and i think it's beginning to resonate in the last couple days and i predict a victory tomorrow. >> has the democratic party been as helpful to you as you would like them to be? >> they've been helpful. no question. and, you know, actually some of the closest to the polls has helped energize the base. and, again, it's going to come down to turnout and it is a very diverse district. it's 40% of the district consists of people born in other countries. a lot of different languages spoken. about 15% latino, 15% asian. my opponent i don't think stands for most of the feelings and principles of the district. he actually lives in a segregate segregated community which is over 99% white in breezy point. >> david, i'm sorry. we have to wrap it there. we invaded rachel maddow's time. david weprin trying to win anthony weiner's seat. >> thank you, lawrence.

>> the rachel maddow show is up right now. >> i take that as a friendly invasion. never to happen again. >> i enjoy it. i do it to ed every single night unfortunately without trying to. i can never complain about this ever. anyway, thank you, lawrence. thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. the tiny little town of mendon, vermont, has a big problem right now, a problem most other towns across the country don't have and a problem mendon, itself, did not have until recently. this is the main highway that runs through mendon, vermont, called route 4. as you can see, it's a scenic little road lined by forests on both sides. that's what route 4 look like up until a couple weeks ago. here's what it looks like now. oh, instead of a nice, scenic road, it's now a thing that used to be a road but is now mostly just a river. when hurricane irene barrelled

up the east coast a couple of weeks ago, it took most of that stretch of route 4 in vermont with it. the road vanished into the floodwaters and this, look at this, this is what is left over route 4. that is a big problem if you live in that area and use route 4 every day to get to work or to get to school or get to the grocery store. you know, you say problem, and vermonters say challenge. if you commute along route 4 and there aren't other roads to drive on as a detour, what do you do, when your primary means of getting to work and home and back again as gone away? vermonters it turns out hike through the woods. residents in central vermont found a half-mile-long path through the forest. just a trail, really that allows them to bypass that crumbled out stretch of route 4 that we just showed and that they used to depend on. every day now, hundreds of people who live in central vermont in that area walk about a half mile through the woods to get to their job or their school on the other side.

this is their new commute. this sort of resourcefulness in the face of disaster inspired a rather heartwarming local all for one, one for all response in vermont. as "the new york times" reported today, with little hearts in its eyes, "porta-potties donated by a-1 sewer and drain have been placed at each end of the forest trail. volunteers sit under tent canopies supplied by celebration rentals giving out sand whiches, beverages, doughnuts, gummy bare gears and licorice. golf carts transfer the elderly. all terrain vehicles from the john john deere dealership are used." central vermont, i love you. on the other hand, this is a real problem. if you can't walk through the woods or you don't want to, this would be your detour route by car. look. >> you have to take route 7 to

route 103 then get on 91 north via springfield then on to interstate 89 until the woodstock exit which brings you back to route 4 and into killington. >> so to get from here to here you have to go here. not ideal. so the central vermont town of mendon, they have a heartwarming tale to tell. they also have that heartwarming tale to tell because they do have a problem. that road really needs to be fixed and needs to be fixed fast. that hike through the woods is going to be a whole other metaphor when the snow starts falling in vermont. luckily for those vermonters who are commuting by walking through the woods, help may be on the way. after initially balking at the idea of approving additional disaster funds without cutting something else in the budget, house republicans in washington now appear to have caved. hurricane irene disaster relief for places like vermont may be authorized by congress next week. want to know who else is going through an incredibly elaborate long-distance detour to their regular commute right now?

people who need to cross the ohio river in louisville, kentucky. on friday unexpectedly the state of indiana shut down the sherman-minton bridge, the sherman-minton brej idge connects the town of new albany in southern indiana to louisville, kentucky. indiana is in charge of the bridge that spans the two states. the bridge was not shut down in this case because of some big storm like hurricane irene. the bridge was shut down in this case because it was deemed too dangerous to be kept open. inspection crews found a crack in a load bearing part of this 50-year-old bridge and decided they need to close down this bridge for at least three weeks for further diagnosis. every day 80,000 vehicles use that bridge to cross the ohio river. those commuters are being die verts verted to two other bridges, making a 20-minute commute a two-hour commute and adding to the aging process of the other two bridges to which traffic is being diverted.

the mayor of jeffersonville, indiana, is urging motorists who need to go to downtown louisville from southern indiana to instead consider crossing the ohio river in madison, indiana, about 35 miles out of the way. the folks who use that bridge to get to work every day need it fixed and need it fixed now. you may remember last week during his address to the joint session of congress president obama specifically mentioned a kentucky bridge over the ohio river that desperately needed repair. that was a different kentucky bridge over the ohio river that also desperately needs repair. that was the brent-spence bridge that links kentucky with ohio. that one also needs to be repaired. it recently has been dropping concrete chunks on to its lower deck. in fact, there are lots of bridges across the country that need to be repaired. more than 69,000 american bridges are deemed structurally deficient by the federal away administration. should we fix those bridges? shouldn't we fix those bridges is essentially the argument for

the infrastructure portion of the american jobs act which president obama officially sent to congress earlier tonight. shouldn't we fix those bridges? shouldn't we fix these roads and bridges that need fixing in america? for two reasons. one, because we need them to be fixed. there is no lovely wooden path staffed by volunteers with golf carts who are going to give you gummy bears that's going to take you across the ohio river. these things need to be fixed. also paying to fix these things now will pay people to do the fixing which will mean those people are employed and getting paid to do that fixing which will mean those people can in turn can pay for other things which will mean money going into other businesses which will make the economy go. that's the idea of economically stimulative spending. don't give money to rich people. they're going to put it in the bank. they don't need to spend it right away. they have a cushion. unemployed construction workers or otherwise unemployed people, they don't have a cushion. they'll be spending the money they're earning now because they need to which is economically

stimulative which is a tide that lifts all boats. >> i'm standing with construction workers. we have roads that need work all over the country. our highways are backed up with traffic. our airports are clogged. and there are millions of unemployed construction workers who can rebuild them. so let's pass this bill so road crews and diggers and pavers and workers, they can all head back to the job site. there's plenty of work to do this job -- this jobs bill will help them do it. it's put them back to work. let's pass this bill rebuilding america. >> that was president obama in the rose garden of the white house today stressing the urgency of getting this jobs bill passed now. mr. obama gave a speech introducing this legislation on thursday. on friday he spoke about the plan in eric cantor's district in richmond, virginia. after the rose garden speech he delivered his bill to congress. tomorrow he'll be in columbus, ohio, ohio the home of

republican house speaker john boehner. the day after that he'll be speaking about this in raleigh-durham, north carolina. president obama is saying not just let's pass this bill but let's pass this bill right now. let's pass this bill soon. let's pass this bill right away. there is a very palpable sense of urgency from president obama and the white house on this. republicans on the other hand, so far the reaction from congressional republicans has been sort of smirking but noncommittal saying they will get around to looking at the legislation in due course. they want everything to go through the regular committee process. they can't really do anything until it's been scored by the congressional budget office so they're asking for that to happen. they'd like to take their time with this thing. meanwhile, people who live in southern indiana and work in louisville, kentucky, will leave for work tomorrow morning two hours earlier than they usually do. taking a long detour while watching one of this nation's aging and crumbling bridges slowly fall apart. joining us, e.j. dionne, "washington post" columnist and at the brookings institution.

>> it's great to be here to discuss radical left wing ideas like building roads and fixing schools and bridges. it must be socialism. it's really amazing, isn't it? >> the president keeps talking about how, you know, this used to be the kind of idea that wasn't that controversial. this used to be the kind of idea the democrats and republicans could come together on. is he right in pointing that out as a means of making the case that it could be that way again? >> as a historical matter, he certainly is right. i mean, who did more to build roads in this country than dwight eisenhower? he put through the interstate highway system. republicans, i used to cover the state legislature in new york, and republicans would often say, we don't want to spend money on welfare, we want to do the things government ought to like build roads, like build transit. and so, yes, for then, but you've had a republican party that's just retreated from government.

now i think they're a little scared of, say, a 13% approval rating for congress. they know some of this stuff is popular. and building roads and fixing schools is popular. but what i'm worried about is what you alluded to in the introduction. they're not this time going to say these are awful ideas the president put forward, because a lot of them really are very moderate republican sort of ideas including tax cuts. they're going to delay and take their time. maybe cut it down to size so it doesn't have a big effect. and maybe just put in some poison pills like have some anti-labor and anti-environmental sections to get rid of certain regulations. and that's where i'm worried that this whole thing could get gummed up in that kind of process. and it would be a shame because we could push the economy forward with this. >> does the president and the -- do congressional democrats have any leverage to prevent that from happening? >> well, first of all, it's good to see the president out there

not only on the first day but now for three days running say pass this bill. he's notably not saying, oh, i am looking forward to working with speaker boehner, we can find some kind of solution. he's got a specific proposal out there. and i think what he's done here in some ways is flip the politics from the old stimulus package because if they don't pass this, he can now say that we could have been better off in you had passed this. so i think the politics are a little better, but it's still going to be put through. he's making a fight this time. i hope he sticks with it. >> let me quote you something a very wise man wrote today. the president offered eloquent offenses of the role of government in the part to revert to bipartisan fantasies that in the end always make him look weaker. the central question for his jobs plan and future is whether this time he sticks with an analysis of the nature of our political fight that sees it as it is, not as he wishes it were.

the wise man who wrote that today is, of course, e.j. dionne. what did you mean by seeing it as it is, not as he wishes it were? >> see, i think the republican party has changed fundamentally. it's been taken over by a kind of radical individualism and a view of government that republicans historically have not taken. i was very happy to see the president quote abraham lincoln. you don't have to go all the way back to lincoln. and they are in a very different place right now and you have republicans who really believe that it's more important to stop certain things from happening even if it causes a lot of trouble the way the whole fight over the debt ceiling caused it, to make sure you defeat this set of sort of radical lefties in power. so i think it is a very different republican party and the president acted as if he thought it was the old republican party. for now he seems to be acting as if he understands what he's really up against this time.

>> do you think that it's resonating with a base and with beyond a base, a democratic broad electorate who has criticized the president tactically for conciliating too much, for giving up too much, more being too unreasonable against an unreasonable opponent? >> mark schmidt had an interesting piece in "the new republic" where he referred to the president's fighting bipartisanship as opposed to other kinds of bipartisanship. i think the base likes the fact that this package to get the economy moving is bigger than they expected it to be and they like the fact he's fighting for it. but the ideas, themselves, are fundamentally bipartisan. so you had the odd spectacle of paul krugman and david brooks both praising this. one liked the bipartisan side. the other liked the fighting side. so maybe he can win re-election. >> e.j. dionne, senior fellow at the brookings institute and "washington post" columnist. stick a pin in that. we will be coming back to that assertion momently i'm sure. the interview tonight is

someone who before now had only ever been able to testify to congress from behind a screen that shielded his identity. he's now out of the undercover counterterrorist world he has been living in for the better part of a decade and he's here tonight in person. i'm very much looking forward to this.

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waste. it's expensively dangerous to have around, to maintain anywhere. because it's radioactive. in some cases it could make rather nicely horrific radioactive bomb material. there was an explosion at a nuclear waste site in france today. one person was killed in that explosion and four people were injured. according to french nuclear safety authorities and police there was no radiation leak at this nuclear waste processing facility. within hours of the explosion, authorities said the episode was over. contained. the utility that owns the plant called it, quote, an industrial accident, not a nuclear one. a french nuclear safety official said the explosion took place in the offen ven where the plant was melting down used metal objects. this is very, very low, nothing close to the radioactivity you'd find inside a nuclear power plant. many folks in the south of france saying to breathe a sigh

of relief, that it took place in an oven with only mildly radioactive objects. closer to home during last month's major earthquake on the east coast, the north anna nuclear power station in virginia went into automatic shutdown. backup diesel generators kicked in to keep north anna's nuclear fuel cool. it wasn't until days after that we learned the earthquake that shaked the north anna plant was more than it was designed to handle. the north anna power station was not built to withstand the level of shaking that resulted from the earthquake that happened last month. the first time that happened in the u.s. the north anna station was 11 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake, the earthquake that made the shaking it was not designed to withstand. the nuclear power plant at the epicenter of the earthquake is 60 miles away from the city of richmond, virginia p 100 miles away from washington, d.c. u.s. nuclear safety authorities

say in light of the north anna accident they're working on new safety standards for america's nuclear power plants to cope with natural disasters like earthquakes and floods. you may have noticed natural disasters continue and do not always bother to check which nuclear power plants are designed to withstand them. in february of last year, the state senate in the great state of vermont voted to close down the vermont yankee nuclear power plant in 2012. next year, when its current license is up. this week the state of vermont and entergy are going to court over the decision. the company that owns the plant thinks the state of vermont shouldn't get say over whether or not there will be a 40-year-old nuclear power plant operating in the state that many more years. they say the license should be enough to keep them open no matter what vermont wants. the state of vermont deciding they as a state wanted to send the nuclear power plant packing once its 40 year license expired, now the state of vermont has to prove to a

federal judge they have a right to make that decision as a state which means we're about to find out who has more power in this country right now. a nuclear power plant company or a state? joining us now is the president of the global security foundation. joe also serves on secretary of state hillary clinton's advisory board and council of foreign relations. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> let me ask you first about vermont. the state of vermont in federal court trying to prove it has the power to sent vermont yankee packing. do you have any idea what's going to happen in this case? >> no. we don't. that's what makes it so interesting. you have to understand what's going on here. the state says it has real concerns about the safety of the plant. the company says that doesn't matter. a state doesn't have power to shut a nuclear power reactor over nuclear safety concerns because the federal government is the only entity that has that power.

that's in the nuclear regulatory commission. so as long as the nrc, the nuclear regulatory commission, says it's okay, it overrules the state. so the state is saying, vermont is saying it has other concerns. for example, that the plant was leaking radioactive tridium several years ago and when they discovered this the reactor company lied about it, that the plant is so expensive to operate that they're afraid the company is just going to walk away and leave vermont holding the bag were potentially billions of dollars of cleanup. so this contest is going to set a precedent for whether states can use economic concerns or concerns about liability of the plant as reasons to close the power plant that no one in the state actually wants operating. >> the larger issue this gets at is that vermont yankee feels like a very old plant, to the end of its 40 year license. these things were designed with a 40 year life span in mind. that's essentially the vintage

of all nuclear power plants in the united states. these are also the similar age and similar design to the reactors in fukushima. do you think it's legitimate to have safety concerns about the aging of these plants? >> absolutely. in fact, there's evidence that the power company, itself, has these concerns because there may be plans to sell the plant to a brand new company that's been set up at the state of vermont doesn't believe has the capital to actually operate it. we could be seeing essentially a dumping of the plant and one of the reasons that the company is suing vermont to stop it is they don't want the state to stand in the way of the financial operation that would relieve them of liability to run what they are now looking at as a nuclear white elephant. >> in terms of the north anna plant in virginia -- >> oh, yeah. >> -- it was a week after the earthquake before we found out the plachbt nt had been shaken more than it was designed to handle. we were told initially that it was designed to withstand

stronger shaking than it went through. the last part, how much it was designed to withstand was not what they initially told us. how worrisome is that to you? >> the plant is still shut down, not operating. there are great concerns about whether the plant can safely operate. the nrc, nuclear regulatory commission, is planning a special inspection of that facility. i think you have to be very worried about this. this is why the nuclear regulatory commission just last month issued a task force report with a series of pretty good recommendations saying that, for example, all plants in the united states should re-evaluate their construction based on what we now know about the higher than we thought likelihood of things like earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes. all of which have hit us in just the past few months and have effected operations at nuclear power plants.

the concern is that the commission, itself, won't actually act on the recommendations of its task force. some of the members more friendly to the nuclear power industry understand that what the nuclear regulatory commission is proposing is going to cost the industry money. they want to keep their profits high, costs low. so you may see an effort to delay and delay and delay the safety recommendations. >> hearing those concerns from you, joe, about safety regulations in general in the u.s., about the north anna plant, about the vermont yankee situation. on the other side of this, am i right to think that you think there's no real radioactive or nuclear risk associated with that french incident today that got so much attention? >> the french incident i think actually was what the french said, an industrial accident. it's never good to have an explosion at a nuclear facility. this is a facility that makes the highly controversial fuel, mox, mixed oxide fuel that has plutonium in it. a very expensive, dangerous fuel.

it doesn't appear the fuel, itself, caused the explosion. we don't know what the cause is. one thing we know about accidents at nuclear plants is we never get the right story on the first day. whether it's three mile island or chernobyl or fukushima or now france. we're probably going to have to wait a couple of weeks or so. the iaea, international atomic energy agency, asked for a special inspection of that facility. let me just add, this comes at a very inappropriate time as far as global nuclear power industries are concerned. tomorrow the iaea is set to take up a series of recommendations to increase safety regulations at plants globally. it's recommendations doesn't want to see passed. this accident, even if it's nonnuclear, is going to have an impact and raise concerns of most of the agencies' members. >> joe cirincione. the rumors that you have, it's never a good idea to have an explosion at a nuclear facility.

the rumors that you have that tattooed on your back in latin, i can tell everybody that's not true. thank you. >> absolutely. >> thank you. >> thank you for having me on. >> appreciate it. the interview tonight, with former fbi counterterrorism a agent aliff sufan, parent of t of the reason how we find out that al qaeda was behind 9/11. the story why he left the government since then is as amazing as the story of what he did while in government.

there was a reason why president obama gave his joint session address to congress last thursday and not wednesday. there was a reason why upon the president's request to speak before both houses of congress on wednesday. there's a reason why the speaker of the house john boehner, the man who controls the schedule responded to the wednesday request by saying no. there was a very specific reason. was it a good reason? i will let you be the judge. that's coming up.

in may 1998 osama bin laden gave a press conference. not the most accessible press conference in the world. bin laude declared war on america, again. only a few hand picked journalists were there. the press conference in 1998 gave us these fantastically overused photos of bin laden in a camouflage vest sitting in front of a dramatic looking banner. the banner he's in front of is the flag of al qaeda. black banner, write arabic writing. the hadif are the descriptions of what the prophet did during his lifetime and it says if you

see the black banners coming, join the army, even if you have to crawl over ice, no power will stop them. when osama bin laden declared war on the united states two years before the '98 press conference he signed and dated the first declaration of war august 23rd, 1996 in the hindu cush mountains. bin laden was in part of afghanistan that could be considered part of it but wanted to be thought of as a guy in khurasan and gave his group his black banner so he could make it seem like his army, his terrorist group had been foretold by the prophet mohammed more than 1,000 years ago. he didn't want to be osama bin laden radical son. he wanted to be by the great prophet of islam to lead a great army that could not be defeated. the insight into the

self-concept of osama bin laden and the tactics gives us the title of ali soufan's book "the black banners." he's an american muslim born in lebanon. a handful of arabic speaking fbi agents. he joined the bureau in 1997 and brought with him an obsessive interest in al qaeda and particularly in osama bin laden. mr. soufan was still a rookie in his first year at the fbi when the u.s. embassies in kenya and tanzania were bombed. when he asked his supervisor if he knew who was responsible for the bombings his supervisor replied, still unclear, but quote, i think it might be your guy. meaning it might be osama bin laden, the guy ali soufan as a rookie in the fbi had been all over. ali soufan was chasing the attack and bin laden when

september 11th happened. within a week of 9/11 he was face to face with the al qaeda custody anywhere, interrogating bin laden's confidant in prison. that produced america's confirmation that al qaeda and bin laden were behind the 9/11 attack. within six months soufan was face to face with zabida. when you get to the part about that interrogation, in ali soufan's book "black banners" it starts to look like this. writing for the first few pages. you start to see a few more redactions. then you get page after page of redacted text. there's something in here that somebody still doesn't want you to know. let me introduce you now to ali soufan to explain why the book is called "the black banners:

the inside story of 9/11 and the war against al qaeda." i know you could be anywhere for your f l >> thank you for having me. it's a pleasure. >> let me start with the specific and broaden out. who's responsible for the redactions in your book? >> from the agency, the cia. the book was approved by the fbi. when we finished the approval process with the bureau it took about three months and it was reviewed by the counterterrorism division, reviewed by information security. we didn't have one single redaction. so unfortunately for some reason some people at the agency thought that there's a national security need in redacting a lot of the things that you showed. >> you never worked for the cia. you worked for the fbi. >> no, never worked for the agency. you know, fortunately for us, it doesn't take away from the narrative. it doesn't take away from the story. people know that i justified,

and my statement is the only statement under oath about what happened with zubaydah. i testified on the senate at that. they know the enhanced interrogation techniques and what i believe that they didn't work. and that's what i'm trying to say in the book and that's the narrative i'm putting in the book. and i believe all the threats that's mentioned in the book are threats that are already in public domain and all the things that have been redacted, mostly narrative rather than facts. >> in terms of the other people who have talked about the zubaydah interrogation, one of those things discussed by many, many, many politicians including then-president of the united states george w. bush in 2006 and justifying enhanced interrogation techniques. how did you get zubaydah to tell you khalid shaikh mohammed was mastermind of 9/11 then how did zubaydah end up getting waterboarded dozens of times? >> this is interesting, actually i testified about this.

we knew that khalid shaikh mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11 way before enhanced interrogation techniques were even applied. we knew khalid shaikh mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11 in april of 2002, before the contractors even set a foot in the undisclosed location of where we were. so just to basically read later that people are claiming it was waterboarding that produced the information that led us to identify khalid shaikh mohammed as the mastermind is totally wrong. and unfortunately the same thing with the alleged dirty bomber, though i believe he's a brain surgery away from being a dirty bomber, but that's a digit story. they claimed it was waterboarding that caused zubaydah, and you can see that clearly in the steven bradbury memo. they claimed it's waterboarding that produced information that led us to it. waterboarding did not start

until august of 2002. a couple weeks before. still, july/august of 2002. mr. padilla was in custody after an international manhunt in may of 2002. so unless you have a time machine, you're having a problem, you know, with keeping the timeline straight. >> and when the enhanced interrogation techniques and waterboarding for happening to zubaydah, you called fbi headquarters in washington to say -- >> yes. >> to say either i leave or i'll arrest him. are you talking about arresting the guy who was doing the enhanced interrogation technique? >> i was angry i guess. >> but the fbi told you to leave? >> yeah. >> saying that we don't do those kinds of tactics? >> we don't do these kinds of things. the order came from director muller. and the fbi since then as an agency did not get involved in any of the so-called special techniques that were applied on some of the high valued detainees.

>> we'll be right back with more from ali soufan, his landmark new book "black banner" is just out today.

my hand started shaking. i didn't know what to think. this is september 12, 2001. they just sent these reports. the redacted thing said. seeing my reaction. i walked out the room, sprinted

down the corridor to the bathroom and to a stall, there i threw up. i sat on the floor a few minutes. seemed like hours. what i had just seen going through my mind again and again. if they had this information since january 2000, why the hell didn't they pass it on? my whole body was shaking. i heard a s.w.a.t. agent say, ali, are you okay? he saw me run to the bathroom and follow he ed me in. i'm fine. covered my face with a paper towel a few moments trying to process the fact the information i requested about major al qaeda operatives, invest the cia claimed they knew nothing about had been in the agent cy agency's hands since 2000. the s.w.a.t. agent said, what's wrong, bud? he said, they knew, they knew. that's the book "the black banner." ali soufan joining us. when you say they knew, they knew. >> not as an agency. some people in the agency knew

that nawaf hazumi were in the united states. we were looking to people connected to the u.s. assault for a few months. for about more than a year in yemen. and here are two people who we know from our investigation have met with the person who facilitated the attack and his job was to videotape the operation. and one of the suicide bombers in southeast asia. and we put at least three requests for information, not thinking then they knew. we're investigating, we're getting information. we share the information with everyone. and hoping that any intelligence agency, law enforcement, you know, anybody who has some information to share it with us because we're investigating the death of 17 of our heroic sailors who perished on october

12th of 2000 on the "uss cole" in yemen. nobody told us anything until ten years to the day, december 12th. ten years to the day. i still don't know the reason why the information was being withheld. i don't know if it's intentional or not intentional for withholding the information. i don't know if people failed to connect the dots as the theory came or if people dropped the ball. i think there's a big difference between the two. but i know that the information was not shared. and later the 9/11 commission came to the same conclusion and the cia inspector general report came to the same conclusion that, you know, the cia agency goes actually further to say that people many the agency failed to show the information on timely basis with the fbi, with the state department, with the immigration and

naturalization services. failed to put the one in flight 77 that flew into the pentagon an a no-fly list and so forth. that doesn't mean everyone in the agency -- i don't believe in conspiracy theories. some of my good friends are in the agency, the cia, as you see in my book. >> you're generous toward the cia. >> absolutely. it's dedicated to the heroes of the cia, fbi, military. when you work with somebody on the front lines and you're far away in dangerous areas, you only have each other to depend on. so many of the heroes in the book basically are cia officers from the cia officer who, you know, tried to get all the information from a detainee so the detainee cannot be rendered to a cia officer who actually walked before me out of the zubaydah interrogation and came home. he said, that's not worth it. to a cia officer in guantanamo

bay who basically was a phenomenal leader in guaranteeing there is no institutional barriers between the entities down there and all of us work for uncle sam. so i have a lot of great appreciations for the men and women in the cia and we have to actually remember one thing, rachel, that it's because of the employees of the cia, the enhanced interrogation techniques and that program was shelved. it was them who went back and complained to their inspector general and a lot of complaints happened over the years. then the inspector swrerler or general of the cia conducted an investigation and reached out -- >> based on cia employee complaints. >> absolutely. their own inspector general. they came to the conclusion, look, the cia program is excellent, however, the enhanced interrogation techniques, the cia inspector general said they could not verify one single imminent threat that stopped

because of that technique. and basically they talk about how bad that technique morally, legally and so forth. that's why the techniques were shelved in 2005. so we shouldn't mix waterboarding with the cia efforts. i mean, the men and women of the cia, everyone in this country owe them great thanks for the service that they to and many of them gave the ultimate sacrifice for this great country of ours. >> ali soufan, you changed the narrative about our understanding of pre-9/11 and post-9/11 fighting against al qaeda. thanks for writing this book. nice to meet you, sir. >> thank you. >> ali soufan's book called "black banners." you can read an excerpt from it at maddowblog.com. important phone call i made.

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president obama sent his new jobs plan to congress today. the one he's asking congress to pass right away. the president said last week the american jobs act would be paid for, everything in it. on page five of the bill we see how he intends to do that despite doing things like ending tax breaks for the owners of corporate jets and rich oil companies and limiting itemized deductions for the wealthiest americans on their tax returns. it's up to congress to go through the bill and read it, maybe vote on it. congress, though, however, you know, is busy. it's a busy, busy place. a few weeks ago the white house said the president wanted to give a major address on unemployment and turning the economy around. the president wrote to congress saying he would like to deliver that address on wednesday night. last wednesday, to a joint session of congress. that's what a big deal this was. joint session of congress. whoa. joint session of congress, that is a big deal.

that's state of the union big. that is is starting a war big. for a president to request a joint session of congress is a very big deal. for the congress to say no to that request is an even bigger deal. that is unheard of. in response to president obama's request to address a joint session of congress last wednesday, republican speaker of the house john boehner did something that has never been done before in the history of our nation. he said no. he said it would be inconvenient for the house because he said there were votes scheduled in the house for wednesday night. for last wednesday night when the president wanted to do his speech. at least mr. boehner said there would not be enough time. after those important. house votes to prepare for the president to come speak. so john boehner said no, mr. president, i will not convene a joint session of congress on wednesday. why don't you pick a different day? this is unprecedented. no speaker, no congress has ever said that to any president in u.s. history. president obama did move his

speech, he moved it to a different day. john boehner's house of representatives did convene on wednesday for its very, very, very important votes that couldn't be moved. and now we know what those wednesday night votes were that were so important. turns out in fact it was just one vote. it was a roll call vote. it was a roll call vote, quote, authorizing the use of the capitol grounds for the district of columbia special olympics law enforcement torch run, a charity jogging event that uses the capitol fwrounds grounds. they had to vote whether that was okay for the jogging. the house for the record said it was unanimous. that was the vote that was so important that it could not be moved. the president of the united states had to move his joint address to congress to thursday. so incidentally his speech would share the evening with the opening game of the nfl football season. in fairness i should mention the house of representatives did have one other important business matter that they took care of on wenz night dnesday night instead of hosting the president of the united states on his request.

the house of representatives that night also took time to congratulation a girl's softball team from north carolina for making the little league world series. i also would like to lend my congratulations. that was the activity in the house of representatives on wednesday when they could not make time for the president. one vote and some nonbinding speechafying. so the president had to give his speech the next night instead of the night he wanted. the man who screamed, you lie, in the president's address in the joint session of congress two years ago, that congressman, joe wilson, did show up for president obama's speech when it finally happened on thursday. but at least four other republican members of congress from the south said before president obama's speech that they would not bother to show up. they would not be there. they didn't have the time. because there's apparently something about this president that erases the need for whatever deference congressional