necessity of going after the heads of these companies, because people need to feel that justice is blind. fast forward again to the next round of scandals, and there are no prosecutions. >> good evening. we have important new documents in the george washington bridge scandal, and that's coming up shortly, but we're going to begin in nevada on 600,000 acres of grazing land just west of mesquite. it's where lifelong rancher cliven bundy has been raising his cattle for years on what is federal land. he's been doing that without paying the necessary fees. in 1998, a judge ordered bundy to remove his hooved trespassers, and now after nearly two decades, multiple court orders and no cooperation from bundy, the government has

stepped in and removed his cattle from the property, rounding them up and keeping them in a holding area nearby. this was no small move. the bureau of land management and national park service mobilized helicopters, trucks and cowboys in order to move the cattle. as you may imagine, this angered the bundy family. the story got stirred by conservative groups who see this more as a glaring example of big government run amuck. one of the groups is the nevada army of the koch brothers funded americans for prosperity, which had been running pro-bundy images and messages in the social media accounts. been using the hashtag #bundybattle. they said blm is an agency whose priorities are out of order. putting taxpayers on the hook for a month-long operation to arrest trespassed cattle in the nevada desert is only the latest example. this is another example of big government gone wrong.

hundreds of states rights protesters ended up flooding the scene in nevada, and triggering a standoff between law enforcement and protesters, who some included armed militiamen who tried to storm the holding tank. and after moving 400 of bundy's cattle, blm announced the operation would end because of grave concerns about worker safety. the bundy family says the citizens of america got their cattle back. the nevada republican governor brian sandoval praised the agency for its willingness to listen to the state's concerns. this all ended peacefully, which is certainly a good thing. it's a great thing. this is where you also see the struggle to move forward for the conservative movement for the republican party. the struggle of how to balance one wing of the party's instinctive defense of state rights and the outright rejection of the federal government. the party's larger aim of appealing to a less conservative national electorate. this is really an active present moment struggle in the republican party. nationally. and you can also see it

happening at the state level. in nevada. because in contrast, the don't tread on me standoff that played out in the desert this weekend, on the same day, on saturday. nevada state republican party decided to drop opposition to abortion and opposition to gay marriage from the official platform. state party chairman michael mcdonnell said it was about inclusion and quote, this is where the party is going. it's a sentiment echoed by the rnc's autopsy report that stated, quote, there's a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays. for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the party is a place they want to be. they were basically saying you have to take some of the social issues off the table before you can even talk to younger voters. and there's not much evidence that the national republican party has been following that advice. but the state republican party in nevada, it just did. and now granted, this is just one state party. it's in a state with a more

libertarian political tradition, but still, this is significant. it's a state party making a conscious decision to open up the platform and to be more inclusive on cultural issues. at the national level, though, the carnival rolled. this weekend we saw the launch of the inaugural new hampshire freedom summit. it was cosponsored by americans for prosperity -- there's that name again. as you may expect at a cattle call like this, there was no shortage of republican politicians. senators rand paul and ted cruz and mike huckabee were in attendance. >> my gosh, i'm beginning to think that there's more freedom in north korea sometimes than there is in the united states. when i go to the airport i have to get in a surrender position. people put hands all over me. and i have to provide photo i.d. in a couple of different forms and prove that i am really not going to terrorize the airplane. but if i want to go vote, i don't need a thing.

>> that's the same north korea where kim jong un had his uncle executed. this at the same time saying comprehensive immigration reform would involve trapping people which could otherwise contribute greatly to the country as a whole. bush's comments last week were a big deal for a reason. because a stance like this on immigration inclusive in tone is exactly what a republican who wants to win a national election should probably be saying. chris christie was supposed to be the candidate who was going to pull the party back towards the middle, at least on a few issues, but with his recent string of problems, it's created an opening for jeb bush to essentially audition for the role for 2016. to show republicans and to show the political world that he knows how to do what the republican nominee has failed to do in five of the last six presidential elections, win more popular votes nationally than the democrat.

that was the promise of chris christie. that is the promise of jeb bush. but what was on display in new hampshire this weekend was a party base that not only doesn't agree with jeb bush, but is going out of his way to attack him. here's marsha blackburn who seems to be toying with a 2016 campaign of her own. here she is taking a direct shot at the common core education standards, something for which jeb bush has been a vocal advocate. >> the unions don't want charter schools. they want a happy meal education. dumb down. equal portions for everybody. that is what they would like. we need to fight those unions. we need to fight for charter schools, and while we're at it, let's replace it with common sense. >> there were boos there. they were directed at jeb bush's stand.

he spent most of last week positioning himself as a bill clinton of the gop. but that is not at all what the republicans in new hampshire were looking for. to hear republicans attacking jeb bush underscores the point. a tension between id logical purity and general election appeal. today's republican party willing to acknowledge that? joining us now is casey hunt, who was in new hampshire at the freedom summit this weekend. casey, thank you for being here. i know it's been overwhelming for you. >> hey, you know, lots to talk about out of this new hampshire summit. >> there is. i think what surprised me the most was obviously the timing. it was sort of jeb bush's big rollout week. here's the establishment's new option if it's not chris christie. but then the whole issue of common core, which i hadn't been following in the last month or so. this seems to be exploding on the right suddenly. can you talk about what it is, why it has the conservative base so fired up, and then the effect here on a guy like bush who as

governor of florida was a big champion of this? >> sure, well it's a common sort of curriculum that's designed for states to be able to use, and what's happening, and i've been seeing this as i've been traveling across through these different states, even looking at just the midterm elections, and it's something that particularly tea party groups have seized on as sort of a cultural wedge issue that gets away from abortion, gay marriage, things like that, and sort of allows them to unite around this. so you're seeing it in iowa. there are tea party groups uniting around appealing common core. it was, as we showed, the biggest applause line at the new hampshire summit. i've even seen leaflets against it in kentucky. the tea party candidate running against senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. so it's something they've really rallied around. it poses a particular problem around jeb bush. it's something he championed when he was a governor. it's one of those issues that's causing some republicans to sit back and say hey, you know, maybe this actually should give us pause about his candidacy.

immigration is one thing. common core is another. the question for jeb bush is can he move beyond his family name? is he ready to mount the kind of campaign you would have to mount in this day and age and era and the tea party landscape? this particular issue seems to be flaring as one of the most important for him. >> this is right. as they say, the timing was so interesting because jeb bush was making a statement on immigration last week that reminded me what his brother did when he was running for president in 2000, positioning himself towards the middle. the compassionate conservatives. >> yeah. >> were you picking up on that in this room? after seeing jeb bush in the news for immigration? was the railing against immigration, was that really a party just saying no? was it a base just saying no to jeb bush? was that really the message they were trying to send? >> i think that was a little bit of it. i will say the organizers did invite jeb bush to the summit. they did not invite chris christie, which was a very

specific snub aimed at what they consider his more moderate record. and there were boos when donald trump in particular mentioned jeb bush and the immigration comment specifically. and so i think it was more of a reaction to the actual policy, and not necessarily to the potential of a jeb bush candidacy. i think it would have welcomed hearing from him. but i do think there was very clear opposition to some of the things they think he stands for. >> and we're always talking about this. basically my whole lifetime we've been talking about this upcoming presidential election. whether it's going to be 1996 or 2000. whatever. this is going to be the year the conservative base finally says we don't want the establishment candidate. this is whether they go with the true believer. and yet, this is the party that nominates bob dole and john mccain and mitt romney. so we're hearing it again in the run up to 2016. it was going to be chris christie. maybe not jeb bush. this is a year they're going to nominate a guy like rand paul. and you thought rand paul got the best response.

when you look at this. in a state like iowa, which has heavy evangelicals on the republican side, and then new hampshire, it's very tough to find a republican in the modern era who has been table to put together a winning coalition in iowa with evangelicals and new hampshire with the sort of don't tread on me nonreligious tea party types. i'm getting the sense rand paul is bringing those two things together. >> the trick is the places where rand paul could get tripped up. i think your premise is right in which he clearly has influence in both of those states. he's almost taken over the iowa republican party, or he had. and it's clear the message in that libertarian strain helps him in new hampshire. he could get tripped up on social issues like abortion. one thing that evangelicals have been concerned about is that strain of libertarianism that is more okay with abortion than the typical party is. and we've already seen some of what's leftover of the neo

conservative wing of the party. and so sort of going after rand paul in a pretty aggressive way. you could see that raise its head in a place like south carolina, which has a very strong military tradition, and has historically nominated establishment candidates as well. >> maybe six months ago or so, he said that's your nominee in 2016. said, i'm coming closer. >> it's not impossible. you know who may come out looking better is marco rubio. he is flying under the radar screen and not endured the damage chris christie has gone through. >> we'll see about immigration in the question with rubio. casey hunt, thank you for joining us tonight. just ahead, governor christie hoped the george washington review would be the last word on the bridge scandal. not so fast. stay with us.

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the crowd cheers. the russian flag is raised for another building in eastern ukraine. the police station seized by pro-russian separatists. amateur video circulated widely on the internet, unverified by nbc news, appears to show ukrainian police being given orders by a russian military officer. he says he's a lieutenant colonel, even shows i.d. inside we saw separatists giving orders to the police.

>> why are you hanging the russian flag outside? it's for protection, he says. everyone here wants to be russian. in the few hours they've been in control of this police station, you can't help but wonder who is behind the coordination. look at the tires that have been brought in. the sandbags. there's a tremendous amount of discipline among the men securing this position. >> that was nbc news correspondent reporting from eastern ukraine. he's reporting on a pro-russian mob that stormed and seized the ukrainian police station this morning. this comes on the heels of a series of coordinated raids throughout eastern ukraine over the weekend. where armed gunmen without any visible insignia gained control of police buildings throughout the region. all of this leading to ukrainian government for the first time to deploy security services to confront the pro-russian protesters and to try to regain control of eastern ukraine.

clashes ensued. one ukrainian security officer was killed. another five were wounded. the ukrainian government's effort to reassert the authority made little headway. mobs continued to plow forward, taking over administrative buildings, police stations and entire cities. setting up check points outside of them. in one town in eastern ukraine, some 400 handguns and 20 automatic weapons were looted from a police station. this according to the ukrainian interior ministry. the escalating situation triggered a security city council meeting last night. that's where samantha power delivered strong words to russia, accusing it of orchestrating the unrest. >> we know who is behind this, indeed the only entity in the area capable of these coordinated professional military actions is russia. the synchronized surgical seizure of buildings yesterday occurred in towns along the main highway, followed by armed roadblocks, almost as if a coordinated roadblock was formed.

you have heard about instability, as if instability is organic. but the fact is this is the saddest kind of instability. it's completely manmade. this instability was written and choreographed in and by russia. >> and today is the last ditch effort of sorts. ukraine's acting president reached out to the u.n. and asked for peace keeping troops to sent to ukraine. in a phone call, the ukrainian president suggested conducting a joint anti-terrorist operation with ukrainian forces and u.s. peace keeping troops, according to his website. it's unclear if the peace keeping troops could be deployed because that would require approval from the u.n. security council, and russia is a permanent member of the u.n. security council and therefore has veto power. and we're learning that two russian fighter jets engaged over the weekend. a u.s. navy guided missile destroyer in the black sea.

it's in violation of international protocols. as tensions continue to ramp up, today president obama spoke with russian president vladimir putin on the phone. the white house reporting tonight that president putin asked for the call. the white house says the conversation was frank and direct. the president making clear the diplomatic path is still open and continues to be the u.s.'s way forward and stressing russia's actions are neither consistent with nor conducive to that. joining us now is michael mcfaul, the former u.s. ambassador to russia. currently a professor of political science at stanford university. thank you for joining us tonight. >> sure. >> my thought is looking at all of this today, i'm thinking back to the situation in crimea. you had the troops with no insignias. you had the u.s. saying we know this is putin. we know this is russia. we had the conversation with president obama and putin. then nobody really being able to do anything about crimea.

in light of what we're hearing now about another frank conversation and the troops without the insignia. is there any reason to believe this is going to end differently? is russia about to annex more land? >> well, there's lots of parallels, as you rightly pointed out. it's a very scary situation. but it's a different situation in crimea. and in a couple of respects. first and foremost, the majority of the people in these eastern regions of ukraine are not russian. let's be clear about that. in crimea they were. out there they're not. secondly, very different from crimea, the government in kiev tried to oust them using military force last night. they didn't succeed. and that was bad. that shows how weak they are. but i don't think that this is going to happen as peacefully, if indeed putin decides to annex the regions of ukraine. >> so what happens then? ukraine itself could muster some kind of military fight.

it remains to be seen how strong the military fight would be. ukraine looking for u.n. peace keeping forces. can't imagine there's much appetite in the united states to contribute to anything like that. there's already sanctions leveled against russia here. and they are taking these stops. where is the help that ukraine is going to get to force russia to pull back in a situation like this? >> let's be frank. they have bad options. the government in kiev has very bad options. if they do nothing, it will be shown that they're weak and there are critics on the right will criticize them for doing not enough. already there are demonstrations in kiev from the right saying you need to do more. if they do use force, of course, that creates the pretext for putin to say we need to go in and save the ethnic russians and eastern ukraine. so the ukrainian government does not have great options. they're damned if they do.

they're damned if they don't. and the international community also doesn't have great options. right now what you see, both the obama administration and other european leaders is to raise the specter of increased sanctioned, but at the end of the day, putin will take the risk. he'll take the costs of sanctions and he'll march into ukraine. and as he's starting to show and looking strong, not looking weak. a major consideration for putin. i guess the final question for you is we saw crimea. we're seeing eastern ukraine. how big is the putin appetite for annexation? are there other areas that he's eyeing? how much bigger does he want russia to get? i don't know the answer to that. he doesn't call me. that's part of the problem, by the way. he's very isolated as a leader. i'm not yet convinced that he knows what his grand strategy is yet here.

i do think he wants to weaken the ukrainian government. destabilize western ukraine and perhaps do that to negotiate a more federalized system of government. and at the same time, he's also making preparations for plan "b", which would be full scale intervention. i don't think he's made up his mind entirely, but he's got a lot of cards to play. the kiev government and the west don't have a lot of cords. >> yeah, you mentioned full scale intervention. that could get ugly. we saw a hint of it today unfortunately. michael mcfaul, i want to thank you for your time tonight. there are dozens of new documents out on the george washington bridge scandal. we'll have the full details straight ahead.

for a couple of weeks now, the chris christie administration in new jersey has touted the internal investigation as an exoneration of the governor. the report states the governor had nothing to do with the gorge washington bridge lane closures and the accusations that he was trying to intimidate the mayor of hoboken over a real estate deal are completely false. for some people that defends his end of the matter. today there's new documents of the interview that produced the internal report, and they tell a far less conclusive tale. that analysis is coming up next. [ male announcer ] this is jim.

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once-a-day xarelto means no regular blood monitoring -- no known dietary restrictions. for more information and savings options, call 1-888-xarelto or visit goxarelto.com. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood 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. you've heard plenty by now about the mastro report. it was the report released a few weeks ago by randy mastro. he's the lawyer whose firm was chosen by the office of chris christie to conduct an internal investigation into his administration.

it's a report that is trying to exonerate the governor. it's a report paid for by new jersey taxpayers and did not include interviews with the principle players in the scandal swirling around the christie administration, which probably helps with the reaction the report is generating from the media. a majority of new jersey voters see the master report as a whitewash, and not the definitive independent exoneration that christie is trumpeting it as. they were also skeptical of the democratic lawmakers who were investigating the scandal. but they really don't seem to trust the internal investigation of the christie administration. partly because it was led by an attorney that the christie administration hired and also that they did not make any recordings or transcripts public. they tell us it's customary in internal investigations to summarize interviews rather than transcribe or tape them. so in the state legislative

committee that's investigating asked for transcripts, instead they got a packet of memos. 75 memos. one from each of the people who the team interviewed. in each memo comes with a disclaimer. it says this memorandum does not con train a verbatim transcript of what was said at the meeting. rather, it's a summary of the mental thoughts and it's therefore protected from disclosure by the attorney work product doctrine. memos obviously are not nearly as useful as actual transcripts would be, but we do learn some things for them. for example, it turns out that one of the three attorneys on mastro's team is a friend of christie's. she was a lawyer who interviewed christie in the claim that exonerates him. plenty dealing with bridgegate but also plenty addressing the other major scandal christie's administration is dealing with. one that has nothing to do with the closure of the access lanes

for the george washington bridge. one that has to do with the mayor of hoboken, dawn zimmer. they privately said it was linked to her willingness to go forward with a major development in hoboken, the rockefeller project. a project represented by the law firm of one of christie's closest confidants. now zimmer made the allegations on this network back in january. specifically she accused christie's lieutenant governor of pulling her aside after an event in a shop right supermarket in hoboken a year ago in may and explicitly linking sandy money to the development project. >> the fact is that the lieutenant governor came to hoboken. she pulled me aside in the parking lot. she said i know it's not right.

i know these should not be connected. but they are, and if you tell anyone, i'll deny it. >> she also said a similar message was displayed to her later. zimmer and constable were seated next to each other on stage last may for a televised hall about sandy recovery. zimmer documented the conversation she had with constable just before the program started in a contemporaneous diary entry that she shared with us in january. the diary entry reads quote, we are miked up with panelists all around us and he says i hear you are against the rockefeller project. i reply. i am not against the rockefeller project. oh, really. everyone in the state house agrees you are against it. if you move forward the money would start flowing to you, he tells me. now, those are dawn zimmer's allegations.

both have adamantly denied them. >> mayor zimmer's version of our conversation in may of 2013 is not only false, but is illogical and does not withstand scrutiny when all of the facts are examined. any suggestion, any suggestion that sandy funds were tied to the approval of any project in new jersey is completely false. i am very surprised by the mayor's allegations, and i deny wholeheartedly those allegations. >> and both guadagno and constable claimed vindication. you can see it here. factual analysis. mayor zimmer's allegations are

unsubstantiated and the mayor's allegations about the lieutenant governor do not withstand scrutiny. that's what the master report concluded. but, of course, dawn zimmer declined to be interviewed for that report. she's been interviewed by the united states attorney paul fishman. and fbi agents have examined records and spoken with others in hoboken about her accusation take the interview with guadagno. the memo said she told the lawyers that zimmer had requested to meet with her outside the shop right and zimmer connected sandy aid and the stalled development. she said the development and sandy aid were not related and if zimmer claimed the mayor was connecting the two, the mayor would be wrong and lieutenant governor would have to say so. so no threats from guadagno.

no connecting sandy money to development projects. nothing like zimmer is electing. that's what guadagno told zimmer's team. but then this is from a woman named luciana dimaggio. she was the only person in an suv with guadagno immediately after her encounter with zimmer. she said she hadn't heard the exchange, but she had watched it and it had been, quote, tense. and she said when guadagno got into the suv she said something like if mayor zimmer didn't play ball then there's not much we can do. dimaggio according to the memo first told this to the chief of staff on the day she made allegations on the first of january.

and also told to masters team during two meetings in the following week. in those meetings dimaggio notes she came by herself. she was not represented by a lawyer. then more than a month later on march 10th, she had another meeting with the team, and this time she did bring a lawyer. with her counsel present, according to the report here, dimaggio said her memory is not 100% accurate but she remembered the lieutenant governor communicated that mayor zimmer was not cooperating, stating in words or in some substance something like the mayor was not playing ball or the mayor was not playing well with others. dimaggio not understand the context or meaning of the lieutenant governor's remarks. and after guadagno was called back for another interview and asked about it. the lieutenant governor did not recall any specific words she used in the car but did recall she was frustrated by mayor zimmer's single minded focus on hoboken. she failed to recognize the states as a whole especially in the shore communities where many

entire homes were washed away. the lieutenant governor said she may have said something about that and had to be firm with mayor zimmer and was one of many towns who needed post sandy relief. so we have an aide who was in the suv with guadagno immediately after the shoprite event saying she thinks the lieutenant governor said something about dawn zimmer not playing ball. but she's not sure. but in the master report itself, it clearly undercuts zimmer's story. dimaggio did not recall the exact words used but her recollection is consistent with the lieutenant governor's recollection of pushing back against the mayor's insistence on getting more aid for hoboken without regards to the profound needs of the entire state. but there's a question. did kim guadagno get in the suv

and say that zimmer wasn't playing ball? this seems like an important question. it could mean a lot of things. it could be totally consistent with guadagno's version of events. it could be totally consistent with mayor zimmer's allegations. master report doesn't grapple with this. words the points and moves on. the memos released today only add to the sense there's a much more complicated picture here when it comes to guadagno and all the other questions that threat opinion christie's administration. more revelations from this bumper crop of new jersey documents just ahead. you got the bargain kind?

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this has been a big day for news out of new jersey. today the team of lawyers hired by the office of governor chris christie released new notes from 75 interviews done for that review. from those notes we learned today that on january 8th, that's the day that the stunning batch of documents that included

bridget kelly's time for traffic problems e-mail, when that batch was released that on day christie convened a meeting of his top advisers and one of the attendees was david samson. according to the memo outlining the christie interviewed, when samson arrived, the governor took him aside and asked if he knew anything about the lane realignment allegations. samson responded he did not. samson has since resigned and christie has repeatedly vouched for his integrity. joining us now is paul butler, a current professor of law at georgetown university. mr. butler, thanks for taking some time tonight with us. so i want to start with this whole question of transcripts for the interviews that christie's internal investigative team conducted. people are saying, okay, he put the report out. let's see the transcripts. lo and behold, there's no transcripts.

and from the master law firm there's a statement that, quote, it's customary to summarize interviews in memoranda rather than transcribe or tape them. is that accurate? >> yes, that's the standard course. that's how the fbi does it. you know, lawyers are control freaks. we like to control the flow of information. this way there's no record, even what the people who are interviewed is told is this is our recollection. this is the way we lawyers are going to cast what you say. this isn't a verbatim transcript. >> so in terms of the public's standpoint, the credibility of the report, when the public can't examine the transcribing and make its own judgments and is left to reading the memos the master firm produced, what is the value then of this report? does that -- does that reduce the value from the public's standpoint? >> it does reduce the value to the public, but it increases the value to governor christie. remember, the people who did this are wearing two hats.

on the one hand they're supposed to be doing this supposedly objective investigation because the taxpayers of new jersey are spending a million dollars on it. on the other hand, they're representing the christie administration. so they're certainly not going to be authors of a document that sends the governor to prison. >> right. that's always been my question about this investigation. you conduct an investigation while simultaneously representing the office. if you turn up something in the office, that's also your client you're turning up something about. i've wondered about that. but let me ask you to that point then, you're a former prosecutor. and apparently not just the master report itself but all the memos released today are also being shared with the u.s. attorney's office in new jersey. if you were still a federal prosecutor and you received documents like this from governor christie's team, what would you reaction be? how would you handle it? >> i would love it. more information is better than less information. and look. these prosecutors are not on a vendetta against governor christie.

they want to know whether he and his boys or girls broke the law. anything that sheds light on that instance is relevant. the concern is what you just recorded. if they're casting their interviews in a certain way, and even when they're trying to cast them that way they don't totally support the idea that the governor and his people have clean hands, i mean, that raises suspicions. prosecutors are naturally suspicious. so do i think that they're going to bring some of these people into the grand jury and get their version under oath when they're not talking to christie's team? you bet they're going to do that. >> i'm just curious. when it comes to the legal stuff, i'm a layman. this is just a question that occurred to me reading through memos today. we gave the example of luciana dimaggio to begin the segment. she's the aide with kim guadagno who says she thinks she heard something about not playing ball.

but she's not sure. in the memo it says she has two meetings with christie's lawyers, with the investigative team, where she's not represented by a lawyer. about six weeks later she comes back with a lawyer to reiterate she thinks this is what she heard. she's not 100% sure and doesn't want to go on the record with it. is that telling you anything that that happened? >> not really, other than that they are smart because anytime you're in an investigation like this, even if you're told you're only a witness, it's always a good idea to get a lawyer. it has nothing to do with whether you're innocent or guilty. so i suspect that she thought that her information wasn't such a big deal when the investigator seemed especially interested in it, she got the good advice that she needed to get a lawyer. so that's a good thing. >> all right. paul butler, former federal prosecutor for the department of justice, thanks for your time tonight. conservatives planning to bash the affordable care act all the way to victory in this

year's elections. be warned, this next segment contains inconvenient facts.

if you're someone who believes the affordable care act or obamacare was doomed from the start, that it was always going to be a total, complete failure no matter what, well, there have been two major developments over the last few months that have helped enforce your belief. the first was the grand opening of the health insurance website, healthcare.gov. the servers were immediately overloaded and almost no one who tried to use it could get the thing to work. that disastrous first day was followed by weeks of chaos and called into question whether this law was going to work or

whether the collapse would end up panning out. it was definitely something for people last fall to point to to say, see, we told you so. and the second big development for them played out this past thursday. we learned that kathleen sebelius, the secretary of health and human services was resigning. no matter how the white house spins it, sebelius was the person who oversaw that disastrous rollout. if you ask mitch mcconnell, quote, obamacare has been a rolling disaster and her resignation is cold comfort to the millions of americans who were deceived about what it would mean for them and their families. and now the universe are these two developments. the disastrous rollout last fall and sebelius' resignation last week. since the passage more than four years ago, the health care has never polled that well. much of this is driven from republicans who remain in intense and unanimous opposition from the aca all the way through.

it's in the part that is convinced that obamacare will never be anything but a failure and republicans are counting on them to win big in this year's midterm elections. americans for prosperity is prepared to focus heavily on the failures of obamacare. scott brown, who is hoping to become new hampshire governor scott brown is running on the fact that obamacare is not working. it's the same backlash that helped him propel in 2010 and one of the best ever for republicans. but there's a difference between now and 2010. today obamacare is a real thing. back in 2010, it wasn't anything more than a stack of paper, a stack of thousands of pieces of paper as opponents love to point out.

now it's being implemented and that means we're starting to see real results. those results have included some good news for the law. the pace of that good news now seems to be accelerating. take a look at the past few months. in november, health care spending had slowed dramatically. health care inflation was at the lowest point in 50 years and the congressional budget office forecasted that it would cost less than initially expected and personal income saw a bit of a boost, something attributed to the health care law. and last week a gallup poll found that the uninsured rate is at the lowest in five years and the huge news about sign-ups which jumped up dramatically leading up to the april 1st deadline, pushing the enrollment in the exchanges to 7.5 million, a number that seemed laughably out of reach a few months ago and now the number is at 10 million for the people on medicaid.

the cbo announced the affordable care act will be cheaper than expected this year, a lot cheaper. the most expensive provisions is going to cost taxpayers $5 billion less than originally expected because the exchanges in the marketplace will be lower than they thought they would be. back in 2010, all we had was the promise from the white house and democrats that this law was going to work, that people would like it once it was in place and we could see how it was working but implementing it was and still is a long process. some parts were put in place in the last few years but it's only now in 2014 that we're starting to see hard data and real on the ground evidence showing that this law can work and that it actually is starting to work. the more good news is, the more the question mounts, the question starts to become, when will our politics catch up?

when will the part of the political universe that has fought to repeal it, that has hyped every discouraging piece of news about it, that it will never work, that it could never work, when will that be forced by the weight of evidence and experience to acknowledge that the aca is a settled law, it's a permanent components of the social safety net and to move on. will a moment like that ever come? a congressional aide said last week, that any republican would look a heck like the law does right now. let's not kid ourselves. obamacare remains a deeply polarizing name and given the nature of the midterm elections just saying they're against it may work out for republicans this november but there are seven months between now and november, seven months that could include a lot more positive headlines than we've been seeing as the law is implemented and if they keep coming after november, the politics of obamacare, which have been frozen in place for more than four years now, they are eventually going to change.

that does it for us tonight. rachel will be back in this chair tomorrow night and i'll see you on my show "up." "first look" is up next. good tuesday morning. right now on "first look," tense phone call. russia's president claims the u.s. is misinformed about what is really going on in ukraine. but president obama vows serious consequences if russia persists militarily. boston strong. one year ago, terror struck at the finish line of the boston marathon. today the incredible recovery of those impacted most by the bombing. severe weather, freezing temperatures, major damage, flooding and thunderstorms, all ahead today. thanks for joining us. in their first phone call in more than two weeks, president obama warned putin that there