sales. that man's privates are no longer private. lethal debate and a gut check moment on capital punishment over how we kill our death row inmates, whether it stops crime. and it's what's been happening with botched executions unconstitutional? cruel and unusual mistakes? benghazi is back. a memo flare-up has the white house playing defense again on one of the conservatives shineiest objects. with hillary clinton always in mind there are voters to sway and dollars to save. and the sterling reputation as his peer goes to work for the embattled owners and oprah eyes his team. is it time for the nfl to finally free the redskins. good morning, i'm chris jansing and we begin this may day

hopefully kissing good-bye to a three-day storm that has been relentless. the same severe weather that churned up at least 79 tornadoes across several states has now left pockets across the east coast under water. one measuring station in pensacola, florida, recorded 27 inches of rain in 48 hours. it's being called the worst flooding in that state in 30 years. streets washed away, resident his to be rescued from their homes. in baltimore, and urban landslide. a street collapsed taking people's cars with it and flooding railroad tracks that run below street level. out west, the opposite problem, wildfires fueled by the santa ana winds are threatening homes in the community of rancho cucamonga. more than 1600 homes have been evacuated. we'll get more to meteorologist bill cairns in just a moment and let's check an area that's been hit hard in the past 24 hours. sarah, let me start with you,

roads are broken and homes and businesses ruined. have the waters at least started to recede? >> reporter: that is the good news here, chris, the waters have started to recede. there were dangerous conditions caused by the torrential rain and the call to emergency workers came in fast and furious. ordinary citizen his to jump into action to save others and that is what happened here when three used an excavator to help a woman trapped in her car by rising floodwaters and they got her to safety. people not only described this heaviy, heavy rain and intense winds and lightning in one taken-minute period there were more than 6,000 lightning strikes. the good news here is we are only expecting light rain today which means people can begin cleanup and chris, that is a process that will be neither fast nor easy. back to you. sarah deloff, thank you for that. >> now to baltimore.

the pictures of this sink hole are just amazing. >> chris, the pictures really are amazing. officials say as many as seven inches of rain fell in the built more area causing this partial road collapse which you see behind me. they say that is what caused the retaining wall which had problems in the past, by the way, to give way under the weight of all of that heavy rain, causing about a dozen cars to fall nearly 75 feet on to the train tracks below, one resident telling us she was afraid telling us something like this would happen. >> we've reported this a couple of times over the past several years and i was told they were structurally sound and we've been expecting it. >> reporter: fire officials have been working around the clock to try to secure the area. residents here have been evacuated. we are being told there so no timeline for how long the process of getting people back to their homes is going to take,

how long it will take to secure this area, but they are working hard to try to do that. back to you. >> nbc's kristin welker, thank you. bill cairns, what a story. >> we were done with the winter we had which was never-ending and we haven't had a lot of tornados and fatalities and this storm just dropped on us and i just sat here for the last four days and it's still spinning right over the top of michigan and wisconsin for the time being and all of the moisture has left and all of the destruction is over with. when we add it all up this is easily a billion dollar weather disaster and the first one of the year. most of those from the tornadoes. 79 tornados and two of those were very big strong tornadoes with winds of 185 miles per hour and what happened in pensacola was just, that was just earth shattering yesterday morning. they had a one? a 200-year flood event and ended up being the second wettest day ever in april in new york city yesterday and oh, yeah, in south dakota with the same storm they

had two feet of snow. just a crazy storm and what's happening out west. as that storm was just sitting there, you're baking. it was 90 in downtown san francisco. that doesn't happen. it was one of the hottest spots in the entire country yesterday and it was 91 in downtown l.a. and it was windy yesterday and we showed you the pictures of the fire and we're doing it today. high fire danger, red flag warnings. in downtown l.a. today we have a predicted high temperature of 98 degrees and winds are going to gust in the mountains up to 70 miles per hour with the santa ana winds and you've been out there when these events happen. if you're a firefighter, it's a scary thing and you hope one doesn't grow and explode. we got lucky yesterday and hopefully we can do so again today. >> these can be terrifying and they do heroic work there. sdwloo one final note on this, investigators think the flooding may have played a role in a death in a jail. one witness said it it felt like

an earthquake. there were about 600 inmates in the building at the time, but officials think everyone got out. the jail experienced significant flooding over the past few days. now to that botched execution in oklahoma that's touching off a slew of action and reaction. a response to what's been described as a gruesome scene as we hear from more eyewitnesses. >> he'd be kicking his feet and lifting his head and chest off the gurny and grimacing and a couple of moments he actually mumbled. >> the governor in oklahoma has ordered a review. both sides of the death penalty debate say it's likely to touch off a flood of lawsuits over lethal injection and then there are the newspaper headlines across europe. check out these three from british newspaper there is outrage in europe because the eu bans the death penalty. one paper is suggesting that the u.s. judicial system is in danger of making itself look crueller than the criminals themselves. still no evidence this this botched execution, the latest

will lead to changes in death penalty nationwide. it is legal in 32 states. i want to bring in tania green of the aclu and in houston, david dow who founded the texas innocence project. good morning toe etboth of you. >> good morning. >> you've witnessed executions before, do you think what we're seeing in the conversation that it's sparking has any ability at all to change the conversation nationally? >> i think it will change it a little bit simply because one of the myths of the method of execution that we've been using, lethal injection is that it is an entirely painful and peaceful process and i think many people who might be mild death penalty supporters or people who support the death penalty without thinking about it and he trusted the reasonings that this is a painless and very simple way to execute somebody, and i think that what the debacle in oklahoma reveal side that that's

not really true, and i think that that does, in fact, have the potential to move some of the people who were more or less in the center and maybe slight death penalty supporters and i think the other people who might have their eyes open are many of the courts, particularly the fed cal reports and the courts of appeals as well as the supreme court of the united states which has had a real hands off approach and have not been interested in challenges to the lethal injection protocol and i think they thought that this litigation is just the sport dreamed up by the lawyers and i think what oklahoma revealed is that this is not just a claim that's invented by the lawyers. it's a claim that has the real potential to result in torture in the execution chamber, and i think that that could open the eyes of some judges. >> we are hearing so many people talking about this now including press secretary jay carney. he said this execution felt short of a humane standard and the president continues to support the death penalty. take a listen. >> what i can tell you is that he has long said that while the

evidence suggests that the death penalty does little to deter crime, he believes there are some crimes that are so heinous that the death penalty is merited. >> so, tania, you can't talk about this without looking at the bigger context which is partly a political context. what would you say about this conversation now? does it change and what about the politics? >> the lesson from this latest and increasingly long line of botched executions for all of the states engaged in executions is that we need to stop and take stock and figure out if this is what we need to be doing as a nation. is this flawed, deeply flawed, hugely costly, expensive experiment in human misery necessary? states that are engaged in executions need to assess what they're doing. oklahoma is clearly, clearly has problems with its process and though the supreme court has found that the death penalty itself doesn't violate the fifth

amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the unusual process that they're undertaking or risking in executing does violate the eighth amendment. >> your state of texas is up next. they're set to execute robert campbell on may 13th. the state says it's a go, but refuses to disclose the source of the drugs for the lethal injection. what's your thought about this and how will what happened in oklahoma affect what is expected to happen in texas if at all. >> so far the attorney general's office and the prison officials are taking the position that comparing oklahoma to texas is comparing apples to oranges that texas has a different protocol and that the travesty in oklahoma does not have any realistic probability of occurring in texas. of course, that's what oklahoma authorities have been saying all these years before yesterday,

and i think that what is currently coming from prison officials in texas is really just supreme arrogance. the reality is that problems can happen, and the best way to guard against the possibility of problems is transparency and yet the prison continues to keep all of the important details entirely secret and those details are details that if the lawyers had access to them, there would be a possibility that the lawyers would be able to identify problems before they actually arise in the execution chamber. i think that it's important to emphasize that the lawyers representing clayton locket in oklahoma had been trying for weeks and in the weeks leading up to the execution to get information about the protocol. i'm not saying if they'd had that information, that what happened in the execution chamber wouldn't have happened, but i certainly think if they'd had the information there would have been a dumb iniiminished

likelihood. >> the pushback is that very rarely as a percentage have there been problems with lethal injections that there don't have to be problems with lethal injection. we know how to do this. so i'm wondering, if you're a death penalty opponent, does this work to your favor or is it industrial the strongest argument the lack of evidence that it's a deterrent or the preponderance of evidence that executions have a racial bias? >> we have problems on the death penalty on the front end and on the back end. as you stated, racial bias. there are problems with counsel and problems with innocence. we've reviewed 144 people so far. >> they suggest one in 25 on death row. shocking numbers and then on the back end, we can't even execute people in a humane way and this is not just the problem of southern states and we've had problems in south dakota and we've had problems in ohio and it's not particular to one type of drug as we guess because as david said, we have no

transparency for the most part in a lot of these states and there are different drugs that are used that are failing. >> i'm out of time, but i want to ask you very quickly, david, the numbers of support for capital punishment are going down, but it's 55%. what role does the public play on this? >> the public plays an important role. one of the reasons we have the death penalty because politicians are aware that coming out against the death penalty is not something that gains you any votes and it probably just loses you votes and i do think that events in oklahoma will change that calculation at least a little bit. >> david dow, from the university of houston, tanya greene, thank you for coming on the program. it got a little hot yesterday. the topic benghazi. we'll talk about the political strategy around this issue that just won't go away. independent senator bernie sanders of vermont will join me to talk about the minimum wage debate and what congress can do to close the gap between the haves and everyone else.

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democrats today plotting strategy to turn the republican-led filibuster of a senate proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to their advantage. they've been pointing to a huge divide and it's paul ryan's meeting with the congressional black caucus yesterday. they meant to clear the air after the controversial inner city remarks but also to discuss possible solutions to the problem. ultimately, they agreed to disagree. >> the status quo doesn't work. we can do better. we each have things to offer and we will disagree on macro economics and budgets and things like that, but hopefully out of a good dialogue, we can find some common ground and make a difference. >> didn't get a whole lot accomplished, but we do agree on a number of thins and one is that we're both concerned about the poverty in this country.

we disagree on how to address the problem. >> here is a measure on how much they disagree. the cbc budget include a $500 billion jobs plan $388 billion to invest in anti-poverty programs and it raises $2 trillion raised over wealthy americans and corporations. look at the contrast. ryan's budget lowers tax rates and cuts $4.8 trillion in spending and 69% of that would come from programs that serve low to moderate income americans. joining us is bernie sanders. always good to see you, senator. good morning. >> you can take people on both sides of this debate and you put them in a room and if they come no closer to compromise and say it was a good dialogue, but we still really disagree, how do you go about moving forward? >> you go about doing not what paul ryan suggests, but what the american people want and the american people are very clear. they want to raise the minimum

wage to a living wage. ryan and his friends are opposed to that and by the way, chris, many republicans not only are are opposed to raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. many of them want to do away with the concept of the minimum wage so the workers in america can earn $3 or $4 an hour, but i think what the black caucus was talking about is the direction that we've got to go and the american people support that. they understand that real unemployment today is not 6.7%. it's close to 12%. we need to create millions of decent-paying jobs and you do that among other ways by investing in our crumbling infrastructure and you put people back to work and you transform our energy system, and weatherization, deal with climate change and you create jobs. >> the president had a lot to say and he had pretty tough talk for the republicans after the filibuster. let me play a little bit of that, senator.

>> by preventing a vote on this bill. they prevented a raise for 28 million hardworking americans. they said no to helping millions work their way out of poverty. they told americans like the ones who are here today that you're on your own without looking them in the eye. >> you've been around the block a lot, and you know how much this has become an issue for democrats who are on the the campaign trail. is this resonating, do you think, with the american people. is it going to make a difference? what will push members of congress to get this done? >> it is resonating with the american people. the polls are absolutely clear. the overwhelming majority of americans understand that if you work 40 hours a week, sometimes pretty hard work you should not be living in poverty. as the president indicated if we raise the minimum wage to $10.10, many of these people

trying to raise their families out of poverty and what the american people also understand, chris, big time is while the middle class is disappearing and poverty is very, very high the wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well, we have got to address the issue of income, wealth and economy, raising the minimum wage is one way to begin that process. >> after meeting with paul ryan, congresswoman gwen moore said there are other members of the congressional black caucus who simply don't think paul ryan was inarticulate with black culture and is a true reflection on where he and many others stand on the budget and how it should address poverty. do you think that's true and if it is true, how does anything get done? >> again, i don't know if it's true or not, but this is what i do know. the republicans are playing a very calculated, political game. they understand that among other things in off-presidential year elections, 60% of the american people don't vote.

they understand that most low income working people don't vote. so their attitude is, okay, we'll take money from billionaires like the coke brothers and everybody else. we can ignore whole segments of the american population. we can push them down. we don't have to respond to the needs. we can cut medicaid and end medicare, it doesn't matter. because the big money and trust will be supporting us. so i think they've made a political dynamic and it is very clear the republican party has become a right-wing extremist party i think the american people have got to become aware of that, fight back and create an economy that works for the middle class. >> senator bernie sanders, always good to have you on the show. thank you. >> thank you. >> canada's most notorious mail is on a leave to get help for substance abuse. a new video of rob ford. the paper shows him smoking what appears to be crack cocaine. nbc news has not verified its authenticity, but a similar clip

was released last year. ford has since been seen appearing numerous times in public appearing erratic. this is one of the most difficult times in my life. i have a problem with alcohol and the choices i've made while under the influence. i have struggled with this for some time. still no word on when he plans to restart his election campaign. coming up, what does oprah winfrey have to do with donald sterling? she's one celebrity expressing interest in buying his time. we're going to talk about that. a critical meeting of the nba executive board today and what this might mean for the washington redskins. how do you know benghazi is back? take a listen to this at the white house briefing. >> john, let me finish -- >> the attack on benghazi was rooted in a protest on the video. >> i know you and i are both in a different time zone right now. we're still in april of 2014. >> we'll talk about that straight ahead. if i can impart one lesson to a

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the debate is going hot and heavy again today after a newly released email has the white house once again facing questions about that deadly 2012 attack on the consulate in benghazi. as we speak, another house hearing on benghazi with darryl issa's oversight committee happening in washington and the email has provided a controversial lead-up to this, hence former ambassador susan rice ahead of appearing on sunday talk shows, white house say ben rhodes outlines a goal to, quote, underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video and not a broader failure of policy. republicans consider this a smoking gun. the white house is firing back insisting that email was about a broader mideast policy, not just about benghazi. >> this was not about benghaziy. it was about the overall situation in the region, the muslim world where you saw protests at outside of embassy facilities across the region

including cairo, sanaa, khartoum and tunis. >> author of the big money book ken vogel and former exec of it director of texas republicans under then governor bush, chris wilson. >> you know be what the white house argument is it wasn't applicable specifically to this, to benghazi. there were documents released on that. of course, on the other side it took a freedom of information act request to get this released. what's the bottom line here? >> i think the white house is being too cute here. if it's not explicitly about benghazi as jay carney put it, that what is it about the context certainly suggests that it is all about benghazi and, frankly, the white house is not being forthcoming enough with the information and do you means that it's releasing for us to be reaching any other conclusions so they can put to rest this claim, if in fact, they have the fodder to do so by releasing

more information or they could acknowledge that this was about benghazi. i don't expect them to release more information, however, because republicans are using this effectively as a political c codile and it is released with 2014 and it's something hillary clinton will have to answer for regardless of how the white house answers this now. >> john boehner and eric cantor released statements and now frank wolf sent a letter to speaker boehner calling for a select committee to conduct an investigation. >> is this an issue where minds will be changed or votes will be won. is there a danger for republicans in overreach here and if nothing else, taking the conversation in a place that isn't going to help them at all? >> i don't know that there's danger for overreaching. these e-mails are concerning. i think the danger and the anger is on befbe is on befhalf of the democrats, the parts of the press conferences that went on, it was

a heated exchange between carney and a former colleague, and i think that's sort of back and forth and the anger on behalf of the democrat members of congress that they were taking the administration on their word that this was not a coordinated cover-up and these emails prove that wasn't the case that democrats and some reporters have been sticking their neck out to defend the administration and now they found out the administration let them do that knowing it was flat-out wrong and the administration was lying to them and that has to be disturbing on beful that of the democrats. >> and you talked about the effectiveness, ken and there's effectiveness in terms of message and also in terms of money. do republicans who now have an opportunity to bring this up again, are they able to translate this to donations from conservatives that obviously could be important in the mid tomorrows and more broadly to 2016 some. >> i think so, chris. and that's real willy one of the main purposes, i think, of republicans is to rally their base because as you suggested

they're not going to convince persuadable voters that benghazi is a major voting issue or if it's something that will cause them to change their mind on party affiliation. it's more about rallying their own base, raising money and looking toward 2016 when they have a potentially formidable democratic presidential candidate in hillary clinton for whom this is a legitimate issue that she will have to address. and so setting aside the politics, there also is an underlying real issue that is potentially a problem for hillary. former president bill clinton who is defending his economic policies and what you'd call a robust speech to students yesterday and i want to play a little clip of that. >> in all the so-called prosperity of the 1980s, only 77,000 of our fellow americans move from poverty into the middle class. in the '90s, 1 hu00 times as ma

7.7 million people. that was policy. >> chris, is this part of the concern that republicans have about hillary clinton, the whole legacy question of bill clinton and from what a lot of people remember it's a much better economy than we've seen some. >> i don't think so at all. quite the contrary. >> if you compare the time when clinton was president when hillary was under the administration. it's difficult to make the level of comparison there and to be honest, i don't think bill clinton, emphasizing the success his administration had economically does his wife any favors unless he'll come forward and make a claim that he would be involved in that since the time they were claiming the opposite and i don't think that does in any way rebuild, and he spin the last 20, 30 years and it's not surprising. it's what former presidents do,

since you write so much about money, what much of an impact could it have on hillary. this was part of the track that the clintons had during the obama administration, even as they seemed to be positioning hillary for a potential run. they had to speak to obama administration and be respectful to the obama administration and they had to tout her time in the obama administration and it's the campaign that times were better during the clinton administration coming back to the fore. i think we'll see a whole lot more of that as hillary continues to test the waters of a presidential campaign. >> ken vogel, chris wilson, great conversation. >> thanks, chris. >> if you read one thing this morning, a new hampshire newspaper, is facing a backlash after a successful local women was illustrated as a sexy legs and stilletos photo. check it out. let me know what you think. it's up on our facebook page. head to facebook/jansingcoe.

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. take a look at these pictures we are just getting in. they're from right outside of philadelphia, right across the river from the city. officials in inflatable dinghies looking for anyone that may be stranded by the storm. this is the very same area where passengers were stranded last night on top of a city bus, stuck in four feet of water. we're going to continue to follow the details from that area and keep you updated. meantime, big meeting today of the nba's executive committee as it tries to oust clippers owner donald sterling over racist remarks caught on tape. for the nba the best case scenario is that other team owners will vote in mid-may to force him to sell the team. the nba should be prepared for a long, drawn-out fight. former attorney for elgin baylor who unsuccessfully fought sterling in court. he is a tyrannical, rich guy who

is used to having his way. oprah winfrey is in discussion with a record label mogul, given. sean p. diddy holmes and floyd mayweather and oscar de la hoya and let's not forget magic johnson even though he has denied it. so what's next? let's bring in public relations expert. and goldie taylor, msnbc contributor and with the grillo.com. good morning. >> how do you convince a man who has fought and mostly won his whole life that it's time on fold. common sense says go out there, apologize and say you're selling it for the good of the time, but i don't think people are expecting that. >> you used the word common sense. this is a guy. i've met mr. sterling numerous times. he lives in his own world and he's not well grounded in the

same world the rest of us are in. he goes from his mansion in his limo to his office to his game. he's just not part of the dialogue of the real world, but let me back up one sec. the rules of the nba say that if three-quarters of the owners vote to sell -- vote to force him to sell the team the nba takes over the ownership of the team immediately and they get to decide who to sell it to which is much more intriguing. mr. sterling signed these papers when he bought the nba team and he's going to have a tough road in court. >> he's going to have a tough road. everybody agrees with that and lawyers i've talked to and read about, but at the very least, goldie, they also told them that sterling can drag this out longer than anybody upwants. that same lawyer that represented elgin baylor that when he represented him, six or seven times, sterling corn owsley said and did anything he

needed to support his position. he's got five days to respond to the charges. goldie, do you think there's anything in this overwhelming force of public opinion that will influence him? >> you know, i think that every single day that mr. sterling continues to own the clippers is another day that that team will lose value. a lot of these agencies out here and howard knows this, they use predictive marketing values. they decide, factor in what the risks are going to be to their brands going forward as they continue to decide whether they'll make investments or not. we've seen brands drop out of the clippers so far and that's a direct threat to the revenue stream that mr. steriling can expect to come into his team so the team drops value as long as he has his hands on it. he's a businessman and he has to understand that, but he also has a bit of pride and he will attempt to drag this out even though the contract that he signed with the nba is very specific and very clear about what the nba has the right to do and under what circumstances. i do expect that the super

majority will vote to take control of that team and then to sell it to the highest bidder. would it not be poetic justice if a group of or a single buyer came forward that had, you know, someone who was of color like an oprah winfrey. >> oprah winfrey. >> who has the money to do it. >> when you look at the celebrities led by oprah and i know you know some of these folks quite well, do they help change the conversation as the nba tries to force him to go away as quietly as possibly can be? >> absolutely. you talk about oprah winfrey. you talk about magic johnson. these are people who changed the discussion and these are people who are downright beloved and i'm not clear if adam silver and the nba are forced to sell to the highest bidder. they -- they may choose to go to the route where they think the the team has the best future and that would be very intriguing.

>> maybe i also wonder, howard, if they care about continuing to send a message that this is not okay, and i was shocked by these statistics. 76% of all nba players are black, but majority owners are just 2%. 2%. there are some minority owners, goldie, who are also african-american, but when you look at someone as you say someone like oprah or p. diddy, how important is a statement like that? and obviously, oprah is also a woman. >> i think the real statement is going to be having an owner no matter what their race or gender happens to be who can move this team forward in a meaningful way. someone who respects the players that they're partnered with out here on the course. someone who respects the rich histories that they bring to the table and going forward, no matter what the gender and the race is of the new buyer or buyers and you can look forward to the new day for the los angeles clippers and we have to say that is a good thing.

>> it was interesting to me, howard, senate majority leader harry reid is using this to tweet the nfl. he called on the redskins owner to change their name on the floor of the senate he talked about this. this has been something that's been pushed for years now, but does it give newism it tus to something like that or if somebody that helps to run public relations campaign, does this provide an opening for topics like this? >> honestly, i'm not convinced that it's the right time for that. i'm -- i follow this very closely on social media. people are not outraged about this and i'm not convinced that harry reid is the right messenger. he's a very polarizing figure. what i do believe is that mr. snyder who owns the redskins doesn't get to decide if native americans are offended. native americans get to decide for themselves if that's an offensive name and the vast majority of native americans do

believe it's offensive and i think we all have to understand and respect that. it's self-determination. so i hope that mr. snyder will listen and give more than just give money to the native organizations or blankets as harry reid call themmed aed the think they'll be fine moving forward with a new name. >> goldie, do you think. -- first, do you want that to happen and do you think it will? >> i wish that snyder would take it upon himself to change the name of his team, but the fact is that we haven't seen the level of leverage as we've seen as in the nba situation. we haven't seen a widespread consumer revolt in terms of the people attending the games and we haven't seen players stand up collectively to press this change. you haven't seen the nfl itself really do anything and ordinary to make this change happen. so until you have a groundswell of support like that which i do hope happens, then snyder doesn't have sort of the

leverage being pushed to make him make this change. i just wish that he would take it upon himself and do it and recognize that there are people in this country that are genuinely offended that a team would be named in this way if he knows een the history of his own team and why it got the name itself then he would want to change it. goldie taylor and howard, ragman, thank you so much. new details on malaysian flight 370. air traffic controllers didn't even realize the jet was missing until 17 minutes after it disappeared from radar and didn't launch a search until four hours later. today after 55 days and no sign of the plane, officials are telling families to go home. the airline is closing family assistance centers around the world by may 7th, but officials say they will stay in close touch with any news that comes out of the search. this line of the airlines statement seems to be the most

powerf powerful. despite the investigation, probably the largest one in history, there is still no trace of the aircraft and the fate of the missing passengers and crew remains unknown till this day. bright orange flames and huge black clouds of smoke could be seen for miles after a train carrying crude oil derailed in virginia and several nearby buildings earn evacuated in downtown lynchburg. no one has been hurt and the ntsb is investigating. more trouble this morning for jaim jamus winston. he admitted he left a tallahassee supermarket without paying with $30 worth of crab legs and craw fish. winston told police he forgot to pay. he was accused of sexual assault last december, but was never charged. the new york teenager who was accepted into every single ivy league school has decided. he will attend yale this fall. at a news conference he said

yale sealed the deal during a visit last week when he, quote, met geniuses from all across the world. he said everyone there was friendly and cited the school's appreciation for music. indeed, instead of being just bright he is also a viola player, a singer and he throws the shot put. renaissance man. coming up, may 1st, wedding season is almost upon us and while everyone loves a great wedding, we'll talk about the economics of getting hitched for the guests. wait until you hear this. stay with us. ♪ (vo) oh. my. tongue. finally. (announcer) all-new friskies saucesations. a taste experience like no other. in cheesy, creamy, homestyle, or garden sauce. friskies. feed the senses.

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big banks consider criminal charges the nuclear option because a gilty plea could end up revoking their license and put them out of business so that's why prosecutors have been reluctant to seek criminal convictions, but with the u.s. economy still feeling the effects of the massive financial meltdown and the $700 billion taxpayer bailout, eric holder is sig will nahhing it might be time for a change. i want to bring in north dakota senator byron dorgan. good to see you, senator. >> thanks. >> it's important to point out when you were in the senate you were one of few voices in 1999 warning about the effort to allow traditional banks to get into investment banking. less than ten years later risky bank investments were a factor in taking down the economy. what do you think of the shift by eric holder? >> i think this is all a stain on the criminal justice system what's been going in recent years. a very, very significant story about large-scale criminal activity by some of the largest corporations, particularly the larger financial corporations and no one is held accountable.

no one goes on jail. >> let me play devil's advocate, if i can. >> yes. >> because the concern has been if prosecutors punish banks criminally it puts them out of business and because some of them are so big it has the net effect of hurting the overall economy. >> i know that. too big to fail. too big to jail, too big to indict and that's a stain on the criminal justice system. it seems to me that someone inside the corporate system made a decision to engage in criminal behavior. how about some accountability for just one or two or a dozen people with all of these cases that we've heard about of investors and homeowners and others having been victims of fraud. how about just a few people held accountable for having made those decisions? what is happening now, chris is there's a negotiation going on behind closed doors about okay, you did this, so we won't require that you plead guilty, but let's negotiate how much money you have to pay. look, most persons don't get

that kind of treatment with respect to the criminal justice system. you steal from somebody and you might go to will jail. how about having one standard justice? that's what we ought to have. i think this is a stain on the system. >> i'm sorry we are short on time, but i hope you'll come back because we'll continue to follow this. senator dorgan, thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> we'll be right back. people here know that our operations have an impact locally. we're using more natural gas vehicles than ever before. the trucks are reliable, that's good for business. but they also reduce emissions, and that's good for everyone. it makes me feel very good about the future of our company. ♪ ameriprise asked people a simple question: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last.

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so we want to leave you today with a factoid as we enter wedding season. did you ever add up how much you're spending as a guest? $59 on average. that is up $75% versus just 2012. . you're in the wedding, actually it it isn't that much more. $618, but that's really up, too. and what makes a great wedding they asked everybody, by far, the number one answer, food. so if you're planning your wedding, good food. that wraps up this hour of "jansing & company."

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good morning, everyone. i'm tamron hall and this is "news nation." this is what people in baltimore, maryland, woke up to this morning. a huge sink hole that took down an entire block long portion of a residential street, swallowing half a dozen cars, along with it a landslide, the result of a relentless rain that's been pounding much of the south and mid atlantic over the past 24 hours. in nearby laurel, mare lan, hundreds of people actually had to be evacuated last night when rising waters caused a dam to crack and that's just one state where we're reporting this. widespread flooding is also hitting pennsylvania and new jersey. in fact, in chester county, outside of philadelphia, heavy rains overnight left entire