let me finish this friday night with this. there is one saving grace i give to people like michele bachmann. they know not what they do. the thing is, when the congresswoman says we in the media should investigate

anti-american elements in the house of representatives, she must not know that this thing happened all once before. there was a panel of the congress itself called the house unamerican activities, carried all kinds of hearings and probes into congress and hollywood and all over the place. they are not proud of that committee. why? because it created a lot of mayhem, suffering, a the lo of people's lives ruined. going out there and eholding a fishing expedition causes good people to circle the wagons and then tends to predict some bad people along the way while ruining, as i said, the lives of good people. so we don't need some purge in this country. remember, congress is critical of the way we do things. here, i think it's because he or she wants to be a better country. don't you think? there must be someone who secretly hopes to brings this country down. i suppose that's possible.

but don't count on a bunch of hearings or high-profile probes to do the job of finding them. i have to say, we've been there before, been there before, congresswoman bachmann, well, been there, done that. that's what i say to you. and no one who remembers it wants to see it happen again, thank god. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "politicsnation" with the reverend al sharpton starts right now. thanks, chris, and thanks to you for tuning in. tonight's lead, the more the gop changes, the more it stays the same. today, the bright new republican superstar, senator ted cruz, put forward a bold new plan full of original ideas to save the gop. >> tomorrow is the three-year anniversary of the passage of obama care. it should be repealed. >> repeal obama care? are you kidding me? that's the big idea? for all the soul searching

republicans claim they are doing, they still don't realize that they are out of touch. today the head of the republican national committee insisted the problems, not their policies, it's their tone. >> it's not necessarily what you see but it's how you say it and if you go around and say a lot of biologically stupid things. >> right. >> and you poison the well and you create a caricature or you allow a caricature to become reality, i think it hurts your ability to win an election. >> republicans are lost. they haven't learned anything. they are just as clueless now as they were back during the far right circus of the republican national convention and presidential primary. today, we learn that in 2012 newt gingrich and rick santorum almost teamed up for the so-called unity ticket. they wanted to take down mitt

romney together. wow, what a ticket that would have been. blah people. it would have been up there with laurel and hardy, twiddly dee and dwiddly dumb. they would have been unstoppable. the only problem, quote, gingrich and son for rum could not agree on who would get to be president. wow. guys, you could have had it all. you were this close. maybe you should try teaming up again. i'm sure you got all of the right ideas of this is what is wrong with the party now. joining me now is melissa harris perry and e.j. dionne. thanks for being here tonight. >> thanks for having us. >> melissa? >> they couldn't decide who gets to be president. president obama gets to be president. right? and the reason he gets to be president is because he won a

majority of not only the electoral college, which is sufficient, but also the popular vote. >> he would have won more if they had teamed up. >> i'm telling you, there's two or three states i'm certain we could have given over. >> right. >> look, i am convinced that part of what we're seeing now in the republican party is a kind of -- like they were so sure that they could not change the minds of voters but suppress voters from having an opportunity to put their own opinions on those ballots that they are at a loss because they didn't know what to do on the other side if they were going to lose. we really saw that shock from republican operatives on election night. >> we saw the meltdown of rove on fox. >> right. >> you know, e.j., when you look at rnc chairman priebus and he's saying republicans are going to start reaching out more to african-americans, listen to this. >> you've got a party that

hasn't been deep enough in the communities on a permanent basis. we're going to go historically to black colleges and universities and we're going to go to places and talk about our party and the things we believe in. >> let me get this right. they are going to hang out in spellman and morehouse colleges and just because they come by and hang out. >> it would be better than not hanging out. i mean, i think the republicans have this problem, which is they go back and forth on different days. some days they really seem to get close to saying, maybe we need to change policy, it's not about the packaging, we need to go person to person to show that we care and that report they put out, which i give them this, it's one of the toughest reports a party has ever put out so close to an election about what they did wrong, but that report

kind of gives them not every once in a while to maybe we need a different policy on immigration but mostly it's about we need new packaging, not what is inside the package and i still think they haven't figured out which of these things they haven't emphasized and they don't agree on what the policy should be. >> but we said here last night, usually you do autopsies after you've been pronounced dead. >> that's right. >> i don't know why they've called it an autopsy but yesterday ohio republican governor john casey did come out for civil unions. listen. >> if people want to have civil unions and have some way to transfer the resources, i'm for that. i just think that marriage is between a man and a woman and if you want to have a civil union, that's fine with me. >> so it's like a step, half a step, and then going backwards.

so your moral position is it's all right to shack up but you can't marry. >> right. there's two things that really irritate me. one is the idea that voters of color in particular are more interested in style than in substance, that we can be won over and historically have been won over, just because of the radio show or because they visited historically black college. so i'm with e.j. on the one hand, i'm much rather have parties not ignores whole segments of the population but not ignoring doesn't mean showing up and doing a political blackface. it means actually engaging with communities about what kinds of economic, social, political efforts would in fact make a difference and i think we see the same thing. lgbt communities have been very clear. it has to be marriage because otherwise it's second-class citizenship. you can't wave your hand and say take the second-class

citizenship, it's better than nothing. >> when you look at the fact that -- let's look at what we're dealing with in terms of the body politics of the country, e.j. the real problem is not style, the real problem is not showing up. romney went to the napc convention. the problem is which way we're going to govern and when they are saying tax cuts for the wealthy, cut everything that middle class and poor people need, let's protect private business but big government and government, period, needs to be reduced, the direction of the country is ultimately where voters are smart enough to see which way they want to he sue the country go. >> i think melissa is right. we always underestimate the importance of policy and underestimate everything else, whether charisma is the way somebody parts their hair and the republicans have lost ground

among minority, among latinos, african-americans, among working class whites. five million working class whites did not vote in the last election because they were turned off by the mitt romney 47% and the republicans have sort of displayed an attitude towards government that was reflected in that and in the idea that people who may need government help at some point in their lives are moochers or takers. people hear that stuff and say, we can't vote for them. they haven't always talked that way. i think they really moved very far to the right, even of where they used to be. and they've got to recalibrate. >> or things, melissa, like we talked a lot about on this show, voter suppression. if you're going to hang out at an historic black college, are you going to explain why they can't vote because they don't have government i.d. that you put in place? i mean, those are the kinds of things that it's insulting to

our intelligence if you're going to come to us and don't have a real dialogue. >> when priebus was saying we have to stop saying things that are biologically stupid, he's talking about women's reproductive rights. and that's not the point. what women are talking about is shutting down the actual capacity to practice our constitutional right to make a decision and not the ridiculousness said by candidates. >> e.j. dionne, melissa harris perry, thank you. have a great weekend. don't forget to catch melissa harris-perry at 10:00 a.m. eastern on saturdays and sundays. ahead, president obama's progressive is pushing. you won't believe who is coming arm

around now. plus, michele bachmann is running away from the truth but the leadership should be running from her. but pushing us into war again, chris hayes is here on the selling of the iraq war. stay with us. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. [ bop ] [ bop ] [ bop ] you can do that all you want, i don't like v8 juice. [ male announcer ] how about v8 v-fusion. a full serving of vegetables, a full serving of fruit.

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today we saw a major escalation in the gop's assault on women's rights. north dakota became the first state in the country to pass so-called personhood abortion bill. the bill defines an embryo as a person and bans all types of abortion. it could ban some types of birth control and even end in vitro

ve fertilization. state voters will have the final say. the news had folks on our fa facebook page fired up. esmin says, republicans want smaller government. smaller government means you stay out of our bedrooms and our bodies. jessica says, this isn't constitutional. they won't be able to get away with it. le we want to hear what you think, too. head over to "politicsnation" and "like" us, the conversation that keeps going long after the show ends.

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the president's second term is moving the needle on key progressive issues. and the right, they are following suit. following his lead on the fight for gay rights. >> our brothers, sisters, are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. >> it's a compelling argument ahead of next week's supreme court hearing on same-sex marriage. dozens of prominent republican americans have signed a brief arguing that gay people have constitutional rights to marry. key gop senator bob portman now

supports gay marriage and it's not just on that issue. remember this? >> we believe in a generous america, in a compassionate america, a tolerate america, opening the dreams for a girl who studies in our schools and pledges our flag. >> for years, right has stood in opposition to immigration reform. but now even tea party senator rand paul supports a path to citizenship. and gop opposition to immigration reform is falling away. yes, we're still facing a tougher fight on things like gun control. but the president's progressive agenda is already taking shape and even the gop's getting on board. joining me now is angela and abby huntsman. thank you both for coming on this show. >> thank you, rev. >> angie, why are we seeing a

shift on these issues? >> well, it's political expediency as the country continues to shift demographically, as the country continues to evolve like the president, you're going to continue to see a change in the gop's politics. they can't afford to be as conservative and right leaning as they once were. >> abby, your dad took grief for taking some positions. now i see rand paul defending his stance on immigration, of all places, fox news. take a listen. >> people like coulter and limbaugh say that you are being suckered. >> what we have now is de-facto amnesty. here's another news flash. we haven't been too competitive in the last two national elections. >> what do you say when you hear rand paul saying something like that, abby? >> by dad doesn't sound all too

crazy anymore, does he, rev? but look, these are going to be the issues that dominate the 2014, 2016 election cycle. so i mean, it's no surprise republicans are now coming around realizing, look, they've looked at the statistics. they've seen that the rest of the party is not where the country is. the majority of the country wants gay marriage. they are in support of gun control and higher minimum wage and it's no surprise to see republicans like rand paul and even reince priebus speaking about these issues. the challenge though, reverend, is coming across genuine. it's coming across in a sincere way to say we're not evolving on these issues simply because we have to to win, we're evolving because we think it's the right thing to do. that's going to be the greatest challenge. it's coming across genuine. >> and sincere.

and i think -- you know, when i think about the president and his inauguration, he said that we have an obligation. that's the term he used, to move the country forward. watch this, angie. >> you and i as citizens have the power to set this country's course. you and i as citizens have the obligation to shape the debates of our time, not only with the votes we cast but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideas. >> he talked about us shaping the debate. is that resonating, angela? >> i think it is resonating. there's a natural, organic evolution. the constitution was written years ago and most of us see the constitution as a living, breathing document.

there are all types of things that we can do to ensure that we are creating change long term. the president has continued to push that. we saw her even do that across the ocean in israel. so when you look at the different things we can do as a people, it isn't just about the vote. it is also about the voice and for republicans, more often than not. >> support of gay marriage, as you mention, currently 58%, that's up 26 points since 2004 and 81% approval rating among those 18 to 29. now, your father came out in support of same sex civil unions back in 2009. why has the party, in your

opinion? >> i think there's a conservative right movement as we've seen take over the party in the last few years and it's challenginging to separate their religious views with their political views and it goes back to the church versus state argument. republicans have always fought for a strong family unit for long-term relationships, for equal rights for all americans. i mean, nothing about gay marriage i think does not represent what the american party represents. so i continue to make the argument that the republican party should lead on issues like gay marriage. but look, the issues that we all talked about, immigration, gay marriage, the issues are not going away any time soon. the republican party needs to find ways to own them and talk about them in a commonsense and in a again win way that reminds people that they care about

them, that they are about giving them equality and opportunities and it's going to take time to put them on board, i think. >> angela, the fact of the matter is, the president's progress gres sif agenda is being taken hold. whether it's being done for political reasons, whether it's being done for genuine conversion or political convenience, it seems to be taking hold. a year ago we would have never dreamed we'd start seeing this kind of movement. >> certainly not this kind of progress. one thing that abby was talking about with regard to reason, i think that what you're starting to see, rev, is an evolution of what reason really means, what it means to worship your god and your neighbor. >> and reality. >> that's right. if you're clothed, clothed the naked. make sure that 47% are clothed. morality is starting also to take that into consideration.

>> us mr., the only way to really protect your church is to make sure that church and state are not run in one way. >> that's exactly right. >> i mean, you've got to protect people's rights that disagree with you. >> you're absolutely right. >> you cannot protect your church by having a theocracy. >> angela and abby, thank you for being on the show tonight. >> thanks, rev. ahead, ten years later and still no apologies or regrets from the gang that misled us into war. chris hayes joins us on the selling of the war in iraq. and first it was a war on christmas. now bill o'reilly says the liberals are going after the easter bunny. [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work.

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the repairs are guaranteed for life. so call... to talk with an insurance expert about everything that comes standard with our base auto policy. and if you switch, you could save up to $423. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? it's beginning to feel like springtime. last night, bill o'reilly brought us all the way back to december. >> if you watch the factor, you know that we won the war on christmas battle. >> bill o'reilly won the war on christmas. wow, who knew. the folks at fox certainly gave it their all. >> anyone who opposes the word christmas this year because of a federal holiday is a loon.

>> santa, if you will, i understand that you don't like to say happy holidays. why? >> yep, apparently santa claus helped them win the war on christmas. now bill is gearing up for the next battle. >> the war on judeo christian goes on in school districts. in some schools you are not allowed to say the word easter. no easter. they are having spring egg events moderated by a spring bunny. >> a spring bunny? spring eggs? of course. it's got to be a war on easter. and hopping mad over this one, bill o'reilly is pretty sure it's behind it all.

>> running wild with president obama, they feel unchanged and liberated, they are dim minuini any war. >> obviously, after all, we know this president never, ever talks about religion, right? >> love the lord god with all your heart and with all your soul and your mind, love your neighbor as yourself. >> and so i pray. >> i often certain for scripture. >> god bless you. god bless the united states of america. >> this week bill o'reilly swore he was done with trivial pursuits and attacks on the president, but it looks like he's already fallen off the wagon. did he think we wouldn't hop all over his silly war on easter? nice try but we got you. when did you know that grandma was the one?

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republicans have a problem with their message but they also have a problem with their messenger. the reemergence of michele bachmann is not necessarily a good story. >> there are five chefs on air force one. there are two projectionists who operate the white house movie theater. we are also the ones who are paying for someone to walk the president's dog, paying for someone to walk the president's dog? >> of course, none of that is true. "the washington post" called her claim absurd and gave her four pinnochios. bachmann later sprinted into the headlines again with this video, literally running away from the truth. and then she dropped this doozy about the president's health care law. >> that's why we're here, because we're saying, let's

repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. let's not do that. let's love people. let's care about people. let's repeal it now while we can. >> congresswoman bachmann literally doesn't know what she's talking about, but she hasn't had so much attention on her since she was on magazine covers during her presidential run. joining me now are dana milbank and joe madison. thank you both for your time tonight. >> thank you, reverend. >> dana, how does michele bachmann's reemergence fit into the gop's attempt to rebrand the party? >> first of all, i think we can say that michele bachmann is literally going to cause people to die by causing their head to explode when they listen to all

of these crazy things that she stirs up the the republican party would very much like for her to go away. it appears that that would indeed happen. she had a close scare in her election. that tampered down a little bit and she has indeed come out. nobody would like to quiet her down more than her fellow republicans. her colleagues have abandoned the tea party caucus that she started. she's saying these outlandish things. he would be given more if he could. >> you know, joe, when i hear that people would like to get away from her, this is not the first time that she has seaid things that are just outrageous. let me play some of her greatest hits. >> the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly unless slavery was no more. >> how many of you love the irs?

i went to the inside to learn how they work because i want to defeat them. >> if i was president, i would be willing to use waterboarding. i think it was very effective. >> i haven't had a gaffe that's caused me to fall in the polls. >> she hasn't had a gaffe? she has trouble with reality. >> she's got trouble with history. reverend, do you have another hour for us to do this? first of all, let's go back to this literally killing people and they are glad that there is affordable health care act, if you are on medicare, the reality is that not much is going to change but they will close that prescription medication, donut hole that wasn't financed, if you have a pre-existing condition like being pregnant,

you can still get insurance so they really does. there's something symbolic about watching her speak as you had her on and all those empty chairs behind her. that is so symbolic because that's exactly -- and she should remember and the republicans need to remember what happened to allen west. >> yeah. >> and what happened to a couple of senators that had their election in the bag. >> but let's remember those empty chairs were in the congress. now, she's not empty in terms of extremes. let me show you some of the companion extremists on the right. let me show you that this is not just a bachmann problem, dana. >> all of that stuff i was talking about, evolution and big

bang theory, all of that is lies from the pit of hell. >> this is a massive beginning of a new empire that president obama could take great credit for. >> he is elected president. the radical islamist, the al qaeda and radical islamist and their supporters will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on september 11th. >> now, these are three members of congress, all still in office, dana, all still republican incumbents. so what does this kind of extremism say when you're trying to rebrand and you've got bachmann and i could go on and on that say these things in public out loud and are holding seats in congress. >> it makes you wonder about the word lunatic, i think it was, from the federal records there. the last clip of the guy who

played steve king may wind up being the next senator from the state of iowa. >> that's exactly right. >> so i think to be terrible you could say, well, it's not the majority of the republican caucus saying these crazy things but it's not a tiny fringe either and they do grab the headlines. this irritates party leaders and, of course, michele bachmann and others are hoping that people will take the bait. but you know what, you've got to take them seriously because they have votes. there are a dozen, two dozen, three dozen of the 435 members of that body. it's a serious thing. >> and is that not the issue, joe, that they argued and elected and the republicans do have the majority of the house and just laugh them off at your own peril as long as they are making laws with these extreme positions. >> well, you are absolutely 100% right. just look at this last vote on affordable health care act. that was, what, seven votes.

all that had to be changed was seven votes. >> right. >> and i think that, quite honestly, thank god for this program and what you're doing over here because it -- if they give you fodder, they give you a chance to really expose them and i think that's why president obama won this election. in large part, because their craziness was exposed and most of the american people, at least 51% or more, are not as crazy as they are. >> dana milbank and joe madison, i'm going to have to cut you off. have a good weekend. >> you, too, reverend. ahead, president and peace maker, big news about president obama's surprise move in the mid-east. ten years later, the people who got us into the iraq war are denying history. chris hayes joins me on that ahead. [ male announcer ] how do you measure happiness?

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innocent. despite those numbers, police say the policy does not target people by race but now an officer has been taped, caught on tape ordering a street car to target blacks. here's the audio. >> this is about stopping the right people, the right place, the right location. >> okay. >> again, when we had the most problems and most problems we had were robberies. >> and who are these people robbing? >> male blacks and i told you they are local and had no problem telling you this. male blacks, 14 to 20, 21. >> this -- this is an ugly policy that needs to be addressed. that's why i and other civil rights leaders led thousands in a silent march last year to protest stop and frisk. we made noise with our silence and brought national attention to this issue. it's the new racial profiling and we won't stop fighting it. both tylenol and bayer advanced aspirin

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ten years ago tonight, this was the top story. >> it is early sunday morning in baghdad and it's been another long night of punishing air strikes against that city and against other targets in iraq. >> "the new york times" headline that day, rumsfeld says iraq is collapsing. lists eight objectives of war. the objectives and the rationale for the war has kept changing ever since. but ten years later, we know how this tragic story turned out. $1.7 trillion war sold to the american public on lies. no weapons of mass destruction. more than 4,000 americans killed, many thousand more iraqis dead. ten years later, still no apologies or regret from those who pushed the war.

>> i did what i did, it's all on the public record and i feel very good about it. if i had to do it over again, i'd do it in a minute. >> i'd do it in a minute. former defense secretary donald rumsfeld tweeted this week, ten years ago began the long, difficult work of liberating 25 million iraqis, all who played a role in history deserve our respect and appreciation. liberating iraqis? that wasn't the mission. he's still trying to rewrite history. tonight, rachel maddow's documentary, "hubris: selling the iraq war" is on msnbc at 9:00. it details how the bush administration misled america into a costly, bitter, unnecessary war. joining me now is chris

hayes, host of "up with chris hayes." he'll be hosting a special program tonight at 10:00 p.m. they still change the rationale for the war. what is your reaction when you heard this talk this week? >> i found myself more outraged. i think i thought that i had gotten over how angry i was about what happened in iraq. but i think a lot of people are feeling how little the nation actually came to terms with what we did and how little the people who drove that have been punished or have been sanctioned, have been held to any kind of account. there was a midterm election which was a accountability moment on iraq and 2008 election

which was in many ways a real referendum on iraq as well. but beyond that, beyond that, there has not been a level of disgrace or accountability for the people that made this war happen. the people that cheer leaded the war and hundreds of thousands of iraqis. that number -- >> hundreds and thousands dead. the thing that i think we need to drive home and hubris does this, donald rumsfeld tried to connect suddam hussein to osama bin laden as early as september 2011. they tried to make this connection that didn't exist. >> meeting notes from the afternoon of 9/11 show donald rumsfeld tasking a top aide to find the best info fast, good enough to hit suddam hussein.

he asks to get information of a saddam of an obl. >> what are they talking about? there's no connection between osama b suddam hussein and osama bin laden. >> the word goes out, find the connection. >> and in many ways, create the connection? >> that's right. and using incredibly dodgy and intelligence service to throw enough insinuations out into the people's fear. if you look at the polling at the time, a percentage of americans thought there was a connection between 9/11 and suddam. >> right. >> and that was the key linchpins in the argument because people's reaction to 9/11 was understandably so overwhelming and powerful and the administration understood,

the people that were the architects of this war and understood and wanted to bring this war about, understood that and exploited it. >> now, lawrence wilkerson, the former chief of staff to then secretary of state colin powell, talks about how powell was told to formulate a speech to the u.n. on wmds. watch this. >> he walked in my office with a sheet of papers on my hand and threw it down and said that's the script of my presentation at the united nations. it came from the vice president's office. it was junk. it was pure junk. i was in charge of putting it together. >> powell and wilkerson tear up the original 48-page script and start over with a team from the state department and cia. director george tenant suggests they base their presentation on the national intelligence estimate, which unbeknownst to paul is a deeply flawed

document. >> we went into a room and he said sit down and he sat down. we were the only two people in the room. he looked at me and said, this bull [ bleep ] of contacts with al qaeda has got to be taken out. >> we found out powell and wilkerson both wanted to take out the al qaeda connection to suddam. so what happened? >> well, it doesn't come out. it remains to be part of the case that -- >> even though they knew it was garbage? >> yeah. and one of the things that's hard to reconcile with is the figure of colin powell in all of this. at some level he is the most sympathetic because he seems to be the least out front engineer in the disaster but in some ways it makes him morally culpable. >> because he went along. if those conversation that we now know are happening in public, come out in public, that would have really arrested the

momentum for war in a massive way and i think that has to weigh on his conscience. >> and we know that there are no wmds and you still can't get the right wing to admit that. look at fox this week. look at what they are talking about this week on fox. >> what are the chances of the return address on these chemicals being from iraq. >> we got rid of a brutal who used chemical and biological weapons against its own people, weapons of mass destruction that he exported to sudan. >> what is remarkable to me is the fact that the conservative foreign policy establishment, almost in toto, continues to defend the decision to go to war, there has been no big mea culpas. but the core group, dan senor, bill crystal, wolfowitz, all of those people, none of them have come clean and said, look, what we did was wrong. >> and i think it's important, a lot of democrats didn't call him on it and i think that's why

they got away. i remember when i ran for president in 2004, i was controversial at the convention because i attacked bush and everyone said don't do that. chris hayes, thank you for your time tonight and congratulations on your move to 8:00 p.m. >> it's going to be fun. >> and watch "hubris" here on msnbc at 9:00 p.m. eastern tonight, followed by "talking hubris" with chris hayes. [ female announcer ] switch to swiffer wetjet,

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