that flips if he runs, because new jersey is not going to support any national republican. >> ari melber, our closer, once again, gets tonight's last word. thanks, ari.melber, our closer gets the last word. chris hayes is up next. horror in cleveland. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. the horrors of cleveland are growing. one of those captive women was forced to deliver her child in a plastic swimming pool so it would be easy to clean up afterwards. when her baby got sick and stopped breathing, her captor said, if the baby dies, you die. and other times when she got pregnant, the man holding her captive starved her and beat her in the stomach to force a miscarriage. as a final grotesquery, and gave

each of his three female captives a cake on her annual abduction day, thereby forcing her to celebrate the fact of her kidnapping and decade-long confinement. we found out the alleged captor treated his wife much the same, tying her up in the basement after they were married. moments ago we learned the charges the prosecuting attorney will seek. we'll get to those in just a moment. first, msnbc's craig melvin is in cleveland for us. >> reporter: chris, they are expecting between 100 and 200.

you have to have the primary charge that is eligible, in the case, murder, murder of an unborn fetus. the attempted murder could be that they're worried about causation, so we know from the victim's description, she was beaten, and it caused a miscarriage. we can't prove it was why there was a miscarriage, so that is why they are calling it attempted. >> we have charges put out there, yesterday and again today, more definition coming today. i don't know what the role of a defense attorney would be, for example, i wouldn't want to be that person. but what is the decision here for the jury? and why would this case not just go to court in a couple of weeks and get it over with. we have everything in that house. it all happened in that house apparently, there were only certain people in the house. the women, because they were being kept there. >> well, i don't necessarily think the case is going to go to

trial. i think what you have from a criminal defense's attorney's point of view here is what is the best thing that can happen to a person who is accused of the worst of the worst crime. which would make him eligible for capital punishment, well, capital punishment, that is the death penalty, signals to the defense lawyer, no less a female now i have a bargaining chip. if they come forward with death counts, maybe i can get life in prison. if you're a good defense lawyer, you're immediately asking for a court-appointed psychiatrist to examine your client. number one, is he competent at this point in time? he certainly didn't look too competent this morning. he certainly has appeared competent throughout this ordeal for those poor people. secondly, is he suffering from some kind of mental disease or defect, even if you don't go to trial, would give you some way to talk with the prosecution to get less than the maximum, and

in this case the maximum may be death? >> you have four kidnapping charges we know of already. >> so far. >> so far. you're the expert. all these rape charges which could go into exponential number. >> thousands. >> even if he tried to game it, if he would say, okay, i'm going to go for capital punishment because i think this thing is still tested in the courts, killing an unborn child at some stage of pregnancy. he'll still have all these other charges. there's no game there for him. >> life plus life plus life. no matter what. i don't think he has much to bargain about. this is a prosecutor trying to make a statement that we all feel, how could this not be a death penalty case? this is almost more grotesque than murder yet we don't feel like we have a tough enough punishment on the books for this man. because he destroyed human lives. not just the women but the unborn babies. how can we not have this be a death penalty case? i tell you, i heard the prosecutor today sounding tough. i was very impressed. i didn't hear him say what i was hoping for which is this is also a civil rights violation. this is a hate crime perpetrated

against these women because of their gender. that's also on the books. >> how would you make that case beyond the obvious? >> you show that he targeted women because of his animus against them. >> how do you make that an extraordinarily important? in other words, you could argue all heterosexual rape, if you want to call it that, male, female, is related to anger, domination. how would you distinguish this from the general argument that all rape is of that nature? >> one could politically make an argument even a single rape is a hate crime. i'm saying here you have three women kidnapped because they're female. raped because they're female. beaten because they're female. what case -- what better case is there than this? he should make it as a political statement. he should make the remarks clear that this is a civil rights violation against women under his jurisdiction. >> as you point out a moment ago, the charges against this suspect are so strong, you don't need to pile on. >> no, it's not a piling on. it's the message. it's the valuation. >> do you think he's sane

enough, this person, to appreciate the distinction between his innate whatever it is, evil, or desire to dominate, to hurt, to captive, to hold captive. do you think he has a political sensory nerve? oh, yeah, this is a political thing, too, i have to be careful here? >> i -- >> i don't want to be anti-woman in the conduct of this awful thing i'm doing here. >> it doesn't matter what he thinks. i don't care if he's aware of his hatred toward women. he still committed a crime that involved hatred toward women. >> and don't forget the weird birthday cakes. i want to ask real quickly, rikki klieman, i'm not a specialist in profiling people who are really criminally bad. this guy was having these annual birthday cakes, but the birthday was the day of their abduction. and he -- is there some kind of a mixed personality, person who thinks he's being nice to people or he's somehow sharing with these people when, in fact, they're just captives? >> i don't want to psychoanalyze him, chris, because he's beyond

my capability of this analysis. but this is a person who is sadistic. this is a person who realized back in 2004 what he was doing was a very bad thing and in his alleged suicide note was saying that he really wanted to be stopped. well, if he really wanted to be stopped, he should have let those women go, and he did not. >> well said. thank you, rikki klieman as well. thank you, wendy. you're great. coming up, republicans are working to find hillary clinton guilty for the death in benghazi of ambassador chris stevens. my question, what did we learn in yesterday's hearings about what clinton did or didn't do or failed to do? let's figure out if there's anything here. this week's arrest of an air force official in charge of a sexual assault program, how is that for irony? there's an epidemic we're seeing right now of sexual abuse in the military. can the military police its own rank? that's the big question in the white house today with that conference.

we finally got a take on elizabeth colbert busch's loss from the one person we most wanted to hear from, her brother, stephen colbert. let me finish tonight with why the great american novel, "gatsby," is the great american novel. this is "hardball." the place for politics.

we have new polling on the special senate race up in massachusetts this june. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. according to a whdh/suffolk university poll, ed markey has a big lead over republican gabriel gomez. markey 52%. gomez, 35%. a new poll puts markey's lead at eight points when you include voters who say they're leaning one way or another. markey 46%-38% in that case. we'll be right back. to make the call. to treat my low testosterone, my doctor and i went with axiron, the only underarm low t treatment. axiron can restore t levels to normal

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welcome back to "hardball." will benghazi, the issue, dog

hillary clinton if and when she runs for president in 2016? if yesterday's congressional hearing into the attacks was any indication, republicans aren't going to let go of the issue. they say the white house has tried to block the truth from coming out, that's the obama white house. the former secretary of state helped them do it. that's what they say. the focus seems mostly shifted, by the way, to clinton now, not obama. they seem to be after her right now. these revelations yesterday had to do with what hillary knew and what she did or didn't do during and after the attacks. for example, we now know that clinton phoned the embassy in tripoli the night of the attacks and spoke with the dcm, deputy chief of mission at the time, gregory hicks. hicks also said clinton's chief of staff, cheryl mills, tried to intimidate him after he spoke with the u.s. congressman, a republican, about the attacks without a state department lawyer being present. my question today, what kind of a picture does this all add up to? where are we headed with this? lisa myers is the great senior investigative reporter for nbc news. jeremy peters is a political reporter for "the new york times."

we have two good people here. let's try to figure out the facts yesterday. what did we learn yesterday that seems to be exposing the secretary of state, brings open further questioning? lisa? >> i think both points you raised about the call to greg hicks at 2:00 a.m. between the first and second attack. i think it's the cheryl mills involvement in all this. there is no one closer. let's say, there are few people closer to hillary clinton than cheryl mills. thirdly, we learned the reason ambassador stevens was in benghazi. that's because secretary clinton planned to only to libya later that year and wanted to be able to announce there would be a permanent diplomatic outpost in benghazi. >> what the republican people, it was the republicans, it was a partisan organized event yesterday apparently talking to elijah cummings, the ranking democrat. he was informed he wasn't consulted, if you will. they have established that hillary clinton was involved in

operations. that she was calling during the time after the first attack. and before they knew what had happened to ambassador stevens. she was in a position of being the top officer involved in that matter. as secretary of state. can they then go forward and say, wait a minute, she had a choice the minute she got on that phone, start giving orders. i want every military person in that area to go to the rescue right now. i don't care how long it takes, how far they have to go. put every person out there. he's an important ambassador. we care about his life. maybe we could save him. can't they make that argument? >> i think the argument they're more interested in making is that she and obama have tried to cover up their knowledge of this as terrorism. i think that -- >> how does that get to the issue of -- it's like no harm, no foul. oh, political spin. okay. so somebody -- first time in history this ever happened that a political party tried to put the best face on something after a bad thing happened. it didn't cause chris stevens to be killed. it didn't really cause any

damage except to mitt romney. and how is that going to offend the public? >> i don't think it has offended the public. i think -- >> it's a charge. >> it's riled up a small part of the republican base. you can't go to a republican town hall meeting these days without people shouting benghazi, benghazi. >> they know what it means, these people yelling it. >> they know what it means. i think it's failed to catch fire in mainstream middle of the road voters. >> if it was a spin orchestrated by somebody at state, if somebody at state says let's not call it terrorism because that might be sting we're not supposed to say right now two weeks before the election because we killed al qaeda. if that happened, worst case scenario, what's the big damage there to anybody? >> i think what republicans would allege is that obama illegitimately won the election because he covered up -- >> because he spread the word throughout his bureaucracy, never say the word terrorism. >> exactly. this was weeks before the election. it looks bad. let's cover it up. and i think that what -- that's

why you see all these analogies to watergate. because republicans genuinely do think this was malfeasance covered up to help the president in the final days of the election. >> okay. that doesn't tell us much because that's exposition. my question is, going back to this earlier thing. we've all watched this. secretary clinton is very smart. everything that's ever happened is in her head, she knows about it. all the meetings by the review board, all the congressional hearings she's been involved in. she's never once voiced the point, oh by the way, remember that 3:00 in the morning conversation i talked about in my campaign? it was a 2:00 in the morning conversation. i was on the phone in the middle of a crisis, and here's what i did or didn't do. we didn't know it until yesterday. >> first of all, in her congressional testimony, which is really her only sustained questioning on this subject, in her congressional testimony she basically tried to slam the door on further questions by saying, remember the dramatic statement, what difference does it make? >> yeah. >> this re-opens, i think, the questions.

i don't think we know yet to what extent this does or might damage hillary clinton. i think the administration's biggest vulnerability here, first of all, how do you send diplomats into this dangerous of an area, to facilities that are not -- do not even meet minimum security standards? >> yeah. >> how do you then reduce their level of security by taking away some of the military personnel that they have? and then how do you, when you know that these people are in trouble, not find some way to move heaven and earth to -- >> okay. i'm with you on that one. >> -- at least get forces going there. >> if somebody you cared about, i think hillary clinton does care about her ambassadors. >> oh, i do. >> you would put everything you have to save them. you'd say, how many people do we have there? what's the closest airplanes? where are the closest men? let's go, go, because it's happening right now and she thought he might still be alive. this other question of courageous ambassador, which we're told chris stevens was. you're assigned to a country

like libya, which isn't quite stable, right? >> right. >> it's a country that doesn't really have a government yet. what we have for security forces are basically militias. we have to set up ties personally almost. in every case we go somewhere with some local chiefton who's got a bunch of people with semiautomatic rifles and say, can you watch our guy? can you get us there safe? can you give us safe passage? it's always hairy, it's always tricky and dodgey, right? that's what chris stevens was doing. that's part of being an ambassador in a troubled area. how do we take away the danger in situations like that? we can't have an army sitting there. we're not a colonial power. >> no, but what we didn't have was the contingency plan. there was nothing in place that, okay, these guys are in harm's way, it's incredibly dangerous situation, but it's important. >> isn't that for the ambassador -- you're arguing the ambassador tried to get that set up and was rejected. >> i think he tried to get more security and he was objected. there was no contingency plan or forces in place who could respond in short notice.

>> besides the fact the, republicans clearly see now an opportunity to catch hillary clinton who may well run for president. according to fox news, today, former vice president dick cheney, who's somewhat partisan, met with house republicans and suggested they may need to subpoena clinton to get more answers on the benghazi attacks. in other words, force her to testify. marco rubio today said on fox also he tied the investigation to the former secretary of state. let's listen to -- he's another smart guy. may not agree with him, but here's rubio. >> the president was in the middle of his re-election. was of his talking points was terrorism had been defeated and he had defeated it. what i think is sad is how many people are around the administration, according to former secretary of state, secretary clinton, knew this to be the case and allowed this to move forward anyway. you would have hoped people would have stood up and said, this is wrong, the american people deserve the truth. that didn't happen. >> earlier this week senator rand paul had strong words. even stronger for former secretary clinton. let's listen.

>> i think that her dereliction of duty, i don't question her motives, but her dereliction of duty in her lack of leadership should preclude her from ever holding office. >> well now we have a real clam bake going here. we have a battle of the bands here. everybody on the right seems to be going after her. i haven't heard from ted cruz yet. they're all there. what do you make, as a political story, this seems to be their main chance. they're not going to beat obama on the budget, on guns, all this stuff. immigration's too murky. gitmo is too weird. more of a left-wing thing. they're going to beat them, obama and hillary, two birds with one stone on benghazi. >> republicans are trying to raise questions of hillary's character. which remember, this is what they did 20 years ago with the vast right-wing conspiracy, hillary clinton alleged her enemies were behind trying to destroy her and her husband. >> is this in the republicans, like, manual? go to the character issue? >> i guess so. where they have a trickier argument, though, is in actually proving what hillary clinton

knew about the terrorist attack. that's why you hear so much about the video. was it the video that spurred this attack, or was it islamic terrorists? >> you're still getting into the question of spin. the only thing that matters to the american people, was anyone derelict enough to let somebody die who was a good guy? that's an issue with most people. humans, that is. thank you, jeremy peters, from "the new york times." up next, the reaction we've been waiting for to elizabeth colbert busch's loss from her brother. got to pronounce it right. stephen colbert in this case. this is "hardball." the place for politics. why let constipation weigh you down?

as soon as you feel it, try miralax. it works differently than other laxatives. it draws water into your colon to unblock your system naturally. don't wait to feel great. miralax. take the miralax pledge to feel better sooner. get a reward like a beauty treatment, a dance class or a $5 gift card with purchase of a specially marked pack. go to miralax.com for details. ha! back to "hardball." now to the sideshow. first steve colbert was not pleased to find out that his sister, elizabeth colbert busch, lost to republican mark sanford in that south carolina

congressional race on tuesday. here he is with a new take on political campaigns. >> my sister lost. how could this happen? i was so sure lulu had won because cnn called it for sanford. this was the first political campaign where i knew and cared about the candidate before they got into politics. i saw firsthand how her opponent smears her with outrageous accusations i knew to be untrue. and that has made me wonder if other campaigns have done this as well. is it possible that john mccain actually doesn't have an illegitimate black child? and does that mean meghan mccain is white? i don't know what to believe anymore. next, to new jersey governor chris christie. in the aftermath of superstorm sandy, governor christie became known for, among other things, always wearing the same fleece. there it is. his office had a little fun with a star-studded opening video for

new jersey's legislative correspondents' dinner earlier this week. keep an eye out for the cameo of the co-host of msnbc's "morning joe." >> the fleece, sir, it's missing. >> so what? so what? what's the big deal? i'm back in the "time" 100 most influential people in the world. bruce is my new best friend. i'm friends with bon jovi. now i'm back on "morning joe." that's going to be a love fest. everything is right back on track. >> oh, hey. >> we just had him last week. >> i thought he was on last week. i guess he's back. >> hey, john, john, it's chris. john, john, it's chris. >> hey. there's that guy again. he ain't nothing without his fleece. >> hey, bruce. i know. i know i shouldn't be bothering you again, but did you happen to see my fleece? >> hi, this is governor christie's fleece. this is the fleece that everyone's been looking for. did you steal the governor's

fleece? >> i can't answer a lie. i stole it. >> i admire governor christie, too. new jersey state police. next, what famous figures do the american people think are the most trustworthy? "reader's digest" is out with this year's list of the 100 most trusted people in america. leading the pack for most trustworthy, actor tom hanks followed by sandra bullock and denzel washington. the top politician on the list was jimmy carter at number 24. the comeback is beginning. president obama made the list but way back at 65. judge judy, yes, of the tv show "judge judy" edged out all nine of the current supreme court justices. in response, jimmy kimmel put on a little experiment. >> we went out on the street today and asked people what they thought about president obama's decision to appoint judge judy sheindlin, that's judge judy's last name, to the supreme court.

he didn't do that, obviously. when the people hear words like president obama and supreme court, they will have an opinion, whether they have an opinion or not. what do you think about president obama's decision to appoint judge judy sheindlin to the u.s. supreme court? >> well, it's controversial. you know, he's granted that power as the president of the united states. we have to do the best we can with what we have. >> i think it's a publicity stunt. >> i'm not sure she's fit for that type of job. >> do you think she's going to make an adequate replacement? >> i don't know if adequate is the word, but i can understand why he would make that decision and go that way. >> just to show you, people can always insert their point of view, especially when politics is involved. up next, the serious problem of sexual assault in the military. it's becoming an epidemic. wait until you hear these numbers. it's all coming ahead. you're watching "hardball." the place for politics.

sexual assault is an outrage. it is a crime. that's true for society at

large, and if it's happening inside our military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they're wearing. for those who are in uniform who have experienced sexual assault, i want them to hear directly from their commander in chief that i've got their backs. i will support them. i have no tolerance for this. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was, of course, the president on tuesday. the other day. reacting to that disturbing report out of the pentagon that really is disturbing on sexual assaults. i'm talking assaults in the military. report found the number of unreported cases is skyrocketing. 26,000 went unnoticed supposedly in 2012 last year. reported cases on the rise, too. totaling more than 3,000. the reason for the discrepancy, by the way, fear of retaliation of the group that reports the assault. 62% say they experience some form of punishment for speaking up, either on a professional, administrative, or social level. in reaction, the white house convened its own special meeting

outside the military today of about a dozen lawmakers, as washington begins the unenviable but necessary task of figuring out how to fix this alarming trend out there. among people fighting for the country. joining us right now is senator kay hagan, democrat from north carolina, who's part of the white house meeting. thank you for joining us. senator, it's great to have you on. i respect you so much. i love north carolina. went to grad school down there. let me ask you, these are real -- i think something people need to understand, we're not in the military, these are real assaults. these are attempted rapes. these aren't saying, you're wearing a nice dress today. these are actual what anybody would call assault, felonies that people are getting away with. >> you know, it is a real travesty, and the fact is these numbers have been increasing. and these men and women are putting their lives on the line right now, and for their personal safety to be at risk on a base is absolutely apprehensible. we cannot let this go forward. we have got to change this. as the president said, this is a crime and we need to take

action. we cannot tolerate this. >> i'm just wondering, is it hazing? have you been able to sort of categorize or catalog, is there, i mean -- a felony is a felony, an assault is an assault. i'm trying to figure out the culture here. some guy does something to a woman, it's clearly not just bad taste, not bad behavior, it's criminal. the woman knows she has to make a decision whether she's going to risk, what, some kind of payback, if you will, or just live with it? >> you know, chris, it's the stigma that is attached to reporting a sexual assault. one, we've got do be sure we can do away with that stigma. that a woman feels that she can go to an independent entity, that she can have a sexual victims assault unit that is confidential, that she can go and discuss that and so that she doesn't have to go to her commanding office to report this. the person that she actually reports to. she's got to be concerned about her career, about what happens

next. is it going to be prosecuted? we need to have an independent review board that looks at all of these cases. we need to have a special sexual assault unit that actually mimics what is going on in the civilian criminal cases where there are sexual assault units to really help the victims of this crime. and one thing that really got to focus on is that somebody who's been convicted of sexual assault gets kicked out of the military. i don't think at all that it's a good idea that the commanding officer can actually throw out a jury verdict of somebody who has been convicted at a jury trial of serious sexual assault. >> you know, there used to be a story around capitol hill, on the senate side. there were a couple u.s. senators. a woman would better off not get on the elevator with because they would grab you. i always thought this was interesting about men's behavior. they'd never do it with some other guy around. it seems like in this situation, the military, these men, i'll

just guess a lot of them are men, are engaging in this behavior knowing other guys are going to find out about it but they just don't care. >> you know, i speak to a lot of women that are in the military. north carolina is home to so many bases and i've been overseas. i've been to afghanistan. i went to iraq. and i actually had women tell me that they had to limit their fluid intake in the late afternoon/early evening because they were afraid to go to the latrine at night fearing their personal safety. here these women are, once again, putting their lives on the line for us at war, and they're worried about their personal safety at night. >> thank you so much for this. we got to know about this, we have to stop it. thank you, senator kay hagan, of north carolina. let's bring in goldie taylor, msnbc contributor and former marine. you've been there. what do you know about this? do you remember this as something that was part of reality of serving? you're laughing, but i'm sure it's not funny. your thoughts. >> the idea that this is brand new, this is decades upon decades old.

i enlisted in the marine corps 26 years ago. i knew of a young woman on my base in indiana who was raped by an army ranger off base, forced to hitchhike back to base, abandoned on a road. it was reported to the commanding officer. not only was this man never charged, but she was sent to a psychological unit. she was given lie detector tests. and finally her career was ended. she was absolutely humiliated. and so the very idea that this is something that ought to be adjudicated within the command structure is ludicrous. it is something that ought to be investigated, prosecuted, and it ought to be punished. you know, the very idea -- >> how do you intervene? you're saying ought to, but how do you intervene? i accept your word. every bit of evidence you've given us and personal history. but how do you get -- so mayor, general, you can't trust generals. you can't trust majors. you can't trust sergeants. you're saying, who else can come in and intervene and save some kind of justice and

self-protection here? >> i believe things like this ought to be taken over by civilian authorities. i don't trust the military can police itself on a subject like this. i've seen it where, you know, commanding officers, whether they be majors, sergeant majors, whether they be generals, step in and remove -- you know, the military is just like any other corporation. we move based on resources and prioritization. men and women serving in the military are resources. the priority has been put on saving the men, and the women have been disposable. now, to be honest, this is not a crime simply against women. men are victims, too. my younger nephew, who has sadly passed away in service, he was also a victim of gang rape while serving in the navy. so this is something we have to confront. the people who are out there putting forth legislation after piece of legislation, we've seen all of that. it's like, you know, those imagination dog leashes. the only person who believes you

have a dog is the person who's got his hands on the leash. >> gosh. tough. well, thank you. no one is going to forget what you said. goldie taylor, thanks for your service, by the way. up next, the much anticipated film version of the classic american novel, my favorite "the great gatsby" is coming out. why we love it and when it comes to the new movie, we're going to take it personally. everybody is going to watch this. is this like the book or isn't it? why isn't it like the book? this is "hardball." the place for politics. >> it's in our blood.

our ongoing series "the unkindest cut" is looking at how congress' automatic across the board spending cuts are doing real damage to the poor and vulnerable across the country. don't forget, we want to know how the cuts are hurting you. reach us at any of the following ways. tweet us at #unkindestcut. join the conversation on our facebook page at facebook.com/hardball. be sure to like us while you're there. and you can tell us how you're affected on our website, just go to tv.msnbc.com and click on "hardball." we'll be right back. she's always been able to brighten your day. it's just her way. but your erectile dysfunction - that could be a question

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who is this gatsby? >> he was a german spy during the war. >> nick carraway. >> a german spy? >> no, no, no, no. he's a kaiser. >> i heard he killed a man once. >> it's true. >> guilt for fun. free of charge. >> he's certainly richer than god. >> you don't really believe you killed a man, do you? >> let's go find him and ask him yourself.

>> your life is adorable. >> i know somebody in west air. >> i don't know anybody a single side of that bay. >> you you must know gatsby. >> gatsby? what gatsby? >> we live across the sound. i know somebody there. >> i don't know a single person. >> you must know gatsby. >> oh, he's my neighbor. >> gatsby? what gatsby. >> gatsby. >> what gatsby is that? >> the book is number one on the bestseller's list, number one. it's about 90 years old. the movie debuts tomorrow. ann hornaday is my guest. i just want to talk about one thing here. people who have read this book in high school, forced to read it every five or ten years since.

i'm going to talk about this at the end of the show. it's about love lost. the poor kid can't marry the rich girl. we get that. it's about self-creation, about america. why does it keep coming back as a movie, first question? >> oh, i think because those things will never go away. i mean, we're constantly reinventing ourselves individually and as a nation this is the great sort of american project that we're embarked on and, as you said, this novel is the great suma of so many principles that drive up, the psychological drives, the financial drives. this one arrives right after our latest almost depression. so it has all sorts of contemporary residences, just even in terms of the economic context. so i just think it does contain just so many of the elements of the american character. >> let me ask you about this leo dicaprio.

>> i'm sorry? >> leonardo dicaprio, is he gatsby? >> you know, he does a pretty good job. one thing he does in this film is restore gatsby as a youthful character. we tend to remember gatsby and his peers as older because they've had so many experiences. they've been through a war. he was a bootlegger. but they are relatively young people. one thing i appreciated by dicaprio's performance is it restores some youthfulness to him and could denote an actor unsure of the accent but also is appropriate to a man who comes from an uncertain background and is sort of faking it. so i actually thought his performance was the strongest of the film. it also put me in the mind of

charles foster cane who was a gatsby-esque figure. >> here is leonardo dicaprio. let's take a look at this. >> with all of this made entirely of your own imagination? >> no. see, you were there all along. and of course if anything is not to your liking, i'll change it. >> it's perfect. perfect, irresistible imagination. >> so ann hornaday, my pal, do rich girls marry pals? >> oh, sure. >> come on, do they really do it? that's america because we're not sure whether class marries or

doesn't matter. your thoughts on the whole question that gatsby asks about an american that you recreate yourself. >> that's a huge question. well, i think that -- i do think it's possible. i mean, i think we wake up every day wanting to do that. >> thank you. that's why the movie works. i'm telling you, i'm hoping for this one. i love gatsby. ann hornaday, thank you, from "the washington post." she gave it 2 stars, to be honest. we'll be right back. weigh you down?

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let me finish tonight with this. there's a reason "the great gatsby" written nine decades ago is at the top of the bestseller's list. it's about two great themes, one is love, of course, in this case, the love of a poor boy for a rich girl. the other thing is self-creation, we're a self-created country. jay gatsby put together his name, bootlegs, hope, and decided to trade it in for the girl he couldn't afford when he was another poor soldier heading off to war. gatsby was a dreamer, a great one, a man of money but old money, his dream girl would actually value and so he beat on against the current, to the best american story we have and so we ourselves beat on hoping that

the latest adaptation of "the great gatsby" will carry the experience we got all the time reading it. the true american dreamer, the kind of person who built this country and who matched his dreams with a really good try. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. thank you for joining us. i'll be joined tonight by senator elizabeth warren who introduced her first piece of legislation, a pretty brilliant one, to help level the playing field for people buried in debt. and a report from the "huffington post," a company set to make a fortune on the back of college students. another senator takes a stand on science, reason and the divine all in the name of our species.