protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy." to be clear, this claim that the protests were a reaction to an internet video was a theory that came from the central intelligence agency, the cia, a theory that was relayed to the white house vet same day that rhodes sent his e-mail. with the exception of this previously unreleased message from rhodes and a few other documents, almost all of this stuff, the talking points shall eat mail exchanges, was released to the public about a year ago and while there are probably few questions to be asked about why we are only seeing this particular e-mail now, if you hear it from a benghazi truther, the smoking gun has been found. not only was a senior white house official apparently following cia guidance, he was also trying to manage political fallout before the 2012 elections. as dave weigle points out in slate this is a major departure from most crises when administrations try to broadcast

fear and panic. dave weigle is, of course, being sarcastic, but sarcasm and apparently a sense of reason or proportion, those things seem to have been lost on conspiracy-obsessed conservatives who have turned this e-mail into the watergate tapes. >> we now have the smoking document. this is a classic coverup of a coverup and that is a serious offense. >> statement today, senator john mccain said rhodes' he e-mail was ample evidence of the politicization of this tragedy while lind is graham told news mags yesterday, this is a smoking gun, shows political operatives in the white house working to create a political narrative at odds with the facts. a smoking gun that confirms pretty much what everyone has been saying all along. joining me now former national security spokesman for president obama and co-founder of fenway strategies, tommy vitt tore and senior writer for politico magazine, glenn thrush. tommy, let me start with you,

you were cc'd on all of this back and forth. >> yeah. >> was there anything political? was it an overarching political strategy that was coming from the white house and from ben rhodes? >> no i can tell you what our mindset was at the time, which was enormous fear that these protests that were obviously the result of this video were spreading and becoming more violent and could lead to the death or injury of more of our people serving abroad. you know, i think we all need to step back and that there were millions of people protesting across the planet. there was no reason for us to believe that these individuals at benghazi weren't also upset by the video. if you read david kirpatrick's "new york times" story, his stringer interview people there told them that they were upset by the video. so this wasn't about politics. this was about trying to calm things down and protect our people abroad. >> there seems to be a lot of hue and cry over the fact that ben rhodes' a mail de-mail did h

the nuance that was part of the cia guidance and also something echoed at the state department in a background briefing call with reporters before ambassador rice went on the sunday talk shows. why did, in your mind, when you were present during all of this, why did the white house remove the nuance, full? why did they stay in a more definitive matter these were links to -- protests the result of a video posted on the internet? >> i mean, we thought they were. i don't know how else to say it than that. also remember, ben's note says protests, plural, there were dozens of countries. i remember sitting in a meeting in the situation room and said there is a protest in australia as a result of the innocence of muslims video, that's how far-reaching this thing was. so, you know, i guess maybe there is a theory that millions of peoples protested because of this video and benghazi the only place they didn't. i don't buy that at all.

>> glenn, let me turn to you here, jay carney got into a back and forth with abc's john carl over this specific point. he at one point in his briefing said the e-mail and the talking points were not about benghazi, they were about the general situation in the muslim world. as ben -- as tommy says, there was a lot going on at this particular moment, but in terms of a line of defense, you know, how much is there to be picked apart in terms of that? >> there's a little bit to be picked apart. look, you know, i think that the notion that judicial watch had to go to federal court in order to get these documents is a really valid question. i mean, i hold here in my hand the hundred e-mails that were given to must a binder last may. i don't know why these couldn't have been included in that. we were told at that point in time that this was the comprehensive collection of the e-mails. but that aside, i tried to read today's documents with completely clear head, abstracted from a political context and also abstracted from the briefing room back and forth

around the truth of the matter is i think tommy's basic point, that the white house and the west wing was totally freaked out by the possibility of this spreading into some sort of wider, regional, 1979-style conflagration is clearly there. if you look at the priority of the questions that rhodes was posing prospectively to rice they all started with kind of a regional context and then filtered down to benghazi. i think that assertion is clearly true. the one thing i would quibble with my good friend, tommy, on is there's no political context. we were right in the middle of a presidential leeks campaign, we were in the heat of debate season. i think clearly, everyone was watching it also with that in mind. i think also in general, jay's contention holds water. the question i have again is why the hell did it take so long nor to come out? >> i mean that is the question. why did this e-mail only come out now? of course, tommy, for all the conspiracy theorists the juds dishal watch. judicial watch for our viewing audience, in case you don't know, most recently investigated the cost of the president's golf

trips to palm springs and key largo. this is not a group that doesn't have an agenda, if you will. >> yeah. >> the fact that this e-mail is coming out -- >> i don't want to stand up for these guys, per se, alex, but they also investigated tom delay and done probes of republicans as well. >> also investigate the president's birth certificate and the found other of judicial watch, larry clayman, has called the president the moolah in chief. other details here. tom mick, the fact of the matter, as glenn points out, the mere existence of this e-mail that wasn't in the original binderful of e-mails is going to give fuel to this. and part of me thinks, look, it's great that david kirpatrick wrote one of the most definitive stories on what happened in benghazi, the white house has not done a stellar job of managing this. and it is once again a thing where information comes out in dribs and drabs and gives full to especially a far right-wing fringe group of conspiracy

theorists looking for any excuse. >> yeah, look, the motives of these charming folks at judicial watch aside, think people are probably annoyed the e-mail didn't come out when others did, i don't think there is anything new here, i don't totally understand why it wouldn't have just been thrown out with the rest. unfortunately, now we have another round of stories about basically nothing, which is what the whole debate about the talking points has been all along. speaking of political motives, lindsey graham is trying to fend off a tea party primary, that's why he seized on this issue. it's an open joke of his up on capitol hill. people know why he is doing this. so there's certainly poll nix all of. this i agree, this is a -- people want to see a coverup here. they don't really know what's being covered up, per se, but they will desperately search for it until they find it and i guess judicial watch is gone. >> i think something to be said about just wearing the scarlet letter, yes, as glenn points out, this was a few weeks before a presidential electionful you look at ben rhodes' talking

points, not all about trying to make the administration look good. indeed, vet first talking point is ensuring that americans are safe and the white house is doing everything in its power to ensure the safety of americans abroad. >> yes. >> but yes, there was a practical reality this was happening six weeks before an election and also any administration wants to convey control, like david weigle says, it's not as if administrations come out and say our hair is on fire, we are totally freaked out, nor would that have been good for the american public. >> we are not, like, immune to calendars, we know when elections are. i think more broadly speaking, there's a ten den? i washington to view everything through the prism of washington, whether it's the arab spring or these protests and we can shout until we are blue in the face that it's not the result of things obama said. i think that's why you see that reflected in these talking points. but again, this was really about trying to calm massive tension as a result of this video and remember, that day when susan rice went out, beebe netanyahu was on the shows.

that friday ben sent the e-mail, some of the worst of the violence, worried about friday prayers sort of erupting. so, there was a lot of context going on at the time that we all forget about now, because we argue about talking points. we don't argue about what are we doing today, two years later, to make sure people are safer at these installation which is frankly what we should be talking about. >> to seize on the politics part, it seems like this is something that republicans do frequently, if the white house mismanages the message, quite often, republicans overstep, insofar as there is something to be said here about, patrick brennan in the national review, says this is not a conspiracy but the white house hasn't been as straightforward as they could have or perhaps should have been. there probably is something for republicans to complain about, for the american public perhaps to be distressed or dismayed about, but because this whole thing has been outsourced to the likes of judicial watch and has become a fringy kind of topic, republicans have effectedly ceded all legitimacy, on this

issue in particular. >> alex, i think you're exactly right here. there's a very fine line between a coverup and a cover your tuchus, right? and i think the other -- the other large question, when you look at all these documents that really pops up there is a tremendous amount of daylight clearly and this is a wide open area of reporting on this between the cia, the state department and the white house, clearly a lot of dissonance, a lot of competing agendas, but i think you're absolutely right. coming up with a fact set on this a reasonable fact set, drawing conclusions and going forward to streamline some of these processes and get some answers is just really difficult in this environment. i think the republicans have done themselves a big disservice here. >> thank you, glenn thrush for bringing the word "tuchus" into this conversation. tommy, thank you for your time. glenn, thank you for the expertise and the yiddish. after the break, just moments ago, president obama renewed his push to raise the minimum wage hours after the senate voted not to. i'll talk with senator bernie sanders about what's happened to an honest day's wage for an

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give america a raise. just back from asia, president obama is returning to a pillar of his second term agenda, lifting the minimum wage and moving millions out of poverty. the president made his latest push just moments ago. >> americans have been way out in front of congress on this issue. in fact, about three in four americans support raising the minimum wage. and that's because we believe that in the wealthiest nation on earth, nobody who works full time should ever have to raise a

family in poverty. so far, republicans in congress disagree. >> if you noticed a combative tone from the president, that's because legislation to raise the minimum wage met its end earlier today in the halls of the u.s. senate. on a nearly party line vote of 54-42, supporters came up shy of the 60 votes needed to end a republican-led procedural roadblock. in a press conference after the vote, majority leader harry reid came out swinging, setting up the fight that democrats see going all the way to the fall midterms and beyond. >> today, we saw clear distinction between what we're fighting for, the democrats and the republicans, what they are fighting for. they are fighting for the billionaires. we are fighting for people who are struggling to make a living. >> and that struggle is only getting harder. the real value of the minimum wage has fallen by a third since its peak in 1968 and it is now below the poverty line, even for a family of two. but if that data doesn't

convince republicans, maybe republicans can convince republicans. republicans like former minnesota governor and former gop presidential candidate tim pawlenty. >> the republicans should support reasonable increase in the minimum wage. for all the republicans who come on and talk about we are for the blue collar worker, we are for the working person there are some basic things we should be for, one of them reasonable increases from time to time in the minimum wage. >> ah, about that you word "reasonable" is something the gop is increasingly unfamiliar with. when we come back, we will have more on the fight for a living wage with vermont senator bernie sanders. place where villages floated on water place and castles were houses dragons lurked giants stood tall and the good queen showed the boy it could all be real avo: whatever you can imagine, all in one place expedia, find yours

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way up. >> that was republican senator mike enzi giving some insight as to why the gop voted to block an increase in the federal minimum wage today, despite the fact that 73% of this country supports it. joining me now from washington is vermont's independent senator, bernie sanders. senator sanders, thanks for joining me. it is a sad day for those of us who are hoping that we might be turning a page and looking towards a more equitable society. what do you think it is going to take to convince republicans, like mike enzi, this isn't a story about high school lifeguards. this is a story about minimum wage workers who, on average, are between 24 and 34 years old. these are big-time adult jobs that pay very, very little? >> well, alex, you're absolutely right. the tragic reality is that today, in america, you have millions and millions of adults, many of them trying to raise families who are working 40

hours a week and they are living in poverty and these not what this country should be about. it really does astound me that at a time when our republican friends in the house are voting to give huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and large corporations, they don't have it in their hearts to give us at least a $10.10 minimum wage, which would take so many people out of poverty. and the as you indicated, this is not justine aged kids getting afterschool money. these are people trying to raise a family, who understand that the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation, the price of food, the price of gas, the price of home heating oil has soared in recent years. minimum wage has not. so, to my mind if we want to address the issue of income inequality in america, where the people on top are doing so well, when so many people are hurting, at the least, you have got to raise the minimum wage to $10.10

an hour. i would go further than that but that is an important step forward. >> senator sanders, you make a very, very good point about the fundamental fairness at odds here, which is people should be able to live on a wage if they are working full time, a wage that keeps them out of poverty. that's sort of the basic -- the idea behind the minimum wage, right? we are in violation of that as a country at this moment. there is a labor reality, with i we just talked about, who is actually -- who has these jobs and then there's a basic economic argument. this would lift 900,000 people out of poverty, possibly millions more, depending on how you look at the numbers and beyond that, it would be a -- have a stimulative effect on the economy. it seems like tim pawlenty, at least, sort of understands that. do you get the sense inside the halls of congress that there are republicans in the gop who know this is the right thing to do? >> well, i tell you, alex, i think the republican party has

become extremely ideological and extremely right-wing. and let me tell you this, this will shock some of the viewers out there, but i suspect that a majority of republicans now are not only opposed to raising the minimum wage, they accept the koch brothers' line that the concept of a minimum wage is undemocratic, it is anti-american, it restricts freedom and they will move us to the day if they get their way, where in high unemployment areas of america, you will have people working for $3 an hour or $4 an hour. to answer your question, i'm afraid republicans moved so far to the right, they accept this eyedy ol that any interference by the part of the government, ie, having a minimum wage, is a terrible thing. >> that's deeply distressing, senator sanders, the idea that they, in some corners of the gop, the concept of the minimum

wage, they are increasingly thinking is unconstitutional or undemocratic. i mean, what do you think accounts for that? how did the -- how did the republican party swing that far right, which is further than it ever has been? >> it is clearly the republican party of today. and people have got to understand this. this is not our parents' or grandparents' republican party, which used to be a moderate conservative party, party of dwight d. eisenhower and others. this is now a right-wing extremist party. you ask how that happened, i would argue a number of factors, but one of them really is the koch brothers and the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent on campaigns and in other political ways so that right now, if you want to get support, unlimited financial support for your campaigns, you better tie, you better tout a right-wing extremist political view and that includes not only not raising the minimum wage, not only not having pay equity for

women, but cutting back on medicaid, cutting back only education and giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country. that is their ideology. and it's a very -- an ideology that most people don't support, but big money is pumping a lot of fund nothing those candidates that tout that position. >> and clearly, that financial support is the sacrifice of the vast majority of american voters. i mean, not only minimum wage, 73% of the country opposes a raise in the federal minimum wage but even have new poll numbers today from nbc and "the wall street journal." 55% of respondents believe that the economic and political systems in america are stacked against "people like me." 54% of the country believes that because of the widening gap between incomes of the wealthy and everyone else, america is no longer a country where everyone, regardless of their background, has an opportunity to get ahead

and move up to a better standard of living. these are searing, searing indictments. >> alex, i mean, that is the case. i think the perception of most americans is, in fact, quite right. we are moving toward a situation right now where not only a small number of billionaires have enormous influence over our economy, i'm talking about wall street and some of the large multinational corporation, but increasingly, they have, because of citizens united and their ability to pump unlimited sums of money into campaigns, they now have huge influence over our political process. and that is not what america is supposed ton. it's supposed to be one person, one vote. not the koch brothers spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy politicians. the end result is that we are seeing the middle class disappearing. more and more people living in poverty while the people on top are doing phenomenally well. that has got to change if we are going to preserve the america that we love. >> well, i will say, just as the

silver lining to, this the state of hawaii just raised their minimum wage to $10.10 an hour which, of course is what democrats are trying to do in congress and perhaps the state level, they can shame republicans in congress into actually doing something on the issue. senator bernie sanders, thank you, as always, for your time. >> thank you. just ahead, after his recent comments about the poor and people in "inner cities", congressman paul ryan has some explaining to do. today, paul ryan tried to do just that in front of the congressional black caucus. did they buy it? i will speak with cbc member, congressman elijah cummings, next on "new." [ female announcer ] who are we?

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the war on poverty. >> poverty affects everybody. poverty affects everybody in america and when we leave people behind in america, our country's not hitting its potential. >> why is the right-wing budget chair, the guy best known for slashing medicare and food stamps, why is he suddenly on a crusade to prove just how much he cares about the poor and to prove that fact in front of a group of democratic lawmakers? remember this? >> we have got this tailspin of culture in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work. and so, there's a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with. >> congressman ryan's critique of men not even thinking about working in the inner cities didn't exactly go over well. but anyone looking for signs that he may have learned his lesson or any lesson, for that

matter, may be disappointed. in a recent interview with buzz feed, ryan couldn't help but step on his own two feet. asked if his comments about the lack of work ethic in the inner cities, if that could be interpreted as a racial dog whistle, ryan replied, perhaps incredulously, a dog whistle? i have never even heard the phrase before, to be honest with you. in his efforts to reach out to african-americans during his failed 2012 vice presidential bid, ryan said, "i wanted to do these inner city tours" and stopped abruptly and corrected himself, "i guess we are not supposed to use that" i guess not. ryan's best strategy to win over the men and women of the inner cities or whatever he chooses to call them might be to stop proposing policies that directly harm them. a full 69% of the cuts in the ryan budget, 3.3 trillion dollars, come from programs that help low- or moderate-income americans.

joining me now a democratic representative from maryland's seventh district and member of the congressional black caucus, congressman elijah cummings. congressman, thank you so much for joining me today. >> it's good to be with you. >> a lot of questions. did paul ryan make a convincing case to you? >> no, he did not. but i do applaud him for coming before the congressional black caucus, but he did not make a convincing case. and one of the things that i noticed is that he talked about the fact that he apparently has toured many communities throughout the country, but he still has not learned that there are, in the community like the one i live in, which is in the inner city of baltimore, only 40 miles from washington, there are many african-american men that work very hard, they get the early bus, they are making less than minimum wage. and if he had come to my district, we have seen just a week ago, thousands of young african-american men trying to get jobs that just simply aren't

there at a jobs fair that i held. and so i still think he has a lot to learn. he says that he wants to address the issue of poverty, but when you are cutting the very programs that will help people come out of poverty, like pell grants and snap program and those programs that allow people to move from low-income to middle-income and then help the middle-income folks stay there or rise higher, then that's does not sound like a formula for ending poverty to me. >> yeah, i also think we go back to the base inc., definition of budgets as a moral document, right? they are filled with sacrifices and, you know, things that we care about. there is a tradeoff in every piece of a budget, but paul ryan has insisted and continues to insist that his poverty work isn't in his budget, it's

elsewhere. and i just wonder, i mean, does that hold any water? is there any convincing him otherwise, that one's beliefs about poverty and what one wants to do to help alleviate poverty and increase mobility, that stuff has to be baked into a budget, too? >> no doubt about it. and i think what he did is he came in and he talked about actually all these cuts that he wanted to make, saying that we need to make sure that the people who are doing well, basically the rich, get further tax cuts. a and it would be the old trickle down effect. unfortunately, the trickle never trickles to the folks that he's talking about and the people that live in my community. and so, he says that he wants to work with the congressional black caucus. i'm sure our chairman, martha fudge and all of us will work with him as best we can. but again, i think you have to go in having a level of

understanding and respect for our community. when i hear him talk about african-american men not wanting to work, to be very frank with you, you be it's insulting. i think about my father, god bless his soul, who worked 45 years at a chemical factory and didn't miss one day. i know many, many african-american men and women who do that. so's got to first get an understanding of what goes on in the inner cities and rural areas by the way of our country and then i think we can be at least on level playing field, but he said that he did not say that he wanted us to come to some common ground. no, no, no, no. we got to get to higher ground. >> yeah. well, and i think this in many ways, democrats have been too intent on finding common ground and republicans have just moved the goal post further and further and further. >> to the right. to the right. >> senator bernie sanders talking about how he think there is are a lot of republican senators who would like to get rid of the minimum wage entirely, they think of it is something that is undemocratic.

when the argument, the poles of the argument have been shifted that dramatically, there is nothing on common ground it is ceding to the ideology. i want to get your thoughts on one thing in particular, congressman cummings, the notion of race, so discussed for a number of reasons the last few weeks. paul ryan was asked about racial dog whistles that maybe embedded in things he said about the inner cities and he begged ignorance. he said, oh, i don't even -- dog whistle, i don't even know what that is. do you think that is genuine? i mean, do you think that republicans, in slashing these programs, speaking wait they do about communities of color, low-income americans, are completely ignorant to the fact there are racial elements and there's racial targeting that happens in all of these proposals? >> it's hard to same i hate to go to anybody's intentions, but let me say this, that report just came out, put out by global policy solutions and congressional black caulk kaunsd the duke research work that

talks about how african-americans and hispanics are falling further and further behind and when it comes to economic inequality. so i would hope woe look at that report. he was, by the way, invited to their conference to discuss his issues, which is going on tomorrow and he refused to come. so, if he wanted to meet with the experts that deal with these issues, seem like he would show up and talk to these researchers that have 181 researchers that come from all over the country to address this very issue. hopefully, paul ryan will learn some things from working with the congressional black caucus and hopefully, have an opportunity to talk to his caucus. what we need to do congressional black caucus needs to meet with republicans to try to work some things out to help americans. time is of the essence, people are suffering, want their children to do better than what they have done. and if we stay on this course that paul ryan has us on that will never happen, sadly.

>> congressman cummings, i think you should take paul ryan become to your district and you should start a real listening tour here. >> no i would love for him to come in my district. he would see -- i want him to say some of the things that he has said up here on capitol hill in my district. i will take him on a tour, we will stay for a few hours and he will get a chance to meet the very people he claims he knows. >> we will bring the cameras, congressman elijah cummings -- >> you will be invited. >> we will be there. we will be there. thank you for your time and thoughts, as always. >> thank you. after the break, as attacks raise more questions about the dismantling of syria's toxic stockpile there are disturbing new reports of a deadly air strike on a crowded school. details on that are next. is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪

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indiscriminate killing and sanctions, starvation of his own people, this week, syrian president al assad formally announced his plans for re-election, elections, if you can even call them that, are planned for june 3rd. coming up, hours ago, oklahoma governor mary fallin addressed last night's to botched execution, a ghastly scene that was very nearly the dictionary definition of cruel and unusual punishment. amnesty international joins me coming up next. first, jane wells has this cnbc market wrap. hi, jane. >> hi, alex. here is how a look at the stocks stand going into tomorrow, the dow hitting another record high, up 45 points to just shy of 16581. the nasdaq up almost 6 -- excuse me, the s & p 500 up almost 6 and the nasdaq up 11, all in the green today. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. ♪

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clat und. lockett was one of two death row inmates scheduled to die last night in oklahoma. at 6:33 p.m., 1 ten minutes after receiving the first drug to knock him unconscious, lockett began to switch. his foot shook and then he mumbled. four minutes later, he tried to rise and exhaled loudly. at that point, prison officials drew a curtain in front of witnesses watching the execution and discovered vein failure. the drugs were no longer flowing through lockett's veins. at one point during this ghastly and prolonged execution, lockett reportedly cried out, "oh, man." he finally died of a heart attack, not from lethal injection, at 7:06 p.m., a full 43 minutes after his execution began.

the second execution scheduled for last night of charles f. warner was immediately delayed 14 days. hours ago, mary fallin, the state's governor announced an independent review of her state's execution protocol. >> he believe the death penalty is an appropriate response and punishment to those who commit fei heinous crimes against their fellow men and women, however, i also believe the state needs to be certain of its protocols and its procedures for excuses and that they work. >> governor fallon's concern is event, at best. last week, oklahoma's supreme court stayed the execution of both lockett and warner while they evaluated the constitutionality of the state's secrecy around its lethal injections practices. governor fallon claim the court did not have the authority to prevent the criminal execution, announced that she would not honor that stay. it doesn't end there the next

day, a fellow republican state lawmaker, mike christian, introduced impeachment proceedings against all five oklahoma supreme court justices. faced with impeachment, the court caved, reversing their stay on those executions, the justices declared that the state secrecy over what exactly it was put nothing its lethal injections, that that secrecy was indeed all of a sudden constitutional. governor fallon knew she was sentencing clayton lockett to an uncertain death. because of resistance for drugmakers, accessing drugs for lethal injections has gotten harder and harder and many death penalty states are relying on untested cocktails of questionable drugs. the consequences are shocking a full 7% of lethal injections have gone terribly, terribly wrong. clayton lockett's brutal execution was just one more example of that. joining me now is senior campaigner for amnesty international, thanks for joining me. >> thanks for having me. >> this is not the first time we

have talked about lethal injections but certainly one of the more publicly gruesome executions that i think -- that we have talked about nationally. and i wonder, from your perspective, as a campaigner, someone involved in changing these policies, whether you think we might be turning a point where we no longer execute people by lethal injection. >> you know, i think what is important to see from what's happening here is more and more of the public is becoming aware of what happens in the death chamber and i think we need toe go back to what happened in that death chamber in oklahoma last night. after the doctor said he is unconscious, witnesses say they see him lifting had i head, struggling in his gurney, trying to say something. the blinds closer the curtains close in the death chamber around later, we find out that

mr. lockett's vein exploded. this, by definition is a botched execution and this is more reason why people around this country need to pay very close attention to how executions happen in this country. but more than that, we need to say to the governor of oklahoma and our elected officials across this nation that, one there is no right way to kill, but we cannot say that lethal injection is humane. >> yeah. >> it's not humane. it is cruel. it's unreasonable. it's cruel -- it's unusual -- unusual. and it's degrading punishment and it needs to end. but more than that, we need to see an end to the death penalty in this country. >> what happened? the events that preceded this execution seem like a abdication

of justice. the governor overrode the stay from the supreme court that poll friction introduced, impeachment was threatened. >> that's right. >> i wonder how did that happen? how is that possible? and now, the notion that the governor saying, oh, well, we need to review how it is that we kill people or,is that we complete these sort of death penalty executions, she knew very, very well that there is a lot of -- there are a lot of concerns around lethal injections that there are companies that do not want to make lethal injection drugs or associated with lethal injections or as a result, the whole process of this has become incredibly questionable and dangerous. >> that's right. well, what we saw yesterday in the events leading up to yesterday is that capital punishment is not about justice. it's about politics. it's about political pressure applying enough force onto the oklahoma supreme court to reverse their decision no more than two days after they decided to stay the execution. and more than that, we also see

states using never tried before lethal injection protocols and it was best described by the aclu executive director in oklahoma when she said this is a human science experiment and we saw very clearly how this experiment went last night. it went with a man, his veins exploding, moments before he then died of a massive heart attack. and it's important to note that on oklahoma's books, right now, if they no longer used lethal injection, if it's found unconstitutional, they can then turn to firing squad. >> right. >> and so the only solution to this problem called capital punishment is abolition. and i also just want to know a little bit more about oklahoma, which is some sources say they use petty cash in order to then go buy the drugs used for lethal injection so that there is no money trail. and so that sounds like to me a back alley drug deal. >> mm-hmm. >> and again, it's time for people in oklahoma, but across

the nation to say enough is enough, we don't need any more stories from witnesses coming out of the death -- witnessing what happened in the death chamber to say that it's time end the death penalty. we have to end the death penalty now. we need people around the country to take action. there's no better time than right now. >> it seems to me that there are two lanes emerging, one are states that say enough, to your point this is cruel and unusual form of punishment, we are not going to be a death penalty state and there are 19 states that have done that but also seems to be another track, which is the potentially what oklahoma will do, that in the sort of push to outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, like lethal injection, the states report to ever more barbaric forms of execution and i wonder if that's just sort of the temporary cost of a broader goal to out -- to ultimately get rid of this practice? >> i think that's really important point. i start by saying history is being made as we speak.

and i think that what we see with two-thirds of the world abolishing the death penalty, 18 states in this country, we see movement for people to want to be right side of history but also see pushback from that and i think it's important for the public around this country says that capital punishment is not american. >> we are alone. >> we are not a country that will allow for people -- for people to die this way and i just want to end by saying we are winning, we need to, people are joining the movement and growing every single minute, every single second and unfortunately, unfortunately, with every single execution. >> amnesty international's thenjwie mcharris, thanks four your time. >> thank you. >> we will have more after the break.

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good evening, americans and welcome to "the ed show", live from new york. i'm ready. let's get to work!\ work! either you're in favor of raising wages for hard-working americans or you're not. >> the request is magically changed to $10.10. >> tell them it's time for $10.10. >> this is completely tone deaf. >> senate republicans as expected, blocked a vote on the minimum wage increase. >> republicans in congress don't get the last word on this issue or any issue, you do the american people, who vote. >> what is the price, we ask the other side? >> i think the american people are tired of empty political showboats. >> i would not eat green eggs and ham. >> votes for the minimum wage is voting to tell up to 1 million americans, your jobs don't matter to me. >> the american people know what this is about. >> republi i