conservatives wish they knew how to quit clive bundy. let's play "hardball." good evening. leading off tonight, the conservative movement bundy problem. republicans who all once defended cliven bundy can't run away fast enough. unfortunately for them, bundy doesn't seem eager to go away though. after doubling down yesterday on his comments that maybe african-americans were better off as slaves, he moved even further down the rabbit hole. he said that martin luther king jr. has been on his mind a lot lately.

>> maybe i sinned. and maybe i need to ask forgiveness and maybe i don't know what i actually said, but, you know, when you talk about prejudice, we're talking about not being able to exercise what we think and our feelings. i say negro or black boy or slave. i'm not -- i'm not -- if those people cannot take those kind of words and not be offensive, then martin luther king hasn't got his job done yet. i should be able to say those things and they shouldn't offend anybody. >> so bundy and why he thinks black people are better off as slaves, why should they offend anyone? the drama raises tough questions. why are people like bundy attracted to the conservative movement?

and why do conservatives in turn seem so willing to make them into folk hero, whether it's bundy or ted nugent or even the rodeo clown with the obama mask before them, these people seem to find a comfortable home on the political right, at least until they go one step too far. michael steele and jonathan capehart both are msnbc contributors. michael, i'll tart with you. i guess the question of this whole saga raises for me is the republican party, the conservative movement is what does it say to you that so many prominent conservatives. sean hannity, look at the audience he commands, rand paul, we're talking about big names here. what does it say to you that they looked at this guy, a guy being backed by a militia that had people talking about using women as human shields, a guy who wouldn't recognize the existence of the federal government. what does it say to you that they are able to look at him and it doesn't even register to them that hey, there might be cooky ideas that are going to come out

of him? let's just link arms with him. what does that say about the conservative movement? >> i think you've got two parts. the one is there might be something kooky about this guy. let's link arms with him. i think the linking arms is the first part of this is the general argument, the principled idea that is talked about or espoused in this case. you know, is the government right to do what it was doing with respect to the land that was in dispute, the use of the land over the last 0 years and all of that. >> i didn't even get that part of it, michael. we still decent even know what the real dispute there was. from a legal standpoint this guy -- >> there is no standing here for this guy. that's obvious. >> there's no legal argument. >> i'll be honest, i can't speak to all of that because i don't know what is the ultimate motivation beyond sort of the popular sentiment among some conservatives that the constitution is under assault. and things like that and so these become rallying cries until they are not.

and that's the situation here. look, you know, there is conservatism that is about individual opportunities and freedoms, and then there's what this guy apparently -- i don't even call this conservatism. this is not what the conservatism movement or the party is about from my standpoint, but somehow we wrap our arms around it, and it always inve alwa alwayscomes back to bite in a very important way. and i think leaders like rand paul and others need to be much more careful and smarter about how you articulate these principles and how you allow people to attach them and adopt them that distorts the underlying essence of them. >> i want to follow up on that really quickly because you mentioned rand paul. i want to know what you think of this because this isn't the first time something like this has happened with rand paul. i mean this is the rand paul who talked a few years ago about maybe having problems with part of the civil rights act of 1964, this is the rand paul who had that guy, the southern avenger on his staff who ghost wrote his book

who he wouldn't distance himself from. rand paul it seems has been down this road before and keeps going down this road. this is a guy who is one of the top contenders for your party's nomination in 2016. are you worriried about the prominence he has given this history? >> no, i'm not worried about in this sense. i mean look, i don't think there was knowledge aforethought what mr. bundy thought about these issues and certainly bringing martin luther king in it is the height of ignorance as if martin luther king would be standing side by side with him on this point. so, you know, i can't speak to it and i don't think that rand paul or sean or anyone else had any idea this is what this guy's views were and this is what he ultimately -- how he ultimately felt about black people or seeing black people in their neighborhood on a stoop and thinking, oh sh, they would be better off as slaves. that is the height of stupidity. i don't think that's the case. i think for a lot of these folks it was the initial cause celebre

about, you know, the constitution and his rights to be the rancher and defend his property when in fact legally he was wrong. >> right. that's it. i wonder if somebody like rand paul is going to sit back and say why does this keep happening? gop spokesman shawn spicer strongly disagreed. let's listen. >> the issue with clive bundy has absolutely nothing to do with this party. zero. he is a nevada rancher that had a beef with the federal government's continued overreach and suddenly this became a question when he made inappropriate comments about what every republican needs to answer for. that is ridiculous. >> jonathan, what do you make of that? it's not like there were no republicans, no major republicans standing up for this guy and making a huge issue out of this. >> right. here's the thing. the republican party wouldn't have the problem it has with the cliven bundys in its midst if a grown-up had come up at the beginning when the tea party was getting up and running and said what's happening here within our

party on the fringes of our party is not right, and we have to do -- we have to speak out about this. i went back because i remembered a "new york times" story from february of 2010, and it was so frightening to me because it talked about how there's a loose alliance of protesters from the far right fringe who were glomming onto the tea party, the legitimate folks who had concerns about the deficit and the economic direction of the country, they were glomming onto the party. and what was interesting and what's quite ironic right now is that in the lead paragraph of that piece i said that i urged republican national party chairman michael steele and other republicans to start speaking out against these people before they lose control of their party. here we are four years later, and we're talking about a guy who is an outlaw who is breaking federal law who is a hero to a lot of people within now the base of the republican party who

is in a bear -- wrapped him in a bear hug until, surprise, surprise, he says something untoward and bigoted and racist about african-americans and we've seen it over and over and over again >> that's the question. look, you're the former chairman. you're no longer obviously in the job. but somebody who has the role now or a role like the one you had, where is that leadership, where is that voice in the republican party at the very beginning of this thing to put the brakes on to the say to rand paul, to say to sean hannity, stop, don't go down this road? >> well, i can go back and i know exactly what jonathan is talking about, and i remember that piece, and i remember at that time having conversations with republicans as well as true tea party activists who as jonathan rightly noted were more concerned about the constitution and budgets and federal spending than they were anything, i mean this was just as much ab outlier for them then as it is now. and the fact of the matter is we very much were concerned about

how this thing exponentially grows into something that distorts ultimately what this party is about and what it stands for. we're at that doorstep at this moment, and i think we all need to take hold and i think this is an opportunity of leadership for the likes of rand paul to make it very clear, where are you on this, how do you want to lead this party as a reflection of how you're going to lead the country. how do you speak to the country about matters of race when you embrace this kind of hate-filled racism? >> well, speaking of sean hannity, last night on fox news he joined the stampede of conservatives running away from the bundy ranch. >> i believe those comments are downright racist, they are repugnant, they are bigoted and it's beyond disturbing. i find those comments to be deplorable, and i think it's extremely unfortunate that cliven bundy holds those views. >> and yet here's what bundy said after being asked how it felt being abandoned by his former supporters like hannity. >> i don't think i've been abandoned. i think maybe they misunderstood

me a little bit but i think fox and i and i think hannity and i are just right on. i have no doubt that he would be supporting me if he understood my -- really what's in my heart and i think he does understand me. >> well, jonathan, hannity just called him every name in the book. he heard it and says, oh, yeah, i think he still understands me. it says to me there is something deeper here, there's something deeper about the messaging that has been sent out to cliven bundy, people like bundy that tells them, hey, we have a kinship here. what is drawing somebody like a cliven bundy to the conservative movement? >> well, i think -- the problem with cliven bundy, in that answer you just showed, in his interview on cnn, in his radio interview where he tried to say "the new york times" got his quote wrong and wanted a retraction. cliven bundy is in his own world. he is in this delusional world where he thinks that what he said is perfectly fine.

just because he said, i wonder if black people would have been better off under slavery, he clearly does not understand that equating black people and slavery and today and that life would be better under slavery is someone who is not in touch with reality, not in touch with where things are in this country now. and i wish that republican politicians who are -- who are, you know, guilty of using slave imagery to talk about opposition to the president's policies or opposition to democrats, that they adopt the position that -- just don't talk about slavery. do not talk about slavery being better, talk about slavery comparing slavery to today, because what you're talking about is an institution that robbed people of their liberty, robbed people of their dignity, robbed people of their humanity. and so if republicans want to be associated with people who think that that life was better, then they can just be happy to watch

the republican house burn down. >> well, and just to make that -- >> quickly. >> real quick, if they -- to make that point clear if they associate themselves with that kind of rhetoric and that kind of thought then they deserve everything they get as a result of it, period. >> let's see, you know, i said rand paul has been down this road a number of times. let's see if it happens again in the future. thank you, michael steele, jonathan capehart. you can catch jonathan this weekend filling in. coming up cliven bundy's cows still grazing on federal land. and there are militia men patriots all over bundy's hometown. so what happens next? plus, here's when you know that democrats do feel better about obamacare, when they start running on it, not away from it. guess what, a few of them are starting to. and john boehner sticks it to his right wing colleagues for refusing to move on immigration. >> here's the attitude. oh, don't make me do this. oh, this is too hard. you should hear them.

>> is that refusal to do anything on immigration helping to make the gop the place for the cliven bundys of the world feel comfortable? the me-coon who helped make george w. bush president. this is "hardball," your place for politics. provides reliable it services like multi-layered security solution to keep your information safe & secure. century link. your link with what's next.

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at your ford dealer. welcome back to "hardball" cliven bundy from hero to zero on the right since his racist remarks were made public wednesday. the issues at the heart of the dispute are unresolved. bundy's cows still graze on federal land. fees remain unpaid and militia members supporting bundy are steadfast despite the gravity of the rancher's explosive comment.

yesterday "the las vegas sun" profiled it. here's how he characterized the media coverage of bundy's comments. "that's not our focus at all. it's part of misinformation to maintain the divide. things like this will be out there to discredit bundy, it's a weapon to create division." it goes on to say many supporters have ignored reports ever bundy's remarks. so now that bundy has discredited himself and his cause how will this wind down? with us is steven from nevada. and john ralston, host of "ralston reports." congressman, this is your district. are these your constituents. not all of the militia men are yours but the people in this community certainly are. i wonder we lose sight sometimes by focusing on the militia presence. there is a whole community here. how has that whole community been dealing with this? >> well, many people in bunkerville and the surrounding area and in the valley and mesquite feel terrorized by

these outside armed militia groups. they are not from our community. they are not from nevada. they are coming here, and they actually have set up kind of a military police state where individuals who live in the community have to go through their checkpoint in order to get to their house. we have -- >> you have checkpoints set up from this militia? >> the militia groups have set up their own checkpoints so the people who live there actually have to go through those checkpoints to get to their home. i met with people who told me their kids can't walk around the corner from their house to their school because there's armed militia in the hills. they tried to go to church on sunday, and there were armed militia in and around the church because cliven bundy was there. they want them to leave so that our community can go back to normal. >> so what's happening with local law enforcement? i mean there still are police

out there, right? if there's checkpoints being set up, i mean the cops can do something about that, can't they? >> this is part of why i met with the local elected officials yesterday including representatives from the sheriff's department, so that we could get a resolution. but what we need first is for these armed militia to leave our community, to leave the state of nevada so that we can solve our own land use issues on our own. >> i understand that but with these checkpoints, so what did the sheriff's department tell you? are they planning to do anything about it? >> well, because this is information that we have just received, it was actually through an e-mail to my office from a constituent, we're now working with those agencies to try to see what can be done, but most importantly we need cliven bundy to tell these armed militia to leave bunkerville and the surrounding communities. >> all right. and, john, let me ask you. you know the state as well as anyone.

we hear back in the east about how the issue of federal land is something that supposedly generated a lot of sympathy for bundy from people out there at least before all of this started. was that true? was there before the racist comments came to light a fair degree of sentiment supportive of or sympathetic to him in nevada and how much is left? is it just the militia men that are women him now or is there still a chuck of the population that is supporting him? >> well, there is a divide in nevada as there is in the country, steve, between rural and urban america. and there's a lot of rural folks out in nevada who think the feds own too much of their land out there, 80 plus percent. so, yes, they sympathize with bundy. he is a terrible, terrible person for them to put up as their avatar because he has been breaking the law for 20 years and it's not his land, it is federal land and many other ranchers in other parts of the state pay their grazing fees. but we've even had five conservative legislators, republicans from the assembly and the senate

write a letter demanding a state investigation of the blm's actions here as a way to get into this issue of transferring the federal land to the state land, never asking some key questions such as really, can the state really take care of that land any better than the feds? and does anyone think that cliven bundy who got away with not paying his bills for 20 years that the federal government would have paid the state government? so, yeah, there's still that out there. some of the prominent folks and sean hannity got out his pejorative words and his thesaurus and started spewing all of that. but they still sympathize with this guy. no question about it. >> thank you, up next do you remember the republican presidential candidate who was a pizza king? contestants on "jeopardy" didn't. "the side show" is next. never been a better time to buy a jetta tdi clean diesel.

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like every folk hero, he deserves a folk song. ♪ cliven couldn't understand why should he have to pay for land this land belongs to you and me that's what he told sean hannity ♪ this is the ballad of cliven bundy ♪ take it, cliven. >> i want to tell you one more thing i know about the negro. >> okay, that's enough of the song. >> back to "hardball." time for "the sideshow." no one could have summed it up better than stephen colbert. conservatives are fleeing him in droves. no wonder those to took on his cause fell in love with him in the first place. here's how jon stewart portrayed it "the daily show." >> states rights sovereign citizen cliven bundy is apparently also a professor of negro studies. >> and i've often wondered were

they better off as slaves, picking cotton, having family life and doing things or are they better off under government subsidy? >> well, it's an interesting question i guess history will be the judge. oh, what's that, history already decided and the answer is no, they are not better off. if i may offer a bit of advice to the television outlet that was promoting this gentleman, it would be nice not to see this anymore. >> i guess maybe i'm a little bit like the founding fathers. >> well, yes, a bit like the founding fathers but the bit of the view is the bit of them we're ashamed of. >> next up, if you see my weekend show up with steve kornacki, you might know that i love game shows. well this week "jeopardy" featured a political blast from the past and i'm sure that that "hardball" viewers will have better luck

had this. >> this pizza magnate and 2012 president candidate was a math major at historically black morehouse college. how quickly you have forgotten herman cain. >> that's "hardball" for now. i hope you'll join me later on "up with steve kornacki." coming up "your business" with jj ramberg. they're who we protect. they're why we make life less complicated. it's about people. we are volvo of sweden.

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