Video: An awful week for the GOP

>> to politics. and the news nation post script the gop now struggling to get back on message ahead of their national convention . it was a tough week for republicans to say the least starting with senate candidate todd akin 's explosive comments on rape and abortion.

>> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

>> i can't defend what he said. i can't defend him.

>> rape is an evil act. i use the wrong words in the wrong way and for that i apologize.

>> he should have dropped out of the race.

>> i am suggesting that he get out.

>> i've asked him to step down.

>> if it was me i would step aside .

>> the fact is that our vice presidential candidate agrees with todd akin .

>> rape is rape. there is no splitting hairs over rape.

>> he is trying to run away from that saying rape is rape but he did want to make a distinction.

>> paul ryan is todd akin and todd akin is the republican party now.

>> joining us now nbc's peter alexander . peter, it's interesting we're talking about todd akin 's comments. obviously not as severe. mitt romney 's comments today on the campaign trail when he alluded to being born in michigan now setting off, you know, basically a twitter war, statement war from the obama campaign offended by the governor's remarks believing it's alluding to the birther movement.

>> i think you are exactly right. the intention in these days leading up to the republican convention next week was to focus on what the republicans and romney /ryan ticket believes it is strongest on, the issue of the economy, what they say is the president's mishandling of the economy. they want to be focusing on the sort of formal reintroduction or even an introduction of romney to the american people . instead they're talking about the issue of abortion, one they have shyed away from through the course of this campaign. today the birther issue, another issue they believe doesn't help their cause going forward. but what was remarkable is we spoke to a lot of people here and they say we didn't even notice that comment. most of the people said to me. some people said, yeah. that is an issue that still fires us up. as one woman in the crowd today said to me, tamron, she said i know that you say we saw president obama 's birth certificate but i'm not convinced. i think that was a phony birth certificate . still in some parts of the party it exists as a sincere issue.

>> we know that from the numbers that a significant number of people believe there are still questions there. so that leads me to ask, was that an intentional remark? you heard the crowd there even though as you point out some folks say they didn't hear it. there was laughter and applause. you talked with one woman who sees it as a significant issue. was that a deliberate statement by governor romney ? do we know the answer to that?

>> well, we can only tell you what the campaign tells us and they insist this comment was off the cuff. it was not a part of the remarks he was intending to give today. and while there are often teleprompters at events there was none here today. it appears pretty clear this is not what the campaign wanted to be talking about. it appears clear they didn't think it would create such a rise as it has but knowing that it's such a sensitive charged topic they quickly tried to get out in front of it and believe me as you witnessed the obama campaign quickly tried to pounce on it. but the romney adviser, one of the senior advisers kevin madden telling us this campaign and mitt romney specifically has repeatedly and always said that he believes that president obama was born here in the united states . that's not going to quell the conversation tonight as you'll witness across the platforms. you know, all the network newscasts tonight and again likely tomorrow but it certainly is the way they characterize this issue.

>> and real quick as we move forward to governor romney 's time to shine, as it's been described with his big speech, do we know any more about the direction, we at least know he won't include any birth certificate jokes but what else might he say?

>> you know, we don't know exactly what he is going to say in that speech. he was asked about it by a reporter recently and he said i'm still working on those remarks. they're going to have more time this weekend when he is off the trail with paul ryan in ohio. he'll head back to massachusetts his true home state where he'll work on some of those remarks in ernest. some things we should anticipate learning more about are things we've already witnessed in the last couple days. today an op-ed in "the wall street journal " where romney embraces an issue the obama campaign has tried to attack him on, his business record at bain capital talking about the lessons he learned from his time there. in addition to that, on thursday we have now learned that he is going to more publicly than we've seen before embrace his mormon faith, the invocation will be given by a member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints as well as several people who are now scheduled to be speaking that are also members of romney 's congregation when he was the state president as it's called in the mormon church back in boston. they are expected to attest, praise his leadership skills. so they're going to try to focus on the biography in their terms including bain and mormonism and ann romney will play a very significant role. whether or not that speech takes place monday as scheduled or perhaps tuesday as it could happen in primetime so they can get the most eyeballs possible.

>> all right. peter alexander live for us. thanks, peter. up

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/newsnation/48781881/

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