featured speakers will be john lewis. back in 1963 he was the leader of the student nonviolating committee. nancy pelosi will also be speaking today along with the families of trayvon martin and emmett till. we'll all get under way later this morning and checking in and bringing you the latest proceedings throughout the day. the panel here in new york. amanda turkal for huffingtonpost.com, evan white house reporter for buzzfeed.com and liz winstead co-creator of "daily show" and author of the book. thank you for joining us. seems like the entire political world is in washington, d.c., glad we could see some people up here. i guess i just sort of start with your thoughts, amanda aama about 50 years later it says something that there is still a need for another march on washington, also says something about the progress we made that one of the speakers this week at the events will be the nation's first african-american president. >> it's really exciting that president obama is going to be speaking this week. spoken about race lately with the trayvon martin case. when he speaks about race, it's some of his most powerful speeches. he speaks very personally and he tends to get out some of the more wonaspects he falls into. we focused a lot on sort of racial equality and racial progress from the first march and a lot on economic equality and progress and as you've seen we're still very, very far from there. that a big part of the march. >> blake, you have sxhaut somewhat of a background in politics. i wonder from the standpoint from people around barack obama, trying to get him ready for this moment. he's going to be speaking where martin luther king spoke 50 years ago. how do you think he's preparing for this and his staff is preparing for him. it almost seems like an impossible challenge. >> this held up as one of the great speeches in american history and which is funny as a side note because we look at it as this iconic moment in american history and everyone rallied around how that was a great moment and at the time, this was a dissident act that much of the white establishment, many of the people in america were not supportive of this event and it's important to recognize that history. that being said, to answer your question, barack obama does have a very tall order ahead of him to try to match the moment, but we know in the past, as amanda said, his oratory skills have never been in doubt in terms of the preparation. look, you can't try to do what the king and other people did that day. he has to be his own speaker and he will rise to that moment. >> you always wonder about these things, too, liz. we think back of the march of 1963 and the way i taught it in school growing up. everyone gathered to hear martin luther king speak and he gave this great speech but the march on washington was so much bigger than that. he was one of many speakers and no one went there and expected to be a move by martin luther king. so many other people participating and i think we look at the program this weekend and we look at who's talking and what is being discussed. the message here is broader than just what we remember martin luther king talking about. >> i think the thing i'm really excited about is we get so textie, facebookie, twittery and you go to a march and become part of a group of people who are reflecting on what it means to stand up for other people. we talk so much now about takers and all of this stuff. the people there, a lot of times their first march and their first time experiencing that and it's really, really powerful. so, i'm really excited to have people do a reset and a reconnect and grow up in an environment like this. >> covering politics. the effect of such a polarized country right now. the division between the two parties so clearly drawn. and more drawn than they were in 1963 and do you think watching all the people gather today and over the next few days, something that could have an effect on the political system right now? >> as a system exists, i'm not totally sure. going back to what we talked about earlier and obama and what he might say and what he might do. we previewed this. coming down through scranton talking about college and he did a town hall yesterday where he kind of previewed a little, he talked about race and gay rights, as well. i think it's something that ties him maybe to the martin luther king speech is they're both pretty positive about how race relations in the country. he spoke about trayvon as amanda said. but the core of that speech was really about i think the country is sort of getting better and bending towards more equality. that's the kind of thing you'll see him say and the kind of thing he's been saying and that's what people who care about this issue might help change the political calculus. they're hoping as more people sort of rallied to the cause of equality that it's going to shift as maybe pick up those wallets and divide us so politically. >> so much we can talk to about a march for jobs, as well, back in 1963 and, amanda, you talk about this, the economic component of the message still relevant today and i guess when obama has had great success when he talks about, when he talked about race and the progress and sort of an optimistic message of getting to a place that we're all equal opportunity and that seems to go over well and when you start getting into the specifics, this is how we'll combat economic inequality and system right now is not as universally ready for that. >> yes, i mean, people want to see progress. but how you get there is what gets tough. so, i don't, this isn't going to be a state of the union address from president obama with his specific policy prescriptions. i think he will tend to be positive. he did that during the 2008 campaign when he was caught up in the jeremiah wright scandal and a lot of it was talking about the progress and where the country is now. but, you know, i think president obama will use this, though, to sort of frame and explain why he is doing, you know, on college affordability and raising the minimum wage that he wants to. this is more of a conceptional speech rather than, here's what i want congress to do today and here's republicans obstructing it. >> we're coming up on the 150th anniversary of lincoln's gettysburg address. the president has been invited to take part and speeak there, s well. the "i have a dream speech" and gettysburg address, you're going to show up and do both in the same year. >> no pressure on that. >> but he is, i you know, i will say, we think of recent presidents and ronald reagan being the great communicator. bill clinton in certain settings and in a formal setting you think of oklahoma city in 1995, he brought out the best in the country there. bill clinton was more better in less formal settings, i think. barack obama and ronald reagan are really the only two presidents i can think of maybe since like fdr awho would rally the nation with their words. >> i think it's a luxury to have. when you have that skill, what's really nice about it, when you take to the podium, the sigh of relief that one feels just as somebody taking in the information that the order is going to make sense, be clear and be inspiring. it is a great advantage to have because you aren't going to, is he going to sweat and go for the water and is he like a mess? to really have that person, to have that in your pocket before the words pass your lips is more important than people think about. >> these are the things we end up remembering presidencies for, too. you can look at the policy record of any administration, but sort of these iconic moments. sort of one of the reasons i think republicans have had great success over the last generation of reviving ronald reagan's legacy and the most popular in america today is probably ronald reagan. if you go to a republican convention and go to the events where they're playing videos and they're playing ronald reagan at normandy and after the challenger explosion and play tear down this wall, mr. gorbach gorbachev. the power of the ordatory and i don't mean to trivlize it, i think they speak to higher ordeals and asspirations and an important part of the presidency. very few presidents have it. >> not just the presidency. part of the reason we're talking about this today is the iconic moment in dr. king's speech, i have a dream. there were ten other speeches that day that was riveting and very important and this was a very, very important event. but it is the folk lure that develops. >> are there other messages from 1963, you know, besides martin luther king's, we talk about the legacy of the march that may have been a bit forgotten. >> things go better with. >> the other thing i'm looking forward to. i think he's speaking this morning, john lewis. an amazing story. this is somebody who helped organize the first, the first march in 1960. 23 years old. you look at the ages of some of these people back then. i'm struck by the youth of the people who organized this. in fact, we'll talk to one of them now. folks, she is in place. she was on the staff for the 1963 march of washington for jobs and freedom. she joins us now live from today's march in d.c. congresswoman, thank you for joining us. you helped organize this 50 years ago. you are here again today and i just kind of want to know, what are you thinking about right now as you get ready for the 50th anniversary? >> first thing i'm thinking about is a lot cooler than it was august 28th, 50 years ago. then i'm looking out there. i'm dpoeg going to be doing the thing as i was doing then. as a member of the staff i was looking out from behind the statue or near the statue. and as far as the eye could see, i couldn't see to the end of the people. now, there are a lot of people here gathered now, but we will s see. and i'm sure, and i'm sure there will be many who want to come simply to commemorate this 50th anniversary and, frankly, to raise many more causes than we ourselves raised. there was only one cause then. the overwriting issue on the united states of america then was race and racism. >> right. and it was, you know, within a year of the 1963 march and the civil rights act of 1964, a year after that, voting rights act. you are also part of the long-term legacy because of the equal employment opportunity commission was one of the demands from the march and you were the first chair of that, right? >> well, it was created a year later, actually. with the establishment of title 7 of the 1964 civil rights act. and the amazing thing to me, at least, when you consider that i was a law student then was that not 15 years later, i would become the chair of this commission, which was of overriding concern to the black community. remember, the genius who organized the march had been a mentee of randolph. the head of the march. and randolph had threatened a march on washington in order to get a fair employment practices commission and he got it without a march. because fdr gave in. so, you can imagine that since the, since world war ii, black people had been carrying the demand. we not only want jobs, they got jobs out here. but we can't get those jobs because, if you are black and go for a job, north, south, east or west they can look into your face and say, we do not hire black people here. so, that was the greatest concern of the march, along with, of course, the notion of a comprehensive civil rights act which we finally got by 1968. >> and you mentioned the name rusten and you worked with him on his staff. he was, you know, one of the chief organizers of the march in 1963. i feel he's one of those names that you look at all the big civil rights names from that era, he's probably been forgotten a little bit, maybe more than some of the others. i wonder if you can tell us about him and what it was like to work with him. >> it's a name that really shouldn't be forgotten because in a very real sense, i can tell you i don't see how the march could have been organized without rustin. there was no nobody who had the experience to do it. he put together a life-long act of activism. i was one of young people who gathered around byrin. the great strategist. the man who went on a freedom ride in 194 2. people were impatient that we were in the streets for ten years and had nothing to show for it. i was in the march. i was in the mississippi delta when i got a call from friends who say bayard said if you want to work on the march, it's going to happen. get yourself on to a plane and come to new york. and that's how i got to be on the staff of the march. one of the seminole experiences of my lich. >> 50 years ago today. we'll return to today's commemoration of the march later in the show. president obama to do something about the horrifying carnage in syria. anything he can do? 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>> that is absolutely the case. i think you can make a strong case that perhaps the eight years of the bush administration were probably the most searing lessons on foreign policy that president obama has really taken aw away. you can say it's looking at what happened in the administration and steering the united states in a way so it does not make those mistakes, again. we want that, we want a president to be very judicious when he approaches this. when he talks about foreign policy, he talks about u.s. interests. at the same time, another axiom of foreign policy which is that policy in action is a decision in itself. that, too, can lead to interventions is what we're seeing today. what does it mean? it means the other side is learning and probing what you're doing all along and taking signals from that policy and what we've seen from assad over the last two years is his probing and moving the chemical red line, a red line that president obama established by saying it a year and a day before these attacks and he's not only successfully probed that line, he's actually moved the line. look at what happened. initially the u.s. administration's policy was movement or use of weapons would be objectionable and then it became the use of weapons and then it became the systematic or long-scale use of these weapons. is what happened on wednesday that trigger point? >> you say trigger point and that is the other question. specifically, what could the united states be doing here? we're not talking about sending troops in. what could the united states do that would actually have a measurable impact here? >> so, first your options are terrible. that's, that's always been the case, which is why sort of faced with a fork in the road, the president consistently has take on the fork. now, here we are with really bad options. what are they? the president will steer an option where he can somehow deter chemical attacks and not entangling the united states in another middle east war for just the reasons you indicated. you're looking at options like something coming from the two destroyers in the mediterranean right now that are equipped with tomahawk. the red line is something he said repeatedly over time. he feels pressure to do that, for that reason and then additionally another really important aspect, which i think is very important for president obama, which is that there is a norm of not using chemical weapons in war fare that was established at the end of world war one. that norm has been chipped away very methodically by that regime. if that norm disintegrates on president obama's watch, that has consequences for our allies and all future conflict. >> i hear the red line. i understand what obama said last year when he evoked the red line. but i mean is the contention here that because it's said, that just to prove that it, you know, that you have to back that threat up, you have to do something. because you talk about syria and you're talking about the population living so close together and the rebels, the rebels are multi-faction here but living in close proximity to the government forces and start lobbing in missiles. i mean, we talk about maybe a couple hundred and thousands and people dying in the chemical attack the other day and you talk about just as many potentially when you watch missiles, innocent civilians. >> i think no question that president obama could go back, he would not use that language, again. some porreports are he was speag from the gut when he did. i think you're right. to have to have that be the trigger point and for that to be the soul reason to act would be insufficient. a terrible reason to involve the united states in another conflict. i do think there are wider reasons to do so besides that, although when the president speaks, this is something that our allies throughout the region and others throughout the region are looking at, too. some argue the way that they treated the military crackdown in egypt the week earlier this is an administration that is giving you a free hand. >> if assad, you know, is forced out, let's say it's strikes or something and it empowers the rebels and assad is deposed, we're looking at chaos, aren't we? we're talking about a civil war here. we're talking about the situation we had in iraq. >> what is supposed to be the goal? force a stalemate that would hopefully lead to some sort of negotiated settlement where you'll keep elements of the government in place for just that reason, but assad would have to go. that was the ideal. one of the questions they should be asking and i'm sure they are asking the white house this m n morning and that's something to be worried about, as well. you push him into a corner with military strikes, how much does that raise the possibility of additional chemical weapons attack. i guarantee you that the conversation and the debate within the white house is no more clear eyed than the one people are having outside the white house. >> obviously, we'll keep a close eye on this. thank william dobson of slate.com. republicans may have killed immigration reform this week. what if they don't actually pay a price for it? that's coming up. what? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it? 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ooh! could've had a v8. in the juice aisle. chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr. the prospect of congress passing comprehensive immigration reform. house judiciary committee, which is the first hurdle for immigration legislation in the house, he said he is against a path for citizenship not only for undocumented adults, but also their children. so-called dreamers. >> folks who want to have the pathway to citizenship have held everything else hostage. we think a legal stating in the united states and not a special pathway to citizenship might be appropriate. >> the fact that such a key player is now staking out such a hard-line position is being taken by confirmation that americans are lready to let it die. talkingpointsmemo.com is bluntly urging advocates to read the writing on the wall and "stop pretending that the hardening resolve to kill the senate bill is going to change and take this whole question back to the people looking forward to the 2014 election." what if there is really no way to hold reform accountable next year. that's what jonathan shea wrote, "if republicans immigration refo reform and the house map will allow the republican majority to survive with almost all white voters for a long time." frank sherry who is the executive director of america's voice said he is not deterred. he wrote this week, "over the years we've been told that latino and immigrant voters would never make a difference in electoral outcomes. that immigration is a third rail issue that works against democrats. any way to hold republicans accou accountable, if this thing dies. why what bob goodlet said this week is so significant. he is not just against a path to citizenship. it would apply and he also does not want a path for citizenship for children who are brought here by their parent. take us to capitol hill and why he is such a player and why this is making it out? >> every immigration bill will have to go by his desk and him and eric cantor are working on the kids act, which would make children the dreamers, legal, but it couldn't make them citizens. so, he is -- so, basically, refusing to provide any sort of path to citizenship is not what democrats want to see and it's not what a lot of republicans want to see. i think republicans who are looking down the line and seeing these long-term trends that we could lose latinos for many, many years, if we don't do something. >> so, what about that argument that long term there's a demographic issue but almost all come from districts that mitt romney won last year. they're looking at 2014 and republican primaries and saying, no incentive for me here. >> that's true. they do have their lines drawn to protect themselves. the protection plan is in good order in washington. but what's interesting about this, if you look at this august that was supposed to be this huge battle over immigration reform in which we're going to see sort of a relapse of what happened in 2007 when we had big pushes from the anti-immigration reform crowd. they haven't shown up that much. so, kind of confusing as to who the republicans are actually afraid of in this case. because we haven't seen the anger from that other side, you know, from the opposition that we saw before. so, it's almost like that fight from 2007 is rolling over to now. >> the tea party is in their head. >> they're fighting and, we've seen polls showing the country is largely behind immigration reform as they are now. a decision that republicans need to be making on their own as opposed to they can't blame someone else this time. >> i just see it as, when you keep proposing, basically, the ripping families part act, americans don't like that. they don't like to hear that. they don't like to hear that children who were born and raised here and didn't come here of their own volition and really want to invest in america are not being allowed to do that. and, it's like you guys have all said. this weird red herring thing that a lot of congressmen who don't have very many hispanic and latinos in their districts. this thing that they can hammer home. i'm going to protect you from the people that don't exist anywhere near you and they're going to keep electing some of those people overa and over again. >> since the movement to ban, no one has tried to oppose -- i kind of think it's working. >> that's a really good point. also a good point, though, just what lizz was saying, it's important to put in context what the republicans are doing here. against illegal status for dreamers. we're talking about the part that was the consensus part. this isn't even like the other tough stuff. we're not talking about adults and the 11 million people and kids who were brought here when they were little by their parents and lived here. this was supposed to be the easy part and they're against this. let's be clear on how extreme this position is. >> the other thing, the point that josh marshal makes, it reminds me of where washington, the point washington reached in the summer of 2011. the whole debt ceiling showdown and both parties basically agreed, we'll stop pretending to try for the next year and a half. we'll have an election and we'll put the issue out there and the voters will revolve it. you look nine months and the great fight hasn't been revol resolved. i just look at immigration and say, if that's the same approach here, okay, it's dead, let's take it to the voters in 2014. we'll come back with the same split verdict. really one of those, if they can't get anything done, can anything big happen in washington these days? >> to me the issue here i don't think the republicans are going to get penalized in 2014, maybe 2016. i think they have what they call fox news problems. the people who watch fox news are 65-year-old and over years in 10, 15 years how do they keep their audience. not to be morbid about it, but just keeping it real. >> the republican party is a similar problem here, which is they're going to have a serious branding issue. the young voters coming in are going to see what's happening here and a serious long-term branding problem because as the older voters recede, shall we say -- >> only true thing about this, a lot of short-term discussion when steve king came out and made attack on dreamers, a lot of people in the gop, leaders with the gop turned on him and they are interested, i think, in not putting that face forward. and sort of the hard thing about this is that if they, they can talk all they want about steve king being wrong and about his rhetoric being off. but if they then go ahead and don't support a dream act, they're stuck getting the victory. they are interested in trying to change their message. the hard thing we said about the tea party in our head. can they take action to back that up? >> i'm still rattled by this people dying thing. i thought grandparents were going to live forever. rising star, national republican politics in a canadian birth controversy and, no, i'm not talking about ted cruz. i'll tell you who i am talking about, next. max and penny kept our bookstore exciting and would always come to my rescue. but as time passed, i started to notice max just wasn't himself. and i knew he'd feel better if he lost a little weight. so i switched to purina cat chow healthy weight formula. i just fed the recommended amount... and they both loved the taste. after a few months max's "special powers" returned... and i got my hero back. purina cat chow healthy weight. folks have suffered from frequent heartburn. but getting heartburn and then treating day after day is a thing of the past. block the acid with prilosec otc, and don't get heartburn in the first place. 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this is one of the great unsolved mysteries about an american president. if you take a trip to fairfield, you can visit the house where he was born. you can visit the church where his father preached and even pose with a life-size cardboard cutout at town hall. what you won't find being prominently displayed is this. a book called how a british subject became president of the united states. it was written in 1884, the final year of the presidency of chester allen arthur and a culmination of a year's long quest by one of arthur's political enemies to prove that chester allen archer was not born in the united states. and that he was there for an impostor president. what hindman did was pick up on chatter during the 1880 republican convention when arthur, who was then a machine politician from new york was unexpectedly chosen to run for vice president on james garfield's ticket. the rumor around the convention was that arthur was not born in fairfield, vermont, but quebec today. well, the evidence for this arthur's father was from northern ireland and then his family moved to quebec and his mother's parents started out in vermont but ended up in quebec. besides his word, there was not any documentary evidence to show that he was actually born in fairfield, vermont. so, hindman and arthur's other enemies fanned the rumors and the rumors took on new intensity and garfield was shot and arthur resumed the presidency in 1881. there were rival conspiracy theories and all sorts of conspiracy theories and a mysterious sibling named chester able arthur was born in fairfield, vermont, but died as an infant. at which point his parents sold his body to science and transferred the dead infant's american identity to his older canadian-born brother who became chester allen arthur, if that makes any sense. the rumors outlived arthur. his presidency was quickly forgotten but the controversy was revived in 1949 when the arthur family bible turned up and it was discovered that, chester allen arthur had lied about his birth year for his whole political career, he claimed that he was born in 1830. but now it turned out he was actually born a year earlier than that in 1829. could it be proof that the earthers were right, that there was some kind of grand plot to mask his true canadian heritage? personally, i don't buy it. no smoking guns ever emerged and the man who started all the rumors, arthur hindman had a political ax to grind. the more you read about arthur, the more you learn how vain he is. but the story has never really gone away, either. the doubts, the mystery, the possibilities, they linger and they bubble up every now and then. which, come to think of it, maybe a good thing for ted cruz. a candidate born in canada. might not be the first one. michael bloomberg has tried hard to make new yorkers believe he cheers for the local team but actually from massachusetts, red sox country. he once called joe torre joe torres the good, the bad and the just plain awkward, we'll take a look, next. i'd be sitting there with my friends who had their verizon phones and i'd be sitting there like "mine's still loading!" i couldn't get email. i couldn't stream movies. i couldn't upload any of our music. that's when i decided to switch. now that i'm on verizon, everything moves fast. with verizon, i have that reliability. i'm completely happy with verizon. verizon's 4g lte is the most reliable and in more places than any other 4g network. period. that's powerful. verizon. get the nokia lumia 928 for free. a. hey, it's me, progressive insurance. you know, from our 4,000 television commercials. yep, there i am with flo. hoo-hoo! watch it! 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[splash!] little while ago we played a clip from last week show where i offered severe praise for bill de blasio for not backing away from his life-ling red sox. not saying there is a connection here, this past tuesday three days after i brought it up, "new york times" ran a story of its own on the subject. that boston fan, the headline ran, he wants to run new york. deblasio showed his true colors, red and blue. others changed their allegiance to, bloomberg with the yankees jacket and illinois clinton by way of arkansas, the life-long yankees fan from 2000. i know they said there was something in 1992 when she grew up with an american league team and the national league team. it didn't look good. i don't know. i always thought this was kind of ridiculous and this is why i praised de blasio. i don't know the voter that is going to vote based on sports allegiance. hey, this is the team i was born with, and i'm sticking with it. >> critical thinking and sports fans do not put those two things together. >> there are a lot of sports fans. how dare you? >> i know, these are people who high five themselves when someone made a play that they had nothing to do with. they take credit. i just feel like, i'm now digging a hole. but i just feel if you don't know about sports, just stay out of it. like you don't have to wear a hat. >> if you're a real fan. if you're a red sox fan and you're in new york, new york fans will respect you for sticking with your team. no, i hate the red sox, go mets, go yankees. >> i feel like the sticking by your team is now changing your team. chris christie got in trouble because he's a cowboy s fan or something like that. telling you like it is i'm a cowboys fan in giants country. this is the new thing before it was, i'm for whatever team is doing better and winning. a politician would say like in a super bowl. but no, i'm for this and taking a strong stand. >> i think the rule is you don't have to make a dumb mistake when talking about sports. when he called curt schilling a yankees fan and i think john kerry referred to lambert field. i would say that's not the best reason we didn't have obamacare for a couple months and then there was a problem, probably wasn't the most substantive reason for it happening. >> what a screw up, not only screw up a local sports hero, she also accused him of being the enemy of being a yankee. >> and if you're not a sports fan and pretend to be, you look ridiculous. president obama when he was bowling on the campaign and mitt romney eating a corn dog. >> sport fan. >> sport fan. >> because his friends are owners. so, you try to be authentic by showing sports, but it ends up sort of how you are not. >> my other pet peeve, the ridiculous bets. the two teams in the super bowl. i'll bet you 2,000 pounds of lobster and that's another topic. very conservative and very outspoken republican who said he will beat cory booker. we'll talk to steve, next. my mother made the best toffee in the world. it's delicious. so now we've turned her toffee into a business. my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i'm janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. 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[ bop ] [ male announcer ] could've had a v8. two full servings of vegetables for only 50 delicious calories. we've talked a lot about cory booker, favored to win a special election for the new york senate in new jersey this november. but he does have an opponent and that opponent is steve lonegan. served for three terms from 1995 through 2007 and one of the most vocal and most conservative politicians in the state of new jersey. maybe the most vocal and the most conservative. while he was mayor, he spearheaded initiatives ranging from cost reductions to calling upon mcdonald's to take down a billboard because it advertised iced coffee in spanish. conservative group founded by david and charles coch and in 2009 ran for governor of new jersey. christie won that republican primary by 13 points and now a rising national gop star. this past tuesday he formally endorsed lonegan in his race against bookie. for defunding health care reform and marriage equality and running in new jersey a state where won two victories. new poll released on tuesday put booker ahead by 16 points, 54-38. that is the first poll out since the primaries two weeks ago. the election held on october 16th and here to talk about it, steve lonegan. steve, welcome to the show, thanks for joining us, i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> i was talking to your consultant yesterday and i think he said you xguys have seen thi video and you're ready for it. this is from our friends at "rachel maddow show." some say you're conservative and outspoken. here's some examples of it. we'll play this clip and talk about it. we'll start with this. >> i'm a radical. >> this is a ponzi scheme. the biggest disappointment i had last week when rick perry came out and called social security a ponzi scheme and all the controversy around it he didn't stick to his guns because it is. >> no interest in paying for health care. i didn't hear the idea about medicare and medicaid and i think both these programs are destined for destruction for the next generation and that's what i think. >> okay, so, there's a lot in there and i want to get into the particular issues, but i think i want to start with the more philosophical question and we put it in the intro there. there is a state for six straight presidential elections that has gone democratic and more than 40 years since it sent a republican to the senate. why should new jersey be represented in the senate with somebody with views that you had. >> we've seen what happened after 40 years of having democrat senators and representing new jersey in the united states senate. new jersey ranks it the worst state if not close to the worst state of the nation and we pay a massive amount of taxes and watch new jersey's economy go from the 1960s being the top rated economy in the nation to one of the worst states to start a business and we cannot afford any more of these economic policies. >> let's talk about specific policy questions then. on your agenda right away. if you win this election on october 16th, you'll go to washington, d.c. potentially at a time when the prospect of a government shut down or a debt ceiling default are on the political agenda because there are conservatives in the senate and dozens of them in the house who right now are saying that when the funding for the government comes up this fall, there should be no funding bill passed and we would rather shut down the government if it includes any money for the implementation of the affordable care act. they are saying shut down the government, shut down the entire government rather than doing that. i ask you, one of your first actions as a senator. do you agree with those who say we should shut down the government and not fund health care? >> yes. in fact, i think it's time to draw a line in the sand on the spending problems taking place in this country and reliance on government. there is an article on wallstreet.com friday about the federal reserve bank and meetings from june 30th and 31st which reports the federal reserve balance sheet has increased from $2.9 trillion to $3.4 trillion in six months. that's because the federal government is printing money at almost $85 billion a month in new money being printed to keep this government afloat. a real problem for this country. >> again, you're talking to voters who were told last year that the future of health care reform, the future of the affordable care act is on the line in this election and mitt romney said he'll get rid of it and barack obama says this is mine alone and i'm standing by it and re-elected president obama and you're saying not only repeal that law, but shut down the entire federal government to do that? >> steve, that was a year ago. before we learned all the bad things happening including the delta airlines announcement a few years ago and u.p.s. for spousal coverage and in new jersey alone, people will lose health care insurance. this thing is a train wreck. even the president himself said we have to postpone the employer mandate and the "chicago tribune" home town newspaper wrote an editorial saying halt obamacare. things have changed radically and need to eliminate the obamacare system and return to a solution for health care issues. >> a couple other issues that will come up quickly and i want to get your positions on them. one is called employment nondiscrimination act. it basically says if you have a job and you're gay, you cannot be fired from that job because you're gay. it looks like it will come up for a vote in the senate this fall. >> i support the right of every american to have a job to be protected in their employment, gay or straight. so, other aspects of the bill that may have to be looked at. but in terms of simply protect the rights of gay people to keep their jobs, yes, i would. >> do you have a position? have you looked at the bill? >> not the whole bill. >> another issue that might come up in the senate pretty quickly would be guns. if the background checks bill, the compromise that joe manchin and pat toomey, if that comes back up, would you favor background checks, universal mandatory background checks for anybody trying to buy a gun? if you have a criminal history and you're not getting a gun. >> that's correct. >> i would support background checks for criminal history checks. >> you would support background checks. if there is a nominee for the supreme court that comes up, would you apply, i know you're opposed to abortion, would you apply the same standard that you just sort of outlined. you would shut down the whole federal government over obama care. would you vote no on supreme court nominee because that nominee favors roe? >> you're asking me if i would personally shut down the government. i am 1 of 100 votes. i will vote in things that i believe in. if i'm the one vote that will make that decision, so be it. suddenly i'm the one single vote. so, the answer is, yes, i will vote the way i feel is necessary and the things i believe in. if that happens to be one of the votes that results in shutting down the government, so be it. >> i'm asking a movement in the senate and the movement in the house among a number of conservatives who says we will vote no if that funding bill for the entire government happens to include money for the implementation of the affordable care act. you are saying that? >> absolutely am. >> my question about a supreme court nominee who says that they would uphold roe v. wade is that a showstopper to confirm that nominee? >> it is for me, i am totally pro life. >> steve, i was wondering what you think of the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell has done. some conservatives are upset that he has, for example, he didn't insert himself now on the filibuster reform debate or cut deals with democrats. what do you think he has done? would you like to see anything different from the republican leadership? >> i would like to see them be less compromising with obama on his issues and particularly in stopping the funding of oba obamacare. >> anybody in the senate that you see as a kindred spirit that you -- >> ted cruz, rand paul has been outspoken. ted cruz is intellectual and i like the way he thinks. >> what kind of president do you think chris christie would be? >> i think he's a strong personality and kind of leadership this country needs to be put on a different track from that of barack obama. >> so far when i heard you talk, everything you've said was line in the sand, shut it down. i haven't heard you say that you would compromise on anything. i don't know a place in the world where you get something done be it your marriage, be it the government or your job where you don't have to compromise on people. can you explain to me why compromise is not something that you at all want to do, like compromising on obamacare. why not look at it and try to compromise on it? >> i didn't see barack obama and nancy pelosi compromise. we have to pass the bill to see what's in it. there was no compromise when it came to jamming obamacare down the throats of americans. >> if you believe that. that doesn't answer my question. that's what barack obama and nancy pelosi did. i'm asking you why you don't want a compromise so we can make sure americans have health care. >> places for compromise and places for standing up for your principles. the beliefs and giving up your principles does not work for me. i was a may aer for 12 years and i had to work with the democratalize the time. certain areas where you can compromise and put budgets together. >> a town of 10,000 people is very different than the united states senate. >> a town of 8,000 people is what makes up our local governments. that's what makes up our democracies. it's very, very important. the ability to operate in the local level is very important training for being u.s. senator. >> i want to talk to you about something. very important issue in new jersey right now. the recovery of the state from hurricane sandy last year. i want to ask ask you, specifically, about this involves chris christie because when president obama first came to new jersey during the storm last year and he said that president obama was doing an outstanding job and the response from obama and fema had been outstanding. he took a lot of heat from republicans on that. and six months later after it was approved and being implemented by the state of new jersey, the president returned and chris christie said, again, the president has kept every promise he made. i think he's done a good job. do you agree with chris christie on president obama's response to hurricane sandy? >> chris christie as executive of the state of new jersey has an obludwaigation to bring back every penny and talking about issues of principle and federal spending. i disagreed on hurricane sandy fundy because it was over the top. >> what was over the top? >> too much money. there was not spending restrictions and not controls in place to make sure money went directly to home owners and relief instead of programs. all kind of pork barrel spending in that bill and over time we're seeing that and we're going to see more of it. >> you're going to go down to the shore. bel mar the sewer system, power system wiped out. businesses under water and say you guys have got too much? >> too much money that has gone into the hurricane sandy bill and see more and more nightmare stories about millions of billions of dollars thrown away and programs had nothing to do with hurricane sandy relief. that's what's going to happen because a total taking advantage of the situation for this run away spending bill. everybody jumped onboard and got their piece of the action. the things i'm seeing today will be vindicated. >> unemployment in new jersey is now around 9% to a single working mother in new jersey who has a couple of kids and trying to do the right thing and low-wage retail job is concerned about health care, gets health care for the family under obamacare and relying on school lunch program and concerned about cuts that might come to s.n.a.p. and what is your policy prescription to help her? >> the same policy my mom adopted when my dad died when i was a teenager. you go to work, you do the best that you can. and my mom built a successful career. we need to create, first of all, we need to create an economy where single mothers can go and prosper, get income and health insurance. we never had to have s.n.a.p. when i was a kid. i tell you the truth, i'm tired of single mothers being used as the poster child for the welfare state. i know a lot of single moms go out to work and do very, very well for themselves. >> you're right, let's talk about just families in general. >> families in general. let's talk about families, let's talk about families in the city of newark, which has a 15% unemployment rate and has received countless billions of dollars. billions of dollars in subsidies from state taxpayers so that cory booker can have a drop our rate over 50% of the school system and unemployment rate of 50% and sky rocketing property taxes as we speak. free market economic policies, cutting the size of government and into freeing up individuals to achieve their best potential and getting out there, working hard and doing lots, like my single mom did when she had to when she was 37 years and old and kept our family together. worked very hard and became a successful administrator. that's what we need to do in this country. we need to free up people to be the best they can, not burden them with big government, not embrace more entitlement programs and more welfare spending and more debt and more taxes. >> certain piece of legislation that you are proposing that you would support in that effort? >> a certain single piece of legislation? i think it takes a lot more than that. i think it takes cutting the size of government across the board, freeing up businesses and cutting regulation. i'll give you one very specific piece of regulation that i'll push for. every seven years the epa and osha regulation should be sunsetted on a regular basis and should be reviewed for each of their impact of those regulations. we should be sitting down because we keep more and more regulations on businesses making it harder to survive and harder to create jobs in this country. sunsetted on a regular basis and we need to start from scratch. that's one step in the right direction. >> i want you to weigh in on one other thing. a debate within your party, within the republican party right now about domestic surveillance and national security. chris christie who endorsed you this week and rand paul had a very sort of public sparring over this in the last few weeks with rand paul raising concerns about all the revelations we had about the nsa and chris christie basically saying, hey, these policies work. i want rand paul to come to new jersey and make the argument to widows of 9/11. where to you come down on that debate? >> i more on the side of rand paul. i am kerped about a government that should be protecting us from our enemies. the nsa has overreached its power and intrusion into our privacy. these are our fourth amendment rights. i'm also concerned about the irs abuse of power and the doj going after reporters like you guys and digging into your e-mails and privacy. we're seeing more and more scandals coming out of the nsa every day. i'm concerned about individual liberty. >> and there is a difference you have with governor cristie over sandy and we'll talk about this later in the show. national conservatives look at governor christie in the last couple years and saying he's not a real conservative. you have looked at him as a conservative more closely than they have. would you tell them chris christie is a conservative? >> i am a libertarian conservative. everybody doesn't fall into a box. you can't say a this guy is a conservative and this guy is this. people who share various principles. i consider myself much more pragmatic in many ways. so, governor christie could be considered more conservative in some areas than i am. you can count on this, cory booker is identical to barack obama. i will differ with my party on certain issues and i will differ with chris christie on certain issues. at the end of the day my campaign is about individual liberty. that's what i'm here for. >> steve lonegan i appreciate you coming in today. we have an open invitation to cory booker and do the exact same thing. we'll go to another new jersey figure chris christie who is doing leg work for the 2016 race. democrats in new jersey are starting to remember he's a republican. that's next. 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[ male announcer ] advair diskus fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder. get your first prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd.com. chris christie is expected to win re-election in new jersey this november and begun laying the groundwork for a 2016 presidential campaign as national review reported this week from the article "their maneuvers have included huddles with republican moneymen and poways with conservative journalists and late-night conversations with past backers." find christie's lead may be coming down from previous heights. 56% compared to democratic state senator barbara buono's 36%. the same poll had christie ahead by 30 points. one way of reading this, democrats are remembering that christie is a republican thanks in no part to the gop establishment and veto of gun bills and proudly backing the man we just talked to, steve lonegan. christie previewed his pitch in an rnc meeting in boston last week. "for our ideas to matter, we have to win. if we don't govern all we do is shout to the wind. i'm going to do anything i need to do to win." here to discuss this with us is kate and a close christie watching, kate, thanks for joining us. >> sure. >> i'm interested in this question of what he's trying to do this year in new jersey in his re-election campaign. the polls have had him ahead by a huge margin and his pitch to national republicans, hey, i'm in a blue state and i'm a winner. everyone is expecting this blowout win and i'm looking at this saying his courtship of national republicans being mindful of national republicans is starting to take a toll in new jersey and that democrats are starting to come home there. could it produce a situation where the margin ends up being interpreted this fall, hey, he wins but not that impressive of a margin. i guess i'm asking, what do they need here to get an impressive victory? that seems to be an issue here. >> it's interesting because christie came into this beating historic margin of victory. >> 42 points. >> so, he wanted to match tom cain who is his political mentor. new jersey is a blue state, if we get more than 50%, that's a landslide in new jersey for a republican. they are trying to lower the expectations. what is interesting is how he is trying to win, the coalition he is trying to win. african-americans and hispanics and democrats. every time he gets a democratic endorsement. the other day he got the cake boss, which was a big deal. line-up democratic mayors who are trying to support him. that's what he's taking to the national stage. look, i got this coalition and i got the independents and hispanics and the hispanics a block that republicans need. i can do it. i'm the guy to do it and i win in a blue state and i brought all these people with me. >> we're starting to so, it looks like, series of gun control bills made it to his desk a few weeks ago, or a week ago, i guess it was. he vetoed and let die the one the nra said we're against. it seems to me on that issue of gay marriage, new jersey is now a state that is like 60% support. it does seem like the balancing act so good at striking is getting uncomfortable here. >> remember when he vetoed them. he vetoed them at 6:00 on a friday right after he vetoed a medical marijuana bill for children that everyone was watching closely. it was almost an after thought to a lot of people covering this. so, yeah, the governor is always going to have to strike that balance partly because democrats in new jersey are trying to embarrass him. one interesting thing about the gun bill, the ban on the 50 caliber weapon was one he had proposed a couple months ago. he is, obviously, trying to find the balance there. >> how do you think national republicans and conservatives, in particular, we started to talk to steve lonegan about this last segment. bitter memories a week before the election barack obama in new jersey, chris christie saying he is doing an outstanding job. how does that compare to what was reported on this week? >> i always thought the sort of, the outrage over, outratge on te right about christie was overblown and will be forgotten by to 16. people look at that and say he was doing what he had to do for his state. so, getting the president on new jersey's side right after the hurricane was sort of something, people say i'm a pragmatist. i needed to do that for pragmatic reason. >> the name obama with republicans. any association these days, it seems like poison. >> remember, he did endorse steve lonegan he had a bitter primary four years ago. i will do what i need to do to be a good republican and that's one of the things he was going to do. >> the reason why he may do okay with national republicans what gets lost a lot of the time is that he's conservative. what he does is sort of northeastern republican game that pete king from long island is another person who has done this where they vote as republicans or govern as republicans, conservative republicans, i should say and then kind of do rhetorical gestures every now and then that aren't truly substantive among conservatives. so, pete king likes to pick fights with grover norquist and do rhetorical things. new york donors shouldn't support ted cruz. he's still voting pete king 90% of the time with his party or whatever it is. same thing with christie. defund planned parenthood and we just talked about guns. he basically made his career being a bully to american teachers and then do rhetorical gestures about sandy saying president did a good job and that's sort of the model that he's using. >> right. again, he's back to criticizing obama and xriticizing obama on his leadership and you hear rhetoric come into his speeches. >> worked for him this rhetorical stuff on the national stage. you talk to democrats all over the country. that's the guy they like, they like chris christie. they can see themselves supporting chris christie. showing a shift getting behind democratic candidate for governor here. if that's something you might expect could happen on the national level as he comes out. right now i feel like his national identity are still republican democrats like. >> i think they need to switch that out. if democrats are smart, they could compare and say this guy is no different than all the people you think, so, please do a reset and please do not think that chris christie owns some sweater vests and he wears them out and looks like a guy you know. >> it's the fleece. see, you're merging him with the republicans already. >> you went from pants to you're a whole outfit. >> i know. i really think that is the biggest mistake and we do it, the democrats do it all the time. it's like there is such a clown car out there that chris christie doesn't seem like, but when he votes, he votes exactly. >> but is it sort of an almost devious, maybe unintentional devious. it's like, i think of the democrats with john mccain in 2000. john mccain running against george w. bush. we can leave all that aside but john mccain would have beaten al gore by a bigger margin, but every democrat in the country was praising john mccain during those primaries and allowed george w. bush to look at -- that was a powerful message. >> you look at steve lonegan. one of the people who encouraged chris christie to back out of the greenhouse gas initiative. he is listening to conservatives. he is saying, i need your support. but not as though he has completely abandoned them. >> i want to thank kate from "new york times" a chris christie watcher. we'll go back to washington, d.c. and talk more about the march on washington, that's next. muddlers. you know who you are. you can part a crowd, without saying a word... if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts... well muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour three. zyrtec®. love the air. humans. even when we cross our "ts" and dot our "i's", we still run into problems. that's why liberty mutual insurance offers accident forgiveness with our auto policies. if you qualify, your rates won't go up due to your first accident. because making mistakes is only human, and so are we. we also offer new car replacement, so if you total your new car, we'll give you the money for a new one. call liberty mutual insurance at... and ask us all about our auto features, like guaranteed repairs, where if you get into an accident and use one of our certified repair shops, the repairs are guaranteed for life. so call... to talk with an insurance expert about everything that comes standard with our base auto policy. and if you switch, you could save up to $423. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? 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place back in 1963. they are ending at the recently completed martin luther king jr. memorial on the national mall. on wednesday, the actual 50th anniversary of the march, president obama will join the former presidents bill clinton and jimmy carter to speak on the steps of the lincoln memorial. speakers are expected to address the issues important to the marchers 50 years ago. issues like racial equality, economic justice and voting rights. and he says that progress has been made and the nation's first african-american president is still grappling with these issues in his second term as he said yesterday at a town hall in binghamton, new york. >> the legacy of discrimination, slavery, jim crowe has meant that the barriers for success for a lot of groups still exist. >> so, we have a little bit more time here to talk about this and put this in context a little bit. interesting now we can look back with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight and put in context a lot more, you know, what happened in 1963 and what it means in the grand sweep of history. but i want to go back to sort of the moment and talk about it a little bit because a lot was happening, obviously, politically at the time and there were a lot of immediate political results and in the wake of the march. first, i want to play, this is martin luther king who was on "meet the press," i think 50 years. august 5th, 1963. couple days before the march and he's previewing it and talking about concept of social revolution and let's take a look. >> i think we can see we are in the midst of a great social revolution and no social revolution could be neat and tidy at every point. the amazing thing is it has been as neat and tidy as it has been and as nonviolent has it has been. this reveals a great deal of discipline in this movement and a great deal of dignity. >> tee talks about no revolution can be neat and tidy but nonviolence was what martin luther king represented. >> think about what he said and the segment we just had about steve lonegan. line in the sand, my way or the highway. can you imagine that kind of attitude trying to get whole bunch of desperate voices together to march. it's almost impossible to think of that and i think that is a big difference between the left and the right. it's left and right and murky and at the end of the day they all decided this needs to happen. >> the politics are so different today because the democratic party was almost schizophrenic. the northern liberals. the parties of the big cities in the north and lot of northern liberals and also the party of the segregationists from the south. authentic liberals, not moderates, but liberals in the republican party and conservatives. there was a lot more sort of cross pollination between the parties which right now seems like the lines are so distinct that any development and any event happens and each party kind of immediately decides and each tribe decides this is our talking point and each proves their loyalty, this is true on the republican side. this cross pollination is a race today. >> there actually are a lot of parallels, though. parts of that interview that "meet the press " appearance wee about violence. the inevitability of violence and a lot of evil in one place, there's going to be violence. a lot of the conversation we're having about race in america right now. that conversation about that fear of african-american violence that was so fundamental that that's something that's going on now. interesting that there are political changes that you were talking about with tribalism and african-american males are in is similar in terms of what people, public perception, i think, in some cases. >> you can link that to what happened after the george zimmerman verdict. there was this expectation of violence and riots and so the cops are on guard for this. this is what happened during the march where they kept the courts open all night and didn't serve alcohol that day. a big concern that there were these huge violent riots and the same assumptions a month ago with the zimmerman verdict. >> let's take a look at "meet the press" more of mlk. this is him talking about social equality. >> i think that we must face the fact that in reality you cannot have economic and political equality without having some form of social equality. i think this is inevitable and i don't think our society will rise to its full maturity until we come to see that we live together as brothers and we could have intergroup living and, still, be in the kind of society which we all want to achieve. >> i want to talk about what he was saying there and i want to talk about some of the immediate political fallout. we'll pick it up right after this. 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ooh! could've had a v8. in the juice aisle. we just played another clip from "meet the press." where this was in the civil rights movement. a couple months that john f. kennedy committed himself to the idea that i'm going to get a civil rights bill through congress and then the march took place and president kennedy was killed a few months after that. lbj came in and in the next year, less than a year after the march on washington that the southern filibuster broke and the civil rights bill of 1964 was passed and became law. we talk about that the march on washington had so many goals and some of them are not realized to this day and also a very immediate impact. >> yes, i'm not sure if we're going, i'm pessimistic that we're going to see anything like that coming out of this march immediately. while congress is not in washington, so, i feel like it's not having as immediate of an impact on lawmakers, as it would if they were here and have to walk through the crowds and see it. also taking place the background of the voting rights act sort of being gutted by the supreme court. all these voter i.d. laws going into place in places like texas and north carolina. i would love to see that this creates some sort of momentum that look a lot of what the problems were in the '60s, schools not integrated enough and people making equal wages. those are still problems. whether with this congress, i don't think we'll see immediate new civil rights act or anything. >> some direct civil rights action taken by obama. what is interesting about the march on washington, proposed in the '40s around the time of world war ii. one of the main goals was to get roosevelt to sign an executive order banning workplace discrimination against african-americans. they proposed the march and didn't end up going off and because of the threat of it, roosevelt signed that executive order. you know, that kind of issue is facing obama today. sign a similar executive order about discrimination among federal contractors and this is something obama hasn't done. some action that could be taken. i'm not sure it is going to happen. but it is possible that things can change very quickly if presidents want to go ahead and do it? >> another clip here. this is after, after the march. we talked about this earlier where we look back at it after a history of a lot of kids grew up getting. the history i got, i had the impression when i first heard about march on washington as a kid, everybody got in washington to hear martin luther king, no, nobody expected to be blown away by martin luther king. it was an organic thing. he started speaking and then it just became this amazing speech. but, anyway, right after, right after the march and right after that speech after he sort of stole the show, martin luter king gave an interview and this is him reflecting on it like a day later. >> i would simply like to say that i think this has been one of the great days of america. and i think this march will go down as one of the greatest, if not the greatest demonstrations for freedom and human dignity ever held in the united states. >> history proved him right on that, though. >> right. the actions from that march, the fa fallout from that march is an amazing thing to see this happen, again. to have people here at that march and then be here now is amazing. >> the other interesting thing to note about today. of course, we talked about president obama will be speaking and other presidents, as well. go back to history roosevelt and kennedy. roosevelt did not want that march in the '40s. that's why he gave in. kennedy was not crazy about this march. again, i said earlier, many white people did not want this to happen. there was a lot of concern. they canceled baseball games that weekend and they didn't sell alcohol in the district, they kept the courts open all night and they were worried about having to potentially bring people in and this is something the presidents were not getting behind in the '40s and '60s and to have presidents supporting this is progress. >> the kennedy story, he was worried about it at first and he was against it and then when he accepted the inevitability of it, hey, this is going to happen. look, if i'm going to get the civil rights bill through, this is going to be successful. the white house was able to get some unions involved and cooperation. i want to say thank you to amanda turkel and evan santora and lizz winstead, thank you for getting up. do things a little differently because of the day we have going on in washington today. we're going to go back live to d.c. as msnbc's coverage of the march on washington continues. that's next. farmers presents: fifteen seconds of smart. so you want to drive more safely? 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>> well, you know, one of the most important things is for us to remember that we have made real progress. i think one of the most dangerous things to do would be to walk away from this day and say nothing has changed. that we are in 2013, precisely where we were in 1963. and that is simply inaccurate. and it fails to acknowledge the work and the effort of all of the activists who were here 50 years ago. we are in a different place, but it would also be nearly criminal and certainly, it would be deeply intellectually negligent to pretend as though, either that the dream had been achieved or even that the most relevant question to ask is the question, has the dream been achieved. we are part of a long movement. and when i say "we," i mean the american people, are part of a long project. a project that our current president calls perfecting the union. but for us, i think it's really a question of whether or not we are marching that long, unsteady march towards something where we have more people who are full citizens, more people who are part of the process, or whether or not we are beginning to march backwards. and so for us, i think the big lessons are that you need moments of galvanizing, inspiration, of the kind of solidarity and even spirit that comes from a moment like this. but then you need strategy and on the ground work and willingness for sacrifice. because that's what happened in the years that followed this march in 1963. >> all right, melissa harris-perry, that is just a taste, because you are going to be on this all day for us. and good luck. have a great day down there and thanks for spending a few minutes with us at the end of our show. and join us, tomorrow morning, sunday morning at 8:00, where i'll have bob herbert and walter fields reflecting more on the march, and we'll have a look at martin luther's legacy, how that legacy has evolved to this day. keep it right here on msnbc. melissa harris-perry is live from the national mall with continuous coverage of all of this nation's events live from the capitol. we'll see you live tomorrow morning at 8:00. thanks for getting up. that's today? 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