it's a good day when we can provide coverage and care to people who couldn't afford it and couldn't have it. this is the country at its best. and let us keep moving forward. health care is a right, not a privilege. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. tough guys. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this bucket of goo coming out of the chris christie report. all those pristine claims of good government, forget about it. that big fat denial that there was a political motive behind the george washington bridge closure, that there was no evidence of partisan bullying or big shot payback, that too. forget about it. because guess what?

buried right there in that christie legal report is just what you figured was buried in the story itself, muscle. tough guy talk. a hard orchestrated push for reelection endorsements and talk of revenge. first there was that list of mayors specifically targeted to back his second christie term in trenton. and yes, again there was brutal talk of payback for those who didn't get in line. i could claw his eyes out, pour gasoline in his sockets and light him up. and that was for the governor's appointee on the commission. as for the mayors who didn't come across like mayor dawn zimmer, the it appears the mayor signed off on what appears to be a political retaliation. it's right there in the e-mail. so whatever happened in the chain of command that led to the george washington bridge mess, this is the chris christie world it happened in. and this is the box the scandal arrived in. john wisniewski is a democratic assemblyman in new jersey and

the co-chair of the committee investigating chris christie. and brian murphy is an msnbc contributor and the former managing editor of politicsnj.com. gentlemen, thank you. >> good to be here. >> assembly man wisniewski, were you surprised at the way they buried all the ugly talk in this report? when you talk about putting lit gasoline in somebody's eye sockets and revenge and payback and we're going to make this person choose are, they with us or against us, it's exactly the culture we were looking for, and there it is in plain sight, right in the report supposedly to help the governor. >> chris, if i started to go through all of the things that i was surprised about with this report, we would be here for a long time. this report makes conclusions without facts. it buries details deep in the report. it's far from a report that exonerates anybody. what it does do is generate tons of questions that need to be answered. >> remember how they said the mastro, the chief attorney here who said, well, we couldn't find

a motive. and then we realized that buried in the report is approved targets. exactly what we've been talking about from the beginning, that there was some kind of target from the mayor of fort lee for pressure, payback, whatever, revenge. and there you have him number two on the list of people that are going to be argued the. what kind of a motive is this guy looking for, this defense attorney in this case? >> well, clearly this was a political operation. when we look at all of the connections, we see that mayor sokolich was somebody that they sought an endorsement from. mayor sokolich was somebody who didn't deliver an endorsement. and there was clearly a lot of disappointment within team christie that was involved in trying to secure that endorsement. and what this report shows is that disappointment manifested itself with a lot of bad language at least and raises the suspicion of what happened with the bridge and was that related to their disappointment in not getting the endorsement from

mayor sokolich. >> you know, brian, if i were writing a screenplay for boardwalk empire, the interesting jersey stories out of the year coming out of trenton, can you actually find somebody who says the only trouble is david is/was a true friend of mine. now i could claw his eyes out, poer gasoline in his sockets and light him up. that's clearly not what they were going to do. it really isn't the kind of stuff where they saw people up in some basement somewhere, like john my brasco or something. but it certainly sounds like the lingo. >> it's the tough talk. and it's hard to believe after reading that that there isn't some -- some way that they intend to make good on their -- at least their threats and their talk of exacting political revenge. and what we see and the way this usually happens is they have discretion to give favors and take away favors. and you can see that happening in the way that they're going

get back at dawn zimmer. i'm not convinced that the whole bridge operation has something to do with sokolich not endorsing. but clearly there is something. they're unhappy with mark sokolich. and there is some kind of trigger. and though they're not really expecting it to get his endorsement by that point, they're clearly willing to squeeze people who they've -- who they think they have a relationship with. >> okay. >> and who they think they have some leverage over. >> let me ask you about this whole situation with dawn zimmer there mentioned by mr. murphy. nothing in the report put out by the governor, paid for by the taxpayers of new jersey does anything to deny that a lieutenant governor walked up to an elected mayor of hoboken and said if you don't play ball in this development project, you're getting screwed. and then this is all about a project that has nothing to do with anything but the governor's interests. he wants this done. i know it shouldn't be this way, but it is. that's very credible to me. and i wonder why they didn't think they had to knock it down. because they didn't really knock

it down. >> yeah, it's a fascinating thing. they don't have a good way to knock that down. and the problem they have, and you can see this in the way that randy mastro tried to deal with it at the press conference, dawn zimmer made a diary. dawn zimmer may have not talked about it until january, but she has a diary that was made almost near contemporaneous that includes an account of this. and the danger for them is that this week, i think tomorrow, the hoboken city, the local government authority in hoboken is going to release one of the town attorneys to speak to the u.s. attorney and i believe the assemblyman's committee as well. and the thinking is at some point mayor zimmer had a discussion with this attorney immediately after the encounter with the lieutenant governor of new jersey. and she told him about what happened. and now he is going to be free to talk about that in a way that he hasn't before. the problem for the administration here is that dawn

zimmer's already gone and talked to the u.s. attorney. if she told the u.s. attorney the story that she has told everybody else, then either she is telling the truth or she has perjured herself. and that puts the administration in a really tough spot. >> that's a pretty strong situation she is in, because i don't think anybody thinks she is purge cherring herself. >> she's got a lot of skin in the game. >> well said. let me go back to assemblyman wisniewski. this to me, the question that jumps out at me, i have a lot of respect for the governor of new york, andrew cuomo. and this story keeps percolating in my head. a conversation occurred in which the governor of new jersey, your governor called upon the governor of new york to basically call off the probe. he didn't like all this push from the other side of the bridge commission people. >> right. >> going into this thing. he didn't like foye's attitude. do you think there is any way you guys can ask the governor of new york to testify before your legislative committee and find out what happened in that conversation? because it's critical. >> chris, that's one of the major components of this investigation that we've yet to fully examine. but we have to look at those

facts. we have to look at whether or not that conversation happened and what was said. but what is really disturbing here is every time we turn over one set of facts, we see that there are more unanswered questions, such as the one you just pointed out. what we need to have is -- let's be fair. this is not just about chris christie. this is about whether there was an abuse of power, how it could happen, and how do we prevent it from happening again. but what we see with the mastro report is almost a definite attempt to shut down the inquiry so that nobody looks any further. and that's very troubling. >> just to go back to a familiar reference for somebody like me and my generation, brian murphy, this is so much like watergate. >> it is. >> because what watergate uncovered, when they lifted up the rock and saw the bug life under there, all this stuff that had been done that didn't have to do with the break-in at the watergate compound, it had to do with the whole way of doing things, the bugging things and everything else. all the people like halleckman

and the whole list of people had to get kicked out of office long before the president had to resign. and he was never actually involved in the break-in. >> right. >> so it's all part of the culture, which i'm reading here. and last night christie was out there contending his i'm clean tour. of course he went on fox television with it. here is what he said when host megyn kelly brought up the scandal the governor is trying to hide from him. >> if you don't have baggage, they'll create baggage for you. that's politics in america today. that's the way it goes. in the end, you know what people -- people don't judge you on that kind of stuff. people look into your eyes and they try to decide what's in here. and that's how they vote. they vote for what they believe is in your heart. >> well, the problem with that, assemblyman, is that this story percolated out of the area of northern new jersey, local reporting by nonpartisan people. and the evidence came out. and just like in watergate, everybody is going to decide this thing. he is now arguing it's bad pr. the democrats and the media are

out to get him, ignoring everything we're looking at in his report that is factual, as if it isn't there. >> the problem we have is the governor had said at the outset that he wanted to cooperate, that he wanted to have full cooperation with the investigation. and now it seems like he is moving away from that gradually. he is starting to make allegations that somehow the continued investigation of this is wrong. we haven't gotten to the basic facts of why this happened, how it could happen, and how we could stop it from happening again. and the governor seems to want to cast apersians on anybody who has the temerity of asking those very basic questions. >> well, that's what nixon did. thank you, john wisniewski, assemblyman and co-chair of this investigating committee, and brian murphy, thanks for joining us again. >> thanks, chris. coming up, seven million people have signed up, 7.1, actually. and the first poll showing it in positive territory. we're talking about obamacare, not away it from. are conservatives really ready to take health care coverage away from those seven million people and the millions more who

will get it? also, a new senate report says the cia has been lying all these years about its interrogation program. bottom line, the key information gained from prisoners did not come from enhanced interrogation. what most people call torture. so it didn't help. and some conservatives think they have come up with a way to win over more women. get them married off. i'm not kidding. i'm not kidding. that's their solution. after all, mitt romney won among women. so the more married republicans, the more votes. none harsher than what he got from jon stewart last night. >> the results of an investigation commissioned by new jersey governor chris christie into the bridgegate scandal have been released today. i wonder. what the results will be. gunderman group. gunderman group is growing. getting in a groove. growth is gratifying. goal is to grow. gotta get greater growth. growth?

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the new health care law is exceeding all prior expectations, and we now have an excellent way of seeing where people are and aren't in terms of signing up. take a look at this map from the kaiser family foundation. simply put, the bluer the state on the map, the higher the percentage of enrollees. montauk the most with massachusetts last, presumably with many people there already covered under romneycare. isn't that something? we'll be right back. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. thousands of people here in alaska are working to safely produce more energy. but that's just the start. to produce more from existing wells, we need advanced technology. that means hi-tech jobs in california and colorado. the oil moves through one of the world's largest pipelines. maintaining it means manufacturing jobs in the midwest. then we transport it with 4 state-of-the-art, double-hull tankers. some of the safest, most advanced ships in the world:

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welcome back to "hardball." it was a big day for supporters of the president's health care law, which reached a significant milestone today. here was the president this afternoon relaying the news. >> last night, the first open enrollment period under this law came to an end. and despite several lost weeks out of the gate because of problems with the website, 7.1 million americans have now signed up for private insurance plans through these marketplaces.

7.1. >> well, that number, 7.1 million is actually slightly higher than the initial estimate from the congressional budget office. and yet it remains the primary goal of many conservatives to do away with the law entirely. the new budget released today by paul ryan and the budget committee actually calls for its total repeal again. and here is more from the president on that point. >> like every major piece of legislation, from social security to medicare, the law's not perfect. we've had to make adjustments along the way. but this law is doing what it's supposed to do. it's working. it's helping people from coast-to-coast. all of which makes the lengths to which critics have gone to scare people or undermine the law or try to repeal the law without offering any plausible alternative is so hard to understand. i got to admit, i don't get it.

why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance? >> well, if possession is 9/10 of the law, and i certainly think it is, millions of americans aren't going to give up their new insurance any time soon. joan walsh is editor at large for the solon and michael steele. joan, it looked like a victory lap, fair enough. that's what it was. the numbers, when you beat the spread, you cheer. that's what happened today, they beat the spread. >> you cheer and you say we've got more work to do. certainly people want to get more people signed up. but really, when you look at what the republican party has done in the last six months, chris, imagine if they hadn't been rooting against it? imagine if they hadn't been hyping every scare story. imagine if they hadn't been saying don't sign up for this mess, it's a disaster and we're going to repeal it. imagine if all 50 states had their own state-run exchange? instead we only had 17 of those. imagine if all governors had expanded medicaid. it's an amazing number given all

the obstacles to it. and republicans can't get their story straight, i'm sorry to say. they were telling us how bad it was and people shouldn't sign up. and now they're saying not enough people have signed. it's a mess for them. >> let's cut to the absolutely nonideological reality of american life, mr. steele, who share miss study of american politics. joan, you'll agree with this. we all bring on this. the biggest fear of conservatives or right wing conservatives over the last 100 years is if you give the people a bit of social democracy, social security, medicare, medicaid, you'll never get rid of it, because people will like it. middle class conservative people like my dad will like it, even if they were against it. because one thing about it is people like help. they need help. and when they get it, they want it. how can your party campaign as you did today, not you personally. >> right. >> but the house budget committee under a supposedly smart guy, paul ryan, today came out for repeal. >> yeah. >> that seven million people out

there including shawn and the other people mentioned by the president, he's got a good point. they ain't giving it back. then what is your party up to? >> that's a good question what they're up to. but i think in large measure, you're right. they're not going to want to give it back. and if you -- >> so what is your platform say in '16? >> that's going to be i think part of the struggle. as i've said on this program for a long, long time, you can't just talk about repeal when americans have something in hand. you have to talk about what do you replace it with. how do you refashion the system, not just for the seven million who are now in the network for the first time in some case, but for everybody who have been affected by this bill. >> wrhow do you do the handoff where somebody has health care, and they give that up, but i prochls to replace it. >> what you say is you get the preexisting condition piece. you keep that in place. >> but that only comes if you have more enroll's. >> that is the rub that is the rub.

>> let me go back to joan here. politically, i go back to what we all cooked up here, which is that old phrase, possession is 9/10 of the law. once you have it in hand, it's like golda meir once said. new fax. new fax. it isn't about the theory of health care, it's about the reality. and i would think that's a stronger hand for the dems. michael, your thoughts. >> and i really appreciate michael saying we have to let people who have preexisting conditions keep their health insurance. but the three of us know and most of the american people know that to do that you require the individual mandate. and when you have the individual mandate, you're going to need some subsidies because some people frankly can't afford it. president obama and the democrats did this through the private insurance system. they did not do single payer. they did not have a public option. they worked with the quirks of the free enterprise system to make it work. and the subsidies are important. so you're never going to get a system, michael, where you can keep what people like about it, like the ban on discrimination on preexisting conditions and not have these other things that republicans don't like.

and, again, you're not able to say to the 100 million americans who have now received free preventative care, because this law did a lot of things besides just, you know, provide insurance. even people who had insurance now have better insurance. you're not going to take the preventive care away, the mammograms away from women. i mean, it's really quite a ridiculous battle. >> all of those things were independently proposed by republicans during the first two years of this administration. i can't say it. they rejected by the democrats and committee. now, the problem going forth -- >> wait a minute, what was the republican health care bill? >> there was not one bill. but individual members of the house in various committees did make proposals along the lines of what joan just talked about. and we can go back. you can fact check that that was the case. and they were rejected. individual bills on preexisting conditions, portability. >> but what was their method of financing the whole thing?

>> let's step back from this for a moment. we were dealing with the proposal for 30 million people who didn't have health insurance. >> are you going with this barrasso, the senator from wyoming? he is out there saying that obama's 7.1 million thing today is a -- well, let's take a look at it. the new attack, by the way. it's from conservatives, that the white house is toying with the numbers. senator john barrasso as i said of wyoming accused the white house of cooking the books. that's his phrase. he was asked about that comment yesterday. let's watch and see what he says. >> you've said cooking the books. the administration. do you stand by that? >> i do. we still don't know how many people who have gone to the website to sign up actually paid. so they actually have insurance, not just signed up on the website. >> and lindsey graham, who gets pretty far right lately, he also went on the attack against the president. let's watch lindsey. >> people don't trust this administration to be honest about obamacare. >> well, that's swirling. and let me ask you about that.

you say they don't trust this administration. >> they'll lie to you. >> your colleague senator barrasso says they're cooking the books. >> totally are. >> you agree with that? >> yes. >> do you have any facts to back that up? >> number one, tell me how many people who have sign upped for obamacare have paid. >> that was great journalism. not only is that true, it's true they cooked the books. that's tough questioning. but my question to you, trying to be tough here as well. >> all right. >> signing up is a good start. cooking the books is a different thing altogether. i don't know where that one came from, barrasso came from with that one. >> it's scurrilous. there is no evidence they cooked the books. they have been conservative the whole time. it goes back before the 2012 election. they cooked the books on unemployment numbers that was not true. they were cooking the books on mitt romney's polling. first they say they're going to miss the numbers. and then when they make the information, they're going to say they cooked the books. that never turns out to be true,

chris. we know that. they've got to stop lying. >> the poll -- >> 49% people. >> look, 49 to 48. a hell of an improvement since last november. >> can i address one thing? >> is that cooked? >> no, i don't think that's cooked. i think as people have kind of said okay, we'll do this and moved into it, they're putting their faith that this is actually going to work. but i want to go back to one point about the cooked books piece there is the rest of the story, which we don't know yet from the white house is how many of those 7.1 million people represent the majority of the pool that they actually need, young people, as opposed to older sick people. >> it's a good question. >> we understand it's going up. >> it's one thing for the president -- >> we know it's going up. >> it's one thing for the president to out the that we got 7.1 million people. we just don't know what the makeup of that 7.1 circumstances that's not the same as cooking the books. >> it's not the same. >> it's not the same. but what i'm saying is the administration is sort of getting ahead of its own

narrative because if it's shown later on -- >> michael, questioning skepticism is good. joan, what i liked about the president today. i thought he was good and skeptical, and he was reasonable and he wasn't bragging. certainly it was a peanut gallery, let's face it out there, cheering for him. >> right. >> employees. but what he is saying we're not out of the woods. we've got problems ahead. we've had problems. it's our fault. we screwed up the roll-out. he was very good and i thought transparent in the difficulties of changing something this big in american life. >> we've got plenty of things to fix, he said. you know, we need more people to get covered. we all know that we need a right balance of young versus old and healthy versus sick. he did not claim we were out of the woods. he said it's the first year and the first year of a program that is going to go on for a long time, i thought. but i did love his fighting spirit. i did love his challenge to help us fix it. don't keep up with this garbage about repealing it. and i think it was strong message to democrats. >> michael, you're the expert on

the republican party. this november, are they smart to call for repeal? >> yes. they will. and i want to see every democrat in the country now come and embrace this plan. >> bill clinton says get out there and admit it. >> and let's have this debate with the american people between now and november as to what they really want going forward. so democrats line up, sign up, and get going. >> let's have it. >> the explainer in chief. >> the explainer in chief. >> bill clinton gets out there. >> one of the best politicians of our lifetimes is saying grab this and run with it. i think they should grab it and run with it. >> well, it depends who is doing the selling, him or alex sink it's going to matter. >> bill clinton better put his hiking shoes on because he is going to need it if he is the only one out here selling this thing shirks not the only one. >> thank you, michael steele for the defense and joan for the offense. up next you knew this was coming. jon stewart takes on that report by chris christie's lawyer that vindicated chris christie. and this is "hardball," the place for it, politics. [ male announcer ] at his current pace,

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results of the investigation commissioned by new jersey governor chris christie into the bridgegate scandal have been released today. >> i wonder what the results will be. of the investigation that chris christie himself commissioned. perhaps i'll read about it in this scandal's paper of record, the christie "sun-times" picayune. >> time now for the sideshow. you can see that jon stewart wasn't all that surprised by the results of chris christie's internal investigation. here is more from his report about how the governor's legal team is deflecting blame. >> if christie is not responsible for this bridgegate, who is? >> the internal review heaped all the blame for shutting down lanes on former port authority

official david wildstein and christie's former top aide bridget anne kelly. >> they said, quote, this is about bridget kelly. she seemed emotional. she was habitually concerned about how she was perceived by the governor. a boyfriend had ended a relationship for portraying ms. kelly as weeping, and comment on men for approval and stability. >> it's clear why the official report was titled "bitches be crazy", right? >> as hard ads as it is to speak their names in the same sentence, it's recently apparent that ted cruz of texas is trying to liken himself to the greatest man of the 20th century, winston churchill. this time the senator showed off the fake tattoo in the form of the british prime minister as an april fool joke. take a look. >> i'm proud to stand with winston churchill. and i've got say my wife was fairly astonished. >> you have a tattoo of winston

churchill? i can smell that cigar from here. >> oh my god. of course, that ink, if you will, is more like a blot than a tribute. anyway, this is the first time that cruz has tried to model himself after churchill. last week we called him out for his over the top impression of churchill's never surrender speech. you'll realize how ridiculous he sounds when you hear the real thing before cruz's demonstration. have a listen. >> we shall never surrender. >> we shall never surrender. >> the only thing ted cruz never surrenders is his ego. i've said it before, but i'll say it again. you're no winston churchill. finally, the boston red sox were honored by president obama at the white house today. you might recall that last season the famously superstitious team grew out their beards for good luck, and they won the world series. so to prepare for their visit today, the white house tweeted this photograph. that's press secretary jay carney, of course, there with

the red sox cap and a fake beard. hmm. in turn, the team gave the president a red sox jersey, number 44, no less presented by slugger david ortiz, better known as big papi, who took a selfie with the president. there it is. up next, a senate report says the cia has been exaggerating the value of so-called enhanced interrogation. in other words, torture, all along, all these years, saying torture works when there is no evidence it has. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. i'm on expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future?

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i'm page hopkins. here is what is happening. the house has passed a measure to provide aid to ukraine and impose sanctions on russia for its annexation of crimea. the senate already approved the measure, so it's headed to president obama, who is expected to sign it. the death toll from last month's mudslide in washington state has risen to 27. 19 victims have been positively

identified. 22 others are missing. australian authorities say the search for malaysia airlines missing jet could drag on for a long time. searches earlier today in bad weather turned up nothing. meanwhile, an aviation industry group is lobbying for continuous tracking of commercial planes. and now we're going take you back to "hardball." i was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. the interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts had failed. they were legal, essential, justified, successful. and the right thing to do. >> the fuller brushman selling torture. anyway, welcome back to "hardball." not so fast, mr. vice president there. dick cheney's certitude is being challenged in a senate intelligence report on the cia's

detention and interrogation program itself. the 6300 page report remains classified. "the washington post" reporters interviewed current and former u.s. officials with knowledge of it who said the report concludes the cia misled the government and the public about torture program, concealed details about severity of methods, overstated significance of plots and prisoners, took credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had given up before being subjected to torture. again, dick cheney defended the torture program and the caliber of a detainee that it targeted. >> it is a fact that only detainees of the highest intelligence value were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation. >> but according to "the washington post" in today's front page story, the senate intelligence committee review will show, quote, the detainees' credentials were exaggerated. tomorrow senator dianne feinstein who chairs the select committee on intelligence is expected to hold a vote on her 15-member committee on whether to release a 400-page summary of

the report. that's a 400-page summary of a 6300 page report. joining me is ron suskind and author of four books on presidential power, including the bush-cheney administration. and his new book "life animated" is about the unique way his autistic son has learned to communicate. a correspondent who cowrote today's front story. greg, we got to start with you this. is so complete a statement that it just rocks me. to say in this breathtaking claim or report the senate committee is saying basically that torture never helped us. is that a fair statement? >> yeah, i think that's their bottom line conclusion, that there is just really no evidence looking at these millions of cia internal records that using enhanced interrogation methods ever produced any sort of intelligence breakthrough that was of significant and -- significant value and couldn't have been obtained through other

means. >> well, what's the motive for lying here? what is the motive for saying it does work, it did work? >> well, you know, as we said in a story today, one of the things the committee avoids doing is trying to assign motives. but institutionally, you can guess that the agency, you know, at the time that it set this program up, set these prisons up, it was under a ton of pressure, and there was a lot of concern that there was another wave of plots already set in motion. and you do that, you want to believe that this is worthwhile, that this is necessary. so this is the senate intelligence committee just finished spending years scrubbing the agency's own internal files to see whether there is any evidence that really stacks up. >> ron, you're a great reporter and a great writer. i just want to make a point, and maybe you agree with me, or not. it seems to me the real evil of this past administration, the one under bush and cheney was conflation. they would conflate 9/11 with the need to attack and take over

iraq. they would conflate something called wmd with nuclear. they would always conflate to their advantage. now they're accused by the senate intelligence committee of conflating all kinds of information that was developed from prisoner interviews or interrogations which was gotten from torture. they love to catch people in their laziness. where the average tv or news reader isn't going to analyze the quick little shell games they pull. they're just not thinking that quick or intensively. and they use that against the viewer, the citizenry. your thoughts in this regard. >> i lived that shell game, chris. run back the clock. in 2006, almost all of these allegations were in the 1% doctrine of my 2006 book. that created a crisis. the white house and the cia today put out a disinformation campaign. that was led by a guy named john kiriakou, the only guy from the cia from all of this mess who is now in jail. he is in jail for leaking to the press. what he leaked that was most valuable to the white house, however, was that interrogation

really worked, it worked quickly and it worked on -- that bought them time, enough time for the actors involved to get off the stage in 2008. that's what happens here. they misled the senate because it was part of a larger disinformation campaign in the american public. let's be clear. that is illegal. illegal by virtue of the nsa, the national security act of 1947, which empowers the cia, amended in 1991. you cannot run disinformation campaigns on the american public as an intelligence agency. it's the law. you're supposed to go to jail. that's actionable. >> well, the vice president would be guilty of, that wouldn't he? >> absolutely. and everyone involved in this at that time would be involved. and more than that, i would be interested in who gave the disinformation to kiriakou, probably set him up, then he leaked to it the press, then he becomes the guy who gets taken down. this is a very classic model that the cia uses many times.

certain guy leaks the information, maybe unknowingly. he gets taken down. this was not the cia believing something it didn't know to be true. this was a cia under intense pressure from the administration from the white house, bush and cheney, to give them what bush and cheney said they needed. this is all part of the same thing. >> you've conflated it with w. and i think it's always been the g-2 was the vice president. >> w. was involved in all of the briefs as to what the yield from interrogation was or was not. that's very clear from the presidential daily briefs. >> as well as cheney. greg miller, the report you put out today is that neither congress north the department of justice got the full story of the terror program. your article quote the u.s. official briefed on the senate intelligence report saying, quote, the cia described its program repeatedly both to the department of justice and eventually to congress as getting unique otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives. was that actually true?

the answer is no. so that's a pretty good assessment of what your report comes out to, isn't it? nothing. nothing. all the torture, all the moral embarrassment and guilt of our government not yielding any -- even with ksm, apparently. khalid sheikh mohammed. apparently that includes that case. no information of value, right? >> well, so what the committee did here was interesting. they did detailed case studies of every prisoner in cia custody over the last 12 or 13 years. and they looked at when intelligence came through, when and under what conditions it was produced. and in our story today, we talk about a couple of egregious cases. a abu zubeida is one where they would conflate what they gave up in early session before they were subjected to any enhanced techniques with what they then

provided later. and the committee's report concludes that by far the most valuable stuff came before they were waterboarded or subjected to any of those measures. >> we've heard that before. i've heard that through the grapevine. thank you, ron cuss skinned. you report a lot of this stuff early. i congratulate you from that. and greg miller, great report today. up next, conservative says the feminists have it all wrong. the road to a woman's happiness requires a walk down the aisle. that's the solution to all problems. this is "hardball," the place for actual politics. we're just. (agent) i understand. (dad) we've never sold a house before. (agent) i'll walk you guys through every step. (dad) so if we sell, do you think we can swing it? (agent) i have the numbers right here and based on the comps that i've found, the timing is perfect. ...there's a lot of buyers for a house like yours. (dad) that's good to know. (mom) i'm so excited.

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it's primary day here in the nation's capital, and we may be look at a changing of the guard in the democratic primary for mayor here. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. city council member muriel bowser leads mayor vincent gray by two point, 28-26. all the other candidates are far behind. gray was in the lead, but he has been slipping in the polls because of a campaign funding scandal involving his 2010 election in the first place. the winner of the democratic primary has always gone on to win the general election in the fall. and we'll be right back. ♪ [ engine turns over ] [ male announcer ] the 2014 nissan altima.

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we're back. the conservative heritage foundation celebrated women's history month yesterday by evaluating the role of the feminist movement itself, which of course dates back to the 1960s. the message was clear. feminism has to a bigger government. they say. to income inequality, to joblessness, and a decline in happiness. that's a statement. anyway, the key to the survival of women, according to the female speakers at heritage foundation yesterday, marriage. and according to the panel, marriage is also the prescription to attract more women to the gop. let's watch. >> it's very clear why they vote democrat. they wind up looking for someone who will, even if it's going to be -- has to be a political candidate, somebody who will say, look, we know life is hard and we're going to provide a cushion and protection for you from life's rude shocks, and that's very appealing to single women, but it's the decline of

marriage that's the star for why people, why their voting behavior is what it is. i mentioned that search for security is very important. >> it not surprising as the family declines, you see the growth of this state. we do not have a sex gap here in voting. we have a marriage gap and it's just easily the biggest story in politics. >> well, get ready for an enslaugt, eharmony, lot of people coming to you thanks to the republican latest pr. the right wing has a problem when it comes to the female vote. that's true. specifically single females. mitt romney won married women by seven points in 2012. no gender gap for him among married women. the president carried unmarried women, single people by a whopping 36% over romney. that helped him win women general. dana milbank is an opinion writer for the "washington post" and has opinions. michelle bernard is president of the bernard center for women, politics and public policy. he's male, let's start with you,

because you were there. what is their prescription? is it normative? are they saying since most women who are single vote democrat, let's get out of that category and get them married as if you can control that. >> you'd think they'd look at the gender gap and say, what do we have to do to appeal to unmarried women? change policies. no, no, no, let's get rid of unmarried women by marrying them off. if more women would get their mrs degree, get out of the workforce, stay home -- >> a lot of people, most people want to get married at a certain point and looking for the right person, obviously. it's about the crap chute if you will, trying to find the right guy, sometimes you get the right guy. sometimes you have to find the right guy. the fact of the matter it's not easy. because some nerdish place like the heritage foundation says, your answer to yourlady, is to . they have to still find the guy. >> it doesn't change anything.

more importantly, if you take a look at the gender gap, this is not a winning prescription for the republican party. if you go back to 2012 and even 2008, the numbers of white women voters is steadily decreasing. and mitt romney sort of closed the the gender gap a little bit between 2008 and 20 12, but the women who voted for him, he fleetly lost nonwhite women. >> yeah. >> if you look at the democrat graph deck grac demographics, republicans and white men voting for republicans, say the same thing for white women. black women overwhelmingly vote democrat. hispanic women, overwhelmingly democrat. even if they're married. asian women overwhelmingly vote democratic. >> i like to try to do this, be reasonable from a point of view we may not share. it seems to me if you're a married woman, you have childcare challenges, education challenges. you have to find most people, a good public school system. you can't go to private school. too expensive. you need health care, you need childcare after school. if you have living parents, if you're lucky to have living

parents, older people, you want their health care, you want their retirement taken care of. you're constantly dealing with it. what shots the kids have had, what teach erst thers they have classmates are like. husbands don't take that responsibility as keenly as the wife and mother does. >> they do more and more. >> they do care. >> it's completely, it makes a lot of sense to say there are balances to feminism. they've made a lot of improvements in women's lives and there are -- >> how does getting married get you off the hook in needing certain -- >> from the lady's perspective, if you -- >> how is this going to help them? >> republican women by in large, republican families that earn over $100,000 a year typically, those are who we see as republican voters. male and female. if you get divorced, if your husband decides he's going to leave you for the nanny, those republican women i would venture to guest are going to be able to -- are you going to be able to start thinking we do need a safety net because i no longer have a husband who is a large wage earner that can pay for private schools and pay for the orthodontist and pay my medical bills. once they're out on their own

and see there's not -- they're almost preaching a dependency that's not government but it's -- >> what about marriages? what about lousy marriages? they don't have a prescription for that, apparently. >> no, i mean, the problem is what the prescription is. we can certainly have a reasonable argument act the tradeoffs. now women have earned the right to be just as miserable as men are in the workforce. terrific. that's great progress. but their solution, let's go back to the 1950s where women because of their bodies, they say, take themselves out of the workforce. >> you know what this reminds me of? blacks don't work hard enough, women don't get married enough. the republican prescription for everything is it's their fault. thank you, dana milbank, thank you, michelle bernard. i was quoting republicans there. and we'll with right back. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪ she can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees.

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let me finish tonight with this. possession is 9/10th of the law. that's a pretty good way to look at the affordable care act and what the president had to say today. he's right. are the republicans ready to take away what people have, the health insurance that is now a reality in their lives? are the republican candidates and office holders truly will to say, that's it, it's going away, we're going back to square one, to the days where politicians decried the tens of millions of uninsured people hobbling into emergency rooms for basic health care? president obama and a democratic congress have together created what is an israeli prime minister once called new facts. five years ago, when we argued about health care, we argued about what wasn't. today, in the future when we argue about health care, we argue about what is.

what is is in the hands of millions of american people now. health care is in their possession. the question is who will have the nerve to go to them and take it away? i think that is something the republicans in congress might have to begin thinking about long before they actually try to actually do it. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm steve kornacki in for chris hayes tonight. today, president obama went before a cheering crowd of lawmakers and supporters in the white house rose garden and he declared a victory in what has been and continues to be a very long battle over the affordable care act. >> last night, the first open enrollment period under this law came to an end. 7.1 million americans have now signed up for private insurance plans through these mark marketplaces.