tonight - bernie sanders surging in polls. ben cardon who supported the hillary clinton campaign if her pragmatism can overcome the ideaism of bernie sanders. the group behind planned parenthood facing prison time. will their indictment discourage other activists. and thoughts on press freedom after a smear campaign against one of america's finest reporters. i'm adam may, this is "third rail". the politics of fear has been a winning car on the right. 2016 campaign.

>> we have to get down to creating a country that is not going to have the kind of problems that they've had with people flying planes into the world trade center, with the shootings in california meanwhile the politics of change boosted the leading challenger on the left. >> establishment politics is not good enough. we need bold changes and a political revolution where does it leave the voters that want to get it done. joining me is democratic senator ben, senior member of the environmental works committee. rail." >> good to be with you. >> i want to start by talking about the battle for the heart of the democratic party. you support hillary clinton, many said she is running a pragmatic campaign. bernie sanders is rising in the

polls and a lot of voters respond to his idealism, if you will. where do you stand on the divide between idealism and pragmatism in your party? >> i have been listening to most of the debates. i think hillary clinton has been on fire. she articulated her positions, she has been strong on her issues, domestic issues. she's running an energetic campaign, as she pointed out herself. she's been fighting the fight and has great credibility and experience to deal with the changes faced. she's been energetic. bernie sanders is a friend. i've known him for a long time, clearly has a lot more energy at the campaign. that may have not been involved in the past. that's good news. credited the situation now, we hope both well for november. we have more people out voting for the democratic nominee. >> you said it there that bernie

sanders is getting a lot of youthful energy. i wonder why isn't senator clinton doing better against a self-proclaimed socialist who really only joined the democratic party last year? >> well, you know, senator sanders has caucused with the democratic party for a longer period than that. both senator sanders and hillary clinton pointed out this is for the nomination of the president of the united states. it's not handed to anyone. we knew it would be a tough campaign, for november, not just the primaries. we are not surprised that there's competition for it. it's been a healthy competition. >> what do you feel is wrong presidency? >> there's nothing wrong with a bernie sanders presidency or a martin o'malley presidency. i happen to think hillary clinton is the best most qualified person to be our nominee and be the president of

the united states. bernie sanders has run on a great deal. martin o'malley brought together management skills for his commitment to the environment. i think that's important. it's not that i disagree with the other two candidates. i think the most qualified, the best person for president of the clinton. >> i want to dig deeper to issues you are taking a stand on. starting with the passage of the safe act. you wrote that embracing the politics of fear is no way to increase national security. can you expand on that? >> america has been in the forefront of leadership of humanitarian issues. we worked with other countries so they can open up their borders, when we have conflict, they have a safe place to be. it's inconsistent. so that we put arbitrary

obstacles in the place of refugees coming to america. it's regrettable that we are using the refugee issue to express frustration with homeland security. the -- is to deal with home grown radicalization, and deal with people in the country to identify those that may do harm, those that have left their home country, gone to the terrorist organizations, trained and worked with them. going back to the home country, they are the areas that we have to be concerned about, not with the refugees. we should we welcoming refugees to america. they are going to help build a stronger country. >> i appreciate your detail, donald trump is speaking differently. he's showing that the politics of fear can work, can help you get elected. >> i've been clear showing how i very much disagree with donald

trump on his policies, and the language used is not keeping with the values of america, and i disagreed with what he said. >> you voted against president obama's deal curbing the iran nuclear programme, is that deal working. we saw a u.s. sale. the hostage swap. >> i'll do everything in my power for the agreement to homed and iran to become a nuclear weapon free state. i hope the congressional involvement makes it more likely to achieve the results. my concerns were several. we need to make sure there's strict enforcement of the agreement. i think iran has greater capacity into

financing human rights violations and terrorism. and we have to make sure that other nefarious actions are guarded against. make no mistake. whether you are for or against, iran is a dangerous country. look at the bashar al-assad regime, and how that is causing a problem do a resolution not syria, but the unified effort against i.s.i.l. iran is a country that disagrees with america, many times they said they'd like to destroy us, and other countries. >> do we see a shift, willingness on the part of iran to reach the west. relationship. cause? >> no, not at all. i contacted secretary carey to congratulate him on the successful release of our

sailors, on the ability to bring home americans held by iran. that's all - that's all very positive developments. diplomacy must be explored. i said before i decided to build on the iran agreement. diplomacy is the most option to prevent iran from supporting terrorism. it must be explored. out. >> clean water is an issue you are passionate about. i spoke to you about this numerous times. the country is outraged over the pollution that poisoned thousands in flint michigan. are there more flint michigan's out there, ticking time bombs? >> the answer is yes. there are two factors. in tlint it was not -- flint it was not only just the antique

system they had for delivering drinking water that contained led. it was the government's complicity in not dealing with it because of cost, allowing people to be subjected to water that contained unacceptable levels of lead. there was inaction by the government to remedy that. there are many communities in the country where worker infrastructure is inadequate, and could cause problems that we saw in flint michigan. >> you have pushed those numerous times to improve infrastructure for water in sewer systems, and many have not passed. do you think the flint crisis has made a difference. could you get people on board with an effort to rebuild the water infrastructure in america? >> i hope so. times it takes a tragedy to unite public action. for years i talked about doubling and tripling the amount

of money brought into the fund used by governments to modernize the water systems, it's not only drinking water, it's how we treat waste water and deal with the flow of water in america. it is, in many cases, inefficient, losing a lot of water that is valuable. it's a public health issue. we have breaks that cause other public health issues, for those reasons, we need to double or triple the amount of money put into infrastructure, i have been decade. i hope to get action that will help flint michigan, and the other communities in our country that have ageing infrastructure in the water. >> senator ben from marylands. thank you for your time. >> good to be with you. next. >> you have to defend the right. >> a republican district attorney found no wrongdoing with planned parenthood, yet gelone charges against the

people that -- felon charges video. >> there's the unwillingness to give the benefit of the doubt. >> this is not whistleblower politics, it's dog-whistle politics. >> even though we're in here, we're still human. >> how harsh conditions affect people on both sides of the bars. >> why did scott take his own life? >> the jail. >> some people might be scared to speak out but i'm not. i'm telling the truth.

welcome back to "third rail," a surprise ruling of the infamous planned parenthood videos turned the tables on

pro-life activists goodnight them, will it discourage whistleblowers. >> the grand jury decided not to in died planned parenthood. >> instead, it indicted two activists involved in making the video. >> these folks perpetrated this, and the goal was to smear the parenthood. >> instead of indicting the wrong doers, they've gone after the whistleblower. >> let's bring in the senior former aid to u.s. senator. and a forbes contributors, and britney cooper, a professor at university. these activists said they were trying to uncover wrongdoing, are they going picked on. could this have an effect on activists. >> i think they got what they dished out. they are folks that edited videos more than 40 times to

tell a narrative they wanted to tell, it was not correct. it doesn't matter that deposition is seemed to be a moral position. there are grounds, and the right of those folks to have freedom of the expression should be defended. >> what if they were left wing. >> this is not the political positionality of the organization, it's an organization in an act of deception, it wasn't that they decided to collect the information, but when they knew what they were going for, theyed itted video. there has to be legal accountability for that. >> you have a district cornery in the state of texas that found no wrongdoing. but felony charges. all. >> why not? >> in a free society you have to defend whistleblowers, there's an unwillingness

to give the benefit of the doubt to those on the other side. what about those that have a legitimate case, against those that don't. >> planned planned parenthood is using taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, in opposition to federal law. that is the essence of what the fix makers are arguing. >> what the video did the is raise that issue, and shined a so the light... >> no, it didn't. >>..and there's an unwillingness to have the conversation. >> the money given to planned abortion. >> it does. >> the whole conversation is deeply dishonest. >> it is not dishonest. >> this is not whistleblower dicks. >> we have folks using a moral stance.

so you're morally defending the section. so for a lot... >> i'm defending free speech. >> i'm a christian, we have christians on the panel defending the right of an organization to deceive. you can disagree with what planned parenthood does. you can disagree with the use of federal money for the right of poor women of colour to have access to health care. you can't disagree with morally is an organization putting video in a deceptive fashion to prove an agenda. this is a district attorney, he's not on the moral side. >> but if we are dealing with an issue where there's the taking of incident lives, this is it what film-makers would argue, planned planned parenthood uses taxpayers dollars to take the lives of innocent people. death is defined as the irreversible brain waves and a heart beat.

we know life exists at 40 days. >> i don't know about the abortion argument, we'll never find a consensus. >> it's crazy. >> this is not a debate about when life starts. accountability. >> no, it is. >> let's bring this to a higher level where we look at it from 30,000 feet. we saw activists on left and the right use deceptive practices and put out the videos, should we regulate this. should there be more from the media. truth. >> i would love to see unned itted videos release -- unned itted video released. the truth will come to life. there are groups out there committing property violence. i would not listen to that. i think there are shades of grey, and that is ultimately what the justice system is for.

>> we had a guy come into colorado's planned parenthood and kill people because of this kind of immoral and dishonest extremism, and so to elevate property violence when we talk about the loss of lives because of this invent uary -- incendiary rhetoric is wrong. >> i think you are conflating... violence. >> you use the term property violence as if against people - we are not acknowledging that this incendiary rhetoric in our recent history, a couple of months ago, had impact on lives. if you want to elevate a moral argument offer the value of life, let's talk about how the right... >> would you agree you have herd it on the left. >> heard on the left what. >> incendiary rhetoric. >> i have no problem holding my folks accountable when they are wrong.

they will not hold their folks accountable for this violent taking of life and a rule elevating their morality and bowing it on people. >> i think taxpayer funder abortion is forcing morality on taxpayers. >> jump on to the next topic. bill clinton's personal indiscretions have become a history for hillary clinton's campaigns. should fidelity be an issue in modern day politics. >> bill is open game. she was part and parcel to women. >> of course bill clinton is fair game, he was a former president. it was not her choices that led bill to have affairs. >> i'll debate . >> we have kids, orange water. poisoned by led. and we are talking about who slept with who.

>> let's be frank. europe is laughing at us. ministers. french presidents engaged in affairs, it never damaged them too much. matter? >> it matters when you as a person, a candidate are using the public farrive to further the agenda. they present themselves. that, to me, is fair game. in the case of hillary clinton, where she is saying i'm supporting women, empowering women, when behind the scenes trying to undermine an intern star truck by a powerful man. fdr, greatest presidents had fairest, we look back and put them on statues. i don't think they were pretending to be moral giants. and hillary clinton is.

every debate she brings up the fact that she's a woman, and she's going before the u.n., speaking about women's rights. >> bill was the one caught cheating, not hilary. the issue is not infidelity, bill's affairs. it's whether or not she has a double standard on the war on rhetoric, the criticism is you are participating in a war on women who you are trying to slins, that your husband may have abused. >> hillary clinton put her husband front and center. shouldn't very expect this? >> absolutely not. >> republicans trying to relive 1998 and the impeachment of bill clinton should not be taken seriously. the claim that hillary clinton is waging a war on women opposed to g.o.p. is hypothetical women in general, people that wouldn't support monica lieu

wince ki or those that supported her. she's not morally bound to defend the woman that cheated with her husband. monica was over 21, she was an adult. let's talk about donald trump three marriages. why... >> we are not defending donald sorry. >> you are leading people on... >> here is the thing, we only - it is almost absolutely regular and common and expected for power men in political positions to cheat on their lives. let's not forget john edwards, who we love on the left, who cheated on his dying wife. we didn't discredit elizabeth edwards. president. standard. let's call it would it is. >> the standard against some. so many times the american public is so frustrated when

they see the choices of the people they had to vote for saying why wouldn't everyone run for office, if we examine everyone's private lives for death, how will be get good candidates to run for office. >> i want to separate the issue of inifiedality and conduct in use of agenda terms. if we made fidelity the test, morality matters, it's an issue that should be looked at. we would invalidate the president. founders. and use it against them. >> is hillary clinton participating. is she working to silence the critics of her husband. >> that is what we do. it is problematic. it's a ploy on the right to neutralize her ability to talk

about the fact if she was elected she'd be the first woman president. the way the discrediting argument goes, she's no fan. that's a credible argument at the level of policy, i don't think the right approach is to use intimate relationships. here is the point. the american people chose him over and over when they had the chance to cut him on the basis of his own actions, it was in the public record when he was the president and the american people did not choose to hold him accountable. how dare we penalize his wife aspirations. people do what they can. >> as far as a cover up... >> there's a left and right stand on this one. >> all right. thank you so much for being with us. straight ahead - reporters shining a light on big money, attempting to control our democracy shouldn't face retaliation, but too often they do. my final thought is up next.

>> from rural midwest to war-torn mideast. she went for the money and found a greater calling...

before we go, time for a final thought. one of america's finest reporters, her latest book digs into a decades long effort by wealthy ultra conservatives to turn american politics to the far right. two of the wealthiest americans, charles and david koch have a poll of around $80 billion. that kind of money doesn't by influence, it influences makers. university chairs, political ads, and let's be real - it influences some politicians.

now we are seeing that when a reporter dares to investigate the money, it can by intimidation. after publishing a 2010 article, showing the role in shaping, bundling the tea party movement. she was warned she was about to be exposed as a playing ourist. if you want to take down a reporters, there's pretty much nothing more lethal. it took more than a day to declare them incorrect. where did the charges come from. >> the charms were traced to two coke operatives. neither would respond for commint. hey admit it's unclear if the koch brothers would have known. it's clear reporters shouldn't fear persecution when they shine a light on wealthy doctors.

fear of retribution "third rail". ♪ in war torn afghanistan it's not the conflict but taliban that women fear most. it's their own families. a shocking majority of afghan women are abused, they are beaten, raped, or even coerced into marriage by the people they love the most. help. i'm steve cho on this episode the women are risking their lives to speak out against their abusers. ♪