like chock-a-who wiaholics, republicans cannot let go of the idea that president obama had a hand in the targeting of conservative groups, no matter what the facts, independent investigation and sworn testimony would seem to suggest. >> it's pretty inconceivable to me, that the president wouldn't know. it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't have come up in some conversation. >> while you think he's in the middle of it. >> you don't think that the administration is in the middle of this? you don't think that the white house is in the middle of this? >> it's now clear that this was about much more than one or two employees going rogue at some far-flung office out in the administrative hinterlands as was first suggested. the facts we've seen so far point to something far more systemic than that. surprising exactly no one, the thus far baseless assertions

about a malicious plan devised by the president to disenfranchise right-wingers has been embraced as gospel by right-wingers. >> i don't believe for two seconds that obama wasn't aware of this. >> it's a flat-out lie that he first learned about the targeting of conservative and tea party groups on that friday a few weeksç ago. when it became public. >> there certainly was a climate here, the climate was, as you say, a lot of democratic senators and others urging really heightened scrutiny about the tea party. the climate was the president of the united states. says that these groups are a threat to democracy. >> setting the speculation aside, the facts tell another story entirely. "the wall street journal" writes emails and other documents released wednesday suggest the irs procedures used to target conservative groups for added scrutiny were developed by lower-level employees. the l.a. times reports, former employees described staff in the cincinnati office as

well-intentioned but overworked. struggling to keep up with more than 60,000 application as year. the applications are reviewed by about 200 people in a determinations unit. and "the new york times" informs that the irs employees began using search terms that focused on conservative groups, as a way to search efficiently through the flood of applications for groups that might not qualify for exemptions, according to the irs inspector general. triage, the agency's acting chief described it. the fact that the error began with low-level employees at an understaffed office in cincinnati and not at the direction of the white house has been largely disregarded by republicans who are presently preoccupied with lois learner, the head of the irs determinations unit who has been put on administrative leave that was announced yesterday evening amid a flurry of totally ç unconvincing hand-wringing by republicans over the fact that they were quote obligated to recall learner to testify before the house oversight committee. one can imagine how very difficult it will be for republicans to continue to drag

out proceedings over a trumped-up scandal that aims to undermine president obama's credibility. this sacrifice is stunning. joining me today, retired u.s. army captain and an msnbc contributor and best-selling author wes moore, senior political reporter at politico, maggie haberman, and ben smith and joining us from chicago is former senior adviser to president obama, director of the university of chicago institute of politics and msnbc political analyst, david axelrod. thanks for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> i was believe as probably was made evident in that little open of mine. that this irs scandal has been take ton a level that is perhaps not prudential, as it were. but my question to you is, david, has the white house not done itself the greatest service in how they have tackled this? which is to say, i usually don't paraphrase, john boehner, but the drip drip drip of new information. every day we learn a new detail

about this, which doesn't necessarily implicate the president, but does as ron fournier suggest challenges one's competence and credibility. sowing the seeds of doubt, if you will. >> i think that what they were dealing with, was anç inspecto general's report. by the way. one of the things that i just going back to your lead-in. that i find hard to understand is they have the testimony and report of inspector general, who assertsed that he didn't believe there was political motivation or that this was a directed kind of activity from the top. so when i hear senator mcconnell say it's obvious that it went beyond that, i don't know why it's obvious or what he's basing that conclusion on. but you know, i think what happened was, they were waiting for the inspector-general's report. i think the white house counsel very properly was waited for the final report to brief the president. for whatever reason ms. learner and the irs decided that they were going to get out in front

of that report and that started this firestorm and created a sequence of events that leads to your question. so i think that white house was trying to do, what they thought they should do. which is wait for the report, and then respond to the report appropriately. and the irs jumped the gun and that created problems for them. >> so you don't think that there's any concern about the way, i mean jay carney has been in the hot seat for the last few weeks in terms of the timeline on this. we hear one thing one day about kathy rummeler, the white house counsel, we hear another thing about when dennis mcdonough was briefed on it. it seemed like the narrative could have been established at the outset by the white house and it wasn't.ç >> i don't disagree with that. i think what is clear is that the white house counsel was briefed on some of the details of this investigation. and was told that there was a report that would be coming shortly. they were awaiting the report.

and those facts are simple. it seems to me they were simple from the beginning. and if there was confusion about them, i think that was a mistake and maybe exacerbated the problem. but at the end of the day. it is sort of immaterial. because we're talking about a period of a few weeks in the last month that has nothing to do with the actual problem. so yes, your question is appropriate. could it have been handled better? perhaps, in the last couple of weeks. is it material to any of the underlying concerns? absolutely not. >> david, i want to open this up to my panel in new york and maggie, it seems to me that it's not surprising that republicans are trying to take this as far as they can. and that you have assertions that the president sort of dictated all of this. it's almost like nixon did one thing so inevitably obama must have done the same thing. but in fact we're talking scandals, the white house may actually have a problem on its hands as far as the investigation into a.p. stories

and the subpoena of a.p. records and also the treatment and investigation of fox reporter james rosen. and it also seems like republicans should stop distracting themselverç with th irs scandal and if they're going to go after something. be tenacious on this. roger ailes seems to be leading the charge. he said the attempt to their excuses will not stand the test of decency or the test of time. we will not allow a climate of intimidation to frighten us away from the truth. >> roger ailes is defending his news organization and you would suspect that most people would defend their news organizations. you saw a letter signed by many news organizations. >> there was one prior to that, too. i think that i agree with you, these are separate scandals. i don't, i think i am waiting to see what happens with the irs scandal. i think there is still stuff to come out that does not mean there's a path to lead to the president. any time you have an

administration official or an appointee who whomever pleading the fifth. that's never a good moment. so it is hard to sort of come back from that necessarily. it doesn't mean that it leads to something terrible. but it is going to compound the problem. >> i guess i would take issue with this notion that -- the point of this the fifth is that you do not self-incriminate. and i think it has been in some ways bastardized that we're doing just the opposite. >> there's a presumption of guilt that comes along with that. whether we're talking about a democratic administration orç republican administration. >> it's not a political rule. >> i'm not, i'm not therefore saying that something is wrong. i'm saying in terms of compounding the political problem, that is if there's an issue that doesn't mean that the facts are going to bear out that this points to obama. and i've said that the variety of places i think that where we

leap from that to watergate becomes very problematic, be it this or bnz. i do think the press scandals are the real thing. >> that can be the challenge. when you look at what roger ailes is trying to do and many of the others, they're trying to compound a narrative and lead the american people to say look at this and look at this and this is the narrative that the administration is building. >> they bundle it into a burrito of impeachment. >> the challenge of is that when one piece of the narrative begins to unravel, does 2 not then undermine an entire argument? i think you need to be cautious of the overstretching of the compounding of the narrative. >> david, to your point, wes, the irs story is following the same trajectory as benghazi. >> there are the facts, right?

the president yesterday said a free press is essential for our democracy, i'm troubled byç th possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable. at the very same time we're getting news from nbc from our own michael isikoff that it was eric holder signed off on this scrutiny of james rosen looking for, looking at his files, looking at his whereabouts. you know, the noeks that he was aiding and abetting national security leak. that doesn't seem to be in line with the president's stated goals. >> the president also ordered a review and he said he wants a report back by july 12th on the justice department guidelines. he's also asked for passage of the media shield law. one of the things that i find so interesting is you got folks like roger ailes, who are righteously indignant. believe me, i'm a for thor reporter, a former journalist. i take this very, very seriously. i'm a strong supporter of a media shield law.

i think there ought to be some judicial review at least before some of these things move forward. but these were the same people fox news, the republican party, who were demanding an investigation of leaks. because they, they accused the white house last summer of leaking favorable information on, that involved national security secrets. so and then there their whole goal was to chill the leakers, right? it was to say we don't want people leaking national security secrets. and now they're born-again proponents of the freeç press and -- >> absolutely fair. >> it is shield. >> and i think that's absolutely fair and we played tape of all the republicans in congress who said, we have got, the administration has got to be much stronger and much tougher on leakers. and literally a year later, pulling a 180, at the same time it must be pointed out as leonard downey does in the "washington post." after the a.p. story appeared,

obama administration officials spoke freely about the operation. only after justice, the doj, did attorney general eric holder say that the a.p. story resulted from a very serious leak that put the american people at risk. at the time it seemed that the administration was okay with the story being out there and once the prosecution of the leakers became part of the washington conversation, it became a more seriously closed talk. >> the attorney general empowered these two u.s. attorneys to conduct a criminal investigation last summer. when the stories unfolded. and so i mean i think the administration took it seriously. i also think there's a serious question here about where the line is because as the president said yesterday, we have to balance interests, yes. we have national security interests, but we also have an interest in a free functioning press. and media and we, so i think

those thi's have to be balanced. and if nothing else, i hope this propagates a substantive discussion of this where we come up with a media shield law and guidelines from the justice department that protect both interests. >> david, i don't mean to keep pressing the issue. but do you think eric holder is the right person to be conducting this investigation? given the fact that we're learning that he was the person that signed off on a crackdown on leakers? >> well, eric holder, the two u.s. attorneys are conducting the other inquiries. holder is the attorney general. the president asked him to review and come back to him and refine these justice department guidelines. and as the attorney general, i think he's the appropriate person to do that. alex, part of the problem here is we don't really know exactly what was done. we don't know what information was obtained. we don't know in service of what case.

and one of the things i think would be useful would be to bring these cases to a conclusion. and then really have a full airing of what information was obtained, what methods were used. and why. because i think that would help inform the whole discussion. >> ben, i think what we're witnessing here is a really sort of uncomfortable sort of tableside switching. which is to say conservatives are forced toç defend leaks, ia way they wouldn't have last summer and progressives are now put in a position where they have an antagonistic relationship with the white house on the issue of the first amendment. >> like the guy who wrote the book on criminalizing not just leakers and people who publish leaks is a guy named gabe shownfield. a guy who worked for romney. the people who are upset about this are the press and there are in fact people on both sides who kind of think that the leakers should be prosecuted. and national security reporters should be shut out of this. and certainly, if obama didn't

direct this personally, he is always inside the white house, been very, very concerned about leaks, projected to his staff that he's hysterical about these leaks, that something has got to be done. when the justice department goes bananas about it, that's not his fault. >> going bananas being the official term for what the justice department is doing. >> it really is the american people, too, particularly as we're looking at how the american people get their information and how they process their information, this becomes a really big deal in terms of not even just the basic credibility of the information that they get. but also the accessibility of the information they get. it's not just the press who find this to be a big deal. >> and so many important stories from the pentagon papers on has changed the national security policy, have been leaked. >> david, it is obviously a difficult place between civil l[berties and national security. and we hope to have you hang on for the next block to talk about the president's speech. which certainly i think illustrated the complicated

nature of all of this. after the break, president obama opens the books on u.s. counterterrorism policy. but transparency on drone strikes and a push to close gitmo may not be enough for critics on either the left or the right. we'll discuss the president's speech and the internal debate when former white house chief of standpoint, john podesta joins us next on "now." all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers.

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[ roars ] ♪ [ roars ] ♪ [ roars ] ♪ [ roars ] ♪ [ male announcer ] universal studios summer of survival. ♪ addressing an issue that has dogged his presidency and given ammunition to critics, president obama yesterday tackled head-on his administration's counterterrorism policy, advocating limits to

presidential war-time authority and a desire to move beyond the post 9/11 mindset of perpetual war. >> our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. but this war, like all wars, must end. that's what history advises. that's what our democracy demands. >> specifically, the president outlined new guidelines for the u.s. of drones to kill terrorists overseas, and renewed his efforts to close the guantanamo bay prison facility. "the new york times" called it the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post 9/11 american. the "washington post" was more cautious, noting that it offered some valuable explanations of administration action and opened the door to constructive negotiation with congress, while leaving unanswered some key questions. many on the left remain skeptical. according to "the nation" what in the end analysis was today's speech really about?

the constitution? rule of law? drones? until limitations are put in place, the boundaries for the use of u.s. military force remain disturbingly undefined. but if the answers were few and far between, president obama was clear regarding the existential quandary he now finds himself in. on the one hand asserting the country's legal justifications for waging war. on the other, saying that in a post 9/11 world, battle lines are blurred and no options are without consequence. >> as our fight enters a new phase, america's legitimate claim of self-defense cannot be the end of the discussion. to say military tactic is legal, or even effective, is not to say it is wise or moral in every instance. >> in a brief but important moment in his speech, the president also reminded critics of the role played by congress. in improving actions taken by the executive branch. >> after i took office, my administration began briefing

all strikes outside of iraq and afghanistan to the appropriate committees of congress. let me repeat that. not only did congress authorize the use of force, it is briefed on every strike that america takes. >> indeed, congressional approval will be critical as the president attempts to execute his stated policy goals. to date, congress has shown little enthusiasm for the president's attempts to repatriate gitmo detainees or try them before military commissions here in the u.s. while members of congress have been vocal in their criticism of the president's drone program, they are equally implicated in the authorization of its strikes. when it comes to questions of national security, and how to wind down a seemingly endless war against an unseen enemy, asking questions has proven to be far easier than answering them. joining us now from washington is john podesta, chairman of the center for american progress and former white house chief of staff in the clinton administration. john, it's great to see you and

especially on a day like today, you've been pushing the president to be more transparent about the drone policy and our counterterrorism strategy. were you satisfied with his speech yesterday? >> i thought it was actually one of the most important speech, maybe the most important speech of his presidency. as you noted i've been highly critical of the secrecy that surrounded particularly the legal justification for carrying out the targeted killing program. i could not understand why the president didn't lay that before the congress in the american people. but he certainly did it yesterday. he made very important turn, i think away from an unbounded global war on terror. to a more targeted program that was aimed at dismantling terrorist networks. he firmly established the law under which he was operating. both nationally and internationally. and i think it began the process of real open discussion with the american people about the

tensions that exist how one carries out national security affairs and the need to be open and protect civil liberties. >> following on john's point. "the atlantic" talks about two obamas, the public idealist and the tight-lipped commander-in-chief who asks the nation to trust him. the two duel uneasily in the speech yesterday. but the advantage goes to the idealist. i know that a lot of people sort of were not satisfied, especially folks on the left about you know in terms of answers and limits. but i actually thought this is why a lot of people on the left elected president obama. because he is someone who thinks and thinks deeply about these issues and does not come to answers easily. and in that way, i did find the speech satisfying. i wonder what your take was, especially as someone who has been in the president's inner circle and understands how he has grappled with these issues. >> well i think john knows better than anyone else that the job of president is so difficult, because you have to constantly balance these very

very principles and duties. the president takes seriously, i know, you know because i've had many discussions about him. he lives night and day with this responsibility. for human life and the lives of american citizens. so he takes so serious his duties as commander-in-chief. but he really is, as you know, he was a constitutional law professor. he really feels strongly about constitutional principles as they relate to individual liberties and so this has been a constant tug and pull. i know the speech yesterday was at his instance. he talked months ago, he mentioned to me he was working on this speech. because he really laid out yesterday, the struggle that goes on in his head all the time. >> there's no textbook on how to handle that interplay. and yesterday, the speech may have been unsatisfying to some because there aren't easy answers to these things. i thought he did a good job of

airing those issues. i think he moved the ball forward and turned the page on 9/11. as he said, we can't be in a state of perpetual war. >> wes, as someone who was in iraq, you understand perhaps better than any of us the blurred lines of the battlefield and how hard it is to come up with a specific strategy for a front that is could nstantly changing if we talk about the war on terror. i thought independent of the actually policy descriptions, the fact that the president began the dialogue. yes, i think he began it a little late. but the fact that he was doing this with this amount of transparency and honesty. and really showed the public look, i am, these things are somersaulting around in my head. i am turning over the issues of morality and civil liberties and national security and it is tough. that is not something you would have seen in the bush administration. now many of the tactics are the same. but i think at least that bit of transparency, that beginning of a dialogue to get americans into

a conversation about what sts that we are okay with, was really important. >> i mean let's not forget about the fact that the drone program did not start under president obama. the drone program started under president bush, but if you remember, you're right, alex, it was never talked about during the bush administration. this is the first administration that it's being openly talked about. no one can argue the military efficacy of these operations, the drone strikes. however, it was important and i do appreciate the fact that the president also said that we cannot just talk about military efficacy without understanding the consequences of this as well. this was a very strong move, this was not only the direction we want to look at. but as we're thinking about a long-term legacy, of a long-term foreign legacy, talking about the ending of the war in iraq, the war in afghanistan. this is something he knows he's got to gig out ways to have a

wrestling match with this as well. >> maggie, i wonder, the question is, what comes of this. the president pointed out the role of congress. congress has been content to be critical of the president. to some degree, republicans and democrats have had a hard time articulating different strategies for national security. republicans in particular, because they've been hawkish and the president has been particularly aggressive. i wonder if you think after a speech like this, there's a chance that congress will work with him more on something like gitmo, on something like military commissions, on something like transfer of detainees to u.s. prisons? >> probably not. i think we're going to see commonality in terms of congress and the president is going to be on different issues of national security. more about foreign policy and less about specific initiatives. i think you are absolutely right. i think we have seen this time and again where you have congress being critical, the leaks being one example. the other examples is something where congress plays a role, the slashing of security funding for embassies, this has come up in

terms of benghazi, it is very easy to make the sort of one-sided criticism. republicans have had in the post-bush era trouble formulating what their foreign policy stand is. what the party is for. this was a subject of debate in terms of the mitt romney candidacy. this was one of the areas he was extremely proactive. he was extremely hawkish. so the answer, that is a long answer to no, i do not think it's any different. >> john, what's interesting is obviously two parties are involved in all of this. but this is really a debate because we have a democratic president and a lot of these ideas about civil liberties tend to find harbor on the left. this is a debate that democrats i think need to wrap their heads around. everyone needs to have, we all need to have a position about what we are okay with and what we are not. but this is something that the president is really speaking to his base. as jonathan chait points out,

politically if not substantially, obama's speech represent as watershed moment for the first time in the post 9/11 world. the domestic threat to the war on terror comes from the left instead of the right. this seems to be an acknowledgement to his critics on the left, some of whom were in the audience and heckling him, that some of their criticism was legit and this is something there needs to be a bigger, more robust dialogue on. >> i think he went out of his way to speak to those constituents and to really again, to put the program in a context in which the war was, this war and the way he conducted the war was just. that it was proportional. and that it was based on international principles of the rule of law. i think that, i think he -- you know those elements of the speech combined with the fact that i can't remember another time when a president said -- narrow my authority to conduct

foreign policy by first amending and then eliminating the authorization for use of military force. those are very strong elements of the speech and i think they were, you know, they were important points. >> you know, david, when i watched the speech yesterday, i thought of the moment right after the election where the president was at campaign headquarters in chicago and he got teared up because he was talking to all the people, the staff members who had worked on the campaign and effectively said you are the legacy of this administration. you will be the next generation of civic leaders of politicians. and could sense the pride he felt in that. i thought about what he was trying to do yesterday. to me it seemed clear that he wants to lay a framework. he wants to establish a framework for his successor, whoever that is, republican or democrat that is a sound and effective national security policy. and that he had that on his mind post 2016 as much as the next

three years. >> well sound and effective national security policy and balanced with the values, our principles and that's what made the speech, i think effective. is that he really shared the thought process he's going through and has gone through over these last four and a half years and trying to balance these very, very important interests and i think he did those kinds some justice by setting a good example for them. in airing those issues in a very honest way. >> john podesta and david axelrod, thank you both for joining us. >> coming up, the past quarter century has seen great innovation and cultural strides. yet it has been marked by deep economic and societal divides, we'll discuss the paradox of democracy with the "new yorker's" george packer just ahead. ♪ if loving you is wrong ♪ i don't wanna be right [ record scratch ] what?! it's not bad for you.

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recent advances in technology have made life in america easier, but are we any more inclusive? we'll look at the unwinding of the country when the norfo"new yorker's" george packer joins the panel. look what mommy is having. mommy's having a french fry. yes she is, yes she is. [ bop ] [ male announcer ] could've had a v8. 100% vegetable juice, with three of your daily vegetable servings in every little bottle.

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♪ oh. nice! great! [ laughs ] a shot like that calls for a postgame celebration. [ male announcer ] share what you love with who you love. kellogg's frosted flakes. they're gr-r-eat! in many ways, the story of american democracy is a paradox, the wealthiest nation on earth, yet one of the most unequal. the land of the american dream, yet still one of limited social mobility. the institutions that used to bind americans to one another, family, community and government, the institutions that mitigated the worst abuses of economic exploitation are now under siege. and for many people, the promise

of america is becoming an illusion. in his new book "the unwinding: an inner history of the new america" the "new yorker's" george packer explores what has happened to america over the past 30 years. he tells a story of several americans navigating the new world without institutions. of this time he writes no one can say when the unwinding began when the coil that held americans together in its secure grip first gave way. if you were born around 1960 or after, you watched structures that had been in place before your birth collapse like pillars of salt across the vast visibility landscape. when the norms that made the old institutions useful began to unwind, the roosevelt republic that had reigned for almost half a century came undone. joining us on set is the "new yorker's" george packer, author of "the unwinding." george, i said this to you before we started, i think this is such an important story. one that is largely untold in the national media. which is -- the unwinding, the

defraying of the american social context and how we have gotten to the place we are now in, where the bottom 90% had their income grow by $59 from 1966 to 2011. the top 10% saw income gains of $116,000. we talk about the takers and the makers in society. and yet this is actually the narrative. >> you're talking about inequality and it's, it's a central problem and it's so vast and it affects so many parts of our life and our culture that you almost can't even get your hands on it. it's everywhere and yet it's sort of invisible in the sense that it's just, in the air we breathe now. there have been a lot of books written about inequality and about the decline of the middle class, the industrialization, the rise of the information economy. i wanted to create a portrait, not an argument. we know the argue md. i wanted to tell a story that would have this rather vast

canvas of 30 years, as you said, covering both famous people and obscure centers of power like washington and silicon valley and also sort of forgotten places like youngstown, ohio and rural north carolina. and to do it, through this generation-long history of 30 years through these portraits of individual people. >> let's talk about those portraits. the celebrity portion we can talk about in a second. but people tend to know who jay-z is, but not so much the unemployed father in tampa or the occupy wall street organizer. or the other folks you profile in youngstown, ohio, the mother you profile, the social worker, the community organizer in youngstown. how did you find them? and was it sort of like i've got to find an unemployed dad in a swing state, i mean -- i'm assuming there wasn't a criteria that you were checking out. about but how did you come across these stories? >> sometimes randomly, through my work at the "new yorker," i met a guy in southern virginia

who had been a truck stop entrepreneur, dean price and was trying to remake himself as a manufacturer of biodiesel. using canola seeds and waste restaurant oil. but mainly it's because he talks so well. and was such a dynamic person who could tell me his story and let me into it, was willing to let me into it. that was the basic condition. are they willing to let me hang around for days, weeks, months? i think i went down there seven, eight times, stayed at his house, met his family, followed him around. that's asking a lot. you need first of all for the person to be willing to have essentially their privacy invaded to that extent. >> ben, the stories in george's book are stirring and not just because we're talking sort of politically about the breakdown of the social safety net and institutions that once mitigated economic crisis. but i'll read an excerpt. this is tammy thomas, who is from youngstown, ohio. he writes as tammy drove over the crumbling asphalt of the streets, she was still amazed by the gaps and silence where there

had been so much life. it was as if she still expected to see the old families and the east side had just disappeared. where had it gone? the things that made it a community, stores, schools, playgrounds fruit trees were gone, along with half the houses and two-thirds of the people. if you didn't know the history, you wouldn't know what was missing. this is really the story over certain parts of the country. where things are just gone. >> george, i guess i would be curious, in your view to what extent these stories that you're telling link up to the political debate at all or what extent these are vast changes coming from government. coming from globalization or just so out of scale with the kind of things being debated in washington. >> i think they're really directly related in the sense that tammy thomas' life was shaped in the collapse of the steel mills to manage the industrialization and then her own job at an auto parts factory went overseas. our policies, our laws had nothing to say about how easy it was for corporations to

offshore. you know, we could debate forever tax law and corporate law and maybe we will. the main thing, these characters were on the receiving end of decisions and nondecisions made in the centers of power. but they feel very far away, they're not seen in washington. they themselves don't feel heard. >> let me ask you, george, before we wrap this. are you hopeful? i mean the thing about the stories in the book, these people, they can't depend on the same ints zugss they once did. they don't exist any more. they are resilient and they find a way. in reporting on this, what sense did it leave you? >> i'm hopeful when i'm around them and listening to them and watching them with their resilience and resourcefulness, reinvent themselves whenever history deals them another blow. i'm not all that hopeful when i look at our elite and our institutions and how messed up they are and how paralyzed they are there are stories this week out of washington, apple is avoiding taxes.

as much as it possibly can. this heroic company that we all sort of live by turns out to be just more tax-dodging corporation. you read the news and you look at the senate which is the most undemocratic body in the western world, other than the house of lords, and you wonder how are these institutions going to reform themselves. the institutions that i talk to are the source of hope for me. >> george packer, a great book "the unwinding." thanks for your time. we'll discuss the reality of suicide in the military as we go into the memorial day weekend, coming up next. big time taste should fit in a little time cup. new single serve cafe collections from maxwell house now available for use in the keurig k-cup brewer. always good to the last drop. available out there. i knew devry university would give me the skills that i needed to make one of those tech jobs mine. we teach cutting-edge engineering technology, computer information systems, networking and communications management -- the things that our students

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>> brian kinsella is fighting an epidemic of suicide in the military. among active-duty troops and veterans. >> you think about all of the men and women who just served in the last ten-plus years of conflict, they will transition to veteran status. you're actually looking at a tidal wave of suicides coming. >> a former platoon leader who served in iraq, kinsella started the nonprofit stop soldiers suicide after losing one of his sergeants. >> he shot himself in front of had is wife one night before we went to go to haiti. >> last year, a record 349 active-duty service members took their own lives. averaging about one a day. among all veterans, the rate is about one per hour. with 22 veterans committing suicide every day. >> i think this country and the president are going to be judged by history by the way we in integrate this group of veterans. >> dr. raoul is a former policy adviser at the department of

veterans affairs. 2.5 million service members have returned or will be returning home in the next few years. a suicide hotline has prevented more than 20,000 deaths. >> even with that when 50% of people or more coming back with a claim of ptsd, is going to be a monumental challenge. >> pentagon data shows half of military suicides in recent years are soldiers who never deployed. like bobby alexander's son, kevin. >> it was always our fear of combat. it ended up not being my fear after all. >> kevin served in the army national guard and thought his struggles from depression might prevent him from deploying. for that he kept his inner turmoil a secret. >> he didn't want anybody to know he had any problems. so he pretty much lied about everything. because he didn't want to mess up his military career. >> stop soldier suicide works to prevent military suicides by

connecting at-risk service members with counseling. it also fights the stigma around mental health issues. >> we're taught to be strong. not to admit our weakness. >> former marine brandon busher says the solution begins with dialogue. >> being able to bring it out into mainstream society that this is an issue, that it's okay to feel, to have these emotions and to struggle with those issues, it's normal. >> veterans make up 21% of all suicides in america. in 2010, more than 38,000 people nationwide took their own lives. >> there's a stigma amongst the entire population about suicides. >> as the country grapples with the effects of war, these difficult lessons are laying a foundation for healing. >> we talk to somebody. you don't take it all on yourself. >> we'll discuss with retired retired army captain, wes moore, after the break. well, yeah, yes. the "name your price" tool.

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heading into memorial day, we're often thinking of those killed in action. wes we're thinking about the soldier see side epidemic sweeping the armed services community and memorializing those who have taken their life and what happened and why it happened. my question to you would be as we try to stop this epidemic, is a military, an institution predicated on order, hierarchy and falling in line, is it capable of changing that culture to allow people to come out and say, hey, i need help. >> the military is capable of changing, but it has to understand it can't do it alone. >> we're seeing the high numbers of active-duty suicide. we seeing high number of veteran suicide and national guard and reserve suicide as well. while the melt can and has been doing a better job of being able to address this, we have to look at other elements such as unemployment issues, such as access to firearms, such as what happens to the family network when they're coming back home.

the military can't do it alone. >> if you track the unemployment rate among veterans and the suicide rate they're almost the same. >> they completely track when you look at unemployment and the veteran suicide in the community. >> when they come back from combat or deployment. wes moore, thank you for doing this on memorial day weekend as we head into a time to remember armed services and their sacrifices. thank you to wes, maggie and ben, that's all for now, "andrea mitchell reports" is coming up next. here's a look at your holiday weekend forecast. we're going to start off on a wet note, northern new england, a rainy friday, it's going to be a rainy saturday, too. it looks like sunday afternoon it will finally improve there. and then over the holiday weekend, we will see a chance of scattered showers and storms on saturday and on sunday. especially here into nebraska and iowa. in the southeast you're in for a great holiday weekend, enjoy. e .

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