A mere minutes after Donald Trump had gone through the many, many ways he thought Rick Santorum was a loser on Fox News, over at MSNBC, he found himself on the receiving end of the same. It is no big secret that Lawrence O’Donnell isn’t a huge fan of Trump, but what may be news delivered by O’Donnell is his belief that Mitt Romney, Trump’s candidate in the Republican primary, thinks Trump is “a buffoon, and unconfirmable joke, America’s biggest loser.”

The day after Rick Santorum acquired his most impressive wins of the Republican primary so far, we finally got to see what it would mean for Mitt Romney to have Donald Trump as his surrogate. The Donald sat down with Greta Van Susteren to react to, among other things, Santorum’s three-for-three win last night in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota, and was profoundly unimpressed, repeating several times that Santorum lost his Senate seat “by a record number” and suggesting he pursue a career as a lawyer, instead.

Like many people, Lawrence O’Donnell expressed his disgust today at a Republican ad by candidate Pete Hoekstra depicting a Chinese woman thanking his congressional opponent for making China strong. O’Donnell did not bother too much with attacking Hoekstra or the Republicans, however, and instead went after the young actress in the ad, calling for actors to take a vow of “simple decency” and boycott these ads.

Today is a glorious day, for I have discovered something so rare it is almost non-existent in today’s media world: giving context to things. On his CNN show today, Fareed Zakaria discussed Mitt Romney‘s unfortunate comments about the poor, which have done nothing to help his public image, but Zakaria actually defended Romney. He blamed the media for taking Romney’s comments out of context to get the juicy soundbite of the former businessman seemingly ignoring the plight of poor people.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on Face the Nation today to talk about the Republican presidential race and something about the Super Bowl. Giuliani didn’t endorse any particular candidate in the race, and while he admitted he personally admires all of the candidates in the field (though I’m guessing that doesn’t include Ron Paul), he’s concerned with how much they have been attacking each other during this primary season.

With Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida in the rear view mirror, the candidates took to Nevada to keep racking up points on the delegate count. There is no doubt now, with all networks confirming, that Mitt Romney will come out of this campaign the victor, with 41% of the vote, with 11% of precincts in according to NBC News.

A man who brought a Rep. Ron Paul sign to a Newt Gingrich rally is now suing the former House Speaker and his security team for, among other things, assault. Eddie Dillard, it was reported last week, arrived at a Gingrich event in Florida and was deemed to be too close to the stage where Gingrich was speaking, sporting a “Ron Paul” sign. He told reporter campaign security staff told the crowd to step on his toes.

In his personal life, Rep. Ron Paul is known for being a conservative family man that opposes most excesses, but by virtue of being a libertarian candidate, he attracts supporters from all walks of life. This week on Freedom Watch, Judge Andrew Napolitano spoke to two of those supporters, employees at Nevada’s “Bunny Ranch” who believe that Rep. Paul is “the modern-day Thomas Jefferson” and trust his ability to lead.

Arizona has been at the forefront of national concerns about how we treat minorities in this country, which is a euphemized way of saying that it has developed a reputation for serious ethnic problems. State Rep. Cecil Ash‘s proposal that a Latin American celebratory holiday be accompanied by a statewide “Caucasian Day” is really not helping. Plus, don’t we already celebrate white people on July 4?

Piers Morgan got to sit down with Rep. Ron Paul last time and ran the gamut of topics– from Mitt Romney to the Congressman’s exercise regimen. Rep. Paul was relaxed and cheerful to be there, but was taken a bit by surprise when Morgan tried to explain Rep. Paul’s position in the race, and found himself comparing Rep. Paul to Sylvester Stallone.

One thing that remains clear from this discussion on The O’Reilly Factor: Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera do not agree on solutions to help the poor. The two began a conversation prompted by Mitt Romney “misspeaking” about his concern about the poor, and took a turn towards solutions for them, before O’Reilly and Rivera began to disagree on requirements for birth certificates.

Mitt Romney was off to a bad start this morning, as he began the day telling CNN’s Soledad O’Brien that he was “not concerned about the very poor.” Jon Stewart happened upon this clip in horror, trying to understand what Romney was getting at. The best he could do was to imagine Romney as a doctor unconcerned about the “very sick because, you know, morphine.”

Sarah Palin has been increasingly vocal as the Republican process has gone on in telling Republican primary candidates to refrain from vicious attacks on each other and keep their criticism strictly on the President. On The O’Reilly Factor tonight, the former Vice Presidential candidate told Bill O’Reilly that she wanted to see the candidates stay away from vicious attacks, saying her experiences on a presidential ticket made her understand why voters appear more “disenchanted” now than ever.

Last Tuesday was not a good election for Newt Gingrich. After sweeping South Carolina, he presumptive frontrunner lost Florida to Mitt Romney, badly. And he didn’t even call Romney to congratulate him. Despite his private failing, though, Charles Krauthammer told Bill O’Reilly tonight that Gingrich’s speech this time around had significantly less “whining,” and that could bode well for the former Speaker all the way to the convention.

Donald Trump is a reality TV personality who was the frontrunner in national Republican polls last February. That was back when his “people in Hawaii” “couldn’t believe” the stuff they were finding about the President’s birth certificate, creating a national idiom (“Where did you hear that silly rumor, Donald Trump’s people in Hawaii?”). Then Seth Meyers killed Trump’s presidential hopes, but the ghost still haunts us today, and refuses to go away. Tomorrow, in Las Vegas, Trump has promised a “major announcement,” on pertaining to the Republican race.

Jon Stewart came back from the weekend with little but the Florida primary to look forward too and a cluster of polls from various points of the Republican race that showed Mitt Romney in a heated battle with Newt Gingrich for the top spot. Such a heated battle, in fact, that Stewart compared the bloodbath to a level of Mortal Kombat, one that culminated with someone’s spine broken in a video game.

Ed Schultz opened his program tonight with a segment of Republicans behaving badly– from RNC Chair Reince Priebus to Arizona governor Jan Brewer to Rep. Allen West. Schultz and his guests, Melissa Harris-Perry and James Peterson, made the point that Priebus’s comparison of the President to the Captain of the sunken Costa Concordia, Brewer’s exchange with him in Arizona, and West’s demand that he leave America were all indicative of the same illness in Republican politics.

Congressman Allen West spoke at a Florida GOP dinner last night, and had some fighting words for Democrats who are trying to mark Florida in the win column this November. He declared it a “battlefield” for citizens to stand on and tell the Democrats that their message is not going to resonate with the citizens of Florida. West called out not just President Obama, but Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and fellow Floridian Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus appeared on Face the Nation today, and dismissed concerns that the fighting in the GOP was overblown by the media and drew parallels to the 2008 Democratic primary race, but in speaking candidly about President Obama, Priebus compared his leadership to the infamous captain of the Italian cruise ship whose actions proved to be somewhat cowardly when faced with disaster.

The famously media-shy Donald Trump took time from his busy schedule of not being on TV to sit down for an interview with Face the Nation‘s Bob Schieffer. And in the interview, Trump admitted he is still considering running for president because he is still very discouraged by the Republican field. In fact, when Schieffer asked him whether he would run as a Republican or an independent, Trump chose the latter.

On This Week today, Newt Gingrich owned up to his poor debate performances last week, but implied that the reason he was not as effective in conveying his message was because he was so distracted by how much Mitt Romney was lying on the debate stage. Substitute host Jake Tapper asked Gingrich if his pledge to go all the way to the convention would still stand even if the math doesn’t work out in his favor during the long primary season.

Last night at a Republican fundraiser in Florida, former presidential candidate Herman Cain endorsed former rival Newt Gingrich for the GOP nomination, praising him for being a “patriot” and his willingness to press ahead in the race even after “going through the sausage grinder.” Cain appeared on stage at a West Palm Beach County Republican event a week after making his “unconventional endorsement” and made a presidential endorsement that was decidedly more conventional.

A few years ago, Newt Gingrich advocated for making English the official language of the nation to prevent people from speaking “the language of the ghetto.” In the context of his proposal, many, including Geraldo Rivera, think it is indisputable that he meant Spanish, and on The Factor last night, Bill O’Reilly countered that he could just as easily have meant Farsi.

Rachel Maddow has spent much of her show trying to book Republicans to come on and debate her about various issues, but she has had quite a bit of trouble– moreso after her contentious 2010 interview with then senatorial candidate Rand Paul. This week, however, she received what she called a “glimmer of hope” from the unlikeliest of people: Laura Ingraham, who told Virginia governor Bob McDonnell that she would love to see more Republicans talk to Maddow, and if not convince her of their ideology, at least spread the word.

News cycles are so ephemeral and their stories so prolific that writing about Sarah Palin‘s Facebook notes feels like something of an anachronism in 2012. But with the former Alaska governor now taking a stand in this presidential race in defense of Newt Gingrich, her attack on the Republican establishment that made her their candidate in 2008 today brings the Tea Party back into the mix of an election from which they have appeared largely absent, at least much more than anyone could have expected after the 2010 midterms.