now. professor vanden move and jim lehrer, thank you. that is "all in" for this evening and the rachel maddow show starts right now. thanks the to you at home for joining us this hour, on an historic day in american politics. today really was a really, really, really big day. this is richard toronto. do not be distracted by his last name. he is not a mayor. he is not canadian. he has nothing to do with crack cocaine, nothing to do with canadian football, nothing to do with anything that looks anything like this. rather, richard toronto is a lawyer focused on intellectual property issues. he has had a very successful, very highfalutin legal career and he was nominated for a prestigious federal judgeship a couple of years ago, november 2011. he was nominated and then nothing. nothing happened.

republicans in the senate would not allow there to be a vote on his nomination. and beyond that, they insisted that there would have to be a super majority vote to confirm him as a judge. so not just a majority of the senate could vote for this guy, it would have to be a super majority, as if he were a treaty or a constitutional amendment or something. and so, richard toronto, no relation, waited month after month after month after month after month after month after month after month after month after month after month. and finally, this spring, 17 months after he was first nominated, after he had been waiting almost a year and a half, they finally, eh, decided to put richard toronto's nomination up for a vote in the united states senate. and do you want to know what the vote was? the vote was 91-0. zero votes against him. no republicans had any problem with him whatsoever. so, what was all that about, then?

this is what happens under president barack obama has never been done before in american history. there have only been judicial and executive branch filibusters on nominees since the '60s. but using them to make people wait years after they are nominated for something, before their nomination actually gets voted on, this is a new thing. this is a new thing. and the republicans the in the senate saved this one up for this particular president. on tuesday of this week, supreme court justice antonin scalia wrote this ruling, which allowed texas, basically, to keep shutting down abortion clinics in the state. the new texas anti-abortion law that it's already shut down a third of the clinics in that state, it's sort of on the bubble, legally, and the supreme court had to decide whether to put a hold on the law while it is being challenged or whether they would let the law go ahead. and justice scalia wrote this ruling saying, yeah, let that go ahead and shut all those clinics done in the meantime.

those who disagreed were these guys. justice ginsburg, justice breyer, sotomayor, and kagan. the other justices that sided with scalia were clarence thomas and samuel alito. and even though they did not sign the ruling that the other two justices on the court, justice roberts and justice kennedy also sided with scalia on this ruling. so this was the two sides in this really important texas abortion ruling this week. but look at this breakdown. the side voting to keep the clinics open in texas, those judges were appointed by prp prm, president obama, president clinton, president clinton. the side that voted to shut down the clinics, those justices were appointed by george w. bush, george w. bush, george h.w. bush, ronald reagan, ronald reagan. notice a trend? notice any pattern here? presidents appoint judges. this is one of the fundamental

things that presidents do. if you boil presidents down, this is one of the last things left in the pot of gelatinous down there. it is one of the most fundamental and consequential things that american presidents do. it is part and parcel of the job, it always has been. like it or lump it, if you elect a president, that president will choose judicial nominees to fill vacant seats on federal courts. that's the deal in electing a president. and in the past, we've had plenty, plenty of fights over how bad a president's judgment can be in who he picks or how radically ambitious he can be in terms of the ideology of his nominees. there's been plenty of fights in the past about the quality of judges chose condition by various presidents. so like ruth bader ginsburg did a lot of work for the aclu. is that going to be okay with everybody when they vote on her? or caitlin hallgan, he was involved in a litigation around gun manufacturers. clarence thomas had the sexual harassment allegations, famously. harriet miers apparently

revealed under questioning that she did not know what the fourth amendment did, or the fifth amendment. also, yeah, don't keep asking. there have been fights in the past about people who were picked to be judges about their qualifications, their temperament, whether they were a good person for that job. what's new is this. there is no objection to this guy. republicans don't think there's anything wrong this guy. no republican cast a vote against him. but you still got to wait for 17 months anyway because we're going to block the vote on you, filibuster your nomination, and make everybody take extraordinary measures to let you get anywhere near the pench, even though we have no problem with you as a nominee. that is new. and that is not a fight over mr. toronto. that is not a fight about anybody specifically the president is picking. that is a fight about whether or not this president, like all other presidents who went before him, is allowed to put people on the federal bench. this is a fight about president obama.

it's not that they dislike the nominees. they don't think that a president named barack obama should be allowed his nominees for the federal bench. liberals tend to like fdr, right? the new deal. the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. i welcome their hatred. liberals love this guy. you know, i'm a liberal, i love the guy. one terrible thing that fdr did was he did try to pack the supreme court. the supreme court kept striking down his new deal-era legislation, saying it was unconstitutional. fdr's proposed fix for that is that he would add a whole bunch of new judges to the court. not that he would pick new nominees for the court, but he would actually make the court larger. he'd leave the existing judges where they were, but add half a dozen new judges to the court, all at once, all of which he would point, and voila, new majority. fdr kind of thought about trying to do that and he did not get away with it. and no matter what else you think about him as a president and as a historical figure, it

really is an abiding scandal of his presidency that he even batted that idea around. in addition to their unprecedented systemic blockade of judges, this week republicans tried to pull an fdr on one of the nation's most important federal courts. republicans generally do not want president obama appointing judges to federal courts anywhere in the country. but they really, really don't want president obama appointing judges to be considered the second most powerful court in the nation under the supreme court. it's the appeals court that sits in washington, d.c., and as the court in d.c., it deals with a lot of questions about the constitutionality of various federal regulations and actions by the federal government. this is the court where john roberts, for example, was a judge before he went to the supreme court in 2005. his seat there on that court has been vacant ever since he went to the supreme court. and two of the other seats on that court are vacant as well. there are three vacancies on that really important court. and the republicans do not want

to allow president obama to put any nominees on that court to fill those vacancies. and so they have tried to do what fdr tried to do, kind of. they tried to change the number of seats on the court so that they could get their or preserve their desired ideological mix. between the number of seats on the court that are filled right now and retired justices who also do work on cases when the case load there is heavy, right now on that court, there's a strong and actually quite aggressive conservative majority on that court. republicans love that. so, the republicans under chuck grassley of iowa have been trying to eliminate three of the seats on that court right now, the three seats that are now vacant. they have tried to change the size of the court, shrink it, so there's no more vacancies. so president obama would not be allowed to appoint any judges to fill those empty seats. get rid of the empty seats, he can't appoint anybody, the court stays conservative, problem solved. like fdr, they tried it, but

they did not get away with it. they did, however, this week and last week, filibuster president obama's three nominees to the vacant seats on that court. none of whom they had any particular objection to as people. the first one they filibustered, patricia millet there on the left, she was an assistant attorney general in the george w. bush administration. what was their objection going to be to her? these nominees got majority votes in congress, but majority is not enough. republicans used is a filibuster to block them anyway, all of them. and you know what, democrats just decided they had had enough. after years of fighting about this and pleading and promising and fuming and plotting and threatening over and over and over again that they would do something about this if republicans kept it up, today, democrats finally actually did something. you could have knocked me over with a feather. they called for an appeal of a parliamentary ruling on the floor of the senate by a majority vote, they overturned the parliamentarian's ruling. it seemed like kind of a quiet

exchange, but in doing that, they changed the rules of the united states senate, so republicans can't just block judges anymore. judges can be blocked on an up or down vote, on a majority vote, like always, but they cannot be blocked anymore with just a minority of votes. republicans cannot force that anymore. and i know, as i'm hearing myself saying it, i know that it sounds like it's not that much of a change, but this is a huge freaking deal. this is like 3-inch headlines. this is like people who don't even care about politics really ought to care about this. here's our explainer. this is a huge deal. and republicans have lost their minds about this, now that democrats finally did it. orrin hatch today said democrats will roux the day! mitch mcconnell said, you will regret this and you will regret this sooner rather than later. david vitter, my favorite today, said that this was a dictatorial move. but what this actually was in terms of how we got here was

just an amazingly reckless miscalculation by the republican side. yes, it was the democrats who pulled the trigger today, but the democrats had said that they would pull the trigger if this kept happening. republicans assumed that they could keep pushing the democrats further and further and further on this. they believe that no matter the threats, democrats would never actually do what was completely within their power to do. so they kept pushing. and democrats said that filibustering, specifically, filibustering these three themes for that d.c. court would be pushing them too far and they would change the rules. mitch mcconnell did not believe it. he calculated that it would not happen. thought it was worth doing anyway. democrats would never follow through on their threat. look at this, though. if you want to understand the depth of what mitch mcconnell just did here with his calculation, look at this. i'm not sure this has been on tv at all today. this month, as of november 21st, 2013, this is the official balance on the courts right now

in the whole country, in terms of full-time federal judges who are already working in this country. as of november 1st this year, there are 390 full-time federal judges in this country, who were appointed by republicans. and there are 390 full-time federal judges in this country who were appointed by democrats, as of november 1st. after of this month right now, the federal judiciary is exactly even in terms of republican or democratic influence in terms of who is sitting on the bench. president obama was trying to add three more democratic nominees to that list and republicans decided, no. it was unprecedented. they had no objections to these judges as people. they could make no case against them other than the fact that they just didn't want the president to have anymore nominees. so they blocked those three nominations, said they didn't want anybody in those vacant seats. that's where they drew the line. democrats said, done do it, don't block them. the republicans said, no, we can't take it, you will not be allowed to add those three

nominees. but you see what the grey pie is there on the pie graph. 390 republican, 390 democrat, that grey part, that's how many vacancies there are right now on the federal bench, 93. so think about that for a second. if the republicans had given in on those three judges or even given in on just one or two of those three judges, i'm telling you, we would not be where we are right now today. that would have let the steam out of the democrats' fury. that would have made the democrats' rage on this issue calm significantly. if the republicans had left the balance of the federal courts go from 50.50 to 49.8%, if they had just left those one or two or maybe three of nose nominees through, the democrats would still be gnashing their teeth and still be complaining and annoyed, but this would still be a story that was too boring to put on television. instead, the republicans took a hard line on those three nominees and now it is katy bar the door. there is no reason why president

obama cannot fill all 93 of those judgeships if he wants to. he only needs democratic votes to do it. what were you thinking, mitch mcconnell? the minute after they changed the rule today in the senate, one of those three nominees for that court in d.c. sailed right through. she got 55 votes and that's all it takes now. now she will be a judge, and so will the other two, and so will 93 more if the president wants it. the federal judiciary, if the president wants to, is going to get 90 new democratic appointed judges because mitch mcconnell didn't, apparently, think this through. yeah, the democrats did it, but it was always in their power to. why didn't mitch mcconnell think they would? this is a huge change in washington. and it does not apply just to judges. it also applies to executive branch nominations. so, yeah, the republicans picked this year to filibuster a nominee for secretary of defense for the first time in u.s. history, and they did it during a time of war.

but they're not going to be able to do things like that anymore either. this is what the democrats circulated today via press release and on social media, to make the case for why they did this. this is judicial nominees and executive branch nominees filibustered under all previous presidents, since you've been able to do that in america, in the entire industry of the country. half of the times this has happened in our country has been under president obama, and that ended today. happy thursday! this is a huge deal. joining us now is michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian. mr. beschloss, thank you for being here. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> we have talked before about the difficulties presidents have in second terms, and traditionally they turn to things like foreign policy, where they have more leeway to act without congress sticking their nose in, because they can't get anything done in congress. how does this change the presidency of president obama? >> first of all, it makes him look like an activist. he's not passively dealing with a house and senate that is not passing his legislation, but it actually puts him at a

tradition, because 1917, woodrow wilson was about to become a wartime president. he did not look with great favor on the idea of having to deal with senate filibusters while trying to conduct that war. he referred to the filibuster as a little group of willful men who render the united states government helpless and contemptible, a phrase that probably could be used nowadays. so what did wilson do? went to the leaders o. senate and said, this really can't happen. why don't we find a way of shutting down filibusters. that's when they came up with cloture. the idea that if you had two-thirds, you could stop a filibuster end and the debate. even then, that had not been there before. >> so the evolution of rules, there's been negotiation led by presidents on this fact. >> absolutely. and the nuclear option, which is a term that was actually coined by trent lott in 2003, as the

senate republican leader, it's actually a misnomer, because it implies if this is something that's sort of way out of constitutional tradition. what the constitution said is that senate and the house, they make their own rules. >> in terms of how we got here, i think when a change like this happens, everybody is sort of shocked and there's time to explain it, and then, i think, the instinct is to step back and say, what does this mean about us, that we had to have this dramatic change. >> right. >> and for me, i find myself thinking about all these sort of gentleman gentleman's agreements and all of these things about comedy in the senate and decorum. and not backroom deal, but cloakroom deals, the way they get things done. it seems like we keep hearing those are done away with. people are campaigning against each other in their home states, leaders are campaign against each other, not following the traditions and decorum. were the old rules of congress essentially only capable of moving things along as long as that gentlemanly stuff was in place? and as that gentlemanly stuff and those rules of decorum fall away, the rules also have to

change to keep the institution functioning? >> i see your point. and conservatives who feel very strongly about james madison and the fact that power should counteract power and the best laws and policy come out of huge conflict forget that the other part of madison was, you have to have negotiation, compromise, and people are talking, and you don't have a situation where you have this kind of a deadlock. >> as a study of both leaders and also institutions in our political history, what do you make of the threats from the republicans that democrats will rue the day this will come back and hurt them more than they can ever hurt republicans with what they've done today? >> i think you'll have to look very hard in 200 years of american history where there's been a mass movement protesting a change in senate rules. maybe you can find one, rachel, but i can't do it. >> if it would happen, it would definitely be around "the rachel maddow show" staff, because we get very excited about this stuff. michael beschloss, nbc presidential news historian, thank you for sharing with us.

you were the first person we wanted to call when we knew this was happening. thanks. tylenol cold® helps relieve your worst cold and flu symptoms. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol cold®.

on the day that president john f. kennedy was killed, november 22nd, 1963, that was a friday, and the boston symphony orchestra was preparing for its regular afternoon concert that day. as the crowd entered into symphony hall in boston, the first reports that the president had been shot were already circulating, but that afternoon, when news finally crossed the wires that the president was not just shot, but he had been killed, when that happened, the concert by the boston symphony orchestra was already under way. and so it was left to the conductor of the orchestra to announce, live, to that crowd, in symphony hall, what had just happened. and an audio recording was being made of the performance that

day. and the audio recording captured the conductor's announcement and the response from the audience. listen. >> ladies and gentlemen, we have a press report over the wires. we hope that it is unconfirmed, but we have to doubt it. that the president of the united states has been the victim of an assassination. we will play the funeral march from beethoven's third symphony.

>> the first gasp from the crowd when they are told that president kennedy is dead, obviously just shock and surprise. the second gasp when the conductor introduces the funeral march is almost a more heartbreaking sound, because it almost sounds angry from people who cannot believe that they have just been told. last week, "time" magazine interviewed the boston symphony orchestra's longtime librarian, who was tasked that day by the conductor, just ten minutes before the performance, to find and then collate and distribute to the orchestra the music for that movement of beethoven's third symphony, so they could play the funeral march. he told "time," quote, the musicians were already there on the stage, in their places, and the hall was filled with people. i had to tell each of the musicians as i was handing out the music what was going on. that was the first they knew of the death. it was not an easy moment for them or for me. one of the most intimate and almost surprisingly poetic accounts of what happened that day is an audio diary that was recorded late in the day by the

wife of then-vice president lyndon johnson. ladybird johnson kept an audio diary throughout her entire time in the white house, and one of her audio entries, remarkably, is her personal recollections at the end of the day after she had been in dallas in the motorcade when the shooting happened. the car for vice president johnson and his wife was just a couple of cars behind president kennedy's in the motorcade. but this is how ladybird johnson that day in her audio diary remembered going to the hospital in dallas after the shooting and coming across a distraught first lady jacqueline kennedy in the hallway of the hospital. >> suddenly, i found myself face-to-face with jackie in a small hall, i think it was right outside the operating room. you always think of her, or somebody like her, as being

insulated, protected, sort of on olympus. she was quite alone. i don't think i ever saw anybody so much alone in my life. i went up to her, put my arms around her, and said something, i'm sure it was quite banal, like god help us all, because my feelings for her were too tumultuous to put into words. >> lady bird johnson's entire diary entry from that day is written out, longhand, and it has since been completely digitized and it is now available at the lbj library website along with the corresponding audio. lyndon johnson, of course, rose to the presidency in the wake of president kennedy's

assassination, and once lbj became president, one of his first orders of business in 1963 was to appoint a high-level commission to investigate the assassination. that, of course, was the warren commission, named after supreme court justice earl warren. thanks to all the stuff now being digitized, we can now hear the process of how that commission came to be, as it was happening, and it turns out it was a fascinating thing. the two men that president johnson wanted to head up that commission were chief justice earl warren, but also, senator richard russell of georgia, who was a democrat. he was a segregationist dixiecrat. the problem was that senate russell hated earl warren. senator russell was a southern segregationist and earl warren was a pro-civil rights progressive on the supreme court, and richard russell really disliked him. when lbj told senator richard russell that he wanted him to serve on this commission alongside earl warren, senator russell said, no, he refused to do it. and when senator russell refused him, president johnson

essentially lifted that senator above his head and hurled him down to earth. richard russell was a lion at the senate. they named the first senate office building after him. he was a really big deal, even as early as 1963. but just listen how to lbj leaned into him. this is a phone call between president johnson and richard russell. this is only a week after president kennedy's death. and what happens on this phone call is that senator russell is pleading, trying in vain to get out of serving on the warren commission and lbj squashes him like a bug. this is amazing. listen to this. >> well, now, mr. president, i know i don't have to tell you of my devotion to you, but i just can't serve on that commission. i'm highly honored you'd think about me in connection with it, but i couldn't serve there with chief justice warren. i don't like that man. i don't have any confidence in him. >> dick, it's already been announced and you can serve with

anybody for the good of america. now, the reason i've asked warren is because he's the chief justice of this country and we've got to have the highest judicial people we can have. the reason i ask you is because you have that same kind of temperament and you can do anything for your country. and don't go giving me that kind of stuff about you can't serve with anybody. you can do anything. >> it's not only that, i just don't think the chief justice should have served on it. >> well, the chief justice ought to do anything he can to save america. you've never turned your country down. this is not me. this is your country. and the members of the special commission are chief justice warren, senator richard russell, and i'll go right down the list. i've got allen dulles and john mccloy. but you're my man on that commission and you're going to do it. and don't tell me what you can do and what you can't, because i can't arrest you, and i'm not

going to put the fbi on you, but you [ bleep ] sure going to serve. i'll tell you. >> mr. president, please -- >> no, it's already done. it's been announced. >> you mean you've given that -- >> yes. yes, it is already in the papers you're on it. >> no was not an option. amazing. this week, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the kennedy assassination, the government printing office announced that it's releasing for the first time the complete digital version of the warren commission report, the entire 888-page report right now is accessible online for the first time ever. bits and pieces have been digitized and out online before. i've got a piece of it that's on an lp record. but this is the first time you can get the whole thing in one place online. the kennedy assassination happened at a moment in our history where it was just late

enough in terms of the available technology that a lot of things that were happening then were being recorded. not only on audio tape, but in a lot of cases on film as well. for that reason, and because a lot of this stuff is now digitized and available widely online, we are able to not just experience this as history, but also to experience the gravity of that event in a way that we really have not been able to before, if you weren't really there when it happened. there's more available to us now than ever before, including stuff made available just this week. if you want to check out some of these recordings we just referenced here, we've posted links to everything i've just played here and more at maddowblog.com.

now, just because i'm a christian doesn't mean i don't like nice things either. i love nice things and jim and i work very, very hard for nice things. >> for those too young to recall, that was tammy faye baker, one of the most famous televangelists of all time. and the relationship between

televangelist has a surprising turn. that story is coming up. stay with us. [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare? that's a good thing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company.

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turns out you can yelp a whole city. this is the yelp page for colorado springs, colorado, the entire city of colorado springs, apparently, gets 3 1/2 stars out of 5. and yes, as one person pointed out, it is weird to review a whole city all at once on yelp. quote, seriously, we're reviewing the entire city of colorado springs? wink, smiley face. but mostly the two things people mention when they are reviewing colorado springs on yelp are, number one, it has very, very pretty mountains and number two, focus on the family. people on yelp cannot help but point that out constantly, that focus on the family, the right-wing evangelical group, is really a very big presence in the town. focus on the family has been around since the late '70s founded by james dobson. focus on the family started out in california, but in 1991, they picked up all 400 of their employees and made a new home base for themselves in colorado springs. at the time they said, it was just an economic decision.

colorado was cheaper, they wouldn't have to pay as high as salaries as they had to pay in california and they did have a really big staff. but focus on the family moved to colorado, and under james dobson, they went on to become a really big player in republican party politics. remember, in 2008, it was a big hubbub when james dobson refused to endorse john mccain for president against barack obama until the way last minute in the campaign. mr. dobson really wanted mike huckabee instead and he did not like mr. mccain, but he grudgingly, lately, gave him his endorsement. one of the many side projects launched by focus on the family after they moved to colorado springs was kind of a sister organization called love won out. it was an organization designed to cure people of being gay. they would help you pray the gay away. homosexuality is treatable, so if you end up gay, it's just your fault for refusing to be treated and cured. as focus on the family got bigger and more influential over

the years, it ended up turning colorado springs into almost kind of a company town. colorado springs became the evangelical capital of the country, by some people's measure. and that, of course, had huge repercussions for the town. just ask yelp, but it also had repercussions for one specific branch of the united states military. the hq for focus on the family is just a very, very short drive away from the united states air force academy, which was already in colorado springs when focus on the family moved there in the 1990s, but there's been signs of struggle over the outsized influence of evangelical briefs is and conservative christian values on the air force academy. on the institution, on the faculty, and on the student body, which, of course, is the elite, soon-to-be officer corps of the u.s. air force. in 2006, some air force recruiters and rent academy graduates filed a lawsuit against the air force, alleging illegal religious coercion against cadets and pressure to

proselytize to new recruits. they said they had been subject to aggressive proselytizes and had received lower performance rufifs they didn't attend prayer group and church. they said they were told they needed to accept jesus in order to be able to do their air force jobs. around that same time, a chaplain at the air force academy spoke up publicly about what she called a systemic and pervasive problem of religious proselytizing. she was a chaplain. she said she tried to help fix the problem at the academy, but her attempts were watered down by her superiors. she attributed the problem in part, quote, to the academy's location in colorado springs, there's significant crossover between the leadership of the academies and those organizations and churches in or near colorado springs, including focus on the family. that was the 1990s. by 2010, an internal air force survey showed that 41% of cadets a to the academy still reported feeling like they were being proselytized to by evangelical christians while they were

cadets. that they were being pressured to accept the specific values of a specific religion while they were training to become air force officers. in light of this history, it's a kind of long history now, when news broke this week that the air force academy had hired in 2009 a leader in the ex-gay movement to oversee the mandatory counseling program for all academy cadets, they hired him in 2009, and promoted him to oversee that counseling program in 2011, when that story broke this week, that instantly became a really big deal. the story was broken by john after an academy graduate, on the board of out -serve, he visited the academy and discovered that dr. michael rosebush was the chief of coaching development at the air force academy. and he had a decades-long history as a counselor who believed he could turn gay men straight, through religious counseling. the job he had right before he

came to the air force was being the president of coaching confidant, in which he would charge you a fee to talk to you over the phone in a way that he said would make you not gay anymore. this was his professional career before coming to the air force. he wrote books about curing gayness. he was a director at the big cure the gay groups at narth and exodus international. exodus international focused before exodus itself went out of business earlier this year. dr. michael rosebush's entire professional career has been counseling people to try to make gay men not gay anymore. he also worked for focus on the family itself. he served as vice president there for a time. there's nothing about the air force academy leadership right now, or the air force leadership right now, that indicates that they're driven by some anti-gay agenda. and they clearly do not want to be known as an anti-gay institution. the superintendent of the academy met with the lbgt group

on campus this week after this story broke. the air force has taken steps this week to reach out to the media. they've tried to explain why they hired dr. rosebush and never say it had anything to do with his lifelong career of trying to turn gay people into straight people. they say he designed and analyzed their coaching program. they stressed he doesn't do any one-on-one coaching with the cadets. they say over and over again, don't worry, he does not personally coach or counsels the cadets, just oversees the whole program. but the fact that you're trying to make the public feel better about this situation, by telling people that he's not personally interacting with the cadets one on one kind of begs the question, why is he on staff in the first place? why did you hire him? especially in light of the very specific recent history of the air force academy. why would a quack ex-gay therapist with decades of experience doing that kind of quack ex-gay therapy be hired to oversee anything, much less the mandatory counseling program for

all u.s. air force academy cadets. joining us now for the interview tonight is scott heinz. scott heinz was a distinguished graduate of the air force academy in 1992. by his senior year, he was commanding a third of the cadet force. he was gay, and of course he had to be closeted. the air force academy referred him as a cadet to ted haggard's new life church in colorado springs, for him to undergo therapy designed to turn him into a straight man. it didn't take. mr. heinz is now a city council member in rancho mirage california. mr. heinz, thank you for being with us. >> thank you, rachel. thanks for having me. >> i've got to ask your, let me ask you, if anything about having been there as a gay cadet strikes you wrong? if any of that doesn't resonate with you in terms of your experience. and also your reaction to this news about the counseling program. >> well, i think you're very accurate in painting what is really a decades-long history. and the academy has been working very hard, particularly in the last five to six years, to

really overcome this culture that's really developed at the academy, that's very much influenced by the community that's around them. my reaction to the news this week was one of being horrified. you know, i experience conversion therapy several times in my time in the air force, but as cadet, i was referred through the new life church and then to a reparative therapy program in colorado springs, which i secretly participated in. this was pre-don't ask, don't tell, keep in mind. as a trailer park kid, this was my ticket out of poverty, to go to the academy. so i wasn't going to talk to anybody about this. and in that program, i suffered a lot of trauma. this is a harmful, harmful type of therapy -- >> you were referred by the academy to do it? >> i did, i went and said i'm struggling, and used all the terms without saying, i think i'm gay. and the captain at time was a member of new life church, put me over there, mr. haggard took me under his wing, i was put in -- involved in a mens group of other men who were struggling,

many who were active duty as well, and then put into a counseling program that ended up being quite destructive in my life. >> and then in terms of it being destructive, you did graduate from the academy as a very well-regarded and decorated cadet and went on to a long active duty career in the air force. what kind of trouble did that counseling cause you, when you say it was damaging, what do you mean? >> as is often the case, men who claim to be ex-gay are not ex-gay, and my ex-gay therapist turned out to not be so ex-gay and became quite a predator. >> sexually, towards you? >> yes. without getting into a lot of details, which i've really tried to put that in the past, in my life, it was, obviously, very detrimental. i have not talked to many people about this, rachel. not my family and not others, and it brings up a lot of emotion, so you can imagine when i heard this week that a reparative therapist is heading these programs, and out right in the middle of this, given my experiences and what i probably expect are the experiences of other young cadets, it was just horrifying.

>> one of the things, when you reached out to us when we first broadcast this story, one of the things i find striking is that somebody who had been an exception to your bad experience around the academy, who was a major there, an instructor at the academy, who is now a superintendent at the academy, a three-star general, my guess then is that you have confidence in her, somebody who had been humane towards you on this issue, that the academy can fix this. >> and you're referring to lieutenant general michelle johnson, now superintendent of the academy. michelle at the time was a major, a political science instructor and my academic adviser. and i really credit her with helping me deal with that. she never knew about it. she never knew it happened. she never knew i was gay. but she went a long way, as every instructor there should in building my self-esteem, giving me hope for the future, really inspiring me to serve my country. i credit her with probably saving me during that time of depression and really some suicidal thoughts after having gone through that trauma. today, i am so proud that she is the new face of leadership at the air force academy. she is a special person.

first female cadet commander at the academy. she was a rhodes scholar. she's now the first female commander of the academy. and i have supreme confidence that if anybody can turn around this culture at the academy, it's her. >> it academy it is her. >> from their reaction to this reporting, at first it felt having dealt with a lot of pr operations when we cover story that don't make people look good felt they scurried at first. now what they are doing feels like there is a commitment, both, not to be known as an anti-gay institution but also to fix this. i would expect, i will just speak personally, i would expect this situation is not sustainable. they cannot keep somebody in charge of counseling now that if only through the press they know its history. >> makes you wonder if it is out of her hands. it has the pentagon's attention. at least he needs to be reassigned. i want to hear that he denounces reparative therapy. i hope she is able to turn the culture of the academy. christian fundamentalists, work

and they can get follow on hires and a planning for your future assignment. makes sense you are promoting your christian beliefs to get your street cred, afterward you hope james dobson. >> geopolitical accident we are all living with the consequences of. >> scott heinz, city council member in california, went on to a distinguished active duty careeren the air force after your time at the academy. an honor to have you here to talk about this. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. thanks. i'm pregnant. really?

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>> i got something wrong on the show this week. turns out it is kind of amazing. remember jim and tammie faye bakker, famous televangelists, got rich preaching on television and telling people to send them money. one thing they did with all the money they made was they fit a theme park, heritage usa which does not exist anymore.

it did give us one of the greatest photos of all time their fellow televangelist jerry falwell going down the water slide in a suit. these tell evangelists made the holy land experience where bill mahr memorably has a debate with a guy paid to look like jesus. the prayer tower in tulsa, oklahoma, built by televangelists. real credit to goes to televangelists building colleges. oral roberts university in oklahoma in the 60s. remember jimmy swaggart. the bible college. pat robertson, christian broadcasting university, regent university, jerry falwell founded liberty university. televangelists used to build mansions, towers, theme parks, now they build colleges. it turns out they help each other out. some times hard to tell them apart. when oral roberts university

failed to have a law school, they boxed up their whole law school library and mailed tight pat robertson so he could have a law school. he built a law school. now a player in conservative politics. a former dean was put in charge of hiring in the bush administration. lobbying group associated with jerry falwell's lawsuit putting up the press release obama care would mandate free sex changes. i said this week that marco rubio gave his anti-gay rights speech with a guy from pat robertson school, turns out with a guy from the jerry falwell school. always getting these guys mixed up and their law schools. i very much regret the error. the fact remains if you want the republican party to nominate you for president, you have to kiss the rings of the televangelist.

be healed, republican party, be healed. . good friday morning. right now on "first look," 50 years ago today the united state changed forever as president john f. kennedy was cut down in the premie of his life and career of public service. we have memories to share. plus some airlines are saying no way to talking on your phone while flying. others are welcoming the change. the senated a don' ed adopt nuclear option. good morning. i'm mara schiavocampo. 50 years ago today, the nation lost its 35th president when john f. kennedy was struck down