raised serious questions regarding the fate of future whistle blowers. this morning saw the beginning of the sentencing phase of the trial which could take weeks. in making her ruling army judge denise lincoln clued that manning was not a whistle-blower but stopped short of calling him a traitor. in effect, lynn determined that even though manning had not intentionally aided the enemy, he knew his leaks could have fallen into the wrong hands and was therefore, negligent. reaction to the verdict was mixed. "usa today" praised the decision. bradley manning is criminal but not a traitor. a military judge made that distinction. "the new york times" took issue with the decision and the ever increasing national security state. private manning faces the equivalent of life sentences on the espionage count. the government should satisfy itself with a more moderate sentence and then do something about its addiction to secrecy. and wikileaks founder julian assange denounced the verdict

and talked about the repercussions. it is serious and it will mean the end of national security in general in the united states. >> assange was joined in his concerns by glenn greenwald who cautioned the decision would put the brakes on investigative journalism. >> this is how investigative journalism works is that people inside the government with a conscience come forward when they find out things that their government is doing and they're wrong and they disclose it to the world throughout media outlets and journalism. if you think that's criminal, you're essentially calling for the end of investigative journalism. >> manning still faces the maximum of 136 years behind bars, a precedent that will undoubtedly make nsa leaker edward snowden think twice before coming back to the u.s. voluntarily. while the ruling on aiding the enemy may have established the precedent, it still marked the first conviction of a whistle-blower under the espionage act. as for official reaction to the verdict, the white house and the state department both had no

comment. joining me today, author and radio host of "studio 360", curt anderson whose latest book, true believers, is out in paper back this month. vice president, heather mcghee. president emeritus of the center for constitutional rights and attorney for wikileaks and julian a saj, mike cat ratner and washington bureau chief of mother jones, david korn. joining us from massachusetts is former assistant secretary of state, p.j. crowley. i go to you first on this, your reaction to the verdict yesterday. >> i thought the judge got it just about right. this was an unprecedented leak. you have 700,000 documents, intelligence reports from active war zones, diplomatic cables that reveal confidential conversations between u.s. diplomats and presidents, prime ministers, kings, and the net effect of what bradley manning did was to put real lives and real careers at risk. now obviously we're in the

sentencing phase. we'll find out what the appropriate punishment should be, but obviously bradley manning did significant harm to the national interest and should spend a considerable amount of time in jail. >> you know, michael, i would turn to you for your assessment of the ruling. i would imagine that it is a different assessment. i will say the they point out that manning was guilty of espionage rather than treason. under the ruling he can go to jail for the rest of his life. >> p.j. crowley just said something about harm. in fact, no evidence of harm came out in the trial. even some agencies of the united states have said there's been no indication that there was any serious harm to the united states. so let's get rid of that. but my position here is we have coming out of a major truth teller, 20,000 extra civilians killed in iraq, torture centers run under jurisdiction of general petraeus. the video that showed the reuters journalists were being

killed. we have a truth teller bringing all of that out and rather than prosecute the criminals involved in those situations and an illegal war, what they're doing now is asking for the scalp of a truth teller and whistle-blower. >> let me ask you, do you think he should not face any sort of jail time at all? >> he shouldn't have been charged at all, not at all. we shouldn't be prosecuting truth tellers and whistle blowers. in fact, whistle blowing under even our own -- in our own country's laws as well as others is considered a form of political speech and can be protected by political asylum. there is a complete defense for whistle blowers to criminality. think about it. the people who expose the milan massac massacre, should they have been prosecuted. auschwitz, should that person have been prosecuted? >> david, i'd love to get your thoughts on this. the debate over whether or not lives have been harmed is still very a raging debate.

a lot of people would argue the other side of that. >> one thing that bradley manning did was he didn't leak documents on a given one of these things, you know, that michael just went through was a major dump that had what some people depending where they sit, good leaks and bad leaks. to me, it's very troubling that he would be prosecuted under the espionage act even though he was let off on the aiding and abetting the enemy, which i thought was ridiculous, is this really espionage. if you look at the washington post, they have a great chart this morning, 20 odd different counts. michael i'm sure is familiar with all of them. only a few espionage. there were others about leaking classified information, violating regulations, things that don't have i think wouldn't set the terrible precedent. having been in washington working with sources for the last year or two, all of this stuff is really having a chilling effect. you can talk to any national security person. they will tell you that. it's not the end of

investigative journalism. glen is wrong about that. >> a chilling effect. >> using the espionage act is going too far. >> p.j., let me ask you about that because you had expressed this may that the u.s. government was pursuing the charge of aiding the enemy with the espionage act. what do you make of this. i'll repeated read an excerpt from "the new york times" where alex gibney, the director of we steal secrets, makes this point. he says, manning was a naive idealist. he was not a spy. he didn't get any money for this. he didn't go to a foreign government. remember, he did plead guilty to actually leaking to wikileaks, but he wouldn't plead guilty to being a spy because he didn't think he was -- he didn't think he was one and i don't either. i think a lot of people may take issue with manning's behavior, but the notion that he is a spy, what do you make of that? >> well, i mean, i wish we would update the law and call it something different. obviously bradley manning was tried within the military justice system and the military

justice system is about maintaining good order and discipline. bradley manning violated his oath of office. he was sent to iraq to defend the national interests, not to define the national interests. the first cable that bradley manning sent to julian assange involved something called ice save. it was a dispute among great britain, netherlands and iceland. bradley manning from his foxhole in iraq decided that the secretary of treasury had it wrong in u.s. policy regarding this issue and was wrong. i don't know what qualifies bradley manning to make that judgment. i'm not aware that he has a significant international financial background. to michael's point, i want to make this absolutely clear. you know, real lives were put at risk. there are people who are cited in the cables, julian assange was very cavalier in not wanting to have any redactions of any activists, any government official, anyone who talked to a u.s. diplomat anywhere. i can tell you and vouch for the

fact that real harm to real people was done because of what bradley manning did. >> i just can't let that go. julian assange redacted many of the documents. he then asked the state department when you were still there if they would help redact the documents. they sent him back a letter saying, basically we want the documents back. we won't help you redact the documents. >> julian assange is on record saying he thought no redactions should be done. it was his team that set up an imperfect process. we in the state department were communicating through the mainstream media to try to get the -- get wikileaks to redact this and ultimately wikileaks just, you know, threw all of this stuff out in the open and that has put real people at risk. >> the other -- there are multiple things that are actually on trial here. one of them is actually -- this has been a concern in strategy from the beginning. wikileaks in fact is on trial. is wikileaks a real journalistic

organization. it's at the root of all of this. harvard professor yomakes this statement. no one thought wikileaks would have the gravitas of the time. it's closer to say provulita than the "huffington post." >> the obama administration and the prosecution in the bradley manning case have been trying to bring journalists closer to their sources and trying to indict them in the same way that they're indicting their sources. we saw that with james rosen at fox news when they got a subpoena based on the fact that they claimed that he was a co-con spiritor in espionage.

the opinion said he was part of the crime of the leaking. the crime couldn't have been committed without him. and we see it with julian assange and wikileaks. they're trying to say that the publisher, the journalist is actually part of the crime -- the alleged crime with the leaker, and that's the real danger here. it's an incredible danger. they're trying to differentiate wikileaks from "the new york times" and they're having a lot of trouble doing it because they can't. >> the lines are being drawn and the line in this case, i agree with p.j., was drawn more or less properly. it's fine to be a person of conscience and decide this is a whistle that needs blowing, but when you have 5 million people with national security clearance and you have 2 million people in the u.s. military with access as bradley manning did to these kinds of materials, fine. be a personal conscience but don't expect that there is no risk and no consequence possibly to what you're doing. >> and that's effectively the position of "usa today." the question isn't whether

snowden or manning are heroes or criminals. they should not expect a free pass. law breaking is sometimes necessary in a democracy. those who committed simple disobedience or other causes would tell you, it always comes at a price. >> there's a measure, too, of what goes on on the government side as well and how you react to that. going after james rosen and fox news and i think mischaracterizing wikileaks here because they're trying to keep the press even more upset about these sort of prosecutions and calling this espionage, not violating your oath, all of these things put together create an over reaction which i think overall is bad for the free flow of information in this society where we're learning probably has too many secrets that are not justified already. >> absolutely. absolutely has too many secrets. the fact is we're at war for a decade, plus, right? we have simply not in this country because there has been so much political polarization had the debate about things done

in our name, the expansion of our defense budget, expansion of national security state and the changes in our privacy expectations that you would have expected, i think, in a less politically polarized environment. frankly, i think this has been good for the fact that the nsa is saying, okay, we are going to declassify some of the things that absolutely should not have been classified. as long as we're still spending 20 minutes having a conversation about this, i think we are better off than we had been before these leaks. >> the other thing, michael, is in some ways wikileaks has been a convenient foil for the u.s. government in all of this. the prosecutors said they would have pursued the same case had manning leaked to the "new york times." as far as we know, bradley manning said he tried to leak to the "new york times" and washington post before he gave it to wikileaks. >> he didn't come to mother jones. >> unfortunately not. if he had come to mother jones, if he had gone to the "new york times," this case would have been far less i think cut and dry for a lot of americans insofar as wikileaks is a new journalistic organization. some people don't call it a

journalistic organization, but the fact that it is still in a gray area has been convenient for the government in making the case that somehow this can be -- >> let me tell you, "the new york times" would not have published what wikileaks did nor would the washington post. they run to the white house and they waited a year before they published that we were being warrantlessly wire tapped. there's a risk in going to them. one last point that i can make on the fact of whether the whistle blowers expect. they don't necessarily expect a free pass, but i can tell you as a lawyer sitting here who's done nothing but litigate to get the bush team prosecuted, try to close guantanamo, try to get any kind of accountability and secrecy revealed about what the criminality of this government is, that i welcome wikileaks and bradley manning because it's the only method we have right now to get our secrets of criminality of our government and my view is those people should not be prosecuted. let's start by going after the bush torture team and not by

going after bradley manning. >> p.j. before we let you go, your thoughts in terms of the chilling effect or lack thereof that this may have on investigative journalism, forcing, whistle blowers, leakers? >> i think this is a short-term phase. i think it's very important for the media to report on and keep government held to account and i do think that over time, you know, those who have established a relationship of trust between government officials and journalists, including some of my favorite korn, these conversations will continue. i have to make sure i push back on michael ratner. i don't think this would have changed if it had been "the new york times" versus wikileaks. i note that bill keller, the former editor of "the new york times", has not considered wikileaks a journalist organization, rather an activist organization. nobody has prosecuted julian assange for this aspect. he's got his own personal legal issues which have nothing to do with, you know, bradley manning, but ultimately i think that it's

very important investigative journalism will continue but the government is -- has a -- >> i have to tell you -- >> to make sure that we prosecute those who have a security clearance, who are charged with protecting classified information and fail in that duty. >> i have to say quickly that the overreaction from the obama administration justice department to the series of cases is making it tougher and the idea that you can get e-mails from reporters, you can make reporters testify, all these other means, it's really having some sources thinking twice. maybe down the road that will fade, but it's real. it's quite real. >> you know, p.j., let me ask you a question. do you think the u.s. government would have pursued an aiding th time times"? >> they never should have

charged bradley manning with aiding the enemy. he pled guilty to charges that would have carried a 20 year sentence. i think that would have been more than enough to send a stern message to those in the ranks if you violate your oath, there will be consequences. >> former assistant secretary of state p.j. crowley. thank you. thank you to michael ratner, u.s. attorney for wikileaks and president for the center for constitutional rights. thanks for your time. after the breaks we will discuss leaks and the manning effect next on "now." hmm...fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. yep, everybody knows that. well, did you know some owls aren't that wise? don't forget i'm having brunch with meghan tomorrow. who? meghan, my coworker.

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i think that these programs

protect our country and have saved lives, but i do think there is a critical problem at the center of this debate and that's the lack of transparency around these programs. >> small collection program is massive privacy implications. the phone records of all of us in this room, all of us in this room reside in an nsa database. >> we have a lot of good information out there that helps the american public understand these programs, but it all came out late. it all came out in response to a leaker. call it the snowden effect. nsa and doj officials testified at a hearing this morning on capitol hill about privacy rights. as senators called for more transparency regarding government surveillance programs. joining us now is the senior fellow at the center on budget and policy priorities and an msnbc contributor, jared bernstein. jared, thank you for joining us. as always, it's great to have you. as a former government official and someone who has worked

closely with the vice president, i wonder what you make of the effect of these various cases, whether bradley manning or edward snowden. there is a question as to whether the administration is actually effectively responding and/or whether it's come a little bit too late. >> i think it's come too late. i was kind of moved by what i just heard senator sheldon whitehouse say. yes, this information is coming out but it's coming out because there was a leak. i remember right after the snowden leak you heard a lot of politicians, including administration officials saying this is the debate we want to have. >> right. >> no, no, no. this is not the debate. >> no. no. >> they left the word not out of that sentence. >> but, in fact, it is precisely the debate we need to have. i think what has to happen is that they have to have a lot more faith in the american people to actually have this conversation with us. it doesn't mean that there's a monolithic us, everybody will feel the same about it. some of the people on this panel will disagree, but to kind of spring this on you coming out of

leakers just feeds into this idea that government is the other and it's -- you know, it's a dysfunctional force. i think it's damaging. >> also the magnitude. 92 million -- wow, there goes your mic. 92 million classified records. we're talking about an actual security state where 1.2 million people i think have classified access. we're talking about government contractors like edward snowden who did not actually work for the u.s. government who have access -- >> who were vetted by government contractors. >> we now have news about exkey score which reportedly allows nsa analysts, like edward snowden, to search through vast databases without an authorization. the question is, curt, so now we are getting word that we're going to hear more about the fisa court rulings from the past. there will be more transparency

over the court. there are pending lawsuits filed by the aclu. can the lawsuits keep up with the technology? >> that is the question. i think the snowden effect is interesting. edward snowden, whatever his ultimate disposition, has been -- has done good. and the fact that we are learning of the extent and sophistication, frankly -- >> x-keyscore which was revealed today is extraordinary and to have that out and to have people, citizens understand the degree to which these tools have leapt beyond what anybody dreamed is a good thing. it's unfortunate because as everyone is saying that it had to come as a result of an exposure. it makes it look bad from the

get-go. >> right. >> oh, we're keeping a secret. >> it is bad. >> well, i'm not sure that's true. it's almost inconceivable to say the government would say, by the way, here's what we're doing without being forced to do it. ron widen, the senator democrat from oregon for the last two years has been saying -- he's on the intelligence committee. there's stuff going on, it's really, really bad, i can't tell you what it is. i want to have a debate. i want to have a debate. please let me have a debate, please, please, please. >> right. >> nobody else is willing to have this debate with him. >> we welcome it. >> declassifying information so it can be discussed with the public. now the pendulum is turning, swinging, so you have james sensenbrenner, the guy who wrote the patriot act, he said these things are supposed to sunset in 2015. we may not renew them. that shows a lot of things are happening. >> the debate is not cutting along party lines which is also a fantastic thing. >> that's what's so interesting

about the fact that this is now -- you were able to get nearly 100 republicans voting against it. and it's just, frankly, i think the fact that it's something the obama administration was hiding from the american public. so you're actually getting people breaking from their partisan lines i think for frankly cheap political reasons but at least it's allowing us to have more of a conversation and have people, you know, the sort of libertarian wing -- >> libertarians on each side joining together. >> exactly. let me also say there is a question of the sort of ideological debate. there is the money here. we talk about the things that we are ready to gut. many earned benefit programs. defense and the question of being strong on terror is still, i think, that's actually become the third rail in american politics. we want to have the debate over civil liberties. when it comes down to brass tacks, maybe we need to strip back funding for the utah data center or whatever these massive complexes are that we're funding. i'm not quite sure anybody is

ready to put their money where their mouth is so to speak budget tarlly. >> i think the issue on the funding has to do with a number of things that are exposed. someone mentioned earlier the amount of contractors and subcontractors here. >> that was me. >> that was you. excellent point. somebody from my past. that creates the illusion that the government is smaller, that it's doing less, spending less. that's not the case. we're not saving money by outsourcing this. in fact, what we're doing -- >> we're paying more to the contractors. >> we're paying more to the contractors. we're creating numerous arms length distance between the government and the people who have important information so there's that. then there's the fundamental point you made about spending priorities. we're about to have a big budget debate in this country. one side republicans are going to say we have to plus up defense and plus down everything

else. it feeds right into this in a way that i think is strongly against what the economy needs right now and strongly against what the people in it need. >> and maybe, yeah, what the american people want. we have to take a break but we do have some breaking news for you. we are learning that secretary of state john kerry has arrived in pakistan for an unannounced visit. while kerry has visited the country before, this is his first trip to pakistan as secretary of state. administration officials say the visit is intended to strengthen ties with pakistan's civilian government. it comes after kerry paid some extra attention to the middle east this week meeting with israeli and palestinian leaders yesterday to discuss peace negotiations. coming up, a new book says jesus was not the gentle shepherd portrayed in the writings. we will discuss faith, facts and the infamous fox interview just ahead. [ man ] look how beautiful it is.

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of curb your enthusiasm and crossed it with the entire version of the british office, you would be getting close to something roughly on par with this interview. religious scholar reza aslan and warren green over aslan's book on jesus. >> you're a muslim so why did you write a book about the founder of christianity. >> to be clear, i am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the new testament and fluency in biblical greek who has been studying the origins for two decades who happens to be a muslim. it's not that i'm some muslim writing about jesus. i am an expert with a ph.d. in the history of religions. >> it still begs the question, why would you be interested in the founder of christianity? >> because it's my job as an academic. i am a professor of religion, including the new testament.

that's what i do for a living actually. >> while it may be unfathomable to some that a muslim, even an academic muslim, would write a book about jesus, the american people seem to be slightly more tolerant. since the video went viral aslan's book sales have skyrocketed. on friday "zealot" was in the number eight spot, by sunday it had hit number one where it remains today. the book "zealot, the life and time of jesus of naz czar ret" has angered some. in the book aslam tells us he bears little resemblance of the gentle shepherd. joining us is associate poif reza aslan. he is the author. reza, we do not juice book sales on this show i will feel like i

have disappointed america. let's talk about the fox news interview. it's gotten obviously a huge amount of play and fox has revealed two biases, anti-muslim and also anti-fact. my question to you is how much do you think of this blow back or this indignation on the part of the fox team is because of the fact that you are muslim writing about christianity or that you are challenging basic assumptions that we have or the christian community has about jesus and the likes of jesus? >> well, look, i watch fox news. anybody who watches fox news knows that there is an inherent anti-muslim bias in their reporting and has been for quite some time. it's very successful for them. i don't blame them for it. they're a commercial enterprise. they know how to sell a product and frankly fear sells a product. i want to say one quick thing. look, i feel really bad for lauren green. you know this, alex. anybody on their show knows this that lauren was sitting there being yelled at by some producer in her ear trying her hardest --

>> i'm getting yelled at right now. go ahead. >> exactly. exactly. so -- i mean, also to be perfectly frank, what i liked about what's happened is this is not even about me anymore, that it's become this larger discussion in this country about media, journalism, politics, faith. as a writer, that's just great. i'm just a bystander at this point watching this conversation take place. >> but i do -- i do want be to talk about the book and what you prefer, which is that jesus -- i mean, people have taken this as a negative spin to some degree, but jesus was a man of political times and i will read from greg carry's post on the "huffington post." he says the most important thing aslan accomplishes is setting jesus in a plausible and historical cultural context. indeed, more of the book may involve his context than direct discussion of the guy. a would be king who finally got caught. this is a serious interpretation of jess sues's crews ucifixiocr.

jesus saw himself as israel's messiah or king. that's an idea worth discussing especially as we talk about world religions and what sort of motivates a religious fervor. >> absolutely. look, i understand that there are billions of christians in the world who believe that jesus was god incarnate but they also believe that jesus was a man. he m us have lived in a specific time and place. that time and place must have influenced who he was and so if you really want to know jesus, you have to know his world and that's really what this world is about. what kind of world did jesus live in and how did that world impact his teachings and his actions. frankly, what i am saying, at least in academic circles, has been said for 200 years. >> yes. >> it's just that i am kind of repeating this for a popular audience and perhaps that is what's really starting to anger some very conservative groups,

that the scholarly conversations are now being had by just people in coffee shops but for scholars, that's a dream come true. >> well, you know, kurt, i think this also exposes a fundamental fragility of a lot of christian ideology which is something andrew 1sullivan pointed out. >> i'm interested in this and also your thoughts reza, the conservative right wing view of jesus has often been that, no, he wasn't a wimpy passivispassi was a righteous man of the sword. >> the liberal lefty is the pacifist. so this kind of cuts oddly in this difficult way for the christian right, doesn't it? >> yes. well, i'm actually quite happy to get opposing forces against me, bring them all together. >> you certainly have done that, my friend. >> yeah, it's great. i mean, look, this is the thing, is that if we really want to

know who jesus was, we have to put his teachings in the context of his time and his entire ministry was founded upon the reversal of the social order. we all remember the good parts of the attitudes, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. blessed are the hungry for they shall be fed. the other part is woe today fed because they will be made hungry. woe to the powerful because they will be brought down. that is a threatening view. in first century palestine and in 21st century america. the idea that what jesus stood for was the notion of making the rich poor and the poor rich rubs a lot of people, particularly conservative christians, the wrong way. >> i think this also comes down to, heather, the question of tolerance, right? not the idea that -- not just simply the idea that perhaps certain religions have inteller rant strains but also the notion that a muslim scholar can write a book about christianity.

i don't mean to draw too many concentric circles here but i feel like tolerance is at the root of many of the political debates. whether it's about our president and the differences and bridging those or exploiting those. >> i think that fox has really made a brand out of blanket suspicion of muslim people. it wouldn't have been had those attacks of 9/11 and the bush administration not focused fox news on this identity, but the fact that this scholar couldn't come on and say, i've written a book about the christ without being seen suspiciously because of his faith means that we are not actually taking seriously the fact that we are a nation of religious plurality at this and that we should have people be able to engage in thoughtful dialogue and still be american, right? across religious lines and racial lines. >> you know what, professor, i'd like to ask you this question in

biblical greek since you and i both -- i thought kind of ripping off of what heather was saying. i actually thought that your take on fox news, the market incentives, was sort of more benign than my own. i'm interested to hear you say a little bit more about at that. i mean, i think that that kind of discrimination fullments an illness within our society that's damaging, both fill low sol philosophically and in terms of islands. i'd like to hear you say more about that. >> i hear you. i would say that actually i think that this illness is already existent in our society and fox news is making money out of it. and one of the things that's most satisfying about this is that i'm getting a lot of e-mails from conservatives, from fox news watchers who are saying that this has turned them away. in a sense this is kind of fox news's jump the shark moment, the moment in which they -- >> we'll see about that. >> rhetoric.

>> but it's also reza's brarer rabbit moment. >> wasn't it being thrown into this particular prior patch a great thing and presumably you were not surprised that it happened this way? >> i wasn't surprised that the attack came. i was surprised that it kept going and that's what really threw me off a bit. >> were you not prepared for this? were you surprised? >> our panel has a lot of questions about what happened in that moment. >> yeah. i want to know if he was surprised. >> we're trying to talk about the big ideological theme at the heart of the book. >> read the book and do that. >> please do read the book. reza, we have a couple of minutes left. i do want to say when we talk about fundamentalism and we're focusing on christian fundamentalism. you were christian at one point, you're muslim now. do you think that islam suffers from some of the same fundamentalist streaks that christianity does? we should be fair when we're

talking broadly about world religions here? >> of course. i wrote a book about the historical muhammad called "no god but god." and i got a lot of ugly e-mails from people abroad and in the united states. it's not christians who are attacking this book. i've had a lot of great christian response. it's the anti-muslim islamophobia. they have different ammunition. >> the book is "zealot, the life and times of jesus of nazareth." reza, you won't see a bump because you can't go beyond one after this but i'm sure there have been some book sales juiced. thank you for your time. >> thanks, guys. coming up, the jersey shore, lots of pork and deep seeded resentme resentment. if that sounds like a typical family reunion, you would be right. we'll talk about intraparty feuding and 2016 posturing after this. >> nice. ot.

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the tiff between chris christie and rand paul is escalating. now rand paul is escalating stern threats to chris christie about new jersey. we will talk party in fighting and jersey boys next. [ male announcer ] the biggest news in breakfast is actually tiny. new kellogg's raisin bran® with omega 3 from flax seeds. plus plump juicy raisins. flax seed? who are you? i still got it. [ male announcer ] invest in your heart health with kellogg's raisin bran® cereals.

congestion, for it's smog. but there are a lot of people that do ride the bus. and now that the busses are running on natural gas, they don't throw out as much pollution to the earth. so i feel good. i feel like i'm doing my part to help out the environment.

this strain of libertarianism that's going to both parties right now and making big headlines i think is a very dangerous thought. >> the people who want to criticize me and call names, they're precisely the same people who are unwilling to cut the spending and they're gimme, gimme, gimme all my spending money now. >> maybe he should start looking at cutting the pork barrel spending that he brings home to kentucky, but i doubt that he would because moels watchist wa

politicians care about bringing it home. >> this is the king of bacon talking about bacon. >> the king of bacon. the 2016 republican clown car has already started revving its engines. the spat is exposing deep divisions within the gop over national security and the size and scope of government. david korn, we've talked about this. 94 republicans, on the floor, they've voted on something that would have restricted funding, stripped funding for combatting terror. >> first i have to say that i'm not a big fan of rand paul but for the win, king of bacon. king of bacon, i think we're going to see that come back one way or the other. it has so many different meanings. and it shows, i think, rand paul actually i've talked to him, i think he has a mean streak. when things get really fiery, you'll see more of this. the important thing is the

republican party has no there at the top. who are the leaders of the republican party? john boehner? no leader. mitch mcconnell. where is mitch? you have all of these intramural fights on very important issues. pure obama care, immigration reform nsa surveillance. there is no teacher in the classroom. as we head to budget and maybe a debt ceiling showdown again, it will keep happening again and again. >> but, you know, the line gimme, gimme, gimme that sandy money i have got to take issue with. as an american, as a resident of new york city, as someone who saw the damage, 159 deaths, 65 billion in economic damage, the second costliest hurricane in u.s. history. to say -- to sort of use that language to sort of give the cursory -- to essentially make fun of a governor as he tries to put a state back together, i don't think that plays well for you on the national stage.

>> i think he was trying to do a couple of things, both of which failed. he was trying to say that new jersey is a big spender so, therefore, christie is not a good republican. to say it's the liberal new jersey elite wing of the party. but then also because he's being attacked on national security. if you read the rest of the quote, he actually then went and said the sandy money is crowding out the defense money. we can't lead our national defense things because of the sandy money. let us be very clear. our defense budget has doubled since 2001. we spend more than the next 13 countries combined. it's more than half of our discussion. >> and, jared, the rand paul budget would institute a flat tax, abolish the department of education, make food stamps, medicaid and nutrition assistance block grants and nothing would happen to defense. >> it's the ryan budget on steroids and scary. look, i actually think where that debate kind of started,

chris christie says things that make a lot of sense to me. before we get into an altercation, he felt it important when he talked about the libertarian wing. what i think he was saying was absent the kind of compromise and ability to work together every once in a while you see chris christie kind of rise above that. if he gets whacked by republicans in the face. >> if anybody is doing any whacking, i think it's the new jersey guy. >> i'm waiting for him to say, yeah, i'm fat, you're short. >> and so it goes. that's all for us. thank you to kurt, heather, david, jared. that is all for "now." i'll see you back here tomorrow at noon. women for women international and the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haas. until then you can follow us on twitter @now.

and andrea mitchell is celebrating her 35th anniversary with msnbc. congratulations, andrea. i'm meteorologist bill karins. your business travel is unfortunately a rainy, gloomy end of july for areas of the southeast. kind of fitting as much of the month you've been dealing with wet weather. 84 today. on and off showers in atlanta. some of that will sneak into the mid-atlantic. some storms from chicago to minneapolis. have a great day. [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare?

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o0 we've been able to clear away rthe rubble from the financialf the amcrisis.people, we started to lay a new foundation for stronger, more durable economic growth. but we're not there yet. what we need is not a 3-month plan or even a 3-year plan. we need a long-term american strategy: job security with good wages and durable industries. a good education. reducing poverty. reducing inequality. growing opportunity. i'm going to keep pushing to make high-quality preschool available for every four-year-old in america it's time for the minimum wage to go up. (cheers) but i won't be able to do it alone, so i'm going to be calling... on all of us to take up this cause. good jobs; a better bargain for the middle class... and the folks who are working to get into the middle class; an economy that grows from the middle-out. that's what we need. (cheers)

right now on "andrea mitchell reports", presidential pep rally on the hill. >> what's the message you're bringing to the hill today? >> jobs, middle class, growth. obama takes a trip down pennsylvania avenue to you night democrats before they go back home before the august break. republicans, meanwhile, have their own message. >> if i had poll numbers as low as his, i would probably be out doing the same thing as him. family feud spills over to the senate floor today after chris christie and rand paul squabble over spending. now it's mccain versus rand paul on foreign aid. >> isn't the question here is whether the senator from kentucky knows what's better for israel or israel knows what's better for israel?