you think of obamacare, the answer is oh, i hate obamacare or i'm suspicious of it. so what really has never been done by the democrats or the supporters is to show what's in obamacare. >> michael hiltzik of the "los angeles times" gets tonight's last word here in los angeles. it's only fair. chris hayes is up next. the clown car goes to war. let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm chris matthews in philadelphia. let me start tonight with this. so look who is riding shotgun in the clown car. is it dick cheney, who refuses despite screeching popular demand to just leave washington? well, this strange dr. strangelove is now out there this weekend, pushing what he calls military action to get the

russians out of crimea. this is the same dick cheney whose last push for military action, the lamebrain decision to invade, conquer and occupy iraq cost at least 186,000 lives. is he dick cheney, the meister-sanger of the clown car? is he? or is it the charismatically clueless sarah palin who called this weekend for a nuclear confrontation with moscow. >> mr. president, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke. >> wow. it's hard to get to the right of that thought. yes, this is the talk of the american right as of this weekend from seasoned warhawk to alaskan half governor. and this is, as scary as it is, makes for applause lines in the crazy camp. when governor palin talked of enforcing a nuclear stand-up there, the peanut gallery of the hard right went wild with applause. to this crowd of geeks meeting in washington this weekend,

contemplating nuclear war is as close as it gets to a social life. thank god there are sane people in the republican world who can't stand this babbling, frothy insanity. people like former secretary of state james baker and former pentagon chief gates. even henry kissinger who says calling vladimir putin names doesn't constitute a foreign policy. but calling barack obama names was about all you heard through the wide open windows of the clown car this weekend. tonight we get to enjoy the god's good news that these chicken hawks of the right who have never been in anything so wild as a schoolyard fight can speak as generals, but don't, again, thank god, get to actually call the shots. howard fineman is editorial director for "the huffington post" media group and david corn is washington bureau chief for mother jones. both are msnbc political analysts. over the weekend, as i said, former vice president dick cheney gave us his strange views toward russia and attacked president obama. let's watch. >> i worry on one would address

a crisis by the first thing we do is take options off the table. i don't think the administration should do that. >> have they done that? >> in a sense by say nothing military. he seems to operate that way most of the time. there are military options that don't involve putting troops on the ground in crimea. we could go back and reinstate the ballistic missile defense program that was taken out. it was originally going to go in poland, czech republic. president obama took it out to apiece putin. we could do training exercises in poland, join exercises. well could offer military assistance in terms of equipment, training, and so forth to the ukrainians themselves. >> you know dick cheney talking about keeping military options on the table. it has to be emphasized this is the guy responsible for the iraq war largely, something that caused the deaths of at least 186,000 people. according to the group iraq body count. all together nearly 5,000 americans were killed in that campaign, and 32,000 americans were wounded. howard, dick cheney doesn't seem to want to go away.

and when he comes back, it amazes how he is invited on sunday television, as if he didn't take us into catastrophe. it's as if he is still fighting the iraq war, as if we were winning, it was a brilliant idea. there. >> are so many marks against him as an expert to be called in, i almost don't know where to start. >> yeah. >> let's go back even before 9/11. the early bush/cheney administration was asleep at the switch in the months leading up to 9/11, ignoring warnings all over the place. one thing for george bush to ignore them. but the great cold warrior dick cheney should have been alive to them in the months before 9/11. then there is the iraq war, as you mentioned. ill-conceived, sold to the american people on false pretenses. it cost us not only all those lives, tragically, but trillions of dollars, sapping the military strength that we might need now if we wanted to actually follow cheney's advice. and then in 2008, when the former soviet union, when vladimir putin threw his weight

around in the former soviet republic of georgia, basically, carved that country up in 2008 while bush and cheney were still in power. did they do anything? did they ratchet up military options? did they put the squeeze on vladimir putin? absolutely not. they looked the other way. so this is an amazing incompetence and hypocrisy. that's what we're watching right now out of dick cheney. >> you know, david, it used to be there was a protocol. you left washington after you lost the presidency. you have eight years here, and then you get out of town. it's always been practiced by vp and president alike. he stays here. the shamelessness of the guy. and the way he gets treated on the sunday shows drives me crazy, like he is this brilliant uncle, who comes in and every once in a while tells you the truth of the world. and he has nothing to stand on. your thoughts. and by the way, it isn't much difference listening to him and listening to sarah palin.

one may have the vintage, but i see no wisdom from either of these characters about war. >> dick cheney, you know, rising from the crypt to take a shot at barack obama and encourage bellicosity is about as appealing as the house repealing obama care. it seems every six months he gets the call. to a larger point here, chris, whether it's dick cheney, bill kristol or any of the other folks who marched us into war in iraq in 2003, they end up pay nothing toll in our political media world. there is still henry kissinger as well. they still get called on the shows. they write their op-eds. and they keep going on. and i really think dick cheney won't be satisfied until he has shoved barack obama into a war, maybe as disastrous as the one dick cheney and george w. bush gave us. but the notion while the president is involved in a very challenging diplomatic position, for him to come out there and say we should give troops and

support military support to ukraine when ukraine hasn't even asked for it strikes me as being completely reckless and irresponsible. >> i just love that bonding he does. well, you know, charles, as we know, charles, we're all in this together. we're all wise men. we know how these things work, don't we, young men? it's always that same avuncular fashion. it is oily. anyway, this weekend, ted cruz blasted the president for his weakness, as he put it. and he joined senator lindsey graham in linking the events in ukraine to guess what else? we can't say bingo, so benghazi. it's all about benghazi. >> a critical reason for putin's aggression has been president obama's weakness. putin fears no retribution. their policy has been to alienate and abandon our friends, and to coddle and apiece our enemies. so putin, you better believe putin sees in benghazi four americans are murdered and nothing happens. there is no retribution.

you better believe that putin sees that in syria, obama draws a red line and ignores the red line. >> there we go again. the cold war is back. howard, it doesn't stop. cruz talks like a guy from the early '50s. i've said that a million times. i won't say it again. and yet this virulence. i don't know what to call it. as somebody pointed out, maybe you just did, howard or david, that during the war with georgia, the invasion of georgia, yeah, well, that's a good point. >> they did nothing. they did nothing. they did absolutely nothing. dick cheney did nothing. he has no credibility talking about putting the screws to putin when basically first of all george w. bush looked into putin's eyes and saw a companionable soul. don't forget that. and then the bush/cheney administration looked the other way on soviet georgia. so they don't have any credibility on that. but what ted cruz is doing is what the republicans have been trying to do to barack obama from the very beginning. they use the same words over and over again.

they use feckless, you know, that he is feckless, that he is weak, that he wears mom jeans, as if. anything they can get their hands on to try to take him down as a strong leader on foreign policy. the fact is that you want to look at libya. don't look at benghazi. look at the fact that the united states, essentially, let a group in there that took moammar gadhafi out. i mean, that's what happened there. benghazi notwithstanding. and barack obama in many respects, in many ways in his administration have used drones have, used surveillance, have used economic pressure in a very shrewd way, which these people would never acknowledge in a million years because it doesn't fit into their preconceived narrative of this sort of macho male thing that somehow barack obama and every democrat since george mcgovern has not fit into. >> you know, chris, none of this tracks. none of this tracks. because here they are saying he was weak on syria. he wasn't weak on syria.

but nevertheless, with republicans in the house and the senate willing to vote on syria, they ran away from that vote. they ran way from taking a stand on libya. they didn't get involved there. and to say that because we haven't bombed anyone over benghazi yet when it took ten years to track down osama bin laden, it just shows that ted cruz is not being serious. he is pushing buttons. he is not looking for solutions. and these buttons, unfortunately, do work. i think even bleeds into independent voters. they hear benghazi over and over again, feckless, irresponsible, weak. they start saying what is all this i hear about barack obama being weak? so they just know it's the big lie theory. you say it again and again and again. ask ted cruz what should the president have done in retribution for benghazi, you know? have we tracked the guys down? has he let them go? he didn't do that with bin laden. so what should have been done

that hasn't been done yet? i bet you ted cruz doesn't have an answer. >> i wish he would go arm wrestle fidel castro and get it out of his system. it's important to know not every conservative is bashing the president as weak or suggesting our diplomacy should consist of taunting president putin. bob gates, the former secretary of defense for president bush and president obama has called out some of his fellow republicans for their over the top criticism of the president in the middle of a major international crisis. this weekend he debunked the conservative talking point that the president's weakness caused this crisis. let's watch bob gates here. >> my own view is, after all, putin invaded georgia when george w. bush was president. nobody ever accused george w. bush of being weak or unwilling to use military force. so i think putin is very opportunistic in these arenas. i think that even if -- even if we had launched attacks in syria, even if we weren't cutting our defense budget, i think putin saw an opportunity

here in crimea and he has seized it. >> well, meanwhile, last week, in fact, former secretary of state henry kissinger, as was mentioned earlier, quoted. here is what he said. for the west, the demonization of vladimir putin is not a policy, it's an alibi for the absence of one. and james baker, the former secretary of state under george herbert walker bush stressed the importance of prudent diplomacy and not letting rhetoric get overheated. let's watch secretary baker. >> do we have to give president putin a way out? >> well, i think in a political problem like this, that's what diplomacy is all about, of course. finding a way where both sides can walk away from the table and not feel totally shamed and humiliated. >> well, now let's listen to the crazy car. sheer bill kristol, john boehner and lindsey graham in order, and then sarah palin. let's watch all the whack jobs going at it in this case. >> we could make life pretty

miserable for putin in a lot of ways. you want him to be humiliated. >> you heard me call president putin a thug. that's because he is. and he is counting on the united states to sit back and watch him do and take whatever he wants. >> he very much cares about democracy on his borders. i would like to create a democratic noose around putin's russia. >> how do you convey to putin the threat that sounds like vladimir, don't mess around or you're going to feel my flexibility, because, because i got a phone and i got a pen, and i can dial really fast and poke you with my pen. he would gut our arsenal while he allows others, enemies to enrich theirs. oh, man, it's just like a liberal on gun control.

mr. president, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke. [ applause ] back to nra. >> guys, i want a final word on that kind of thinking. i grew up hiding under a desk as a school kid because of a threat of a nuclear war between us and the soviet union. and for somebody to laugh about nuclear confrontation, and then to applaud it, what planet do these people live on, these full mooners at cpac? howard? >> chris, i think everybody knows that vladimir putin is a thug. that's not the question. the question is how do you deal with him? how do you diplomatically wrap him up so that we can move forward as planet. that's the first thing. the second thing ill say again. what the republicans that love this tripe is doing is going after the very manhood of the democratic president. it's been part of their strategy for two generations now. barack obama didn't fit into it initially, especially after osama bin laden was gotten rid

of. and they're going to do everything they can, call him every name they can think of to try to humiliate him in that way. >> and that's the goal here. the goal here is not to solve the problem in the ukraine. >> right. >> the goal here is to get political advantage and gain some territory on barack obama, whether it's for lindsey graham to win his primary challenge in south carolina or to set up for 2016. that's what it's about. none of this is about trying to help. i mean, look at james baker. he'll tell you. diplomacy is hard, and it's not helped by name-calling. >> well, someone should tell governor palin that nuclear war is not a metaphor for manhood. it's insanity. thank you, howard fineman, and thank you, david corn. coming up, if you think the right-wing clown car would be stalled when cpac ended, think again there. is a national battle breaking out between rand paul and ted cruz. while paul is trying to expand the party, the street fighter cruz wants to torch it. plus, tomorrow, two of chris christie's former top aides are

due in court. bridget kelly who famously e-mailed "time for some traffic problems in fort lee" and bill stepien are both being called to explain why they're refusing to turn over potential evidence to the state committee investigating the lane closures at the george washington bridge. and the mystery of the missing malaysian jetliner. how does a plane with 239 passengers aboard simply disappear? well, tonight there are more questions than answers. and let me finish tonight with the people, what they'd like to know, what they want to know about what happened in new jersey in that scandal. and those people who don't want us to know this. is "hardball," the place for politics.

well, rand paul ran away with the conservative cpac straw poll this week, and the hard right loves a dove. paul finished with 31% of the vote, 20 points ahead of ted cruz. cruz only finished three points ahead of what cpacers call the rhino, chris christie. we'll be right back after this. 

welcome back to "hardball." well, the hard right cpac pilgrimage officially ended on saturday. but if you thought the far right's clown car would end with it, think again. because thanks to rand paul and ted cruz, it has exploded from the weekend and into today. paul and cruz, two red-hots angling for the party's nomination in 2016 have officially declared war on each other as of today. it began sunday with rand paul attacking ted cruz for tearing into john mccain, mitt romney, and bob dole, three recent presidential nominees of the republican party. here is rand paul. >> everybody has their own style. my style is that i stand for things that i think people don't question whether i stand for principle. but i don't spend a lot of time trying to drag people down. i've been very complimentary of mitt romney. i met him. i think he is a great guy. can we do things different to get the party bigger? there is always ways we can get

bigger, particular when we don't win. but i don't spend any time trying to criticize others in the party. i realize the party has to be bigger, not smaller. >> well, then it was cruz's turn -- an hour after rand paul's comments, cruz attacked paul for being soft on foreign policy. here is cruz. and notice how he compares himself to, of course, ronald reagan. >> i don't agree with him on foreign policy. i think u.s. leadership is critical in the world. i agree with him that we should be very reluctant to deploy military force abroad. but i think there is a vital role, just as ronald reagan did. when ronald reagan called the soviet union an evil empire, when he stood in front of the brandenburg gate and said "mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall," those words changed the course of history. the united states has to defend our values. >> which brings us today. rand paul unloaded on cruz. here is what rand paul wrote. quote, every republican likes to think he or she is the next ronald reagan. some would say this do so for their lack of own ideas and

agenda. i remind anyone who thinks we will win elections by trashing previously republican nominees or holding one's self out as a paragon in the mold of reagan that splintering the party is not the route to victory. well said. jonathan capehart, an opinion writer with "the washington post," and joy reid is the host of "the reid report" on msnbc. jonathan, let me propose something. i don't think ronald reagan in a mill years would have attacked iraq. he was not an adventurist in foreign policy. he was an anti-communist pure and simple. this crowd has made a bet. this crowd led by sarah palin and ted cruz, that the republican party is still in any way proud of what they did in iraq, their last big foreign policy adventure. i don't think they are proud of it. i think they're quietly embarrassed by it or humiliated or morally embarrassed by the horror of counting 186,000 dead people because of that policy of invading that country. if they're still proud of that war, ted cruz has a chance.

if they're quietly embarrassed by this overseas adventurism, put your money on rand paul, because he is betting -- he doesn't say it, they blew it. and they better not blow it again with another country. your thought. >> that's actually a very, very interesting question, taking all those comments from those clips that you showed and others that we've been seeing from cpac all weekend and boiling it down to what does it mean about when it comes to iraq. and, look, what i think is happening here is, you know, they don't like the guy who is in the white house right now. president obama, we've seen it before. president obama will do -- will be doing things that they say he should be doing, but they don't realize he is doing it, because they hate him so much. they can't stand anything that he does. and so if the president were doing what senators cruz and paul want him to do on ukraine, on syria, on libya, benghazi, fill in the blank, they would hate him for it. so i think there is a mix of

what you say is whether the party is embarrassed by iraq or proud of iraq going into iraq, or is it -- added to the combination just a visceral knee-jerk hatred of the president that no matter what he does they don't like it. >> well, let me ask you a question again. the vietnam war did not go well for the democrats in the '60s. they turned against it and changed their policies and became much less a hawkish party. will the republicans make that turn? are they making it going into the 2016 election? are they double do you think on hawkishness? which is it going to be? i think this is a critical question. >> it's a critical question. and this is going to be i think the critical fight within the party when it comes to foreign policy. with rand paul and ted cruz, as you set up, you've got two opposite ends of the foreign policy spectrum within the republican party. and rand paul doesn't have -- has the same policy prescriptions as his father ron paul. but here is the difference. rand paul is actually a

plausible 2016 republican presidential nominee. and to have him go to battle with ted cruz, we will see whether the people who are proud of the iraq war win over the people who aren't proud of the iraq war. >> well said. let me go to joy on that one. joy, we're glad to have you. i didn't know i would get you tonight. but have i now you, and i'm thrilled. joy reid, congratulations on your show's success by the way in the afternoon. >> thank you. >> what do you think of this? to me, it's a pivotal point. i'm older than you guys. i have to tell you, democrats were very morally chastened by what happened in vietnam, most of them. >> absolutely. >> that explains a lot of the foreign policy of the party today. they don't believe adventurous wars anymore. they don't think it's good or fun certainly to go launch a war in a third world country. what's your thinking? >> and i think the difference between ted cruz and rand paul is that ted cruz thinks that he is representing the ronald reagan wing of the party.

but he is really representing more of the george w. bush wing. ted cruz is still living in the republican party in the two years after their defeat in 2008. when they were still very defensive of the george w. bush sort of legacy and way of doing things, when this idea of the bluster of a george w. bush, talking really tough and then actually using military force and constantly threatening it, that was the ethos of the republican party. but look at what the actual republican party has done in washington. they consented to cutting defense, essentially. if you look at what the sequester was, it included big cuts to defense. sure, they tried to go back on it. yeah, they didn't want to keep them in place forever. but this is a party that is starting to lean much more libertarian. and the thing that people in the party didn't like about ron paul, about rand paul's father is they felt he was way too far into libertarian extreme such that he made the use of military force off the table completely.

rand paul has calibrated his message so that he has just enough of the paul-like let's be very reluctant to go to war stance that i think is where more republicans are more than not. >> i do too. >> he is much more in the reagany mold where reagan talked very tough, but did not use military force, found a peaceful solution to the issues with the cold war with the soviet union. >> yeah, i agree with you. >> i think that ted cruz has misread the party and rand paul's strategy of straddling the establishment, giving the kudos to the past folks like bob dole, but at the same time being libertarian for the younger people is much smarter. >> we'll see how angry the republican party is, if they're haters down to their core, down to their bone matter, all they'll do is hate, they'll go with ted cruz. if they're trying to build a new libertarian party that is smarter than in the past, they'll probably go to rand paul. we'll see. thank you, jonathan capehart. joy, it's grade to have you on again. congratulations again on your program. it's on at 2:00 in the afternoon. dick cheney, finally shows us how to pronounce his name correctly. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

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president obama this week warned russian president vladimir putin who has sent warships to crimea that he is on the wrong side of history. pretty strong words for a guy who still use as blackberry. >> time for the sideshow. that was "snl's" weekend update on the continuing diplomatic standoff with russia. of course, month the right have been critical of president obama's handling of the ukraine crisis. but some have gone so far as to praise vladimir putin for what they call his strength, while disparaging the president's foreign policy as weak. well, it's no secret that vladimir putin has gone to great lengths to cultivate his tough guy image, whether he is diving for sunken treasure or taking down an opponent with a new judo technique, or riding his horse without his shirt. modest city is not this guy's strong suit. but what if president obama took a page out of vladimir putin's

playbook? here is what that might look like, courtesy of "saturday night live" and the star of the movie "taken", liam neeson. >> i advised the president on a little video. vladimir, watch closely. we're going to speak to you now in a language you can understand. ♪ ♪ obama ♪ obama ♪ obama >> that's right. >> next up, anyone who listens here has learned that the correct pronunciation of the former vice president's name is cheeny, not chainy. finally, it's been verified by the man himself.

they caught the veep on saturday when they asked if he could imagine a hip hot artist wearing a hat like his, he responded with this. listen carefully. >> if cheney's wearing it, it's probably a little too conservative. >> think of it this way. he never cared that so many people were getting it wrong. up next, tomorrow for the first time we'll get a look at bridget kelly and bill stepien, two of chris christie's top aides at the center of the lane closures at the george washington bridge. kelly and stepien are due in court. their lawyers say they will plead the fifth. but i want to know why they won't tell what's went on here. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ♪

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welcome back to "hardball." two of the main characters in the chris christie bridge scandal will be in court tomorrow, bridget kelly, christie's former chief of staff, and bill stepien, christie's former campaign manager. but these two central figures in the bridge scandal are not expected to talk. they're expected to take the fifth, despite bridget kelly's clear knowledge based on this e-mail, "time for some traffic problems in fort lee". >> which kelly said to christie's point man at the port authority, david wildstein. michael isikoff caught up with bridget kelly late this afternoon as she walked with her attorney. >> bridget? high. mike isikoff with nbc news. i just want to ask a few questions. how are you holding up through all this? >> i'm okay, thank you.

>> can you tell us how difficult an experience this has been for you? >> i'm not going to comment. >> would you say that there is more to the story that people haven't heard? >> well, joining me right now is nbc news national investigative correspondent michael isikoff, and "the washington post's" chris cillizza. i want that talk about the law and the politics of this case. first of all, what was your sense of bridget kelly? she is so much the emblematic figure, if not the empathetic figure in this case. michael? >> i got to say, chris, she looked anguished. she looked almost traumatized. we're two months into this. but you could just tell by looking at her in that brief encounter and looking at her face that she is dreading this entire experience. but what is surprising, chris, is that she is going to be in that courtroom tomorrow. she doesn't have to be. this is a legal argument on whether her fifth amendment assertion covers her e-mails and text messages and documents.

but by showing up, i think she and her lawyer are trying to make a statement here that she's not a punching bag, that she's very much a character in this and is going to assert her rights. she -- as you could tell, you saw what she looked like and how she is not at this point eager to talk to the press. but she's got a very aggressive, wily defense lawyer, michael critchley, who she was meeting with today, and he is going to pull out all the stops and is going to send the message that if people go after her, she has a story to tell. >> well, what is that story? has that been turned over to federal prosecutors? is there anywhere that that exists besides in her mind? the e-mails and the rest of it? >> look, look, in court papers, she talks about -- her lawyer talks about how he has been approached by the u.s.

attorney's office that wants to interview bridget kelly. they have declined. they're invoking her fifth amendment privileges. but, you know, like i said, you put all this together, and she does not appear, at least by the posture of her lawyer as somebody who is going to fall on her sword. she met repeatedly with kevin o'dowd, charles mckenna. she was questioned by them as part of the governor's internal review. and she had conversations there that we haven't heard. and so we haven't heard her story yet. a lot of people are still skeptical that she could have come up with that idea, "time for some traffic problems in fort lee," on her own. who else had she discussed it with? those are the biggest questions looming over this whole case. >> chris christie, i agree with ma what michael said. it gets to the nub of this, the nut as we say in journalism, the key to the story is who led her into this path. >> right. >> that there was some sort of reason to get this mayor, perhaps get that town, send some message, something to do with a

development there, something to do with money, something to do with election politics. but the idea that she would just on a dime come up with this idea of screwing the guy with this traffic for a month is what the plan was, four weeks of this, all entirely on her own meant somebody gave her tremendous authority in the name of the governor. the governor, somehow she could speak in the name of the governor. and the question is was the governor involved in any way of shaping the battlefield for this fight with this mayor. >> so the question i've always had and i think you guys hit on it, the central question here, she was a deputy chief of staff. now, she wasn't the only deputy chief of staff. but she was a deputy chief of staff, which is a relatively high level position. but could she has a deputy chief of staff not only say sort of order this, but on the other end, have david wildstein at the port authority say okay, we'll do it, on her order alone? based on the information that we have, the answer to that,

obviously, as mike points out, there is a lot less -- there is more we don't know than we do know about their actions here. but based on the information we have, the answer to that is yes. i think mike makes a politically important point. politically for chris christie, chris, which is they really don't want bridget kelly -- they don't want to be -- no one wants to beat her up too much in christie world politically speaking because they don't want a story in which she is sort of looking out for bridget kelly, not chris christie. those two things may not be different, but if they are, you do not want an angry bridget kelly sort of not on the same playbook as everyone else in the christie world. to date they've kept it relatively closed down. >> hey, chris, to use the watergate phrase, isn't that toothpaste out of the tube? he called her a liar and stupid on national television. i don't see how much love she is going to extend back to him. >> it may be. >> that's on the record. that's who she is, according to him.

>> the closest thing we have i think to sort of news in this was a couple of weeks ago the evidence exists that chris christie knew about this. but we don't know who has that evidence. can it be presented in a legal format? does it matter politically? that's the issue. she has a story. is she going to tell it in a way that we all k all consume it or not? >> well, we hope for that tomorrow. i want the truth out. michael isikoff, thank you for that reporting, that attempt to get something out of the major figure in the case besides the governor, and that's bridget kelly. and thank you, chris christie -- i mean, thank you, chris cillizza. >> six of one, half dozen of another. >> let me do that over again, please, please. thank you, michael isikoff. thank you, thank you, michael isikoff. and thank you chris -- thank you. vicks nyquil. powerful nighttime 6 symptom cold and flu relief. ♪

that special house election in florida's 13th congressional district is going down to the wire. democrat alex sink is up against david jolly to fill out the term of the late bill young. both sides have pumped a lot of money and energy into the race, and they're using it to test their messaging ahead of november's midterms. democrats are trying to accuse jolly of wanting to repeal the health care law, while republicans are trying to turn sink into nancy pelosi. polls will be closed tomorrow at 7:00 eastern. and we'll be right back.

we're back. how does an airplane carrying 239 passengers on board including 3 americans vanish? that's what investigators are trying to figure out right now as they look into the disappearance of malaysian airlines flight 370. it was traveling from kuala lumpur en route to beijing saturday morning. there's no trace of the airliner which abruptly disappeared after takeoff. no wreckage has been found, no sign of mechanical or pilot error, no evidence of an explosion, no claims of terrorism. there were no reports of threatening weather or signals of distress from the aircraft, itself. perhaps most disturbing reports that two passengers boarded that flight with stolen passports.

authorities are working to identify who those passengers were. evan coleman is an nbc news terrorist expert, and jim tilmon is a former pilot and aviation expert. first to you, evan, on the terrorism questions. what do you know now that indicates, yes or no, it was an act of terrorism? anything? >> there's basically no information that would suggestion there's a terrorism. there have been eyebrows raised about the passports, use of stolen passports because of the fact reportedly the two individuals using stolen passports were of iranian origin. that being said, if you count the number of instances that people travel on stolen passports and tally them up, it's far, far more likely this has something to do with illegal immigration or narcotics smuggling than terrorism and takes a strong -- it's a struggle to explain why a terrorist group would deliberately target a malaysian airline full of chinese passengers. it's very difficult to understand that or rational ice that.

>> we only have a minute. what about this guy, ali, who said he bought the ticket for the guys? >> very possible it's passport fraud, immigration fraud. illicit activity. was it terrorism? certainly not. there's no evidence of that. >> let me go to jim tilmon. a couple questions. where do we get the idea the plane may have turned back to kuala lumpur and not hear a ping out of the ocean? so many questions. you go with your questions. >> we're wondering about the same kinds of things. the radar return that gave the impression the airplane turned back from where it started from, i've seen that return and if it's not any more clear than what i've seen, it doesn't have to indicate an absolute turn. it could be part of an airplane that's breaking up. i'm not convinced about that part. just like i wasn't convinced about the oil slick being jet fuel. it wasn't. so, i mean -- >> where's the ping? where's the ping? >> the pings we're not hearing

because, one, maybe that device was damaged to the point that it won't. and two, because maybe we're so far away from it until we're not able to recognize it. i mean, the thing is, we don't know where that airplane went. we just don't that it disappeared from radar and did it in such a fashion that it made it obvious that no one would be able to make a distress call. it was like one sweep of the radar that was there, then the next sweep of the radar, it was gone. >> wow. what could cause a plane to disappear, i mean, blow up, if you will, to be really awful about it and a pilot not being able to say, oh my god, or something coming through the transmission? >> i got to tell you, you use the right term, the one we hesitated to use, but it sounds like it blew up. does sound like some kind of explosion. it certainly something that was spontaneous and not planned for and certainly something catastrophic. >> an the air disappear from a plane so fast that a pilot can't gulp out some kind of remark of hell?

something that says distress? can the air talk about that fast? >> if you talk about explosive decompression, we're trained to deal with that. that's why he has an oxygen mask next to his shoulder so he gets that on before any kind of problem occurs. i don't think it was explosive decompression. >> okay. won't be that. back to you, evan. what's left? where do we go with this? the man, ali, say, what was your motive in giving free tickets to the two guys? i assume as a civilian, why would a guy come forward and say i gave them the ticket money if he was a terrorist or involved in terrorism in any way? >> that's a reasonable point. unless there's a credible group that comes forward, unless there's wreckage located that shows explosive residue, definitive, i think it's going to with more mechanical or certainly not terrorism related. there's no evidence to point to that right now.

could change. right now there's really nothing at all. >> wow. it's a horrible mystery. thank you, jim tilmon, for your expertise, and evan coleman. thanks so much. we'll be right back after this. could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesn't. stop pretending. only flood insurance covers floods. ♪ visit floodsmart.gov/pretend to learn your risk.

let me finish tonight with this. we, all of us, await the prospect of seeing the truth in the new jersey bridge caper. the question we all of us want answered is whether bridget

kelly, who will be called to testify tomorrow, created by herself the notion of punishing the mayor of ft. lee by shutting down traffic from his area across george washington bridge. did she? did she one day imagine the vital importance of hurting this town, ft. lee? did she equally imagine the method of doing so? did she say to herself, just as she said in that e-mail, not just that it was time for some traffic problems in ft. lee, but i thought of a way to hurt the mayor of ft. lee. did she do that? did she? the deputy chief of staff to governor christie create the mission and the method that led to four days of traffic hell? apparently intended to be four weeks? was that, all of it her idea, or did she, bridget kelly, operate in this case as a general campaign, christie campaign effort to kick butt in that state on the eve of the governor's re-election? the operative whose job it was to pull the trigger when the time came? time for some traffic problems in ft. lee. she knows it all. the campaign to punish the mayors came from, where the

method of punishment came from. when the george washington bridge became the field of action. i want to no what miss kelly knows. anyone who doesn't want us to know it is at the heart of this scandal. that's "hardball" for this and for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. three days since it first disappeared, there is still no trace tonight of the missing malaysian airlines flight mh-370. the mystery has only deepened and the apparent tragedy is serving as a reminder that even in this hyper-connected age, it's still possible for a jumbo jet to vanish from the night sky without a trace. >> the plane was flying from kuala lumpur to beijing. two hours into the flight, malaysia airlines lost contact with the plane.