they're against it. that's what we've got to point out. because obama care, the affordable care act is for the middle class. >> all right. going to be an eventful weekend. in terms that i don't think anything is going to happen again, but we're all on watch. congressman gregory meeks, great to have yo with us tonight. appreciate your time. that's "the ed show." "politicsnation" with reverend al sharpton starts right now. good evening, rev. >> good evening, ed. and thanks to you for tuning in. tonight's lead, humble pie time. today's senate republicans drudged up to the white house in the pouring rain crowded in the shuttle buss to ask president obama to help rescue them from the mess their party has created. polls show they're getting crushed for the government shutdown and default crisis. so now they're caving. offering plan after plan to the president hoping for a way out.

after the meeting, the republicans weren't real interested in talking to reporters. >> senator cruz! >> republicans are crumbling. the talks are heating up. now some reports say the government could reopen within days. yet, die hards still can't face reality. here's what senators ted cruz and mike lee, the guys leading the gop's kamikaze mission, here's what they were telling right wingers in washington just hours earlier at the voters summit. >> house of represents needs to keep doing what it's been doing which is standing strong. >> we must stop it. we must not accept it. >> how scared is the president? >> we make no apologies. >> this afternoon, look. the democrats are feeling the heat. >> democrats are feeling the heat?

really? the truth is the republicans have crashed and burned. and now they find themselves on the losing end of history. want proof? here's what cruz said today about obama care. >> one day we will find ourselves answering questions from our children and our children's children. what was it like when america was free. >> and here's what ronald reagan said back in 1961 opposing medicare. >> one of these days you and i are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in america when men were free. >> it's the same talking point. 60 years later. watch it again. >> one day we will find ourselves answering questions

from our children and our children's children, what was it like when america was free. >> republicans were wrong about medicare then. and they're wrong about obama care now. they're wrong about the debt ceiling. they're wrong about the shutdown. they are just plain wrong. the american people know it. now more and more republicans know it too. and they're desperately trying to find a way out. joining me now are congressman jim mcdermott, democrat from washington and msnbc's melissa harris-perry. thank you both for being here. >> absolutely. >> good to be here. >> congressman, do republican leaders see the writing on the wall? i mean, will this shutdown end soon? >> well, i think you've begun to see it. they've elbowed cruz off the main stage and they're now bringing paul ryan in. paul ryan sort of woke up and said, you know, we should be

having a conference committee in negotiating the budget. and they are beginning to see they've got to shift away from this business of fighting the president's obama care. that isn't going to work. it has been a total failure. so they're shifting because they're looking for a new place to go. >> but, you know, melissa, senator ted cruz thinks that this is going well. polls, look at the public's view of the gop. they disapprove 70% disappoint. to 24% approve. that's the lowest record since the poll was in existence. but ted cruz is in denial. he thinks the polls are skewed. listen to what he said about the nbc poll. >> do you think you've done damage to your party? >> well, the polling has varied. and that poll was very heavily weighted with an awful lot of democrats.

with an awful lot of obama supporters. if you seek out liberal obama supporters and get their views, they're going to tell you they're obama supporters. that isn't reflective of where the country is. >> now, for the record, our pollsters say there are more democrats in the poll because there are more democrats in america. duh. i mean -- >> right. this is stats 101. this is from the box. there are more democrats than republicans, you'll end up with more democrats. it's not weighted towards it. i don't think he understands the meaning. but what we heard there from ted cruz was very similar to what we heard from the romney camp during the last election. a kind of denialism about saying that in fact the american people were supporting president obama. so much so that you remember on election night, there was genuine shock on the part of many republicans.

>> no doubt. >> because they really honestly simply did not believe those data. and this is the same party that has been part of climate change, part of variety of denialisms where they actually look at data, look at evidence and say that's just not true. >> you know, congressman, when you ask who is to blame for the shutdown, the poll says 53% of republicans in congress. only 31% blame the president. but here's what two republican congressmen said when confronted with that poll about who is to blame. >> -- that republicans are taking the blame for this? >> well, we're trying to do the right thing. you know, we're trying not to be poll driven. >> -- the majority of the blame and the president is not? >> apparently in your mind,

theres. >> no, there is. the poll. >> there's a lot of polls all the time. but we can't run the government based on polls. >> i mean, congressman, they are trying to play it off. obviously people in elected office ought to do what they believe. but you can't ignore the overwhelming majority of the american people. when you look at these numbers, this is not just about poll driven. this is amazingly tinted towards saying to these guys we do not support this shutdown and flirting with the debt here. >> they simply don't accept the fact that americans wanted social security. and the president gave it to them. and they've been attacking it since it was passed. they use z it through the election. people said we know about having health security and we want it. that's why we're going to re-elect mr. obama.

then they took it to the supreme court. and they lost again. and these guys cannot accept that they have lost. and that the american people want what the president and the democrats have put together for them. they're headed for a real stunning defeat in 2014 if they don't change very dramatically. >> i want to weigh in on this. i think your point was an important one, reverend. that if lawmakers are doing what they think to be right, if they are fundamentally standing on a basic set of principles it's worth saying we don't govern by polls. for me what's disturbing is they don't seem to govern by election. there's one thing not to govern by the polls. >> or the supreme court. >> when you have the election of president obama and the re-election of president obama. and when you look at 2012 during the re-election of president obama, you also had many hundreds of thousands of additional americans voting for democrats, but because of how

the districts had been redrawn in 2010, it didn't translate into those election wins. >> otherwise you would have lost the majority of the house. >> absolutely lost the house. governing by election does matter. >> well, i'm going to have to leave it there. congressman mcdermott, melissa harris-perry, thank you both for your time tonight. and be sure to watch melissa harris-perry weekends at 10:00 a.m. eastern right here on msnbc. coming up, congratulations are in order. the gop is breaking more records for the lowest favorable poll numbers in history. and that means bad news from the guy who started this mess. ted cruz is hearing it today. >> ma'am, thank you for being here. i wish you would participate in the democratic process through speaking respectfully. it seems that president obama's paid political operatives are out in force today.

and dr. ben carson, an accomplished man and a rising star in the right wing media just compared obama care to slavery. my response to him is ahead. also friend or foe, i want to know. e-mail me. reply al is ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] may your lights always be green. [ tires screech ] ♪ [ beeping ] ♪ may you never be stuck behind a stinky truck. [ beeping ] ♪ may things always go your way. but it's good to be prepared... just in case they don't.

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have you joined the "politicsnation" conversation on facebook yet? we hope you will. today our facebook fans were riled up after hearing about right wingers comparing the affordable care act to slavery. carol says, this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that is turning

people off and is being reflected in the polls. worst republican party ever. olivia asks, how can anyone draw a connection between the affordable care act and slavery? didn't see anywhere that it said for whites only on the aca. and carol points out, i don't think people were trying to sign up for slavery. coming up, we'll show you that outrageous obama care attack we heard from a fox news contributor today. but first we want to hear what you think too. please head over to facebook and search "politicsnation" and like us to join the conversation that keeps going long after the show ends.

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since the government shutdown started, president obama has been clear with republicans about where he stands. so see if you can pick up a theme. >> let me repeat. i will not negotiate over congress' responsibility to pay bills its already racked up. you don't negotiate by putting a gun to the other person's head. or worse yet, by putting a gun to the american people's head. there will be no negotiations over this. the american people are not pawns in some political game. we're not going to pay a ransom for america paying its bills. that's something that should be non non-negotiable and everybody should agree on that. >> the president has stood firm

staring down republicans refusing to give in to their extreme demands. and as we've been reporting, republicans are finally getting the message. on thursday, republicans in the house offered a deal to extend the debt ceiling for six weeks. today republicans in the senate are reportedly considering a one-year extension. that's a huge shift in just 24 hours. and there are growing signals that the republicans will cave on the shutdown within days. a lot of chaos and pain could have been avoided if republicans had listened to the president from the start. joining me now is ej dionne of "the washington post." thank you for coming on the show. >> good to be with you, rev. >> ej, the headline of your article this week is obama can't cave even a little in the face

of gop extremism. you wrote, quote, giving in is exactly what obama cannot do. i guess you and the president were on the same page, ej. >> well, i think that the principle here is important, but also the fact that we have gone through this over and over again since the republicans won the house in 2010. and there's one way to do business. when you have divided government, each side has to negotiate. one side gets some of the things it wants, the other side gets some of the things it wants and you proceed normally. in this case, the republicans avoided negotiating with the democrats in the senate all during the year and then we got to this point and they said, okay, if you don't give us these things including for goodness sake the repeal of obama care which he was never going to do, then we're going to cause all these dire consequences. i think it was important to

establish this principle and the polls show that the country has shifted in a very big way as a result of not only the president, but really the whole democratic party standing strong and saying no, we're not going to give into this anymore. >> i also hear people that are close to the white house say that the president feared the presidency is at stake. and if he makes certain moves, that it compromises the presidency going forward. >> right. well, i think there were a couple of things here. one is back in 2011, he was willing to deal on this. he felt that after the tea party victory in the election, there was a real chance that they would go over the cliff and cause us some real problems. looking back on that, i think he said we can't do this anymore. and it's not just the next three years of his presidency. if we make it routine to use the debt ceiling or an endless series of shutdowns as the

normal way of doing business, we're not going to be a serious country anymore. and we don't want excess in presidential power, but we want presidents to have the power that presidents are supposed to have. >> you know, ej, paul ryan didn't believe that the president wouldn't cave. last month he was asked about the president's promise to stand strong over the debt ceiling. his response was, quote, oh, nobody believes that. nobody believes that. well, you think paul ryan believes it now? >> he sure seems to when that op-ed piece in the wall street journal, he didn't mention obama care. that the president will start out giving them their asking price. and he decided that wasn't a good way to go forward. >> which might have been their plan "a" and they had no plan "b" when he didn't cave on plan "a." and a growing number of republicans are admitting they won't be able to defund obama care.

listen. >> defunding obama care is not achievable. so let's not delude our supporters by telling them it will. >> it's not going to work when the guy in the white house is still named barack obama. >> they don't want this to go into law at all, but that's obviously not going to happen at this point. >> it's interesting a lot of republicans are now admitting they can't defund obama care. and with the president standing strong, it seems like they had no plan "b," i repeat, ej. >> you know, wars get started because people miscalculate the other side. and in this case they badly miscalculated where the president was. the thing is a lot of republicans are really angry. there is this civil war in their party right now because a lot of them said from the beginning this wouldn't work. and john boehner feeling that pressure from that tea party minority decided to save his speakership, he had to go with them. there are an awful lot of republicans, i talked to one

today who were really angry about this strategy because they think it was failure from the beginning. >> all right. thank you for your time tonight. have a great weekend. >> you too, reverend. thank you. coming up, breaking bad. ted cruz and the republicans hit record lows in approval. how's that rebranding going? and it happened again. another right winger using the language of slavery to score political points. why dr. ben carson should know better. stay with us. clay.

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this breaking news just in. the white house says that president obama held a conference call with 150 major business leaders about the debt

ceiling. which needs to be raised next week. it's all part of a big story in republican politics. big business is now trying to take down the tea party. that's next. ♪ from the classic lines to the elegant trim in each and every piece, kohler will make your reality a dream.

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the failed strategy of holding the country hostage to demand defunding of obama care is a massive disaster. and now the tea party is splintering. heritage action, the right wing group that pressured republicans to jump on the defund bandwagon now says it won't fight a deal on the debt ceiling. but americans for prosperity which got its start-up money from the billionaire koch brothers says a deal has to include cuts. even though the koch brothers themselves are waving the white flag. their company sent a letter to the members of congress this week saying it hasn't taken a position on tactic of the continuing resolution to defunding obama care. all of the major groups are telling the tea party to quit the nonsense and reopen the government. but former senator jim demint

who helped get the likes of ted cruz elected has no interest in the end of the shutdown. this drama is to be continued. but i don't see it ending well for the right. joining me now is republican strategist hogan gibny and radio host bill press. thank you both for being here. >> hi, reverend. >> thanks. >> now, hogan. you're a republican. you worked for rick santorum but you told "the new york times" today, quote, we were fighting a battle where we already lost on the same battlefield where we already lost it. you're saying it's over. what do you say to your colleagues that refused to give in? >> i'm not saying it's over. we're just fighting the wrong battle. obama care is the law of the land. it was held up by the supreme court. there are some republicans, and i don't know if they choose to acknowledge it, but we could be smarter and savvy here if we go

to the american people saying if you want to sign up, that's fine. but you know, reverend al, that the democrats ran a very effective campaign against mitt romney and him being a big business guy. one of the opening he gave republicans was not only is this a mandate, but one he imposed on some people but not everybody. he also gave several exemptions in this law. that's not fair at all. that's a hole we could drive a mack truck through from a messaging standpoint and no one's grabbed onto it. it blows my mind, but it's something we could win on. we can't get out of our own way. we're fighting a repeal and replace battle when we should be fighting individual portions of the law moving forward. >> we can debate obama care, but are you saying in terms of the politics of where we are right now that they've gone down this road too far to win? i'm talking about your republican colleagues. >> right. well, we've already lost it.

we should be taking a new road. right? you get to the split road, take one way or the other. we're taking the same one. let's try a new way is all i'm saying. >> bill press, everyone in the republican party and the right doesn't agree with him. for example, pulling the obama care strings behind the scenes is former senator jim demint. and he thinks republicans weren't conservative enough in 2012. republicans were told don't do anything, don't be the issue, don't stand for anything, make it about obama. what happened in 2012 was that there was a void of any inspiration, any attempt to lead. it certainly wasn't because the party was too conservative. it was because there were no conservative leadership at all. how come they moved further right than they did?

>> with hogan, it's nice to hear a level headed common sense republican speak on this issue. he's not the only one, of course. there are some level headed republicans here in washington like john mccain and peter king, susan collins and others who are saying the same thing. it reminds me of the democratic party when we got wiped out with george mcgovern. some said the reason is we didn't go far left enough. no. there are some times when you have to realize the extremists have taken over your party and your strategy is not working. hogan is absolutely right. it's jim demint on the outside and ted cruz on the inside and for some reason with the cockamamy idea they can defeat obama care, replace it with nothing, but do so by shutting down the government. and for some reason the republican party officially

bought that. it's a colossal failure proven today. >> doesn't the republican party have a problem? look at the poll numbers. look at public opinion. listen to this. >> i obviously support the repeal of obama care and still would like to repeal that law. repeal's not going to work when the guy in e in white house is named barack obama. >> you didn't mention defunding obama care. is that off the table now? >> that's currently off the table. >> now, these guys have strong conservative credentials, but they're admitting a repeal just isn't realistic. hogan, is that your take? >> it is. both of those people are tea party folks. i know them both. what they're saying is absolutely correct. this is a battle we lost. this isn't anything we didn't see coming. right? the poll numbers before this were bad, and on the backside of it they're worse.

we knew that going in. to continue down this road seems a little bit silly. but, look, i don't want to be over -- have an overreaction here. we've got serious problems, but the branding can be changed if we fight it in the proper way forward. >> why are they doing this? why are the moving forward in this strategy? is this about obama for some reason? >> i'll tell you what i think is interesting and something they haven't seen. they're elected in this big way. pu but they didn't get elected to bring back pork, to get a bridge named after them they came to stop spending. they're saying we want to stop spending. that's fine. that's a good way to go. but strategically to move forward, you're going to have to get people on your side. you can't have a stick in the mud and say i'm not budging. the purity matters, but you've got to bring people along in the

process. >> bill, i think they're going to stop spending. they're going to stop spending time in washington if the polls hold up. go ahead, bill. >> i was just going to say the reality of what has happened here today and look at that nbc/wall street journal poll, the republican party brand has fallen to a new low. worse than it was in 1995. the tea party brand has fallen to a new low. and obama care is more popular today than it was before. so ted cruz has achieved in three months what obama could not do in three years. he made it popular. >> let me go back to what you were saying, hogan. you talked about how the tea party was elected differently. now eric erickson says we are headed toward a third party. he wrote, john boehner, eric cantor, mitch mcconnell, and john cornyn will ensure that obama care is fully funded. in doing so, they will sow the

seeds of a real third party movement that will fully divide the republican party. a third party? i mean, i'm hearing what you're saying these guys were elected for. i'm seeing what the leadership is being forced to do. is it really possible that a third party could happen? >> i don't think in the current structure that's a good claim. and i know eric and he's a good guy, i just think he's missed the mark here. even if they were to form a third party, what are they popular? 25% that poll came out today. that doesn't win you an election. it doesn't move a people onto your side. these guys came over here and have done everything they were going to do. so you can't blame them for that. where i blame leadership from the top. if you have strong enough leaders on the top bringing these guys in saying, look, this is the way to get it done from a strategic standpoint and how to get some victories and some successes in the future. instead it's become a test of purity.

and if you're not on the right side of that test early on, then you're some kind of phony and fake and they try to ostracize you early on. i don't think that's the right way to move a nation. i don't think it's the right way to win elections. >> how is this going? how's this going to wind down? >> well, i think the answer is to look at the contrast with the democratic party to the republican party we've been talking about rightfully so. democratic party, i've never steen it. the democrats in the senate, in the house, and in the white house. they're hanging tough. republicans already have agreed that they are going to lift the debt ceiling. the only question is for how long. and as you indicated, there's already talk now they're going to reopen the government perhaps tomorrow, perhaps as early as monday. i think what we've seen finally is that john boehner recognized reality. republicans are going to cave and we're going to get back on track.

and then start some serious negotiations about the budget deals including hogan, some of those changes in the affordable care act which are necessary. >> hogan, where is this going? how does it end. >> oh, gosh. that's the million dollar question. i'm not really sure. but bill's right to a certain degree. the democrats aren't completely clean here, okay? this obama care bill does have problems. reid said it, obama himself said there are problemings. they've got glitches up front with the computer system. this will be altered and changed. that's what i'm saying. if republicans are pointing out these things, pointing out it being unfair to mandate it for some and not others, kickbacks for big business, not forcing them to be on it. we'd have a completely different conversation. >> i'm going to have have to leave it there -- >> and do those through the legislative process not shutting the government down. >> i'm going to have to leave it there. thank you for your time. and hogan, if you hear anybody

in the tea party wants to start a third party, tell them i'll give them all the time they need on "politicsnation." >> i'm sure they'll take you up on that. >> ied love to see it. coming up, ted cruz went inside the right wing bubble today. and guess what was missing. facts. we've got those ahead. and another conservative just compared obama care to slavery. why this ugly trend needs to stop.

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ted cruz pretends everything is just fine with the gop. all those polls showing record lows, they're all wrong to him. but inside that bubble, they believe him. here's the welcome he got at today's values voter summit. >> tell me now, will you stand with ted cruz? [ cheers ] tell me now, does he deserve our gratitude for his magnificent devotion to liberty? don't tell me, tell senator ted cruz! [ cheers ] >> he got the rock star treatment. he's famous with this group.

but everyone else, he's infamous. and during his speech today, he got a reminder of that. >> and yet what we saw across this country -- ma'am, thank you for being here. i wish you would participate in the democratic process through speaking respectfully. it seems that president obama's paid political operatives are out in force today. [ cheers ] and you know why? and you know why? because the men and women in this room scare the lives daylights out of him. >> oh, yeah, senator cruz. maybe you're scaring the daylights out of the president inside that bubble. but here's reality. the new nbc news poll shows

president obama about six points above water. his positive ratings are six points higher than his negatives. but ted cruz's, he's at minus 14. the tea party movement, it's at minus 26. and the republican party, it's at minus 29. senator cruz may be the best thing since sliced bread to the tea party folks, but the real surprise, democrats are also loving him these days. joining me now are dana milbank and maria teresa kumar. thank you for coming on the show. dana, your column this week is titled, quote, the cruz afiction of the gop. you write the standoff has been a political blood bath for republicans and maybe that's exactly what was needed to right the political system. what do you mean by that? >> well, look. ted cruz did something very good

for ted cruz and very bad for the republican party. and for that matter, for the conservative movement now you showed him being under water with that negative 14, the reason it's not much lower than that is not enough people know him yet. the more he's getting known to the american public, the more negative his numbers become. so he became the de facto leader of this shutdown, this -- and it was chiropractor clear from the beginning that it would be a disaster for his party. he took them in that direction anyway. they were intimidated into doing it. ted cruz isn't at this moment scaring the democrats to death. he's scaring his fellow republicans to death. >> maria, is ted cruz like other states rights defenders who oppose progress? will he just fade out? >> i think that he's done a wonderful job with this gop crisis and the shutdown talking about me, me, me. that's the perfect label when it comes to the tea party movement.

it's all about the individual. what he's done is he's not only seen an opportunity to become the leader of a tea party movement, but he realizes they're the ones that have come out most in primaries. i think he has the short-term and the long-term vision. the short-term is how can i make sure we still have the tea party folks at the forefront of this political discussion so when he announces his candidacy for president in 2016, he already has that base. a base that was missed when it came to romney. he never had that base. so it will be interesting to see if he starts to shift his negotiations the closer we get past the primary season for 2016 i know it's early. >> it's interesting she says that, dana. because a huge split comes when you're viewing senator cruz. when you look at those who aren't in the tea party, just 13% view him positively. 23% view him negatively. but look at this. among tea party republicans, 52%

view him positively and just 4% view him negatively. so there's this split based on your view from the right on how you see ted cruz. >> right. well, the tea party -- the conservatives are actually a very small minority. the problem is they're dominant in the republican party because they have been so powerful in these republican primaries. that's now ted cruz got his job. that's how he'll keep his job. the question is has the rest of the republican party had enough of this? mostly the business interests that are basically funding the tea party. they thought they had common interests. right now with all the economic destruction the tea party has brought about, they are not on the same page at all. they are talking about now getting involved in running primary opposition against some of these tea party candidates. so if you see this split within the republican party, the tea party element that ted cruz has ridden to prominence is really a small minority within that party. it's just they happen to have a

strangle hold over the primary process now. >> maria, you know, today congressman peter king tore into senator cruz. listen to this. >> it reminds me of the guy in the schoolyard who doesn't have the guts to fight himself. he holds the coats and tells the other guys to carry out the fight. that's number one. but number two, no one has done more to strengthen obama care than ted cruz. since he started this crusade of his over the last ten days, support for obama care has gone up 7% in the country. so president obama and the supporters of obama care should thank ted cruz because they are the biggest ally right now. >> cruz is getting praised by glenn beck and others, but even right wing pundits like charles krauthammer. take a listen. >> how exactly was he going to achieve abolition of obama care?

explain that to me. and where is he now? his side kick senator lee said oh we're past obama care. we've moved on. i mean, you know, we have the generals who lead people into battle of little bighorn and then go home and have lunch and leave the troops out there? where are they? where are the generals? >> little bighorn didn't turn out that well, maria. >> not at all. and when you look at someone like demint, saying there was no way to negotiate with the debt ceiling if they didn't have obama care. now saying go ahead and we'll negotiate because we can't win on obama care. you now have ted cruz standing alone in the republican party and again, that's rich for his opportunity to hold the mantle of leadership within the party. but it's lonely when you don't have any friends in washington within the senate or outside of the senate. >> dana milbank maria teresa

kumar, thank you for your time. have a great weekend. coming up, the rising star inside the right wing bubble says obama care is the worst thing since slavery. next.

we've talked about the trend of the right to use slavery for talking points. some are even comparing obama care to slavery. it happened today. meet the newest fox news contributor. he's dr. ben carson, a world renowned surgeon. he's been awarded 38 honorary doctorate degrees and received a medal of freedom from president bush. this is a man we should be celebrating, and that's why i was so surprised to hear him say this today. >> obama care is really, i think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. and it is in a way, it is slavery. >> obama care is the worst thing since slavery? dr. carson is a smart guy. but he sounds just like those other right wing talkers. >> what barack obama seems to want to do is go back to before

those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin. >> i hear democrats say the affordable care act is the law. as though we're supposed to genuflect at that sun burst of insight and move on. well, the fugitive slave act was law. separate by equal was the law. a lot of things are the law and we change them. >> saying it's the law of the land. so was slavery. >> we expect this from them, but dr. carson, you should know better. and this program note, alec baldwin's new show premieres at 10:00 p.m. eastern time. his first guest is new york city mayoral candidate bill de blasio. and they'll talk about the future of stop and frisk in new york. >> let's say you win. let's say -- >> i like your positive thinking.

>> let's say you become mayor, long shot. who's going to be the police commissioner? >> well, first have to win and go through a thorough process. but i have said i want a commissioner that is going to end the stop and frisk era. kelly's gone. with all due respect to him, but time for a change. >> stop and frisk the only reason kelly's gone? >> no. but it's a very prominent reason. a a commissioner has to focus on the police and community as the right thing to do and because it will intensify our crime fighting efforts and it will respect the u.s. constitution. >> to see the entire interview and a whole lot more, tune in tonight to "up late" right here on msnbc. [ female announcer ] stop using filters to make your skin look flawless. start using olay fresh effects. a fresh collection of skin care.

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as over 60,000 trees. that's a trend we can all get behind. [ male announcer ] let's go places. but let's be ready. ♪ let's do our homework. ♪ let's look out for each other. let's look both ways before crossing. ♪ let's remember what's important. let's be optimistic. but just in case -- let's be ready. toyota. let's go places, safely. finally tonight, obama care is working. approval of the president's health care law is up 7% since the republicans shut down the government. from the start the president

refused to back down from the republican pressure. in my new book "the rejected stone," i talk about continuing to strive for what you know in your heart is right and staying hungry. i'm really excited for my new book. if you'd like to read an excerpt, please go to our facebook page. facebook.com/politicsnation. there you can also find information about my next book signing. tomorrow i will be at my civil rights organization's headquarters. the national action network's house of justice on 145th street in harlem. 9:00 a.m. to noon. i hope to see you all there. this is a long weekend, a good weekend for reading. this book deals with your rejection in society and in the rejections we may have personally. i grew up having to deal with a single person home rejected by my dad. i had to get past insecurities. this is political, but it's also personal. because if we can get by our

personal hangups, if we can get by society rejections, we can change to make the country what it should be. and we can make ourselves the ultimate best of what we intended and wanted to be. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. the last gasp of ted cruz. let's play "hardball." ♪ good evening. i'm chris matthews. let me start with the strangeness of ted cruz. pounded with the news in the gallup his negatives have doubled, he now called the wall street journal poll