of our reputation for reliability. or maybe it's because we've received jd power and associates' customer service award 4x in a row. in the end, there are countless reasons. but one choice. good morning from new york i'm steve kornacki. a female suicide bomber blew herself up injuring 12 people. beaches are re-opening in new york city and new jersey. seven months after the devastation of hurricane sandy. but first residents of moore, oklahoma, will gather at three high school graduations today in the wake of the devastating tornado there monday that killed 24 people including nine children. the town will also come together tomorrow night for a public

memorial service. oklahoma governor said on thursday that the service will be quote open to all oklahomans or anyone else who would like to join us. president obama will also travel to oklahoma tomorrow to survey the damage and visit with families and first responders. i want to bring in andrew rice the former democratic leader of the oklahoma state senate. currently the executive director of the variety care foundation which seeks to make health care available to low-income families. he comes to us from oklahoma city miles from the hard hit town of moore. andrew thanks for being with us today. i guess just to start, it's been less than a week since the disaster. you have the president coming this weekend. you know, what is the mood like with people here you're talking to. is it starting to change a little bit now that it's been a few days? >> yeah, i think the whole city has been a rough week for everybody, obviously mostly for people in moore, but as it's starting to settle more and you get in the second wave of recovery, people digging through

their belongings and starting to figure out where they can get help, i think the city is starting to see the long term and understand it will be a long time to recover. >> i wonder if you could take us back a little bit. you're down there in oklahoma city and even in parts of oklahoma city itself that were affected by this. just what it was like on monday, the storm moved through so quickly. i know there were warnings ahead of time. but what was it like to be there and to hear the warning and to thereabout as this played out? >> you know, when you live here, you grow accustomed to being weather aware. we talk about it. and usually these storms generally form farther out in the rural areas and there's a bit more lead time. but for whatever reason that day they collided, the different fronts collided closer to the metro area and i believe, you know, from the time that storm was warned tornado to the time that it touched the ground was about 16 minutes which is not a lot of time to react. it's only having 24 fatalities

seems remarkable. i think that a lot of people had plans in place. neighbors had shelters. i saw one story of a shelter built for 12 people had 22 people and two dogs in there. so, it was much more rapid and there were several storms forming at one time. only that one became catastrophic the other ones there were concerns about. the whole metro was under alert but unfortunately moore took the brunt of that terrible storm. >> if you look at the casualties in joplin, missouri two years ago, you know much larger number than what we're seeing from moore despite how severe the storm was. you talk about the shelters that were there for spokesman. one of the points of discussion, i think, after this storm is whether rebuilding moore or rebuilding any town hit by a disaster like this should there be a mandate to have basically a safe room, you know, a fortified concrete metal rod that can protect against 300

mile-per-hour winds. they are very expensive. if you are buying a home it will raise the cost of the home. it would save lives. do you see a movement towards some kind of mandating that, making that part of every house construction? >> definitely the conversation is definitely intensified and i think generally the legislature here, the political climate is such over many years that mandates because of the conservative nature of the state are things that generally people are hesitant about. but i think there's more of an understanding now that there's ways through public private partnerships costs can be offset especially for lower income households, there's ways that -- a lot of time when i was in the legislature we had laws we passed that did not pass on those costs to consumers, tax credits and other things. there's a representative from rush springs, southern oklahoma who has been working for several years with interim studies and bills trying to sound the alarms

about the in inad causy of our schools. we are the most tornado prone state in the whole united states. i think apr article yesterday came out we've had third most federal declaration of disaster to california and texas over the last 60 years. these are things about smart investment. there's a lot more of a willingness now for people to be open to these mandates. >> that's the other piece of this too is the federal government's response and the federal government's role and everybody who is watching outside of oklahoma this week, i'm here in new york watching this and first thing i think of when i see this, well what can i do. what can we do. what can the country do for oklahoma. is there a sense from you? people are trying to figure out does fema have the money in its current budget. do you have a sense right now in general what you think oklahoma

needs from washington at this moment? >> i mean here the response has been pretty overwhelming both from the federal government side, the state, it's appropriated money, all the charitable money flowing in from outside and internally. i think there's some of the thoughts about long term investment and whether the combination of whether that's federal money, whether that's municipal money we start looking at the long term consequences of these disasters. we've had two catastrophic tornadoes in that same area of moore in the last 14 years. we had the bombing of course several years before that. you're dealing with multiple tragedies and effects of that on traumas. there's a heightened dialogue about mental health services. we have children who are accustomed to being quite scared when storms come in. i grew up here. you know got nervous. there's a different dynamic now here. i think the long term needs, the

short term needs are being taken care of, rebuilding, disaster relief and i think people are feeling a lot of compassion from the country but i think for us to look at really how do we better prepare to deal not just through public shelters but how do we deal with living in a place that can be difficult from the standpoint of weather and other things like that. >> the other thing i do want to ask, i know you had a brother, you lost a brother on 9/11 who was living and working in new york. what strikes me is we have another moment here where there's all these families right now who are grieving, who lost people, who lost children in oklahoma and the whole country is grieving with them. i wonder what that experience was like for you, you know, 12 years ago now when you're grieving and your family is dealing with its own loss but you have, you know, your whole community and country is also sort of going through something at least somewhat similar. does that change the experience

of grief a little bit in >> i think so. what's hard there's tremendous amount of focus on the public nature of these disasters and i saw someone who actually here locally in moore lost both of his children in the tornado last week. and those early days and weeks there's tremendous amount of support and in some ways because of the large public component of it you're somewhat numb to those effects and i think that our experience was over time as things got back to normal that's when it became more difficult and those are my concerns and things i'm sensitive to work in the public health sector with the community health organization and mental health servicings when things get back to normal and there's not the interviews and other things that can help take your mind off of it, day-to-day gets very hard and new york has been through that, boston is going through that now and other areas. oklahoma has been there before and i think over the long term we'll find new ways to provide

that support for the community. >> it's probably something every family deals with. you have the funeral, the wake, everybody comes and they go back to their lives and you still have the sadness. thanks for joining us this morning. your state will be on our thoughts this weekend and in the weeks ahead. obama's most candid discussion of counterterrorism policies since taking office. that's next. i can't afford to have germy surfaces. but after one day's use, dishcloths can redeposit millions of germs. so ditch your dishcloth and switch to a fresh sheet of new bounty duratowel. look! a fresh sheet of bounty duratowel leaves this surface cleaner than a germy dishcloth, as this black light reveals. it's durable, cloth-like and it's 3 times cleaner. so ditch your dishcloth and switch to new bounty duratowel. the durable, cloth-like picker-upper. [ slap! ] [ male announcer ] your favorite foods fighting you? fight back fast with tums.

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think back, way back to the fall of 2004, october. one month before the presidential election, 37 months after 3,000 americans were murdered 9/11. that awful day is still vivid. john kerry gave an interview to the "new york times" magazine. he was asked what would it take for americans to philly safe

again. he talked about how the country had thought about terrorism before 9/11, about his past work as a prosecutor, about balancing the aggressive pursuit of dangerous criminals with our basic values and way of life. we have to get back to the place we were kerry said where terrorists are not the focus of our lives but they're a nuisance. it was a thoughtful response and gift to his republican opponents. >> first, kerry said defeating terrorism was really more about law enforcement and intelligence than a strong military operation. more about law enforcement than a strong military. now kerry says we have to get back to the place where terrorists are a nuisance like gambling and prostitution. we'll never end them. terrorism, a nuisance. how can kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat? >> i'm george w. bush and i approve this message. >> against this backdrop the grief john kerry talked about

there would be no global war on terror. against this backdrop of what barack obama said on thursday that's so remarkable. >> america is at a crossroads. we must define the nature and scope of this struggle or else it will define us. we have to be mindful of james madison's warning that notation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continued warfare. neither i nor any president can promise the total defeat of terror. we will never erase the evil that lives in the hearts of some human beings nor stamp out every danger to our open society. our systematic effort to destroy terror organizations must continue but this war like all wars must end. that's what history advises.

it's what our democracy demands. in his speech the president grappled with the counterterrorism actions he's taken since 2009. the innocent lives claimed by drone attacks and where those attacks took place, the hunger strikes that inmates at guantanamo are staging, civil liberties that have been compromised. it was a speech how americans should respond to the threat of terrorism as 9/11 fades further into the past. of not a speech that satisfied many critics. after more than a decade of open ended war the speech does represent an unmistakable turning point towards the kind of future that john kerry talked about all those years ago, a future the country wasn't quite ready to think about back then but is now. i want to bring in former foreign policy adviser to mitt romney. michael hastings author of the

ebook "panic of 2012." a staff attorney with the guantanamo global justice initiative. msnbc contributor. so, look, obviously a ton to get into what obama said on thursday but it did strike me we've had basically an open ended war for more than a decade on al qaeda and the perimeters of that war have wideened, have been unclear and you have a president now who is talking about, you know, a world without war doesn't exist any more and where there's counterterrorism is much more responsibility of law enforcement, of intelligence, where the cia is involved more in espionage. it seems we hit a turning point this week. >> i'm not sure that we did. you were right to play the clip

by kerry because i think he is kind of settling that score for the democratic party that much of what we've seen from the republican side global war on terror may, in fact, be law enforcement from a democrat point of view. there's a loring of george w. bush in that speech as well. he's moved so much more to the center. he was hinting at the idea that we're in a long term ideological struggle in a way he had not talked about radical islam before. he didn't use those terms but moving in that direction. so i think it was an unbalanced speech in the sense that he was on the one side saying let's talk more about the law enforcement side, congressional oversight and, you know, closing guantanamo bay, but at the same time this goes well beyond al qaeda. so he didn't really lay out a strategy as so much put forth an academic debate and he kind of said i'm trying to figure out where i'm going but where he's

going to me will take him away from his liberal base because he was leaning towards the ideological long term. >> that's what was so interesting about watching it is he was kind of going through his thought process out loud and you were kind of witnessing that in a way -- you talk about a lot of george w. bush. we can talk about parallels. i never heard george w. bush give a speech where he won't seed. >> he had better speech writers. i don't know what happened to the first ones. this speech, in my view, if you compare this speech to the speech he gave in 2009 or his nobel prize speech you see almost a total rejection of the civil rights tradition that president obama supposedly came out of, a total rejection of any kind of ideas of kind of peaceful transition of trying to work with people in different nations and embrace of total

militarism. that speech to me was agreeing with president bush and vice president cheney that we're in this neo-conservative paradigm that we're at war with a jihadist threat that is not a nuisance but the most important threat we're facing today. it's a rejection of what john kerry said and embracing -- >> but he's talking about -- >> he's saying many multiple things. >> right. i agree it's complex. >> the two key things i took away from that speech is that obama has enshrined the two most radical principles of the bush doctrine. first he got rid of torture. but enshrines targeted assassination. at the same time he doesn't apologize, he won't apologize for the scandal in benghazi, he won't apologize for the irs and a few bad apples and he say the ap is fine on journalism. he ensteve lyons on killing people and spying on journalists. this is outrageous. >> i don't agree with what

michael said. let me be blunt about it. >> i read your piece. it was talking points from the white house. it was stenography. >> let's let you explain. let's hear it. >> there were two parts of that speech that i thought one where the president was redefining where the war on terror is going, it's winding down. he's trying to talk about drones. the part i didn't agree with you comparing to it bush was i thought the speech had a lot of ambiguity about the president's views. not ambiguity about war on terror. he's trying to talk out loud, hear my views. he kept saying over and over again this is a just war but should be limited we should look at ways to wind it down and change it. he doesn't like the drone program himself is what i heard in his speech.

the policy i agree with has not changed that much but there was certainly no ambiguity, there was a wariness about the policy itself. >> also after four years of not only escalating the war in afghanistan where he sent 150,000 troops, but he also increased the number of drone strikes. he's defending murdering an american two years later. i mean, so there's an absurdity to this whole discussion. >> look, i keep saying there's a lot here and there's a lot in this speech and he definitely has escalated drone attacks. we have the drone attacks numbers are coming down. doesn't mean he has ruled them out. one thing i think is a change that a real clear commitment to shut down guantanamo. i know we've heard that before but he laid out -- he has talked about assigning somebody from the defense department now to handle transfers. the sort of moratorium the administration has placed on transferring people to yemen has

been lifted. there's movement on guantanamo. >> i was at the prison on april 30th. as a person that represents men there i'm desperate to see some change. i'm trying to be optimistic. at the same time i was concerned about the point of departure for the president was a initiative to reengage with congress which since 2011 has been expressing hostility towards his plan to close guantanamo. i was more comforted if he started by saying i slated a number of prisoners to work through the certification process. the authorization defensive act gives him the latitude to release prisoners immediately. the measure of the speech will be what the president begins to do immediately. the urgency of the hunger strike is really the only reason we're talking about guantanamo the way we are right now. the same urgency has to guide his actions. the step on yemen was critical. somebody has pushed of lifting

that moratorium for so long. it was remarkable to see how quickly it was lifted. but it has been matched. some men are being force fed. they need to leave the prison immediately. >> let's -- i thought it was very -- it was interesting how the president addressed specifically the topic of the hunger strike. i want to play that and i want to talk about why it has taken him this long to get to it and we'll get to that after this. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers.

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so the president talking about guantanamo in his speech on thursday. >> look at the current situation. where we're force feeding detainees who are being held on a hunger strike. is this who we are? is that something our founders foresaw? is that the america we want to leave our children? so this is something that, now, president talked about doing way back, talked about closing guantanamo, ending

guantanamo. we know that and here we are in year five of his presidency and we're at this point we're still with over 100 inmates there. one of the reasons is a fair or not right or wrong but politics shapes decisions that everybody makes. the politics of this have been if you poll the question about guantanamo, it is not as -- the concept is popular. the concept of drones polls well. drones is off topic. do you favor or oppose drones to kill suspected terrorists. 64% favor. 12% oppose. i guess, omar, when i look at this, if we're talking about moving the detainees out of guantanamo right now, moving low level detainees back to their original country that leaves detainees too much of a risk to ever release. closing guantanamo where do they go. that's what i'm wondering? >> one of the things, the framing of the speech was

shifting this paradigm. one. places where that has to remain true is on this notion there's a category of men at guantanamo that can't be tried and be held indefinitely. that doesn't hold up. if after more than 11 years the government can't make a case against these men then they can't make a case against these men. if all the evidence you have against an individual is based on torture or coarse evidence it's not for high minded moral reason it's unreliable. one of the things that was missing from the president's speech was a faltering defense of the work that his task force did the first time around. this is a unanimous consensus from every security agency that as american citizens we lrely o to keep us safe. once those men start to be released there will be momentum to deliver on this long over due

promise. >> i understand and agree with much of omar's sentiment, but i think the fact that congress, when you look at congress, there has been a bipartisan consensus to keep guantanamo the way it is. and that has been a formidable stumbling block for the administration. for example, if any of those men are to end up in u.s. prisons, congress has, you know, through its constituency just, you know, a huge array of support to not let that happen. and so i think that's been part of what the president has done in his calculus on guantanamo. >> we saw that, way back in 2009. you had republicans and democrats, you had harry reid the top democrat in the senate saying we'll not be transferring prisoners to the united states. >> 90-6 votes. >> the polls, the politics does this. if you look at broad public opinion on guantanamo, the idea of guantanamo versus bringing it

home to the united states guantanamo polls well. the fear that exists for these politicians right or wrong but the political fear is if we transfer one of these prisoners to yemen or anywhere and it commits an act of terrorism, the political price for that especially -- >> when you put tracking things to blow them up. we can kim them without regard, fear is the right word. this was a speech that obama embraced fear. he embraced the kind of fear talking rhetoric that we became so familiar with from the previous administration. and rather -- he was a president who was to say no guys be reasonable don't be afraid. he said hey we'll look at your emails. we'll be as aggressive as we ever have been against the media and put attorney general holder who wanted us to spy in charge of the investigation. if this is not levels of corruption. this is not chicago, this is washington, d.c. and if he wants to make us afraid i would like

to say to president obama -- >> but you heard the entire speech. >> read the entire speech and i've spent the last year on the campaign trail in a listen to the man give over hundred speeches and analyzed each one closely and it was a radical departure. he's total mind captured by national security state and president obama who gave the speech last sunday which was a beautiful speech he told each one of those men live up to your ethical responsibilities and told the annapolis cadets live up to your moral responsibilities and what i would say as a citizen and as a journalist is president obama i love you brother extend my hand but you got to get this stuff in check. can you not let these people in that national security state bully you. >> there are issues with the war journalists so to speak and we'll talk about that. i want to take these one at a time. >> guantanamo to me is one of

this weird relic if you look compared to killing pakistani children versus guantanamo, guantanamo is horrible but on any moral calculus killing 14-year-olds that you don't know their names is worse than holding these guys in jail at least we're trying to give them legal reits. i'm not trying to get you to associate with anything i'm saying. >> hang on. we'll talk about drones that's after this. obi has over 50 prodt work off of one 18 volt battery. and with new improved lithium and lithium plus batteries, you'll get a whole lot more done in less time. plus, they'll improve the performance of every 18 volt tool we've ever made. now that's getting more power for your money. ryobi one plus. the one system that delivers more. available only in one place. the home depot. right now, pick up a ryobi 18 volt lithium ion cordless trimmer for only $99. with the innovating and the transforming and the revolutionizing.

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♪ if i ever get some money put away, ♪ ♪ i'm going to take it all out and celebrate. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker... ♪ membership rallied millions of us on small business saturday to make shopping small, huge. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. this is what the president had to say about drones on thursday. >> for me and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live. but as commander-in-chief, i must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. to do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties. not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like

kabul and mogadishu where terrorists seek a foot hold. remember the terrorists we're after target civilians. and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. >> that's a lie. that's a flat out lie. that last sentence is flat out lie. it's a total reframing of the actual deaths and destruction that has the u.s. and department has been responsible pop some maybe we needed to do some we didn't. this idea terrorists have somehow killed more of us than we of them then we have iraq over 300,000 bodies and afghanistan littered with bodies and yemen and pakistan that terrorists are the ones that are killing more of us are totally -- >> look as i said earlier what was striking to me is he laid

out his thought process there. the drone issue is a tough one i have a tough time thinking about. i'm horrified when i read about the collateral damage, the civilians killed from there. also, i have the thought of, you know, what does that do to our image in pakistan or any country. i think we have the data. if you look at pakistan polls about the u.s. image in pakistan at the start of the obama presidency favorable image was 16%. it was 16%. it's down to 11%. one of the great hopes of the obama presidency is that our image around the world and in countries like pakistan it would improve. i struggle in terms of how to think about tissue of drones. but the president articulated why it can be a challenging toi issue to think about. >> the president kept saying this is a just war, the right thing to do. half the speech was a rebuttal

of liberal critics. i'm glad he responded. our constitutional law professor feels he's been accused of violating the constitution. that's what he was trying to say. i believe in the rule of law. i believe in international law. i don't think he convinced many people that didn't already believe him. that's what he was trying to do. >> having spoken to people at the white house, the view that kerry put forward and it was a good piece, i haven't had enough coffee, what the obama people have said look we'll put in a legal framework around these policies and we have to do that. it wasn't around drones. that's what they are doing. liptsen with drones, look, when i first started seeing drones i was in baghdad years ago and you would wake up in the morning and hear something like a lawn mower. so somebody mowing the lawn, no it's baghdad. it's a u.s. drone flying around. being a journalist in baghdad

i'm not too worried about being blown up. in pakistan, there are towns in pakistan where drones are flying around constantly and driving people in those towns crazy, civilians who are living their lives in fear and have no legal recourse and only recourse they have is to strap on a freaking suicide vest and go over to afghanistan and blow up our boys who are over there. >> that's exactly why the drones issue, beyond just the horror of reading about innocent civilians who are killed by this, it is, you know, what is this actually doing the u.s.'s image and is there blow back from this. you know the idea too that the president is laying out there is, you know, it is -- you can't just send troops in to every situation, right? there are also consequences to doing that. he's laying out that dilemma there. there w i can't remember a president who sort of was sort of publicly

agonizing over decision involved in national security and counterterrorism on a national stage like that. it doesn't mean you agree with everything he says. it doesn't mean oh, i'm an obama convert. i don't listen to that and say i agree with everything he said. i appreciate there's an awful lot of gray here. >> that's a soft to liberals yourself he's being thoughtful it's okay. >> no, no. i didn't say it's okay. when i say thoughtful it gives me something to think about. it makes me say this is a complicated issue. i'm torn when i think about drones. >> he was forced to give this speech after years of work from activist, human rights activists who are keeping their feet to the fire. we want to know about this stuff. >> it's good in some ways. he was to give this speech. the speech formalized what he was trying to do. their policy is pretty much the same. they are for drones. they are for indefinite

detention. they are limiting the drones but the president will still be the president who led these drone strikes. no change in that. it was to say i'll codify this and give more accountability to it and that's a good thing. >> we'll hear from omar right after this. ♪ [ engine revs ] ♪ [ male announcer ] just when you thought you had experienced performance, a new ride comes along and changes everything. ♪

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to be critical. the president has come down on the right side on a lot of these issues rhetorically in the past. >> to clarify, if i get sort of bogged down there and say oh, it's amazing he gave this speech i'm not saying oh, everything in this speech is great. i want to make clear and my hope with this discussion i think there's a lot of complexity. there's areas with drones, essentially he redefined the perimeters but left it open to say hey if these perimeters don't work. i think that's very troubling. also michael alluded to it here. we talk about leaks. we talk about government leakers, sort of this week it was the irony was stark. you had president giving a speech on thursday talking about how he's concerned about the chilling effect of government overreach affecting whistle blowers and journalists who are sources inside government. the same week it turns out the attorney general signed off and new about an affidavit that listed a reporter, james rosen

from fox news saying and he was co-c co-c c c c co-consp ira tor. >> let me say something here. michael -- >> i think he should be in charge of this investigation? do you think eric holder should be in charge of the investigation on how the doj treated the journalists? do you agree? should he be in charge? >> the whole idea that the justice department is now going to look -- no. that's what i'm saying. this is an area -- >> eric holder should not be in charge. do you think eric holder should step down? >> i have a standard time saying -- i don't know. >> i would like to make a point.

>> end gentlemen his memorial day weekend and not come back. >> steve, i want to say something about the speech that's important and i don't think you're trying to paint the speech as here the president has given this wonderful lovely speech that shows that he's thinking out loud about problems. i think what he was attempting to do was outline a theory of just war and it's very, very difficult and you're right he wasn't doing something particularly new but he was bringing together a set of ideas that he has presented at various pounts in time on some really hard problems on the issues of drones. omar you're right that it is prospective. but we haven't been able to see the classified presidential finding, i mean the speech doesn't really tell us all that's there. the administration needs to give a public version of the finding that it puts forth last week so that we can better understand how it's now attempting to limit

its drone program. and that did come out of the white house fact sheet and the speech as well. so i think we need to kind of, if we're going to do anything instructive and constructive it's to understand what the classified finding -- >> i want to -- we're out of time. i want to tell you about the time a crook became a political hero and what it means for the most important election of 2013. that's next. [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ♪ [ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines while dramatically reducing waiting time. [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. [ static warbles ]

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just over 20 years ago the state of louisiana held one of its jungle primaries where all of the candidates democrat, republican every other party they run on the same ballot and top two advance to a runoff no matter what party they are from. this particular jungle primary took place in 1991 and it was for governor one of the top two funnishers was a democrat. a very colorful democrat. probably corrupt.

edwin edwards. he had been governor a few times before in his first term in the 1970s he admitted his wife took $10,000 from a south korean rice magazine nature. in his second stint in the mid-'80s he was indicted on charges of mail freud, obstruction of justice and bribery. the first trial ended in a mistrial, the second in an acquittal. he uttered his most famous lines the only way he would be taken down if he was caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. in 1987 he lost. he tried for a come back in 1991. it was a doomed mission. maybe he could get out of the jungle primary, his negatives were sky-high. no way he would crack 50% in the runoff. except actually there was one way for him to do it because the other candidate who made it out of the jungle primary was a republican who most recently been a state representative but who before that had been the

grand wizards of the knights of the ku klux klan. so then he became the good guy in the race something that was perfectly expressed in what's my all time favorite political bumper sticker, said vote for the crook. it's important. really that was basically edwin edwards entire message in that runoff campaign. my opponent was a grand wizard and i wasn't. >> edwin for business to vote for you they have to hold their nose, close their eyes and cover their ears. >> you have to get out from under the sheets. >> that's a cheap shot. >> but it was totally needed. edwards won the election by 22 points. should have won it more and served four years as governor then after that edwin edwards served nine years in federal prison. the point of this story is that

when it comes to political candidates the term palatable is relative. against any other candidate in 1991 edwin edwards may not have bean palatable option. but against david duke suddenly he became very palatable. which brings me what's playing out in the commonwealth of virginia. no klansmen in sight. the basic definition of palatable is being test preponderance of the evidence virginia is holding a gubernatorial race. the democratic candidate is terry mcauliffe. his calling card is ability to raise cash for powerful democrats. he's not identified with any great cause. no apparent ideological core. he is the democrat democrats have been dying to vote against. actually democrats did vote against him when he ran for governor four years ago and got whacked in the democratic

primary. this time somehow he got a free pass to the democratic nomination which means if democrats don't rally around him and vote for him and turn out for him this fall virginia will be governed by ken cuccinelli, the state attorney general. i thought cuccinelli was the most far right republican politician in virginia among other things he's used the ag's office to attend climate signs and fight anti-sodomy laws and then i saw this guy. >> the ku klux klan did not do nearly as much to destroy black life as planned parenthood has done. >> barack obama is at best a confused man, is at worst has the sensibilities and i don't know how this combination works of an atheist and a muslim. >> we've never had a president who systematically disregards our constitution, ignores our laws and sets himself up as some

sort of king or dictator. >> meet e.w. jackson who won an upset victory at the state republican convention last weekend and is ken cuccinelli's running meat. he calls gays per university and very sick people. says democratic policies are worthy of the anti-christ. he's now the republican nominee for lieutenant governor of virginia. the large growing swing state of virginia. and to stop him and stop ken cuccinelli that means democrats have no choice to place their homes in terry macall live whose palatability increases by every utterance by cuccinelli and e.w. jackson. i can see the bumper sticker now. virginia is a big story this year. this is a big race. it's told us something important about the republican base's reaction to obama's re-election. president talked last year of breaking the fever of gop resistance with a victory but the party that embraces the

cuccinelli/e.w. jackson ticket is gripped by that fear. the great unanswered question has to do with the democratic base. the new emerging majority of voters who elected obama in 2008 and who re-elected him last year. so far that coalition has proven it will only show up when obama's name is on the ballot. when it's not just look at virginia. obama carried it in 2008 and carried it again in 2012. but in 2009 the last time there was a governor's race in the state the obama coalition vanished and the state swung hard to the right which means if democrats will keep virginia from swinging even farther, much farther to the right this year they will have to get excited about a candidate they never seen remotely excited about. we'll check what the odds are on that after this. look what mommy is having.

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kornacki. virginia's gubernatorial race one of the most closely watched preliminary race this year got more interesting with republicans nominating a right-wing preacher with no shortage of controversial statements. he's going to be republican gubernatorial nominee ken cuccinelli's running meat pinpoint to bring in david w wasserman. dave thanks for joining us. i lupded to it in that read i did in the last segment but virginia is so striking to me when you look at how the state voted 20i7b 08 in the oba-- 200 in obama/mccain race. 20i7b 09 when the state had a gubernatorial election, it's basically a sea of red. obama voters didn't show up. is that really the key question to this election this year can the obama voters turn out fortiery mcauliffe the

democratic candidate? >> it is. the great fallacy is reporters turned and obama. obama's coalition is more important than any coalition on 18 to 29-year-olds and minority voters. when it's heavily dependent on that group on off years it's tailor made for republicans to win. that's why cuccinelli is the favorite for governor. >> looked at the polls. you see this baggage that cuccinelli brings to this. i was down in virginia on election day last year, i was in northern virginia, prince william county and i remember talking to republicans in the state on election day and they were basically saying they were confident that romney was going to carry the state because the

bomb voters from 2008 didn't turn up in 2009 and they thought it was a one time only thing. can you talk how it's centered that obama coalition in virginia what turned that state blue. so amazing to me how concentrated that is in basically four or five counties in northern virginia right outside of washington, d.c. >> yeah. you're absolutely right. obama carried the state twice. and yet democrats win just three out of 11 congressional districts in the state because obama's vote is so concentrated in that urban correct sent. what democrats have to do this fall is to turn cuccinelli and e.w. jackson into boogie men in order to scare up the democratic base to show up unlike their numbers in 2009 when they were basically non-existent. any nonpartisan assessment is e.w. jackson is kuckoo for could puffs. this guy will make this election is most distasteful and unsavory

election we've seen since the '94 race. if you look at the republican convention that nominated e.w. jackson, you know, e.w. jackson in 2012 ran against george allen for the republican nomination for senate, got 4.72% of the vote. he won fewer raw votes at this convention in richmond and won the nomination with 58%. so you're talking about a very small group that nominated him. and they didn't even really have the chance to vet him. they heard his speech. they loved the red meat, nominated him and from what i hear from people who were on the convention floor, even some moderates ended up throwing their support to him to send a message to the party hey if you want to go in this direction we're happy to show you where it leads as kind of a future warning shot. >> yeah. the sort of back story on how this happened too is that the state central committee the state republican central committee which had a lot of ken

cuccinelli allies last year decided they would handout the nomination at convention for 2013 and not in a primary the idea being you get the most conservative, but effect of that, ari fleischer, republican, he tweeted about this the other day. virginia lieutenant governor nominee shows why primaries greater than caucuses which are greater than elections. we're talking about basically the nation's premier swing state, virginia and we now have the convention has nominated this ticket this year. are there implications for future years with other nominations for senate or for other major offices being handed out at conventions like this where people like e.w. jackson can win? >> you're absolutely right. this is a rare situation, and if this turns out to be kind of a 1993 situation where the republican gubernatorial nominee. wins and the lieutenant governor nominee wins maybe it will have a small impact. if cuccinelli doesn't distance

himself enough from jackson and ends up dragging him down then i think it will be a serious, serious alarm bell for republicans elsewhere that they need to open up the process a little bit more. of course, who controls the decision-making for how to nominate candidates, it tends to be the most, you know, the party base most extreme on each side. and so that's the danger here, especially for republicans who are by far seen as the more extreme party by independent voters. >> the other sort of wild card in all of this i guess there's a republican lieutenant governor in the state right now, his name is bill bolling he wanted to run against cuccinelli. when they changed this convention system bolling said there's no way i can win. but he's been speaking up more and more against this republican ticket particularly after e.w. jackson's nomination last week. i wonder we talk about the key for democrats of guesting that

obama vote out, getting excited forti terry mcauliffe. if bill bolling the turning on this ticket, are there swing voters who might listen to bill bolling and turn on the republican ticket? >> yeah. you know, even democrats, even a lot of democrats i know think terry mcauliffe is a huckster. if bill bolling has run as an independent candidate he would be very viable against the two candidates. he's not running. so this is going to be an election where, you know, terry mcauliffe is in a situation where ken cuccinelli is the only candidate he's capable of beating for governor and terry mcauliffe who ken cuccinelli is capable of beating for governor. so in favor years, if you're a democrat, do you think your party is going to be better off

if terry mcauliffe or ken cuccinelli wins. who is likely to show up in this off year election. >> david wasserman of the cook political report. thanks for your time this morning. republicans are itching to bring down a democratic president. kind of feel like i've seen this movie before. details coming up. for his small business. can i get the smith contract, please? thank you. that's three new paper shredders. [ boris ] put 'em on my spark card. [ garth ] boris' small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase every day. great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. read back the chicken's testimony, please. "buk, buk, bukka!" [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase every day. told you i'd get half. what's in your wallet? told you i'd get half. when ouwe got a subaru.s born, it's where she said her first word. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye!

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charlie's cook a nonpartisan observer of washington politics offered some blunt commentary this week that when it comes to the supposed scandals of the past two weeks it's the republicans and not president obama who are risking serious political fallout. cook wrote quote one wonders how long republicans will bark up this tree, perhaps the wrong tree wild ignoring their own party's problems which were

shown to be profound. clearly none much these recent issues has had a real impact on voters. president obama's approval rating has remained around 50%. even seeming to go up slightly in the past two weeks, republicans have been pushing against him on benghazi and the irs. not only that last week's abc "the washington post" poll found obama is concentrating on important things to them. but they say the opposite about republicans. this thursday on "morning joe" rnc chairman was kind of cautious about actually impeaching obama over the irs scandal, maybe -- >> you have to allow the evidence to come in to play. you have to connect the dots. i've said a week ago look you don't calm for impeachment until you have the evidence. now i'm entitled to have an opinion that i think it's evidence of political warfare gone amuck on behalf of the

administration. >> this pattern goes back decades, all way back to franklin d. roosevelt. i want to bring in eleanor cliff, july jan zelizer, msnbc be contributor is back with us as well. that's what i've been most struck by when the i word, impeachment has been invoked in the last few weeks. i grew up in the '90s and i remember this. i remember not only the impeachment in 1998 of bill clinton over the whole monica lewinsky thing. i remember driving around my town in massachusetts, liberal massachusetts, there's a car in front of us like a month after bill clinton was inaugurated in 1993 that said impeach clinton.

i remember that. that backlash against him began from the moment he took office, there was going to be this fight against him and it culminated six years later. i feel i'm watching the same thing play. >> i agree with you. but i had a similar experience if not driving around counting bumper stickers. you get people who oppose a democratic president. he wins anyway. they are disgruntled. spend the first term complaining about it. sure they can knock him out in the second term. when he gets re-elected, we now have a diagnosis of what i call second term frenzy and the symptoms are that you get angrier and louder and angrier and louder. if you didn't convince people in the first term, you can yell at them in the second term and you do not notice that they have tuned you out. and the symptom, i would guess that you're really into second term frenzy is when people start

flinging the word impeachment around. >> it was a huge shock when clinton's approval rating actually went up in the mid-of the monica lewinsky scandal. i remember reporters used to joke bring on a second intern and maybe his approval would hit 80%. republicans couldn't believe it and lost seats in that '98 mid-term election and that's charlie cook's thesis they could be bringing on another repeat and i think that's what the white house is hoping that the 2014 elections could be a referendum on this kind of behavior and republicans would be repudiated once again. >> i think you have two kinds of frustrations. second terms like bill clinton where many republicans or some republicans feel it should have gone a different way. the story was meant to be a one term presidency like jimmie carter and when it doesn't play out they look for other means. the second is what we saw with jfk from the very beginning elements of the right who dispute the ideas of the

administration and believe in america as a fundamentally conservative country. and can't live with the idea of a president who believes otherwise. when kennedy goes to dallas, texas he sees signs accusing him of treason. >> we have that. we can maybe put that up on the screen. >> even dramatic by today's standards. those are the two kinds of frustrations you see by conservatives. >> i have thought a lot about the comparison between how the right has reacted to obama and reacted to bill clinton in the 1990s. the obviously difference with obama is i heard so much overtly, you know, racial animosity that came out that you didn't hear with clinton. is it coming from the same basic place or different backlash. snifrt different in one respect. the pew poll said 48% republicans approved of bill clinton. so that means that newt gingrich was acting outside of his own

party's views as well. the impeachment thing was driven by the republicans in washington. the base not feeling this great outrage. today president obama, 12%. think about him. think what clinton did versus obama has been involved with no scandal as far as i can tell something of the fact that there's something new here in terms of the opposition among the base. i think priebus thinks the base is leading the party. john boehner isn't driving the impeachment talk but he won't disagree with it. >> he might be driven by it. >> john boehner is being driven by it. >> the backlash to president clinton started the minute he came to washington and it was really a cultural backlash. these were baby boomers. there was a woman who had taken, took for a long time for her to take her husband's last name.

she was a lawyer. pictures of her carrying a brief case. there was a whole cultural backlash against baby boomers and a way of life that had transformed a lot of homes in america and not everybody was comfortable. with obama there's a backlash against the changing face of america, cultural diverse america. i think people who are resisting never would have voted for obama in the first place. but they are just more vocal and amplified by the media culture. >> up mentioned how it began with bill clinton when bill clinton took office. i want to play this clip. again bill clinton was impeached in 1998, in december of 1998. this is years before that when there was this whole thing about vince foster. did the clintons kill vince fochter. here's the republican running the oversight committee. just watch this. this is responding to vince foster. take a look at this. >> we in my house with a

homicide detective tried to recreate a head and fired a .38 four inch barrel into that to see if the sound could be heard from a hundred yards away even though there was an earth-mover moving in the background and you could hear the bullet clearly. >> re-enacting vince foster's death talking about it on the house floor. >> two secular trends. the move under the republican party to the right and the increasing prominence of right-wing republicans has been going on for several decades now. it was taking place during clinton, it's gotten worse. part of it is obama. i think part of it is the change in the party. the second factor is the media. changes in the media first with cable and 24 hour news and then with the internet make that kind of statement more appealing to republicans. i want gets press, it gets attention. we have two changes that are overlaying the president's in addition to the animosity racial or otherwise towards president obama which makes this very

difficult to reverse. >> thank you for reminding us that dan burton was in many ways a worthy predecessor to congressman issa. there's something about the role that chairman of that committee that drives people to the edge if they weren't there already. notice what we're not talking about. we're not talking about differences in policy. we're not talking about oh, we strongly disagree on this or that issue. it is personal. it is vehement. the american people are worried about college rates will go up for student lending. what is the republican answer on this? apparently let them keep going up. they are worried about what's happening with their families and children and every time you hear a republican elected member or leader as in priebus they want to yell about president obama. >> i want to take this one step further back because i want to get to hopefully the root of

this because again i think it is a pattern how the right responds when democrats get elected and we've had sort of the ideological synking up of the parties over the decades. i want to try to identify those roots and we'll do that after this. ♪

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we can go back to fdr, elected in 1932. i don't think you had the immediate backlash you had against clinton or obama. this is a publication from 1936, the roosevelt red record and it's background. fritz the american liberty league. a lot of the same language you hear directed over the top sort of hysterical language. you heard it directed at roosevelt in the 1930s from the right. >> there's two parts of the

backlash. by 1934 business is mobilizing against roosevelt already. the american liberty league is formed. its business leaders were not on board with the new deal and they go after the president often equating him with socialism and far left ideas. the second is in 1938 after the mid-terms, southern democrats and republicans in congress form a coalition and their main concerns are any issue related to race, any effort of the federal government to end lynching, for example, and the second is a battle against unionization. they are dead set against fighting against the cio, everything that fdr put together to strengthen the working class. >> but the interesting thing too about how that backlash against roosevelt took south you mentioned the south. that's capital of american conservatism. in the 1930s, those were kept states. part of what roosevelt did with the new deal that didn't make

the backlash initially as potent as we see now is african-americans were largely excluded from the new deal, sort of as a sop to the south and the south was getting all this federal money and sort of the white leaders in the south didn't have to did you say disperse it to african-americans and happy to take the money and spare roosevelt the backlash. >> it was a deal made that fdr left the south to keep its racial ways and in exchange he got support for programs that didn't touch that. >> regular americans loved him. his picture was in everybody's living room. and, you know, it seems to me that he moved as far as the times would let him and maybe a little bit faster and then it dime truman to integrate the military and so what fdr did though was embrace his critics. he wore the criticism as a badge of honor. it seems to me obama tries too

much more positive reinforcement every time they do something halfway nice he praises them and reluctant to call them out. the way president clinton handled it he kept distancing himself saying i'm doing the work of the american people and the american people looked at it and decided that's what he was doing. that's what the president now is trying to do. focusing on the work of photo ops that show he cares about his program. this is never going to go away. you're proving that by the history. >> also my comment is they were extremely successful. if you look how much fdr accomplished, how much johnson did, how much clinton did in terms of broad legislation, the new deal, civil rights act, the health care. the republicans are reacting to democratic presidents taking the country to the left.

there's evidence of jimmy carter not being very effective. we don't talk about him in the same context. >> american people again, look at the decisions they are making. they are looking at programs that can work, that make a difference in their lives. you are using great example from fdr. when social security first passed they omitted categories of labor that were largely african-american. that was part of the deal to get the vote to congress but then little by little it expanded. more and more groups were brought in. so, yes, we may look at it now and say but african-americans were excluded, african-americans in the '30s is my sense looked at it and said we're finally going to get the doors opening, the door is opening a little we'll get in there. look at wpa. look what lunn don't johnson could do in texas. little by little they were bringing excluded groups in. i wouldn't totally write it off. >> you can also see the as african-americans integrated

into american politics and the democratic party, we put that kennedy back thing up on the screen. by 1960 you had jfk who on the eve of the 1960 election placed a call to coretta scott king. then the treason poster. they get explicitly racial here. one of the articles of treason or whatever that they are using he is giving support and encouragement to communism racial riots. he is turning the sovereignty of the u.s. over to communist controlled united nations. >> kennedy is elected this is the kind of material you've seen in a lot of southern states which are traditionally democratic. he conducts the secret study of right with a guy named feldman one of his advisors and these groups are sprouting up and they are seeing how powerful they are becoming in the early 1960s and

scaring kennedy. it's an issue of big concern. ultimately it leads to '64 with barry goldwater getting the nomination. there's a story line of this party shifting to the right in part when kennedy was president, when civil rights was heating of the up when again there was a perception the country was moving left but for some conservatives that's not where it should go. >> we get southern strategy and massive resistance to school desegregation. obama care will be implemented and you'll see massive resistance. republicans have not given up on the idea of repealing obama care. >> talk about the parallels between the affordable care act now and medicare passed under johnson. again you could see the same -- in fact there was ronald reagan, i wish we had it. ronald reagan, you know, as an actor, aspiring politician in the '60s made this video warning against medicare. it was recycled in 2009 by the

right to argue against obama care. >> but the difference there is a lot of republicans were actually instrumental in the creation of medicare. they had a different version. it was a southern democrat wilbur mills who puts this thing together. the parties are much more divided then. senator dirkson who is a real conservative from the midwest allies with lbj on a lot of programs including civil right. now you have more of an alliance between the right and leadership like boehner regardless of whether he believes in what they are saying. that's a big change in american politics. >> that's what i want to get into next. when the governing is not a side show, i think that changes governing and politics. we'll discuss that next. [ musick ] i knew there were a lot of tech jobs

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for qualified new students. in miami, coca-cola is coming together with latino leaders to support hispanicize, and the adelante movement. teaching tools for success, and fostering creativity. these programs are empowering people to lead positive change, and helping them discover how great a little balance can feel. through initiatives like these, our goal is to inspire more than three million people to rediscover the joy of being active this summer. see the difference all of us can make, together. so, you just made a really good point there about how the sort of resistance on the right, just the right itself is sort of now is the republican party, post-1964 where the republican party nominated barry goldwater

and you saw this evolution that played out over a generation or two where the republican party became a conservative party based in the south and west but fundamentally a conservative party. i'm looking at the implications of that for government. we've seen it in the clinton years and again in the obama years where a democratic president comes to power now you don't just have sort of this side show of resistance on the right that becomes a defining feature of the opposition party. the result is we'll vote against everything, we'll fight against everything and i think something i would love to talk about here is the parallels between medicare and affordable care act. in the 1960s you had this backlash against the medicare. medicare got implemented. it's more of an open question. the right is still fighting the aca and implementation which is expanding medicare at the state level. they have the forefight this thing for a long time. >> i think that's right. opposition to health care,

extending health care has become a litmus test. this is not again an argument about policy because some of the very issues that identified with obama care were republican or conservative ideas. the heritage foundation was talking about a mandate for purchasing health care. it was part of the, if i may say so, the romney health plan. but once obama recommended it, once it became the democratic president, as you say, then you're watching republican party unite against it. even when they could benefit from it. >> they are opposed to things that they are for simply because the other guy proposed it. ronald reagan was the last republican president really who had veto power over the right. he was able to -- he would often say they want me to jump off the cliff with the flag flying and he would happily take half a loaf.

pat buchanan who worked in that white house said he would go to the white house and the president would say tell your friends i'll give them half and tell those nuts on the right. pat would walk out. does he think i'm one of them. the answer to that is probably yes. he could keep that element of the party at the table, but not dictating everybody else. the right did in george h.w. bush because he broke his no new taxes promise and i think they've been moving more towards giving the right veto power but control of the party to their own detriment because it's not a long term strategy for survival. >> that's issue. you were making this point the implications on medicaid expansion that aspect of the affordable care act in 2016. we didn't call medicare johnson care for seniors. now you're to the point where in most of the states in the south which have the highest rates of

obesity and diabetes, et cetera, governors in those states, only the governor of kentucky and arkansas who are both democrats have approved the expansion of medicare. 10 million people couldn't get health insurance. if you're a governor in the south, then you might, you feel politically challenged to oppose this medicaid expansion because your whole party has defined this as the seminal issue and that's where the hatred of the president means people won't get health insurance in key states. >> medicare had a few things in medicaid in '65 that president obama's program didn't. it had bipartisan support right from the start. hit a bipartisan vote. so legislators in both parties were invested. it took one year to get the whole program up and running. one year after it passed medicare was working. this is a much larger roll out. finally there's a clarity of medicare that is different from this program. social security added medical

benefits, hospital insurance. this program is more complex. it's about regulation. it's about different kinds of expansions and i think all of this in a polarized era creates more vulnerability. >> people benefiting from obama care are minorities, likely to be poor. medicare is a program for seniors and that's more bipartisan coalition. >> but there are other stakeholders that will be applying pressure in these states. hospitals providers who still have to provide care, and they are going resist paying for this and they are going want that check from the federal government. so i think some of these legislatures will turn around. >> that becomes tension on the republican candidate for governor the hospital and insurance industry. >> if you went from like real people getting health care we now have the example in california where they come out with the affordable care act will mean people in california will be able to get health insurance at lower rates than had been thought.

so you're now in another year have a case in which people in those states they are making it work, that are going with the exchanges, are going to be offering better health care for many more people and those states where there are republican governors made them stay out will be on the sidelines looking and i think people can tell when government works in their interest or not. that will produce political pressure. >> we talked about this on this show. gay marriage comes to mind. red state/blue state divide. we might see that with the implementation of the affordable care act. california built these exchanges and it's functional not so much in the red states. the term obama used in the campaign last year a bunch of times was break the fever. win the election and break the fever of republican opposition. i haven't seen i want yet. i'll ask if we will ever see it and we'll talk about it after this. verify and lock. command is locked.

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was i will win and break the fever of republican opposition. obviously we haven't seen it yet. ann maybe you can speak to this. i think back to bill clinton winning re-election in 1996. he was impeached in the second term. but there were also some real accomplishments with a republican congress after the '96 election, the children's health plan got through in 1997. so does that offer any guidance or hope that maybe there's room for obama to maneuver a little bit? >> i believe ultimately it will work. you have to if you believe in democracy. so what happened in '98 was the american people sort of turned away from a republican party that they saw as interested only in destroying the president and by the way when they looked at their president he was working hard for them. the american people right now look at president obama and they see a guy who is working hard for them.

they look at the republican party and it's not so much. the difference and i think we've talked about this before is because of gerry mandering and congressional districts the effect hasn't been felt on republican house members. it's happening in the senate. hasn't yet been felt in the house. that's what it will take. >> the fever would have broken if the democrats had and the over the house in 2012. there's some hope that that could happen in 2014 but because the districts are so ridge it's a long shot. but the 2014 is going to be a repeat in republicans minds about obama care and big government and the irs scandal feeds into that, and i think now it's incumbent on both sides to gear up all their best pr on obama care, the hatred on the part of the republicans and boy the white house has to get out there and sell it in a way it hasn't before. it's still unpopular. people have no idea what it's about and will be voting on it in a year and a half.

>> there's structural factors why america and congress is polarize. leadership can only do so much. like a gerrymandering district where everyone voted for romney. if the president can find an area where the self-interest of the republican party is so overwhelming compromise is in their interest and you're seeing a little of that with immigration reform and there's even signs that some house republicans might bend on that. especially as they are focused on a new set of elections. >> that's where the 2006 election said we can't sustain our party. >> that's a big legislative achievement. >> we look at the affordable care act. where is the incentive to get behind it. >> eleanor made a good point. the president has to look at allies beyond house to. you have to look at the insurance companies, health care providers. health care is a huge part of

our economy so you have to look at the people who are directly engaged with this who understand the bottom line and tuned numbers and they, in turn are going to have to talk to some of these republican house members and governors. this is not smart for anybody. let's see if they can have an effect. >> this is one point where the clinton/obama parallel doesn't work. the republicans are more conservative than they were in the 1990s. look at the ten most polarized years in terms of politic, nine of those ten years are either when bush was president or obama was president. bush was very divisive, obama is divisive at times. the electorate is changing. the notion the fever will break on any issue beyond immigration is hard to imagine. hard to imagine if you're a republican senator. even lindsey graham he said people think i can vote for immigration i'm the benghazi guy. i'm the impeachment guy. if i'm those two places i can vote for immigration. that tells you how far to the

right he has to go in toward be in the middle on one issue. >> his line in the "new york times" a few months ago he basically said look attacking obama is always good politics. that's a guy from a very conservative state not only a very conservative state but constantly in danger of a primary challenge. the challenge is to get even more conservative. i wish we can go on. i love talking about this. what do we know now that we didn't know last week. my answer is after this. but their shakes aren't always made for people with diabetes. that's why there's glucerna hunger smart shakes. they have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. and they have six grams of sugars. with fifteen grams of protein to help manage hunger... look who's getting smart about her weight. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. a smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes. big time taste should fit in a little time cup.

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♪ if hey. whassup. you? guten tag. greetings earthlings. what's crackalackin? it's great we express ourselves differently. if we were all the same, life would be boring. so get to know people who aren't like you. you'll appreciate what makes us different. the more you know. so what do we know now that we didn't know last week? we know massachusetts lieutenant governor tim murray is resigning to lead the worcester regional chamber of commerce. he denied his abrupt exit from politics has anything to do with an ongoing ethics campaign contributions. because of massachusetts state law, when a lieutenant governor resigns, the position is not filled, so massachusetts will be without a lieutenant governor until 2015 when duval patrick

leaves office. the state will have effectively been without a lieutenant governor for 5 years out of the past 17. tom tancredo is running for governor again. the former republican ran in 2010 on the american institution party's ticket and lost to the current democratic governor by 14 points. that was two years after tancredo ran for president as a republican. on thursday tancredo says he's running saying the decision to grant a temporary deprooef to a man on death row was the last straw. tancredo's path will not be easy. he has conservative views on guns in terms that are trending. he is up for the fight writing on facebook on thursday, "game

on." and anthony weiner may be taking the ed koch bureau strategy too far. on thursday bloggers and reporters in pittsburgh and new york city noticed the skyline in the background was not the empire city, but the steel city. the tech firm ngpean has taken the blame for the error and the logo has been changed to show new york landmarks. new york governor andrew cuomo was asked about his thought, he said none. look. my face didn't move. no reaction. later in the day when he was asked what it would mean if elected leader, cuomo said, quote, shame on us. we're waiting to hear what pennsylvania governor tom corbett thinks for p itself burg. i want to find out what my guests know that they didn't

know when the week began. >> well, on the irs scandal i learned to file for c-4 tax status you can just assert it. they are behaving like they have and nobody has challenged it. so all the groups that have been challenged are saps. they didn't have to file. and steve miller said it was his idea to have her ask someone in an audience, to ask her the question. he thought it was a good way to get ahead of the story. now if that's what they know about pub lig relations and media, it tells you how they perform in a lot of areas. >> first, i was surprised at the

handling of the irs. i think there would be a more polished and effective strategy and the a.p.'s story is interesting. it doesn't catch as much attention as benghazi. but the education tension of the stuff we saw during bush is an important story that deserves more investigation and thinking through the consequences of this kind of policy. >> we know this week the boy scouts took a big step. but we didn't hear about the girl scouts. they don't have to change their policy. the girl scouts have been inclusive and nondiscriminatory for years. they don't just talk about leadership. they practice it in bring in tens of thousands of girls every year who get a grease let son from being a part of girl scout

scouts. >> we know that in the senate it makes a big difference. 20 record in the senate. they are driving the pursuit of the pentagon changing their policy on sexual assaults. it would not change the way it is without the centers. without them pushing the issues strongly and showing it was an important issue. >> i'll give a shoutout to this the girl scouts for the tag-along cookies that i devour every year. and msnbc contributor perry jr., thank you for joining us today for "up." join us tomorrow when we look at the the immigration bill this week. coming up next is melissa harris-perry. a different take on the president's speech. the latest on the recovery efforts in oklahoma and the funny thing that happened when tim cook twenty to washington for what was billed to be a grilling. it's a jam packed mhp. stick around. melissa is next. we'll see you here tomorrow at 8:00.

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rjs this morning my question, how does a company with no employees rake in billions in profit? plus, disaster recovery and the politics of survival. and my letter is addressed to mr. jackson in virginia. but first, president obama calls to an end to perpetual war. ♪ good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. president obama put it all on the line with his counter terrorism speech on thursday. the president asserted his vision for the practical use of drone war