice. super nice family, nice people, nice parents, nice friends. i am completely blown away. >> according to his lawyer, bales enlisted shortly after 9/11 and decided to make it his career. he'd been sent to iraq three times suffering a head injury and losing part of a foot. >> he was told he would not be going back to the middle east. he was training to be a military recruiter and then overnight he was told he was going back. >> in afghanistan, he was witness to more of war's brutality. >> there was an incident right before these allegations where one of his fellow soldiers was mortally wounded. >> reporter: he's described as a highly decorated number of the 3rd stryker brigade 2nd infantly division. he is said to live a quiet, unassuming life not far from base. his lawyer questions allegations he was drinking the night of the shooting. he suggests bales may be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and that it might play a role in his defense. legal analysts say insanity defenses are rare in military trials. >> you would have to assume that that's going to be an uphill battle just on general principles. >> reporter: we are learning more about bales. according to court records in washington state, twice since he was stationed there in 2002 he's been in civilian court facing misdemeanor charges and both times the court ordered him to go go anger management training. it will be a requirement to see if the military can continue holding him while they continue their investigation. alex? >> john yang, thanks for that live report. so many are still asking how exactly could something like this happen? a bit earlier i spoke with matthew akins who has been covering afghanistan since 2008 and he tried to put the shootings into perspective for us. this kind of small, special forces base where bales is living there's not a lot of supervision and he was able to bluff his way past the afghan guards guarding the outer perimeter and they were used to night raids in the area and they were used to u.s. soldiers kicking down their doors at night and they knew in those situations if they put up any resistance they'll be killed. so, you know, he was able to go from door to door, trying different doors and killing 16 people, men, women and children in their beds. >> sergeant bales was on his first trip to afghanistan after three tours in iraq. >> let's go now to front-page politics and three big republican contests. first to missouri where gop caucuses are taking place. rick senator up is on the heels of a sweep through illinois. >> and people are going out there. they like the guy who is scrappy. they like the guy who is trying to overcome the machine. >> next to puerto rico where nit romney is rallying voters today. it's the second day on the island ahead of the primary there. >> on sunday, please go vote and get your friends to vote. together we'll make sure that we keep america the strongest nation and the earth, the world. romney the lead there with 37% and santorum is second with 31 followed by gingrich and paul, and the illinois primaries tuesday and newt gingrich taking a campaign detour to a zoo in louisiana where gingrich got up close and personal there with one of the elephants. louisiana's primary is march 24th. joining me now national political reporter for "the washington post" amy gardner and msnbc contributor perry bacon, jr. hello to the both of you. nice to see you. >> you, too, alex. >> santorum claims momentum with recent wins in alabama and mississippi while romney claims the lead in the delegate count overall. do you think it can translate to the number of delegates that he needs to challenge romney in tampa? >> i mean, probably not. it seems like it's less of a race about momentum and more about geography and demographics. in a state like illinois where a small number of evangelicals santorum would have a hard time and romney will likely win. if you go to louisiana, santorum and gingrich have a much bigger advantage. it will be hard to get momentum and in the south, santorum will do better. >> heretofore, you would have heard newt gingrich saying that he would do better in the south. amy, i know you've been following the gingrich campaign. it's been helping and hurting the gop. how's that? >> i think this past week the view from the washington and the media and the political classes and within the romney campaign is that gingrich staying in the race was helpful to romney because it sort of blocked a one-on-one contest between santorum and romney, and i think that that shifted a little bit this week with gingrich's second place finishes in louisiana and alabama where he was widely expected to do better than that, including by himself and his own advisers. i think there is a view that gingrich's momentum is continuing to slip, and so now you hear romney advisers say privately that they actually would like to see gingrich step aside and to get that one-on-one shot at santorum and this nominating process and move on to the general election. >> perry, i want to turn to president obama because he addressed the high gas prices in his weekly address today. >> it's easy to promise a quick fix when it comes to gas prices. there just isn't one. anyone who tells you otherwise. any career politician who promises some three-point plan for $2 gas, they're not looking for a solution. they're just looking for your vote. >> of course, he's referencing newt gingrich there, though not by name. this is the fourth straight weekly address that the president has talked gas prices or energy futures. does this suggest to you that the administration is worried about gas prices come november? >> absolutely. he's talking about that on thursday and and the humidity plan as well. they're absolutely concerned about it. the challenge with what they're trying to do is make sure that other data, particularly unemployment shows that the economy is improving, but to make the case, gas prices are going up, but they're trying to make sure that the gas price story doesn't take away from the general optimism of the economy and voters aren't going vote on the gas prices themselves or they will vote on how they feel about the economy and where it's going in november. >> you know, amy, the president is referring to newt gingrich's $2.50 gallon gas prices. you've been following him. has he explained how he would get to that figure? >> his general principle is there's much more energy to be explored in this country than the public is aware of and that this current administration's taking advantage of so his general policy proposal is to open up all kind of energy exploration whether it's offshore drilling, drilling on land in north dakota. he talks a great deal about the availability of new drilling technologies in north dakota and also alternative energies, too. wind, and he, too, thinks he should be doing more toy explore alternative sources of energy. so we have the resource here. we don't need to rely upon the middle east and we can drive the price down ourselves by opening up exploration here. >> but, with the exception of perhaps new technology affording the ability to do that state of north dakota, is there anything new in what newt gingrich is saying? >> he wants to encourage offshore drilling, for instance, by giving states the right to demand royalties which would encourage states to allow offshore drilling and that's the other main source of new e mro raising that he talks about on the trail. >> perry, i was mentioning romney's lead on the delegate count and ahead of the other three candidates combined. we also have the primaries in puerto rico and illinois. how much longer do you think we'll be talking about a three-man gop race? >> gingrich is declaring this week saying that he wants to make sure that he keeps delegates from going to romney. i think we're talking about until june at this rate. we'll have santorum, romney and gingrich all competing and i think romney will have a hard time securing delegates until june if all three of them are still in the race and still competing. >> your take on this? >> i think that's right. the real question right now is what is newt gingrich's trajectory in term of his momentum and if he continues to take the non-trivial fraction of delegates that he's been taking state by state by state then he and santorum together could block romney from getting to the magical number of 11:44 that he needs to secure the nomination without going to the convention. if newt gingrich continues to slip, then maybe that's not the case. there's really only one person that can get to 11:44 now before the convention and that's mitt romney. either romney locks it up or we'll have an interesting summer as we approach the convention. >> any bets on what the prediction there is? no, you're not taking it. >> no. amy gardner, perry bacon, jr., thanks so much. new federal filings indicate the ron paul campaign is short on cash. the texas congressman spent more money last month than he brought in. the campaign has the smallest stash on hand than at any other point in the campaign only $1.3 million. paul, of course, has the least amount of delegates thus far. after today's caucuses in missouri. puerto rico holds the primary tomorrow and march ends the month with louisiana's primary on the 24th. moving to april, washington, d.c., maryland and wisconsin hold primaries on the 3rd. >> president obama targets big oil. how might that affect what you pay at the pump. i'll speak with katherine crier about that next. catch lucky. hearts, moons, stars, clovers and diamonds. >> plus, what you didn't know about lucky charms including a fashion icon who starred in a commercial as a child here on "weekends with alex witt." this is $100,000. we asked total strangers to watch it for us. thank you so much, i appreciate it, i'll be right back. they didn't take a dime. how much in fees does your bank take to watch your money ? 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[ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. >> in his weekly address today, president obama is taking on a big target, tax subsidies for the oil industry. >> for the next few weeks i expect congress to vote on ending these subsidies and when they do, we're going to put every single member of congress on record. they can either stand up for the oil companies or they can stand up for the american people. they can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century or they can place their bets on america's future. so make your voice heard. send your representative an e-mail, give them a call, tell them to stand with you. >> if this sounds familiar it's because it's the fourth week in a row that president obama has focused his address on oil prices and his energy future and not coincidentally because fuel prices have risen 9% over the past four weeks. it is an issue that could be a big hurdle ahead of the election. joining me is catherine crier and author of "patriot acts. what americans must do to save the republic." how great to have you back. good to see you again. >> good to see you. let's talk about what's happening right now with the president? do you think he's doing election-year posturing right now or do you think congress can really do something to put these tax breaks and end all of that for the big oil companies? >> it's obviously a big issue. it's an issue that impacts the consumer very, very directly, but people don't remember a lot of things. one, this time every spring you've got production facilityities that are shutting down to transfer different kind of gas -- >> it's more expensive. >> that's right. and it falls off again in the fall. gas prices always escalate in the summer. we've got a global economy. we've got the threat of war in iran and all of these things and the speculators are playing their role in the market. so politically, i understand targeting the president, but the reality is very, very different. now he's having a conversation at a dangerous time to start talking about the subsidies and tax breaks for the oil company. so i give him a lot of credit because it's a courageous position. it's a position we need to be taking. i don't know, whether -- that would step up to that plate right now even though i think they should. >> this was addressed when the democrats were in control and it could not get past it. so the luckily hood now -- >> i mean, the power on capitol hill, but we this year are exporting crude. we are exporting petroleum products. so people need to understand the industry is looking to china and india going, who will pay us the highest prices right now and the american consumer has to stand in line. and if in pack, zee to stand in line that at $4.50, $5 a gallon they're not concerned. >> another topic that is up for public consumption 24/7 it seems jobs. you wrote a column on "the huffington post." you made the argument that republican candidates, job creation policies are inherently flawed. you say wealth does not trickle down and deregulation does not equal job growth. so it does create jobs. >> it's quite interesting. there's almost universal agreement around the world that education, supporting innovation and entrepreneurial innovation which may or may not include the big, multinational corporations and infrastructure and we have ignored our infrastructure and infrastructure not only includes roads and bridges, but it includes a national wireless system so that anyone in rural america can be just as productive and active as someone sitting in new york city, and we do not pay attention to that, and it's puzzling to me because when you go back in history that i do in the book, it is the republicans starting with alexander hamilton who was all for using federal money and building infrastructure to make us this great, competitive nation, and it wasn't really until post world war ii that all of a sudden republicans became this -- we're not going use the federal government to grow everything to lift all boats. >> can you give a reason for that? was it the timing? >> this is very disturbing that in '09, a very prominent economist said for the first time there is no correlation between our gdp in the stock market and the help of the domestic economy meaning we're reporting all of these great numbers, but they're coming from the multinationals who don't need to rely on the american consumer anymore. so 50 years ago they said to congress, put money into this country, build infrastructure, we'll support the taxes and the policies to do this. now we don't really care because we want more development in china over india. so when you've lost that correlati correlation, the american people, and that's not just the workers of the poor, the middle class. that's everybody needs to fight for the well-being of our domestic economy because a lot of the money on capitol hill, the big money and the big contributors are investing overseas. they're saving their money and we know big corporations are sitting on billions in cash so the whole argument has been debunked. you've cut capital gains and cut taxes and those are going to the second, third, fourth home and they're going to the savings account or being invested overseas and they're not coming here. >> all of this being outlined in the patriot act. we appreciate that discussion and we'll keep talking about politics. you get a short coffee break. see you in a bit. mixed reaction over the hate crime of dhar un ravi. he used a web cam to spy on his roommate's intimaten counter with another man. he faces several years in prison and potential deportation to his native india. you'll remember his roommate tyler clementi committed suicide days after that video was taken. gay rights underscores the division of hate crimes legislation, but legal groups say these laws criminalize beliefs that are not considered politically correct. we've been asking you all day this question, dharun ravi, how much time should he serve? >> dmj 43 tweets not crazy about making examples of people, still we need to make some sort of statement on his behavior. dharun ravi should be released when he turns 30 years old. at that point it's time to be an adult 24/7. not long enough to bring the young man back. keep talking to me. my handle is @alexwitt. i'll be reading your tweets later on. >> now to number five on the first five web stories. margaret thatcher and her fascination with ronald reagan. she took a page from his doodles of the g-7 summit. here they are. a torso and an eyeball and a few heads as well. they're among personal papers released today at cambridge university. 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