a big name. the natural question to follow is what does this mean for michael steele? michael steele is probably going to be fine. it takes it takes two-thirds of a vote of the rnc to kick him off. and he was put up there with such fanfare a year and a half or whatever it was ago that it would be a real it would look it would be a pr nightmare for them to be ousting michael steele at this point. they re only a few months away from the mid-term elections. maybe if that doesn t go very well, at that point they could revisit it. but he s going to be fine for the short term, at least. i want to play what newt gingrich had to say today on the today show. kind of similar, actually, to what you re saying. and we don t have it. anyway, he said, u think it s toolish for republicans to focus on michael steele as a person. we ought to focus on defeating the democrats so maybe once in your life you agree here with newt gingrich on a topic. he s saying, listen, back off of him. is micha
very angry about the $2,000 the party spent at a hollywood sex club. the employee was summarily dismissed for going against our internal policies and finance. we have been putting great controls in place for the last few months, as a matter of fact, on some of our financing. those numbers that they talk about, you know, i m not staying at fancy hotels and the four seasons and flying around in corporate jets. well, steele also told good morning america he is not stepping down but some senior republicans aren t rushing to his defense. here s what senator jon kyl had to say when asked if steele should remain as rnc chairman. well, i m not in the position of the people who elect michael steele to either say he should step down or not. this kind of thing has got to stop or they won t get any contributions. the people that contribute to the committees both democrat and republican want to know their money is well spent for the cause and it needs to be that way. wow, that was the num
46% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate in november who supported health care reform rather and that and i think it s only 27 percy believe is what the number was. we teased this story about nevada and the tea party guy. there s that tea party candidate, a bounced check. it s a little dramatic. we ll have more for you tomorrow. we ll be here for sure. well, i will be. thanks. coming up, taking a snapshot of the tea party. the first poll of the group. who is getting involved. plus as the president preds off to prague, we ll go behind the scenes of the sometimes tense negotiations that led up to it. is michael steele a liability for the republican party? we ll hear what the chairman is saying about that today. but first, today s trivia question from the almanac of american politics. which congressman was a semi pro baseball player before getting into politics? we ll have the answer straight ahead on msnbc. really, brian? what? you know that dunking is for oreo co
pretty important treaty to have. all right. peter baker, white house reporter for the new york times. plenty of time spent in moscow. i think you speak russian, is that correct? it s not very great, not very well but good enough to order. there it is. we all head to prague in a few days for the signing. thanks for joining me. well, let s do our trivia. which congressman was a semi pro baseball player before getting into politics. it s democratic congressman john boccieri, a catcher in the frontier league in the early 90s. when do you become semi pro? apparently it s if you re not in a minor league system that s connected to anything in major league baseball. that s what you were telling me. i tried to explain it to him. fair enough. it s now time for the mash. this morning michael steele brushed off a national journal poll of insiders showing that 71% of republican insiders think he s a liability. steele defended his management of rnc finances saying he was
republican in the senate, not exactly giving a ringing endorsement to michael steele. finally economic advisers are touting a slow but steady recovery. larry summers said positive jobs report shows the trend has turned, but there s still a lot more to do. we ve got a long way to go. we ve inherited a terrible situation, the most pressing economic problems since the great depression in our country. it is the president s preoccupation to put people back to work. and just who is the tea party? coming up, we re going to get a comprehensive look at what political forces are driving this grassroots movement. plus, meet the easter bunny who s turning heads and tipping the scales. oh, man thanks scary. that is a real bunny. first the white house soup of the day. it s a big day. 15 bean. and this causes everybody wikipedia, first of all, 15