storms. people have driven in them safely, no problems. i think tomorrow morning is different. i think it snows so hard we're going to have a lot more problems than people expect. >> listen to bill, new york. thanks very much for that. >> chris hayes is up next. bonfire of john boehner. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington i'm going to get to the latest christie development, the huge rise in the people who don't believe him right after the incredible development on the right. for whatever reason, strange brain soup, the hard right in the u.s. congress is in the early stage of insurrection against house speaker john boehner. they find what he did yesterday avoiding a fault on national debt unacceptable.

some are speaking treason saying boehner is secretly pushing what they call the liberal obama agenda. this mutiny may represent a cheap way to raise money or may be the beginning wave of the real move to unseat the relatively sane man in the speaker's chair because he dared to put country first. howard fineman, the editorial director and the washington bureau chief. both are prized msnbc political analysts. i thought boehner had basically avoided a big problem yesterday for the whole country. we didn't need another debt default and another government shutdown. what we needed is smooth sailing on while the economy begins to pick up again.

>> why does the right wing want to go crazy? >> boehner was doing a favor for the republican party by their more republicans to the house who will then turn around and vote him out. >> in other words, he can actually win 20 more seats this fall because he has brilliantly

focused on one issue laser like which is health care rather than starting a fight about cultural issues or abortion. >> he gets a lot of grief. he has prevent the tea party wing from pulling the rest of the party off the cliff. the government shutdown a couple of months ago. they are standing in the polls at like 7%. maybe they can get to negative numbers if they have another debt ceiling crisis that they provoked. he stopped all of that. we have an inevitable clash between two wings within the republican party. you have tea partyers who come to town. they want to disrupt. they want to burn the village down and not save it because they don't like the village. >> they don't want to govern. >> some republicans want to govern. some republicans who think their brand is diminished or harmed by the other wing. they don't want that, either. >> yesterday's vote in the house to pass a clean debt limit increase has whipped into a

frenzy. here are a few examples. the executive director of the conservatives fund accusing boehner of being in the league with democrats quote conservatives help republicans win a majority in the house of representatives which made it possible for john boehner to become speaker. unfortunately, he has chosen to ignore us and help president obama enact his liberal agenda. only one solution john boehner must be replaced as speaker of the house. tea party patriots saying it is time for boehner to go. and another group asking to spend a million dollars on anti-leadership ads is this the beginning of a big insurrection. i thought he figured out a way

to avoid trouble to get him through so they can win big and pick up maybe 20 seats. sdpl you are living in the rational world of political strategy. >> i want to stay there, too. >> i that's not where the tea party people are. they are serious about wanting to get rid of john boehner. >> do they believe he is a liberal? >> they believe he is a complete renegade. they absolutely do. they know that there is no real mechanism for getting rid of him in the middle -- they want to do it. what they are going to do is hope that they elect more tea party people in the next mid term elections and then have the votes to oust him. the big problem is they don't have a single consensus. >> i don't think they think he is a liberal. i think they think he is a collaborationest. that he is part of the system, working on compromises, passing a farm bill, getting democrat votes. this is a sin.

>> one in the same thing. >> i understand that. at the same time to come across their base is all about being pure. it's all about being extreme. this is what is going to flow into presidential primaries in 2016. they are going to try to get to the right of each other. >> i remember it was once taken among regular americans about how people don't trust politicians. you say 7% approval rating. they asked people do you believe members of congress they get in their cars off capitol hill and head home they steal the equipment from the office, they steal the word processor, the phones, anything that is not nailed down and take it home with them and basically fence it. do you believe they do that? people say we believe they steal the stuff they work with. that crazy looney thinking, i think there may have been a congressman maybe once who did that. the idea of the level of

skepticism rampant on the right. they think boehner is secretly having drinks with the president. >> they think that the president is destroying this country purposefully. >> what is his motive? >> because he hates america, because he is from kenya, doesn't matter. they think he has a plan to weaken america. >> boehner? anybody who enables him is as guilty. >> republicans in his own party are certainly attacking boehner. after he said he was going to pass a clean debt limit hike he was skewered. paul brown from georgia reacted by blasting the legislation as speaker boehner's bill, highly responsible. attacked by saying he gave the president exactly what he wanted. and the "washington post" reports that andy harris from maryland was so enraged during closed door meetings about the debt limit that he knocked him

as a tool for the insurance companies. boehner just stood there for a moment after he finished, eyed the room and walked toward his seat. on his way there boehner shook his head and wondered why he wasn't getting applause. quote, i'm getting this monkey off your back and you are not going to clap. there is a failure to communicate. john boehner and the people to re-elect him or not. >> these are two different worlds. one is a world of practical political strategy. any move that you make in their eyes to make the machinery of government actually work is a form of treason in their eyes at this point. it is that upside down. >> just to take it back to the issue a lot of people care about. immigration, a couple days ago

boehner confronted this wall of difference between his world of reality which is we might want to get people with hispanic back grounds to someday vote republican or at least think about it. he was wrong. they didn't want that. >> they didn't want it. they didn't want to accept them as americans or anything. >> you have two different worlds in another way. you have a congressional world of what is left of the practical republican thinkers, whether in many cases like mitch mcconnell trying to steer when he can, boehner and so forth. and then you have the presidential wing of the republican party which is now really out there and dominated by people like ted cruz whose strategy is very much behind a lot of what is going on here. >> he wants to bring down the government, too. >> he wants to bring down john boehner. there is an all-out war between ted cruz and john boehner.

>> why is he doing it? >> we are not going to be able to talk about policy, immigration reform is dead. there is no budget talks. there is nothing going on the next ten months into the election because boehner can't get 18 people from his party to talk about any serious -- >> somebody told me ted cruz was looking at old tapes, old movies, news reels of joe mccarthy and imitated him. i believe it. the guy is such a perfect example of what mccarthy looked like and acted like. buzz feed is reporting that some rogue boehner critic has obtained the private e-mail accounts of members of congress. a group of house republicans received a mysterious threat in recent weeks, an anonymous e-mail. so who is sending these threats?

it's got to be another member, probably one of the crazy ones said a republican who had seen the e-mail sent from an anonymous address. isn't this weird stuff? somebody sending scary letters to people? >> john boehner is not a speaker anymore. he is basically a baby sitter. he is trying to keep these people from hurting his own party. we have seen in previous parts republicans. this is like worst. this is worse than mean girls in high school. >> people don't believe him. democrats hope eto use the bipartisan concern over income

inequality to power them in november. today president obama gave them a boost. also work against john kerry. a campaign against benghazi. wait until you see the latest poll numbers on hillary versus any possible republican opponent. this is "hardball" a place for politics. my grandson's got this blankie that gets filthy. but he's got such sensitive skin that you worry about what you use in the laundry. my tide, downy, and bounce all come in free & gentle. so we get a cleaner, softer blankie. uh oh. [ female announcer ] tide, downy, and bounce free & gentle.

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according to a new poll paul ryan fairs best against hillary clinton. not bad for paul ryan there. from there it is all down hill for the republicans. clinton would beat mike huckabee. against ted cruz clinton leads by 17. she leads rand paul by 20, 58-38. she has the same 20-point lead on jeb bush. same as rand paul. she beats him 58-38. so much for bush coming in from the bench. marco rubio down 21. stay tuned for the christie numbers. we have those in just a minute and they are bad for the governor.

chris christie is hoping to put his troubles back home on pause for a while. yesterday was a trip to chicago. while he raised big money for the republican governor's association there were calls back in jersey for him to give the gig up and get back to being something of a governor. here was the editorial this morning. it is undeniable that the rga job is a major distraction especially when heaped on top of the scandals. so give it up, governor. time to focus on the job you were hired to do. christie seems to be carrying favor with the right wing of the republican party which never liked him. after days of playing the favorite past time of attacking the "new york times" christie hit democrats for their focus on income inequality. >> i don't think the american people want income equality. what they want is income opportunity.

and i make that one of the big discussions in conversations is do you want medicrity or greatness. >> no one is talking about income equality. they are talking about the difference in incomes never seen before in this country. let's call it his attempt to show proof of life out there. the former democratic governor of ohio and a reporter for the "new york times." governor, i like the fact when people go out and attack something that no one said. i never heard the democratic party say they want everybody to make $100,000 a year. i have heard the pope among other people get very concerned about society begun to match the

way latin america was for all of these years. we have a couple of people making all the money and owning all the land and millions of people at the bottom with nothing. that is what i think the democratic party is worried about as are most people right now. not income equality but the frightening difference in what people have and those who have nothing. >> i think governor christie was being disingenuous and misleading when he said income equality. what we are concerned about, what the democratic party is concerned about is income inequality where people do not have an equal opportunity to succeed in life. the cards are stacked against the working middle class and the poor in this country. and chris christie chose his words very, very carefully. but it was disengenious of him. i think he was not being really honest with his audience. >> there is bad news for christie in the national polling.

they found christie trails hillary clinton by 21 points in a hypothetical matchup. no big surprise he has had a terrible month. that is a huge change from when christie and clinton were tied up there. this is the one i'm looking at, the percent of people who said christie is mostly not telling the truth about the bridge scandal has shot up, almost 50% increase of people not believing a word he is saying. i think this points to the problem that the news reporting, the facts coming out which i believe is going to drive this story six months from now, a year from now. we are going to be talking about the testimony and the documentary evidence that comes in to not just trenton in terms of legislative investigation and the courts and u.s. attorney's efforts. i hope we get the evidence that will decide thet matter. it looks like the governor thinks it will be decided by pr and politics. >> in the last two weeks there have not been new facts on the matter.

trying to go back to talking about what he thinks are the big themes of 2016 and beyond. the speech is a chance to say we are returning to our normal programming for 2016 and beyond. what you would do in the situation right now we are in the period where everyone is sifting through documents and issuing subpoenas. there haven't been new facts really. >> let's take a look at what sarah palin who manages to get in the news all the time. here is what the former alaskan governor had to say about the bridge scandal yesterday. >> i don't know all the information out there. it is hard to be the ceo of an organization and not know ewhat the closest people to you are up to. it's tough not to know. i know when i was mayor and manager of this city and then governor of the state certainly you know what your top aides are up to. i want to make sure that, you

know, that every politician, everyone elected and given that honor and that sacred honor of vote, people's trust that we don't blow it. and you blow it if you ever try to hide anything. whatever is hidden eventually light shines upon it. i just hope that truth is being told right now. >> governor, that was what we call in boxing a combination of punches. and then said by the way, don't cover up because you are going to get nailed on that one. i thought that was a lot of information from somebody who didn't have to talk. that was an interview there. >> your thoughts. >> i am surprised that i totally agree with sarah palin about this. how could he have been the

governor in that office interacting on a daily basis with his closest aides and not know what was going on? and so i reached the conclusion that either he knew and is not telling us the truth about it or he didn't know which would say that he is an inept manager. >> you know that's not true. governor, you know that second one is not true. he is not incompetent. let me give you a middle case. suppose he recruited the people to work for him and he tell them what he wanted done and made it clear how he wanted business of new jersey and politics handled. they may not give heads up day to day but following out the method of operation he had set up. punish people that get in our way. make sure things happen my way. that to me sounds like the reality here.

if it isn't the reality the guy is in big trouble, bigger than i thought. it seems the reporting on the story is going to be in two directions. t what did he know? what were his methods of operation in terms of training that staff? and the people like wildstein and people like bridget kelly. >> if evidence emerges that he knew or instructed it is fatal. if not we are moving into the territory of what is the cull. >> caller: -- culture of his office and can voters be persuaded. he says he doesn't. it is the kind of thing you fight politicly. until we have facts that hook in a direct way or not it will be in the terrain that the whole debate of his future. >> all people were out robbing gas stations for their own interest. this is like scooter working for dick cheney.

he was working in the interest of the vice president. we all knowt that. in this case i believe all of the people were working in the interest of the governor. christie spoke about his disappointment who in his words made bad judgments. they are all in cahoots but he is out of the loop. let's watch. >> some people who work for me made significant mistakes in judgment. when you are the leader of that organization and you're confronted with that the first thing that happens to you was extraordinary disappointment. extraordinary disappointment that people that i had trusted had made such bad judgments and had not told the truth. >> governor, last time we heard from him he called them liars and stupid. now it is mistakes in judgment. maybe he is worried about what they will testify. he called bridgett kelly a liar

and called a bunch of them stupid. now it is mistakes of judgment. he picks his words very carefully. this was not a mistake or a mistake in judgment. this was a planful, purposeful decision to put the public at significant risk by closing down the lanes on that bridge. it was planful. mistake is something you might do while having good intentions. these people had bad intentions. and he should stop calling it a mistake and start calling it what it is. it was a violation of the public trust. >> yeah, i guess a mistake in judgment would be having raisins with your bran for breakfast when you shouldn't have the raisins. that would be a mistake in judgment. thank you. you obviously know how i live. up next more on the mysterious e-mail campaign against republicans on capitol hill. this is really spooky. who has control of the private e-mails of all of these congress people if it isn't another congress person?

which everybody thinks it is right now. who is the insider.

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time for the side show. a series of e-mails have house republicans mystified. last night buzz feed reported several republican congressman have received threatening e-mails of the debt ceiling hike since january. what is especially puzzling is that the messages were sent to the internal e-mails of individual house members. since the personal addresses are held close to the vest many believe the culprit may be a fellow congressman. how is that for spookiness? the mysterious representative uses 1@gmx.com.

the messages appeal to political retribution. one sent oklahoma representative james lankford listing the congressman targeted for retribution and also a spreadsheet of the congressman's political donors. here is an excerpt from an e-mail sent to john boehner. john, i have never voted against you nor have i ever done whatever you asked of me. isn't it time we stop lying to the american people in regard to the debt limit? buzz feed reports the e-mails have gone unreturned. rush limbaugh is complaining about the media's coverage of michael sam, the player who could be the nfl's first openly gay player. limbaugh seems to see this as a larger gay agenda that he says is threatening to the population.

listen to what he had to say today. >> heterosexuality maybe 85% are under assault by the 2% to 5% that are homosexuals. why is there a political agenda attached to and driven by homosexuality and there is no corresponding heterosexual agenda? >> well, rush's idea that straight people are under assault is absurd. some have weighed in in drafting sam. here is what steve colbert had to say. >> teams will have to think twice. >> can the players handle the media attention that they are going to get when the get the question asked are you okay with a gay teammate?

>> exactly. just think of that question. are you okay with a gay teammate? who wants to put their players through the agony of saying -- >> yeah. >> i thought it was a trick question. up next president obama and the democrats hope they have found a winning issue, income inequality. that is ahead. you are watching "hardball". ♪

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broad support. that is actual republican voters. win or lose democrats love the issue, minimum wage and economic fairness may be the booster rocket that propel democrats to 2013 wins. let me start with nira. do you think the democrats want the minimum wage to go up or

want the issue to take that the republicans are standing in the way? >> i think everyone -- >> which one? >> like the bill to pass. i think everyone would like to see and it would be good to show you can make progress for people, be a good accomplishment for the president. i'm not betting we are going to pass it but i think it is important that we push it and push it hard. i think it is one of the issues of economic fairness and opportunity which people really get. there is a moral component to this. >> well said. bob, did you see christie today? he is out there desperately trying to make noise to show he is alive. the fact of the matter is he said the democrats are pushing for a common income level. here he is putting his spin on the issue. let him talk for himself here. >> i don't think the american people want income equality. what they want is income opportunity.

you want income equality that is medicrity. or you do you want the opportunity for greatness? >> that is a great malarkey there. i have no idea what it is about. the most wildest socialist in the world doesn't say it. i remember the communist party had differentials. it seems the issue is geometric difference. it is not that one guy makes $100,000 a year and one makes 50. it is billionaires. it was never a part of the economic culture until recent ely. >> christie is being deliberately dishonest there. no one is calling for equality of income or equality of salaries. what people are trying to address are the extremes like we have had in new york up until recently where you had a mayor

who was worth 30 something billion dollars and a third of the children in new york were growing up poor and you have 50,000 new yorkers in homeless shelters at night. it is those extremes that you want to correct. it is not that you want everyone to have the same income. >> why is christie floating the story? >> because he wants to glom on to anything that will take the media's attention off the scandals that he is trying to deal with. >> let's talk about people agree. tremendous agreement about minimum wage. my own reason i think a lot more employees than employers. and everybody in the union knows this, if the minimum wage goes up that means the people above them go up. >> we had a real challenge in the country. we have been stagnating. people have been working harder and harder and making the same money. >> why is that happening? >> technology, trade, the

structure of the market. >> productivity goes up and technology is good you can make light bulbs that last forever, why doesn't that increase your salary? >> that is a good question. that is a fundamental break down. usually that means people get wage increase. since 2000 what has happened is wages have stuck while people are basically productivity is going up. the american dream is really about working hard. >> how do you get this done? it seems you go to republicans and say take the 28 guys and women who voted the other day with the speaker, moderate republicans, northeastern guys like me and we know the names, go to them and say sign this discharge petition where you say are you going to bring this to a vote on the floor or not? stop hiding this thing. they are forced to sign it and

say there ought to be a vote or don't sign and then you nail them. why don't the democrats do that? >> i think there will bee a vote in the senate? why don't they squeeze the republicans? >> i think we will see. >> would you recommend doing that? >> i think the petition is a great idea. i think they should definitely do it. charlie said he was open to a minimum wage. >> why don't they get aggressive? >> here is the problem the democrats have when they are talking about economic unfairness. the question is whether their heart is really in the issue. because if you are going to hit this issue head on you have to hit the corporations and banks who have been giving american workers the short end of the stick. >> you think democrats are afraid to take on the money people? >> i don't know if the democrats really have the heart or the will or even the desire to do that in fan effective way. >> we will see. >> i think we are going to have a big campaign on minimum wage.

>> they are blowing it. thank you. >> up next 2016 style. the right did it to john kerry and now ready to try it against hillary clinton. wait until you see how they do it the same way. those little things still get you. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment is right. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any allergic reactions like rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use

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now the western span of the bay bridge between san francisco has officially been named the willie l. brown jr. bridge. the california chapter of the naacp raised the money to pay for the signs to honor the former mayor, something they wanted to do during black history month and they have done it. we'll be right back.

the swift voters are back again. this time their target, hillary clinton. their issue looks like benghazi. as secretary of state claim

hillary failed to discuss the attack with president obama promptly and is not being truthful overall. according to reuters, a right wing affiliated group has organized a target the former secretary of state, quote, if hillary clinton wants to run for president she's not going to be able to continue hiding from the fact that she did nothing to help prevent the deaths of four americans in benghazi. in 2007 bill clinton said hillary will never let a swift-style attack go unanswered. hillary assured she knows how to respond to right wing attacks. >> when you are attacked you have to deck your opponent. >> deck, great word. i want to start with michelle on this. swift voting is a term of art.

it doesn't mean attack your opponent, it means take something about it, distort it and hit him with it. john kerry was opposed by a lot of people on the right including a lot of former military people because he opposed the war when he came back from vietnam. she failed to discuss the attack already litigated.

if benghazi didn't work against barack obama in 2012, it's hard to see how it's going to work against hillary clinton in 2016. >> it's like banging your way out of a paper bag. every now and then i say, the facts are, the senate bipartisan intelligence committee came out and said, the attack on our facility there in benghazi, which probably -- they believe was triggered by a copycat of what was going on in cairo, which in turn was a response to that crazy movie made in los angeles. everything -- this is what i said on the air that day. and the use of the word extremist rather than terrorist was language coming from the cia. al qaeda -- a decision made by petraeus, hillary clinton and susan rice are clean as a whistle on how they discovered it, what they're going after now is some implication that during the time of the fire, what she did was derelict somehow. >> the problem here, if she's playing defense, she's losing. i think she should get up there and say, look, the chairman of the joint chiefs appointed by

george w. bush exonerated me, let's look at something else here, the senate intelligence committee found out that since the republicans who were so desperate to go after hillary clinton exposed the existence of a secret cia facility in benghazi, 15 people there who have been cooperating and helping the united states have been killed. so if they want to say in a hillary clinton has blood on hire hands, she can say, how about these 15 people killed since you exposed the existence of the secrecy. >> how do you deal with the psychosis? maybe that's the wrong -- psychological predisposition to believe that hillary clinton is evil. that she's out at dinner some night and ignores the fact that her friend is getting killed or may still be alive or something, that's what they're after here, that she's a bad person. how do you fight that? >> i don't know that you can fight, but you can let the republicans devour themselves

with their own paranoid fantasies. this is all going to be very effective within the small world of right wing chamber. just as their efforts to bring up monica again, before long i think we're all going to hear about vince foster. again, it's very effective at whipping up. >> what happened to the koch brothers, spend a zillion dollars. i don't understand, what is it? you hear it so many times reverberating through your head. i saw them turn john kerry into a flawed candidate. >> hillary clinton is not john kerry, they're much more aggressive, they've already created a team, there's already a team being put in place devoted to jumping in and fighting back against all the smears that are inevitably going to be lobbed at hillary clinton.

you have to answer it forcefully and repeatedly. you don't just want to say, no, i'm innocent, i didn't do that. turn it around and say what her accusers are doing. >> look what -- the same group that michelle obama saying, he killed bin laden, but he took credit for it. >> but i guess the point is -- >> but the point is -- this is the same group that tried to use barack obama's decision to assassinate bin laden against him, and, you know, while it's maddening, i think we can look and see how well that worked for them. >> well, it didn't hurt him. >> right. >> but i don't know. i just -- i think we live in a world where the koch brothers are going to be a problem for a

lot of democrats, oil and gas has a lot of money. a lot of money behind those guys. we'll be right back. ch sensitivn that you worry about what you use in the laundry. my tide, downy, and bounce all come in free & gentle. so we get a cleaner, softer blankie. uh oh. [ female announcer ] tide, downy, and bounce free & gentle.

blet me finish tonight with a real star of television, the golden age of the 1950s, sid caesar. if you're my age or older, you don't need to know any more. your show of shows.

it was thunderously creative, making fun of movies, people who fought in movie theaters. it was tv's answer to mad magazine before there was mad magazine. the star of the show was sid caesar who i loved when he did ceasar's hour. i watched it religiously every monday night right up until the time i was old enough to join the boy scouts. shirley temple, mickey rooney, had their wild early youth. it's truly the stuff of dreams, only to see it vanish as they returned to earth. it isn't that bad, that's if you didn't happen to have this incredible early thing you could never quite get out of your head like an old girlfriend that haunts you, even though she's no longer around, especially because she's no longer around. sid caesar just died. he'll make the front page tomorrow, and nightly news tonight. the young will wonder why we're

feeling as we are, but we know, don't we how really great the man was. how he made us laugh, made us happy, so incredibly loyal to him. for sid, the man sid, the comic sid, the hero, one last time, hail ceasar. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. back in the host seat, good to see you. hundreds of thousands of minimum workers got a raise. the entire political world is on notice to just how powerful that simple idea is. >> today i'm issuing an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour. >> today the president made good on his promise to raise the