cruising for a bruising. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. remember what president obama said about the republicans, about how their endless symbolic votes to kill obama care, now part of american law, by the way, don't constitute an economic plan? well, they didn't get the word. before congress left for a five-week vacation, they had one more piece of business to attend to. it wasn't creating jobs.

it was to kill the obama care. if you're keeping score, it's the 47th time to repeal, refund, or cripple the president's health care law, and like all others it is governed by tantrums, meaningless tantrums, roll calls, speeches. as they say in texas, it's all hat, no cattle. tea partiers led by ted cruz are making it a real threat to shut down the u.s. government if the plan is not killed. it's silly, dumb, unachievable and actually political suicide and the people saying those words are not democrats, it's the republicans in congress who are saying those things, and those criticisms are delicate compared to what's in today's "washington post." the columnist says cruz belongs to the loony bin.

croat, and this is krauthammer -- this is nuts. those who fancy themselves tea party patriots fighting a sold-outcocktail-swill i sold-outcocktail-swilling establish pt are demanding yet another cliff dive as a show of principle and manliness. but there's no principle at stake here. this is about tactic. if i thought this would work, i would support it. but i don't fancy suicide. it has a tendency to be fatal. as for manliless, the real question here is sanity. nothing could better revine the fortunes. michael gershwin says, quote, cruz views this as the last stand against obama care, a conservative alamo. instead it would be a little

bighorn. cruz threatens this could become a custer for our time, an actual shutdown of the government, the only realistic outcome of cruz's strategy, would work for conservative conservatives. so americans would need to side with a distrusted fax of a disdains institution which is pursuing a budgetary maneuver that even many republican lawmakers regard as aggressive, desperate, and drooomed. what people brought this to a head? what brother others out over the prairie to say we'd better be careful here, if cruz gets hold of the opposition, of the republican party, we may be in trouble. >> i think it was the shared overtlessness overtness. when you're trying to cast blame

on the other side, you should. be the one that says let's do it. i think that's what has convinced republicans to think let's do it. keep in mind you have to look at the actual implications and how this thing would work and the congressional research service did that and they concluded if you wanted to defund obama care, shutting it down wouldn't do it. it would be spending as if nothing was going on. people woke up and said, why exactly are we doing this? >> most times when you have a mission and cruz has got a brain, where is he headed? is he up to that rock and roll politics of newt gingrich which is insurgent politics if you will? is he trying to scare us with this? terrorize us? what's the plan? >> i think this is a fight between the oppositional wing of the party and everybody else whether it's john mccain in the

stat or charles crowdhammer. we kind of thought that this wing, the tea party radicalized wing of the republican party was certainly not an ascendance. they're saying, hey, this fight's not over yet and what does politics really abhor? a vacuum. >> let's go back to the numb beers here, sam. it looks like it floats around 50%, maybe a little less. congress is down around 8% in terms of public support. it's a curl mission, i forgot the math. it's overwhelming.

why would you do it if it's going to come down to that day when all of a sudden the average person can't go to the national monuments, national parks, can't get their checks on time or are threatened with getting them. now they say wait a minute, we only have one president, and as for congress, we don't want those guys running the show. >> two-fold. one in eight percent applies to the popularity rating. for ted cruz, rand paul, marco rubio -- >> do you think he's regarded? >> in texas, yeah. they don't take into consideration the long-term position of it. i think the bigger issue is the longer that this thing is in existence, the harder it is to repeal. a lost the benefits come in in 2014. it's a lot easier to repeal a

law in abstract than to say, hey, i'm going to take away the coverage. hey, i'm going reintroduce discrimination. i think a lot of people actually recognize this and are making that calculation as well. >> let's take a look. here's an example of what the republicans are aligned with. you think cruz is far out there. republican representative was confronted by an angered tea party representative. here's the back and forth. >> what i need from you is to know what you can do, you and your fellow noncommunist colleagues in the lower house, what you can do to top these comical tyrannical executive orders laid down by this foreborne economical communist.

what can you do for me? >> thank you for your question. he said it loud enough so you can all hear it. look. i can't emphasize the your sight part of my job enough and i think that that gets lost in what we do every day because that's exactly what we're doing. we're chasing down these orders, rules promulgated by backdoor legislation whether it's epa, irs. go down the list. >> you know, sam, we've been saying for weeks if not months, that the real lead over the republican party, no way is it john painer. the real leader is the loudest crazy person. that guy with the blond hair, that nut case was more powerful in that room than the member of

congress who cow tailed to him. if she said give john boehner time. >> by the way, "mother jones." >> i thought it was great to jump on that. but it gets to the question we've been talking about. ted cruz is not going to be worrying about them shutting down. he's reporting toward the republican base. >> the birthers. >> let me finish this one point. the pew study foundation came out with a study the other day asking republicans do you think the party is going in the right direction or not. most of them said no. so that's what he's doing. this is setting up 2016 and becoming the nominee or champion of the guy who asked that question. >> come on. i'd like to talk to you. coming up, they went wall to

wall with their coverage on ariel case troe. what a scene that was. why has man who has admitted his monstrous guilt allowed a big moment in the spot light? that that's a good question to think about. whites support it by exactly the same as the blacks support it. you'd seen them countering times in beer ads. now he's out there doing something interesting. he looks interesting. let me finish tonight with the job rate which is down, but not hard enough. this is your place for politics. "hard ball." e. [ doorbell rings ] [ lee ] let's have a look, morty. it's a sweeper. what's this? what's that? well we'll find out. we'll find out. [ lee ] it goes under all the way to the back wall. i came in under the assumption that it was clean.

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we're back. yesterday in a courtroom in cleveland, ohio, we saw two extremes. on one hand there was a composed

brave young woman, michelle knight. on the other hand we saw the monster himself, ariel castro ramble on for 16 minutes with half hearted apologies. even as he apologized to women he insisted on what went on in his house was normal. >> i would come home and be normal like a normal family. these accusations that i would come home and beat them, those are totally wrong, your honor, because like i said before, i am not a violent person. i know what i did is wrong but i'm not a violent person. i simply kept them there without them being able to leave. i am truly sorry to the dejesus family, michelle, and amanda. you guys know all the harmony that went on in the home. >> i don't think his lawyers

like him either. as they told him, the prisoner there, there isn't another person in the entire country who would agree with his description of being nonviolent. what was it like for michelle knight, the victim and families of the other victims to listen to their torturer speak like that. one who knows that all too well. he was in court. his daughter was murdered. here we see how class reacted. let's watch. >> rot in hell, davis. >> why do monsters like davis and ariel castro get to taunt their victims? why do we not object the lawyers to any part of the 16 self-important screens. mark klass joins us along with

defense attorney sma ire. >> what did you think as you watched on television as kaz stroe, the kidnapper, rapist, murderer, walked in there and spoke like he was jeremiah like he had a message for everybody. >> it was absolutely offensive. i fizz ericly started shaking because it took me back to that time 17 years ago when i sat in the courtroom and had to listen to another extreme pervert excuse and justify his vile crimes. >> let me bring in seema. i noticed the victim, she was very careful, she addressed the court, spoke to the judge, read that statement. but the defendant here, was able to turn around 360 degrees and basically enjoy the confrontation with his victim.

>> chris, a psychopath and a sociopath and someone narcissistic, of course, he wants this attention, and unfortunately our law recognizes that. there are certainly critical stages in the process and this is what case law and the statute tells us. this sentencing is one of those critical stages. he has the right to speak and he has to right to speak as long or as little as he wants. the difference between mr. castro and ms. knight is miss knight was well prepared by the prosecutors and her lawyers. >> let's watch mr. ariel -- i don't have to call him that anymore. he winks and talks about the sex with the three victims that it was consensual. that they asked for it. it's that gross.

let's watch it. >> most of the sex that went on in the house, probably all of it was consensual. these allegations about being forceful on them, that is totally wrong. there were times they asked me for sex, many times. and i learned these girls were not virgins from their testimony to me. they had multiple partners before me. >> mark klass, i guess that resounded to you. they asked for it, as if tied up or chained in basement for a decade, getting only your food from this guy, the only food you got, scared to death he's going to come down and beat you or rape you again or kill your kid or whatever or drive you to a miscarriage, whatever he's going to do next to you, that's called nonviolent by his terms and that's called asking for it. >> the only good of allowing him to give this testimony is it

gave us a window into exactly what his soul is like. he talked about what a harmonious situation it was in the house. for him, a harmonious situation is one where he imprisons, tortures, rapes, beats multiple victims. that shows you how horrible a creature hi is. >> i agree completely with mr. klass. chris, you're trying to talk about him like you can connect with him. you cannot connect with him. he is a social path. that is not my opinion. that is a clinical fact of almost 20 years of dealing with people like mr. castro. so you cannot try to explain why he did what he did. in his mind that was harmonious, it was a home. for us, that was evil.

we had the ability to see and look into it through his eye. hopefully we never see that again. >> here's michelle knight talking about what it was like being in captivity. >> ariel castro, i remember you coming home and talked about what everybody else is zoing wrong and acted like you didn't do the same thing. you said, at least i didn't kill you. you took 11 years of my life away, and i have got it back. i spent 11 years in hell. now your hell is just beginning. >> mark klass, you've been helping her out. tell me about that relationship. >> sure. about six months ago the klass kids foundation start add new fund called the klass kids housing fund. it was started by tracy mclaughlin who wanted to do

something in her field to help families of missing persons. we came up with this idea of funding the new fund to pay families of missing persons so they wouldn't slip into financial ruin while looking for their children. but then all of this happened in cleveland and it turned out michelle was one of the three young women who didn't have a family to go back to. so we made a decision to take the money that was in the fund, about $6 million and donate it to michelle for the express purpose to allow her to pay for her living expenses. >> mark klass, it's always an honor to have you on the show. i hope you can proceed with an effort to get justice, not just in your case but as much as you got in a lifetime. thank you for coming on. seema iyer, thank you. we'll be right back after this. if you wear a partial, you are almost twice as likely to lose your supporting teeth. new poligrip and polident for partials

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back to "hardball."

now for a side show. it was an accidental slip of the tongue that spurred the worst stereotypes of the backcountry. joe bonner of alabama actually regarded an embarrassing story during his farewell speech in the house yesterday afternoon. here's how he once mixed up the word insects with incest. >> i said we have a real problem with incest. i said, in fact, i would venture a guess that we have more problems with incest in my district in alabama than any other district in america. so i got back to my office thinking i delivered one of the best speeches on insects ever made and my staff said, joe, in about two minutes you just reinforced in the mindis of all american as what we have a

problem with in south alabama. >> that's an honest guy. next up, he's the most interesting man in the world, at least on tv that is. since his first appearance in 2006, he's become an advertising icon. most are familiar with the bearded gentleman's feats of strength. but this actor has taken on another real life role. he's joined clear path int internation international. here he is in vietnam talking about the group. >> these are live bombs. in a moment or two we're going to blow them up. i'm here in vietnam to beat with bomb accident survivors being helped by a very special group. clear path international. sadly millions of bombs leftover from that conflict continue to maim and kill men, women, and

children. they were kind enough to let me debt nad two large piles of bombs. it felt good to hit that switch and remove these threats forever. >> so wouldn't you luke to have dinner tonight with the world's most interesting man? that's "hard ball. [ dad ] in that driveway, is a german-engineered piece of awesome. that i got for 0% apr. good one, dad. thank you, dalton. [ male announcer ] it's the car you won't stop talking about. ever. hurry in to the volkswagen best. thing. ever. event. and get 0% apr for 60 months, now until september 3rd. that's the power of german engineering.

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