Deep Dive: Arizona special election heats up

>>> it's a rare moment, of course, that transcends politics and congress these gains we had one of those moments when gabby giffords returned to the house for the second time since her near-fatal shooting and she resigned her seat which drew praise from both sides of the aisle. the good feelings didn't last. and we head to arizona 's 8th district where there is an increasingly tough battle in the inish out giffords' term. and he's in a dead heat with republican jesse kelly before next week's special election . barber who served as one of his top aides and took two bullets was hand picked by giffords to be her successor and kelly is facing a tof race. in 2010 by losing to two points and in a way he's running against her again. giffords will campaign along barber in a rally and one of just a handful of public appearances since the shooting last january, but republican groups have poured over 1 million dollars that focus on another connection, that to president obama .

>> obama care, a national energy tax ? lost jobs? more debt? ron barber supported it. can we trust barber to challenge washington? of course, not. rubber-stamped ron barber, more that fails arizona .

>> he doesn't mention the president on the campaign trail and not even a picture of him on barber's campaign website. why? of the 625,000 registered voters in this version of arizona 's state district and i'll tell you why i say that in a moment, republicans outnumber democrats by 25,000 with independents, the rest of the electorates. any attempt to focus barber and obama is an attempt to distract from jesse kelly 's past's statements. and kelly wants to eliminate social security and medicare with the most damaging blow of late may be this ad of late by a democrat party super pac.

>> two years ago kelly said this about gabby giffords .

>> now she stands there with that smile and pretends to be some kind of hometown hero . she's a hero of nothing.

>> do you want jesse kelly representing you?

>> the important point here is that kelly made that comment before giffords was shot. in a criticizing vote she made in congress that it's marked with the date, local papers have criticized the ad as misleading. in a race this tight even something like this could be a difference maker. by the way, it was one of those bizarre instances which the new district is actually more democratic, but that doesn't get voted on until the november general election . this special election is taking place under the old lines and slightly more republican.

>> joining me now is the republican congressional candidate mr. kelly . i simply want to ask you to respond to that ad. those were your words and you had rhetoric in 2010 . you have changed your rhetoric. how do you respond?

>> that was 2010 , it was several months before the tragedy and it is taken completely out of context and it's meant to mislead the voters and it's sad to see the democratic party trying to exploit the tragedy. no other way to describe it as that.

>> let me say something that you said in the campaign trail have been used in tv ads. you refer to social security as a ponzi scheme and now you say you're going to protect social security . how did you change your views on social security so quickly in less than two years?

>> well, nothing actually actually changed, chuck. what we said before and what we're saying now is we have to protect the benefits that seniors have earned while giving choices to future generations. this is another lie that the other side has told.

>> hold on, ponzi scheme is not a compliment to any, and when you refer to all of social security as a ponzi scheme . that's not complimenting the program at all. it's not complimenting the politicians because they didn't take the hard-earned money and saved it as they said they would. they took and did what politicians always do. they spent the money and they turned around and are poor, and it's not fare for seniors and others as long as we give them choices.

>> at some point we need to phase it out. that's what you said in 2010 . what did you mean by that? how do you phase out medicare ?

>> the same way with social security and that is to give people choices. right now medicare recipients have been getting less quality care because the government won't pay its bills. doctors are trying to get paid for the medicare patients and they're not getting paid by the government and give them choices so they're not stuck with anything bad.

>> i want to ask you about some stuff if you do get elected and the big one might be this issue with student loans . how would you -- first of all, are you in favor of trying to fix the interest rate on stount loans so that it does not double?

>> i'm in favor of it, but i'm in favor of taking carry of that after we take care of the most important things right now and that's stopping the obama tax increases. that's making sure we don't increase the debt ceiling about spending concessions and it's things like that that the congress is sinking its teeth into.

>> let it double because it will double in july 1st , double with it now and deal with it later?

>> deal with the huge problems right now.

>> deal with it retroactively. let it double and people pay it and you would somehow give them a rebate later?

>> right now, chuck, the businesses in this country, the businesses have $2 billion to stimulate the economy and they won't do it until the obama tax increases are stopped. this race has always been focused on lower taxes and using american energy on creating jobs and that's where the focus needs to be.

>> if you come up short on this special election , will you run in the fall for sure?

>> absolutely. jesse kelly , republican nominee in the special election out there. thanks for coming on. friday on my show with democrat ron barber who faces off against jesse kelly . you're watching "the daily rundown" on msnbc. morning, pa. wait... who's