i'm richard lui. you're watching msnbc. as the united states celebrates independence day, egypt holds a celebration of its own. just two years after the fall of hosni mubarak, the country swears in an interim leader after removing president mohamed morsi from power. the edward snowden side show, while bolivia stews over the rerouting of its president's

plane, the man once rumored to be on board remains in moscow. but is the nsa leaker any closer to fining asylum? crews make progress on a deadly arizona wildfire as families continue to mourn the 19 firefighters lost battling that blaze. first off, our lead story. crowds in cairo yesterday celebrating the victory in tahrir square. the military has appointed an interim leader and celebrations are being overshadowed by questions of just what comes next for egypt. joining me now from cairo, nbc news foreign correspondent ay n ayman, 20 hours later has the new leader done anything to calm the country as we look at many protesters and demonstrators still out in the square? >> well, he's been on the job for maybe a little bit less than

eight, nine hours? he's not begun to really do anything drastically different. we haven't heard from him except at the swearing-in ceremony. we understand negotiations are now under way to form a caretaker government. he's now in the process of trying to form his cabinet to run the day to day affairs of the country. meanwhile, the transition to get egypt up and running, no indication as to what's going to happen in the short term but we know that's the road map the military put in place to have those parliamentary leaks, as well as drafting or amending the current constitution. the bigger concern today in egypt, everyone is waking up to the reality that a very at one point popular president in the sense that he had won the majority has been ousted by military. his supporters are starting to mobilize. what i mean by that is the muslim brotherhood and other islamist organizations are calling for nationwide protests tomorrow, friday after friday

prayers. it is the end of the work week here. you can expect that his base is going to rally. that kind of division i think is what gives people here the kind of anxiety about what may unfold in the coming days in terms of violence and uncertainty. >> you have been speaking with egyptians. as you look at some of the energy that's now down in tahrir square as well as throughout the rest of the northern parts of egypt and the south here, too, how has that changed since the announcement of adli mansour? >> since the announce pt that the president was ousted and the appointment of adli mansour, those outside tahrir square and the presidential palace have a sense of excitement that's now somewhat died down a little bit. they are relieved that their struggle has finally paid off. on the other side of this city -- and i mean that proverbially, you have the supporters of the muslim brotherhood and they certainly have been very upset about what has happened. that's what's creating a little bit of this dynamic between the

two different parts of egypt. most people have been relieved, no doubt about it, excited about the new news that egypt will try to get back on the right track but there are many that are raising flags about once again the military intervening itself in the country's politics, trumping democratic elections, and they say that this is an attack on egypt's fragile constitutionality. >> ayman we'll touch base with you in about an hour. 7:05 p.m. local time there in egypt. want to bring in foreign relations senior fellow ed hussein. the question of is it coup? is it and ouster? intervention. why does that matter? >> it matters because in the eyes of the people who are protesting in tahrir square it is not a coup, it is a reflection of the popular will, 22 million signatures collected against president morsi in the last several months. it is not a coup in their point of view because it is ousting

what they consider to be a regime, in their language, was fascist. popular businessmen in egypt declared it to be a dictatorship. you have the muslim brother shareholdbrotherhood and extreme cousins who don't see this as legitimate. their president had been elected, a free and fair election by all reckoning and they're mobilizing now and what's important to remember i think for an american audience is this is going to be the first night of the month of ramadan coming up across the middle east and the broader muslim world wherever night millions of people will gather for prayers. this is an ideal opportunity for the muslim brotherhood perhaps to channel some of the energy in what they would claim to be a loss on their part. in other words, the presidency which they helped build, bolster and now wanting to renew in some ways. >> how important is the muslim brotherhood in the next steps? should they not be part of these

discussions in yesterday it was, for instance, old mohamed elbaradei, plus two other key groups, christians, as well as other islamic groups but did not include the muslim brotherhood, at least in the initial discussion we heard about. how important is the mb? >> the mb is the only organized political force inside egypt other than the military. >> even today. >> even today. there is no other political force that can match its presence in the countryside, its domination of many of the unions in the country, and its ability to mobilize large numbers of people under political leadership. yes, the opposition has organized but it doesn't have a united coherent message, nor leadership that can contest parliamentary and presidential elections. the muslim brotherhood can and therefore it remains a genuine threat of creating greater instability in the region. if we thought that the opposition has overthrown an leaked government and therefore we will see political instability in the country, i think we have another thing coming. brotherhood will continue to mobile identifies, agitate, confront and want to see their man or replacement of someone like morsi back in power in due

course. >> they had won 47% of the seats in parliament so that cannot be ignored necessarily. you wrote in the "new york times," if the this is bigger than egypt. what happens here will affect the direction of islamist groups everywhere. egypt's political class needs to offer us more than the judge, largest ever crowds at the latest protests for and against morsi." what does this mean for islamists that are in politics? >> islamists for the last 80 years have wanted to be in power. they tried through an arms struggle and failed. one of the most interesting thing about arab spring was the greatest anti-american machine in the region became broadly pro-american maintaining peace with with israel and wanted to become more part of the modern world. by ousting them now the message is you can't be part after zmt process when the elite are backed by military, backed by the media and judiciary want to oust you, we will.

that's what's happened. the negative mess sthage is tha other extremists told you democracy doesn't work and here is the evidence. >> they hoped for the renaissance a year ago when they took power. compare for me as we finish up, july 4th, 2013, the day after, compare that to february 12th, 2011, the day after hosni mubarak resigned. >> the day after hosni mubarak resigned i think there was real joy across the country. egypt was a much more united nation. today, two years on, egypt is a deeply divided nation, not along ethnic or sectarian lines but political lines. the renaissance project the muslim brotherhood dreamt of has not gone away. it will come back renewed, sadly, but with a sense of vengeance because they feel injustice has been done against them. this renaissance project is a plan to modernize and moderate

islamism in a way that it is relevant to the modern world. given the risk of anti-americanism in the world we should not oppose that from the west but try and work with that current rather than against it. >> better or worse off, simply? >> i think worse off. no military coup is good news for a country on the path to democracy. >> ed husain, we'll talk for another 30 minutes. thank you so much for your perspective in terms of what's happened in the last couple of days. now to the george zimmerman trial, court is in recess today for the july fourth holiday. tomorrow it appears prosecutors may be close to wrapping up their case. so far the state has not said who will be called to the stand next, though it is likely at some point tomorrow jurors will hear from one of the most anticipated witnesses, trayvon martin's mother, sybrina fulton. wednesday jurors heard testimony from zimmerman's former professors about courses that he had taken that touched on self-defense, as well as florida's stand your ground

statute. george zimmerman is charged with second degree murder in the death of trayvon martin. he has pleaded not guilty. he claims it was self-defense. joining me now is criminal defense attorney and legal contributor, seema iyer. kendall coffey from miami. kendall, martin's mother, sybrina fulton, is one of the most anticipated witnesses. we've sort of ticked off the witnesses they would put towards the end of the prosecution. what makes her testimony so important? she was not there during this incident. >> well, i think the key thing from the prosecution's standpoint is convincing the jury that it was trayvon martin's voice crying for help, screaming for help on the 911 tape. while i think it is clear the jury will be moved by mother's grief, the real question is will they be persuaded by a mother's voice recognition when it was a matter of just a few second and it is going to be a matter of contradiction when the other family gets on the stand during

the defense and says the voice screaming for help bass the voice of george zimmerman. >> might you also hear from the brother, as well as the father. >> i think it is expected the uncle will testify. the defense promised that. and one or both of the parents of george zimmerman will testify. if they are able to, in effect, balance out what she said, create a doubt as to who's voice it was, that obviously will undercut what the prosecution needs to do which is to eliminate reasonable doubt. >> the first week of the trial that was widely debated as we were all watching. seema, they've left the medical examiner for last, perhaps on friday. how do you think that testimony will help prosecutors as they try to drill down on their case here? >> i think what they're trying to do with the medical examiner is corroborate the woman who testified about the position of the gun, that the muzzle was against the shirt. now why are they going to do this? to connect that testimony with zimmerman having been on top of

trayvon martin. if you recall, the woman who testified about the position of the muzzle, she said it was against the shirt. it wasn't actually penetrating through the shirt. the cloth was not wrapped around the gun because the pattern of the gun powder corroborates zimmerman being the aggressor. >> and if he were to be the aggressor, that fits in with their narrative. >> exactly. >> kendall, the zimmerman dna, none was found under martin's fingernails according to the testimony we heard idea. how will that play out with the jury and the way it was described to them? >> i think it is a potentially critical thing for the prosecution because the defense didn't just say there was a fight. they said that zimmerman was subjected to a vicious beating. they implied and even said it was life threatening. if it was this bad a beating and his head was being slammed repeatedly against concrete, you would expect to at a minimum see some dna in trayvon martin's -- under his fingernails.

there was none whatsoever. while the defense questions whether the dna was properly preserved and methodologies were all perfect, the fact is that the jury heard some compelling testimony in a day an age when juries are very impressed by what forensic evidence shows about issues like dna. >> seema, quickly on the dna. >> i agree with kendall. this -- mr. west, the attorney, was trying to finish and talk about plastic bags versus paper bags. attorneys that practice criminal law, we know that these labs, they are certified, they are beyond reproach. there is no issue with the contamination of the evidence. it was pristine. so that was just west fishing for some type of reasonable doubt which, frankly, is not there. >> seema iyer and kendall coffey, thanks on this july fourth. you guys have a good one. coming up, the white house gives businesses an extra year to fall in line with the affordable care act and require coverage for their employees.

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with edward snowden still camped out at a moscow airport, the state department has a message for any country thinking of harboring the nsa leaker. >> our position on mr. snowden has also been crystal clear. i repeat, he has been accused of leaking classified information. he's been charged with three felony counts and should be returned to to the united states. >> for the latest in the snowden saga, joined now by nbc's jim maceda who is in moscow. jim, as we go through this, the

bolivian government absolutely upset. they believe they got caught in the middle of this international manhunt. what's the latest on snowden right now? >> well, we can say a little bit more about that bolivian angle. the presidential plane obviously landed early this morning back in bolivia and, i tell you, president morales lost no time in blaming the united states for the whole incident, saying it was not only an attack on him, but, "an open provocation to latin america." now south american nations are meeting later tonight to decide what steps to take but that's really unlikely to change washington's determination to get snowden back to the united states to face justice. as far as snowden goes, he is still believed to be in a secure hotel wing or hotel floor at the airport transit zone.

he's been there for going f ing2 days. probably trying to figure out how he will gret to where he wants to go without a travel document. the u.s. ambassador mcfaul said today that u.s.-russian negotiations were intense, that they're ongoing and that they are daily. obviously talking about snowden negotiate be snowden's return to the united states but handing over snowden to u.s. authorities still seems to be a very solid red line for the kremlin here, specifically vladimir putin. >> jim, you and i have been talking about this for better part of two weeks now. how is this story being hand there in moscow? it certainly brought a lot of interest to us here in the united states. >> i think it is being handled -- depending on who you speak to, there is a real 70%-30% split here. 70% of the people know what they see on state-run tv, 30% of the

people are more courageous, might say, more inquisitive and tend to have differing opinions than the kremlin opinion. there's been a tremendous amount of support amongst those 70% for snowden. then think he is a hero. they would love to see anybody stand up to america. the other 30% have a more nuanced opinion and understand that in this current world there are other -- there are just major issues and snowden is a minor -- plays a minor role really. in the bigger question of relations between the united states and russia. we are talking about ampls control, we're talking about missile defense, all these issues are much more important than this. and putin certainly doesn't want to see those issues go awry because of edward snowden. back to you. >> for now, all eyes on terminals d, e and f. jim maceda, thank you so much. south korea's offering an

olive branch to its neighbor to the north. seoul proposing restarting talks with pyongyang over a jointly run factory park that sits just six miles north of the demilitarized zone. north korea shuddered the building in protest earlier after south korea held military exercises with the united states. pyongyang hasn't responded to the offer of fresh talks. "i'm part of an american success story,"

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"with safe, experienced drivers." "we work directly with manufacturers," "eliminating costly markups," "and buy directly from local farmers in every region of the country." "when you see our low prices, remember the wheels turning behind the scenes, delivering for millions of americans, everyday. "dedication: that's the real walmart" the obama administration is taking plenty of flack from republicans after it announced that the affordable care act's employer mandate will be delayed by a year until january 1st, 2015. the white house says the move is a common sense step to ensure larger businesses will to have time to comply with that provision. republicans cite it as a sign the law is fundamental lly flaw. bob franken, first to you.

is this just what it is in terms of giving a break to those businesses that need the time to implement the policy in the affordable care act or is this one of several dominos to start falling? >> we'll see if it is going to be more dominos. the indications, you have to include here the claim that was made when the package was being sold that all of these parts relied on the other, that this was very tightly woven. so the question has to be now that they have delayed the employer mandate, is this going to mean that some of the dominos are going to fall. good question. >> nick, react to that. also reaction this o this. from the house subcommittee chairman bob goodlatte. >> i think it is good they are delaying the train wreck but i think this bill needs to be repealed. if the employer mandate is being delayed, the individual mandate which i felt before, and i still feel, notwithstanding the

supreme court decision, is unconstitutional. it also should be delayed. >> it's not just republicans saying this. ezra klein wrote this in the "washington post," "it is a bad bit of policy. the mandate gives employers a reason to have fewer full time workers." what's your thought? is it bad policy? >> i agree with bob we are waiting to see if this is a singular domino or if it starts a cascade. i think there is every reason to believe that it is the beginning of a much longer cascade of problems because the obama care exchanges that are supposed to be online and ready for business on october 1st, that is the heart of the plan of bringing in people who can't get insurance either through their employers or other factors. that is way behind schedule in most cases. nobody i think who is close to the program, the computer program that is going to give real-time information an verify people's income just is not up to snuff and there's no reason to believe that's going to be ready to roll out on time. i think the other thing is that

what this also is doing is it is really pummelling obama's second term. he's already very unpopular. he's being shown as a weak and ineffective leader but this -- the idea that the executive branch can just unilaterally say, we're not going to actually implement these reporting requirements and we're not going to do the finds. there's a real question here of whether or not the executive branch even has the right to do that. that's something that's haunted the obama administration since he took office. why does the executive get to put us -- get us -- to put us at war? why does the executive get to call shots that typically are supposed to go through legislative channels? so i think this opens up a much broader discussion than even simply obama care. >> one point, nick, you and i have talked about this before. there's been a lot of accusation that the obama administration is, in effect, taking things over. many of the congressional functions. but the other side of that is that congress is pretty much

forfeited. if you want to go somewhere to take a nap, and legislator and go to kong because nothing happens there. so the argument would be from the obama point of view that they need to do this because otherwise the country can't be governed. >> bob, stay on this. some have called in a nod to big business who have said we need more time to implement this. when you look at other interest groups that might line up after seeing how the obama administration says, okay, we will give you another year, big business. might other groups start targeting other parts of the bill and the administration giving in? >> the biggest interest group is the republican party. of course they are doing everything they can to discredit things even to the point of telling the major leaguers, the nfl and other major league organizations that they better not get involved in this because this is a political debate. i think that something that has to be pointed out is it is the law of the land and has been since 2010. >> by the same token, the idea that the obama administration --

or the federal government now is going to start using private businesses or private entities to sell the plan that is the law of the land is a little bit difficult to take. fact is that it is one thing to make something the law of the land. it is another thing to make the nfl or major league baseball actually carry your water and try to push it on to people. that shouldn't be happening. there's a real tension over the way that obama care was passed in two ways. first was that it went through without any bipartisan support. can you say, well, that's because the republicans didn't want to play ball but that's always what the opposition party is supposed to do. there's supposed to be some sort of compromise. otherwise you don't do transform taf legislation. other thing is, it was clearly passed without people reading the bill. nancy pelosi as speaker of the house famously said we've got to pass the bill to find out what's in it. we're finding out what's in it is not nearly as workable or even kind of coherent as was initially sold.

i think that this is a legitimate -- i'm not a republican and i think it is a legitimate reason for people to take a deep breath and say we really need to rethink a lot of things that are implicit an explicit in obama care. >> another question that we can't get to necessarily is with this one year time span, with this window here, whether it will give businesses more money to spend, perhaps more jobs, this might free up some of the focus that they've been complaining about based on this mandate. we'll talk about this again soon. coming up -- deja vu all over again. pr president obama faced with another changing of the guard in e egypt prmts a gipt. and delivering to our nation's hero. someone has sent nearly 1 million slices of pizza to american troops abroad.

morsi or no morsi as the

biggest country in the region and as the second largest recipient of u.s. foreign aid, egypt remaining a strategic concern for the united states. the white house has a lot at stake when it comes to what's next for egypt. joining me now, nbc news white house correspondent peter za alexander. egyptians tagging the united states with being on the wrong side of history again. they did that after hosni mubarak. how has the white house responded to this latest round of criticism? >> reporter: the white house has been largely muted in its entire response to this. we finally did hear from them late yesterday as events continued to evolve. one of the criticisms that we've heard on the ground from protesters in egypt, richard, has been that the u.s., among other things, overlooked the crackdown by the morsi government if that government would continue the peace treaty with israel in that country which had had been a great frustration for a lot of people there. the white house made it very clear that they did not like the way the military was suspending

the constitution and pushing out mohamed morsi. but more significantly what they did, is they tried to pressure the military going forward to make sure that they used restraint, that there wasn't a crackdown now on the muslim brotherhood, and more significantly, that they would expedite the process of a democratic election taking place for a new government to be put into place. >> as you look back here, peter, covering the white house here, one of the questions is, did the united states make enough -- did it put on enough pressure to the morsi government to govern democratically, this after taking power just one year ago. >> i think that's the very point they were making. one of the things also notable in the statement put out by the white house is they don't use the word "coup" here. as the white house now tries to look forward, if they use the word "coup," that brings into question what a lot of critics have said, the $1.6 billion in aid the u.s. gives egypt each year should have been used as a lever to try to pressure the

morsi regime, though it wasn't. the question now is, if you use the word coup there, the u.s. has to cut out that money all together. essentially the message to the military is, you know what? we're reviewing that aid right now and we could cut it all together. >> as you and i know, words do matter and they are watching that carefully. nbc's peter alexander, thank you so much. the north carolina senate gave final approval to a bill last night seeking to limit the number of abortion clinics in the state. as ohio and texas have recently passed laws seeking to place restrictions on abortion. last night -- >> when i look at what the leadership and general assembly is doing under a sneak attack, they put forward -- they forced a sweeping antiwomen's health care bill with no public notice, no transparency and that doesn't pass a public scrutiny test in north carolina. those are not the values that we

hold. >> joining me now to discuss this is republican strategist joe watkins and msnbc contributor goldie taylor. goldie, what do you make of north carolina? you heard kate hagan there and her response to the developments in that state. even with public notice, which she's taking note of, would it have made a difference? doesn't seem to be working in texas, for instance. >> well, i don't know that it would have made a lot of difference in how the legislation was passed. but it may have made a difference in how certain members of the legislature might have been held accountable with their constituents back home. so in north carolina and in ohio, there was a bit after sneak attack. i think we can all agree that abortion should be rare and safe. what has happened is they've not only gone in and looked for in sort of ingenious ways to break what has been held up as a constitutional right, they've gone in and forbid hospitals from making these transfer agreements between the health care provider and the hospital.

that leaves them without a hospital back-up, without meaningful health care and it leaves them really without a clinic. and so i think going at it in this fashion may prove to be quite disastrous for some of these state houses as they begin to come to answer to some of these men and women and families back home in their districts. >> joe, we talk about the services that goldie is alluding to here. is this overstepping when there are these basic services that need to be funded, need to continue. >> well, nobody wants to trample on the rights of women, certainly nobody wants to go backwards in regards to the health care support network for women. everybody wants to make sure that women have health care that they need and deserve. but i suppose the big challenge going forward in this battle, this abortion battle, is the humanity issue. it is not so much a democrat-republican thing, it is not men against women, not conservatives against liberals, it is how do you help people to understand what's best for other

human beings? for instance, women say that obviously they have a right to do with their body what they wish to do. and they do. at the same time, i wish every woman, whether pro choice or pro life, would say their baby, born or unborn, has rights, too. how do we come together and appeal to the bet ter angles of human beings to do the right thing by kids that aren't yet born. if the issue is framed in a way that's not so obviously confrontational and small -- >> how do you do that, joe? it certainly comes down on both sides. >> seth williams, the d.a. in philadelphia, did a great job of prosecuting a case everybody thought was just awful where an abortion doctor apparently killed a couple of kids who survived the abortion procedure. nobody in the pro choice came to the defense of this doctor. nobody stood outside and said he's being unfairly prosecuted. everybody was just appalled by what happened and saddened by what happened. and so it was a time when seth

williams as the d.a. of philadelphia was able to bring people together on both sides of the issue and say this is just wrong and doesn't need to happen again. >> goldie? >> what that doctor did in philadelphia was atrocious, but it was already illegal. so he was a criminal. i say without reservation he was a murderer. but in some these instances like in north carolina and ohio, they are setting back -- and in texas, they are setting back the clock to actual conception. rather than the viability of a child. so i think therein lies an issue. i think it is a privacy issue. this should be between a woman and her doctor. and no one else. i think that these transvaginal probes they are forcing upon women in making a mandate in some states or attempting to do that in some states -- if it is not medically necessary for me to have this probe, who is it for my state government or for my federal government to tell me that i must have one? and then not to pay for it and not to pay for it on top of that. >> goldie, you are bright and

well informed about a lot of things. not everybody is. not everybody that's about to have the procedure is bright and well informed. people deserve to be informed about what it means and about the implications what have they may be getting ready to do. >> i think if you want to offer to her as an option and that she be educated about what it provides, sure. but to mandate it to force her to have a medically unnecessary course of care? i think is big government and that's exactly what you preach against, joe. >> i want to end on this. north carolina, we just were discussing that at the top of our segment here, 12 states currently ban abortion at 20 weeks. we're seeing that being really the fulcrum point in this debate across the country. which side has momentum? >> i think that right now with the control that we see over the state houses, that there is some quick gaining momentum on the pro-life side of this. i think, however, pro-choice folks are gathering steam. they are mounting protests at

their state houses. they are getting on the phone. they are writing letters. they're doing what they have to do to protect the privacy of women and their access to meaningful health care. >> even for pro-choice women, there is a limit and for many of my friends who are pro-choice, they tell me, late-term abortions are something that had they really have a problem with. the 20-week legislative agenda is gaining steam. i think there is a good chance that a number of these states are going to be successful. >> we have a lot of opportunities to discuss this no doubt in the coming years. joe watkins, goldie taylor, you both have a good fourth. thanks for spending some time with us today. we'll have more after the break. stick with us. [ male announcer] your kids make great things. so give them a tasty, wholesome snack that has eight grams of whole grain... and is now made with real strawberries and bananas. honey maid teddy grahams. two new flavors now made with real fruit.

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structures. fire is now 45% contained. miguel almaguer is live in prescott, arizona. your bulletin says fire is laying down. there is still a big concern about winds. what's happening now? >> reporter: thomas, the winds kick up usually around this time of afternoon. it certainly is a big concern for firefighters there. they are told not to put their guard down on the front lines. but the good news is we aren't seeing those towering flames. that's when thee fires are whipped by wind and they explode in size as it did last sunday. today the fire that's burn something lel tifl low to the ground. that's good news for firefighters working on those containment lines. this blaze is roughly 45% contained but crews are basically essentially connecting fire breaks around this blaze. when they do that, they'll have it completely encompassed. they hope to have the fire fully contained by next week. they are certainly making a lot of progress on the ground. >> thank you.

appreciate it. turning to a fourth of july tradition, the results are in from the nathan's hot dog eating competition at coney island. did the reigning champ joey c t chestnut do it again? we shall see right after the break. it's simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. celebrex can be taken with or without food. and it's not a narcotic. you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen and meloxicam have the same cardiovascular warning.

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we can now announce that, yes, joey jaws chestnut defending his title at the famous 4th of july annual hot dog eating contest. divert your eyes. it gets a little bit interesting. he broke the record. 69 franks winning a seventh straight contest. 69 of those. how does he do it. earlier, the black widow, sonia thomas, she won the woman's title. she took down 36. she's not feeling so well. 3/4 of a hot dog is what i wanted to say in addition to that other number with buns.

10 minutes. i guess i'd be sprinting, too. i would be like i can't believe how much food i have just eaten. americans aren't just celebrating the 4th here with hot dogs. they're honoring around the world. one nonprofit group is working overtime today to let u.s. troops stationed abroad know how much their service is being appreciated by providing them with a special pizza party. it's no easy task. joining us now is the founder of pizzas for patriots, mark evans in blue. here is one of the soldiers who knows pizzas for patriots, tom polawinsky. mark, this is great stuff. sergeant mark i should tell you. >> yes. >> what do you do? you have a million slices so far abroad. >> yes, sir, we do. speaking of world records. those guys eating hot dogs, we set the guinness book of world records the last 4th of july. >> there you go. getting a million slices abroad.

>> the miracle is dhl. they've delivered every pizza for us. when we e-mailed them, we said we'd like to do this. i received permission from general david petraeus. my son and i e-mailed him. he said only a master sergeant can do it. now it's the highest priority to get them pizzas on the 4th of july and the super bowl. there's so much tension. these kids, two years ago they were in high school. the average age is 20 years old. to get them spates out in the fob and bases. my friend i worked here with, tom, he had the pizza. >> captain, talk about that. you have worked together before in chicago at an air force base, right? >> yes, sir. >> and later when you were stationed in afghanistan, you then got some pizzas from sergeant mark. what did that mean to you? >> it was an amazing experience. you're miles from home, cold, tired, hungry. out of nowhere you have familiar pizza. memories of home come rushing

back. there's pits back home that went on our website and donated pizza. >> what kind of pizza did you get? straight cheese? >> no, i definitely do. it was sausage. everybody was fighting over it. as soon as i grabbed it, everyone was like, i want some, too. >> how many pies did you get? >> we got 30,000 altogether throughout afghanistan. my particular unit got about maybe 3 oof. >> sergeant mark, how do you -- dhl is helping you? are they made here fresh? >> yes. we were delivering every type of pizza, even new york. all kinds of chicago pizza. and then i was at a pizza convention in las vegas and i was eating the best pizza in the world, chef's pizza. i have to have this for my guys. they all knew who i was, the vendors. we built our own pizza. we have gaglian crust, rich's crust, delgrosso tomato sauce. sausage. we got the best products. we call it the pizza coalition.

>> making meal hungry. >> yes, sir. oh, my gosh. you're not kidding. i worked for at&t. when this worked, i called randall stephenson. he said, you know what, let's do this. >> we see the deliveries. this is no normal delivery. are there ovens or warmers? >> they get par baked. there's no preservatives. this has to be eaten within a couple of weeks. par bake it, 1,000 degrees, it gets cryo frozen. all you have to do is heat it and brown it. they throw it on the hood of a humvee, around a rock. it's 130 degrees there. it's so hot. we air drop it to them out of airplanes. we do take it out to the military on their helicopters. they had me go last year. one of the generals said, i'm taking it out to my guys, mark. wow, sir, that's so awesome. we're making hot pizzas, they were so excited. general horst, general petraeus.

this is so great for the everyday person. i can get a pizza in the desert for $10. gosh are we blessed. >> sergeant mark, pizza for patriots. great work you're doing. i can't thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> we have a tradition. >> the interviewer does pushups for us. >> give us 100. >> we'll do that off. >> that's from afghanistan and a pizza for patriot shirt. i will wear this proudly. we'll also have a slice of pizza. >> yes, sir. let's do that. >> here's one for you, for our troops on july 4th. >> captain. this is familiar pizza from new york. >> cheers. >> cheers to you. here's to our soldiers. god bless you. be safe. >> we'll be right back. no eating contest here. in the heart of peach country. it's a fresh-over. we want you to eat some peaches and tell us what you think. they're really juicy. it must have just come from the farm.

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it is 2:00 p.m. on the east coast. i'm richard lu. you're watching msnbc. egypt swears in a new president. >> will the prosecution rest? >> and on america's birthday, a reminder how the union survived. a look at the battle of gettysburg 150 years later. we start this hour with the zimmerman trial which is in recess for the july 4th holiday. so far jurors have heard eight days of testimony, and when court resumes tomorrow there are hints the prosecution could wrap up its case. yesterday prosecutors focusing on demonstrating george zimmerman's knowledge of criminal justice by calling two of his former college professors to the stand. jurors also heard testimony from a dna analyst and a firearms expert. we've been reporting george zimmerman is charged with second degree murder in the death of trayvon martin. he has pleaded not guilty.