education activist sabrina joyce stevens and randi weingartner who is answering your questions on msnbc.com. good evening, rachel. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. the tea party in oklahoma, the sooner tea party in oklahoma, the one way you know they are in trouble, this right now is their website. you type in soonerteaparty.org and look what comes up. that is a lot of things but it does not look like your typical tea party website. if you allow google to google translate it for you, things do not get that much better for you. the laundry! you do you are in how laundry? those are roughly have been awash in the washing machine of the house. but i guess some people the option of coin laundry inside cleaning all really helpful

things that cannot be us again that troublesome. they will also delivery on after the end of course. so, yes. maybe it's better untranslated. the sooner tea party of oklahoma. soonerteaparty.org. their japanese has gone to where faceless mannequins and baseball hats understand your interleague problems about your laundry. so that is one sign that the sooner tea party of oklahoma is in trouble. another sign is that they have not updated their facebook page since january 6. this is the last time that they posted and what they posted was this picture, traitor wanted. shows president obama public enemy number one and what he is wanted for, they say, is social security number, identity theft, birth certificate fraud, and impersonating a president. they want him for treason.

so that was posted on january 6. but nothing since then. so that's another sign that things are not going great for the sooner tea party in oklahoma. you go looking for them online. you find the japanese laundry help site and then the thing from several months ago. here, though, is a sure sign that things are in trouble in the oklahoma tea party world. this is the headline that posted late last night at "the oklahoman," the largest daily newspaper in oklahoma. look. sooner tea party leader found guilty of blackmailing oklahoma state senator. found guilty of. there is a conservative tea party glenn beck world conspiracy about the u.n. taking over our lives and physically invading america that focuses on something called agenda 21. and in a few states tea party groups and other conspiratorial right wing groups have been able to fend off agenda 21. fending off the, you know, black helicopter, fluoride in the

water. flying monkeys coming to steal your babies. they have state legislation against agenda 21. in alabama they got it through the legislature and the governor signed it and it became law so they're safe. in tennessee they got it through the legislature and the governor in tennessee declined to sign that legislation. in oklahoma the sooner tea party, they wanted to get the anti-agenda 21 protect us from the u.n. conspiracy theory bill through their legislature in oklahoma and they were successful in getting it through the oklahoma house. but every time it got through the oklahoma house and it moved over to the oklahoma senate, there was a state senator named cliff branan who basically designed to let this nonsense go any further. they said to him four of these bills did -- four times in a row he basically sat on them and refused to take action on it saying that this kind of bill proposed a solution to a problem that did not exist.

apparently the head of the sooner tea party in oklahoma was not going to take no for an answer anymore and the fourth time one of these conspiracy u.n. bills got shot down by that one state senator, the head of the sooner tea party in oklahoma decided to go after that senator. and literally threaten him. he sent him, and he admitted sending him this e-mail. branan, get that bill heard or i will make sure you regret not doing it. i will make you the laughing stock -- which he spells as two words -- if i don't hear this bill is heard and passed. once we start on you, there will be no end to it. this is a problems. >> on the basis that have e-mailed threat to the state family and his family, the head was found guilty of blackmail and of violating the oklahoma computer crimes act for using a computer to accomplish that blackmail.

the tea party guy got $1,000 fine. no jail time. he is now a convicted felon which means he's going to lose his gun rights. god forbid. things are not the going great for the oklahoma tea party right now. things are not going great for the ohio tea party. this past weekend in advance of ohio's republican primaries this week on tuesday, "the cincinnati enquirer" publish this had breathless article about how the primary on tuesday could hold the fate of the republican party. quote, on tuesday southwest ohio republicans will again wage a battle for the soul of the republican party. and it's true. ohio tea partiers were challenging -- establishment republicans up and down the ballot, particularly down the ballot. they made a strategic decision to try to compete for seats on the ohio republican party's central committee. and races like that are low-profile races in any republican primary are often literally the bottom line on the

ballot. but whoever gets elected to the central committee, they end up playing a crucial role in determining the direction of the state party. and ohio tea partiers decided that was where they would focus all of their efforts in the primary. they were going to try to take control of what it means to be an ohio republican away from evil republican governor john kasich who they disdain. john kasich loyalists basically control that committee and the tea partiers said they will take it away. so the voting in ohio happened on tuesday, obviously. that was the republican primary in ohio this year and the voting was on tuesday. now the votes are in. it turns out the results of the ohio tea partiers waging this assault on the kasich loyalists, the results is that the kasich loyalists increased their total number of seats on that committee by two. whatever the tea partiers did, not only did it not work, it backfired. beyond that, beyond the central committee, the ohio tea party

citizens pac endorsed seven tea party candidates for ohio senate seats this year. seven candidates. they went 0-7 on that slate. they did not the win a single one of them. the other main tea party group is the ohio liberty council. when "the columbus dispatch" newspaper went looking for them this week for comment on the results from the primary, what they found was the founder of the ohio liberty council had moved out of state. turns out he moved to tennessee in february and nobody noticed before now. that led to the deflated headline in "the columbus dispatch" today. "election was a difficult day for tea party." in "the akron beacon journal" a pat-pat condolence. quote, it was not the kind of breakthrough the tea party had hoped for. not great days for those guys. and of course it's not over. there are more republican primaries ahead. the tea partiers have high hopes

of trying to pick off incumbent republican u.s. senators in kentucky and in mississippi. those will happen the next few weeks. they still have hopes. but so far neither their results this year nor their prospects this year are looking all that good. really, their best chance for a high-priority win, a high-profile win was the north carolina senate primary which also happened this week. we got those results on tuesday night. it didn't even take a long time for those results to come in. we were prepared to be here all night but before long it was clear that the tea party guys who were endorsed by mike huckabee and rand paul both lost in north carolina and lost by a big enough margin that they didn't even force a run-off with the more establishment guy. and now in this same week we have the ohio tea party striking out or packing up and moving to tennessee. we have the oklahoma tea party narrowly avoiding prison and getting its website turned into japanese. it's not a great week for the tea party. there is one place where the tea

party mission to grab the establishment republican party and shake its cage until something breaks, it is actually working in one state in america and it is in a very unexpected place. i think this is the strangest story in american politics right now. we touched on it in last night's show when the story was weird enough. but then wake up this morning and the story took a huge turn. a huge twist that makes it even more interesting and makes it end as kind of a mystery right now. here's what's happening. it's basically a bribery scandal. bribery or extortion depending on what angle you look at it from. it's a bribery/extortion scandal between the establishment republican party in one state and a tea party challenger who the establishment thinks will ruin the republicans' chances of winning that state's governorship in november. it's happening in massachusetts. on march 22 the republican party in massachusetts had a statewide party convention to pick their nominees for statewide office. being a republican running for

statewide office in massachusetts is not an easy thing. this is what the state legislature looks like, the two houses of the state legislature in massachusetts. eke if you're a republican. aside from the scott brown win in 2010, the prospects for statewide republican elections are even worse than it looks in the legislature. no republican has won any statewide office in massachusetts at all in over ten years. aside from that one scott brown special. things are so tough for massachusetts republicans that two of the statewide candidates they picked at their convention in march, their nominee for the united states senate against ed markey and the state attorney general this week those two candidates found out that they may not have turned in enough signatures to even formally make the ballot for the general election in november. unless there's some unexpected surge of late petition signatures coming in in massachusetts by next tuesday, there won't be a republican u.s. senate candidate on the ballot

in massachusetts against ed markey this year nor will there be one for attorney general, and that's amazing. but even in those dire circumstances massachusetts republicans have been excited about one of their candidates this year named charlie baker. he's run for governor and lost before, but this time they think he could put up a credible fight for the governorship. in order to win the nomination outright and not the have to put it to a statewide primary vote, he had to keep everybody else in the running from getting 15% of the vote at the convention. the rules say that anybody who gets at least 15% of the votes at the convention, they will get their name on the primary ballot. there therefore has to be a primary. if only one candidate means the threshold there's only one primary and proceed to fighting the democrats in the general election. charlie baker and the republicans obviously wanted to win that nomination, but they particularly wanted to make sure

they won it outright and avoided a primary. they wanted to keep mr. baker's tea party challenger, fisher, from clearing that crucial 15% threshold. but here's the thing. listen. listen to the tape we got from the convention. didn't understand what this was at all when i first saw this tape until i read into the rules and realized what was going on. charlie baker and mark fisher are the two candidates fighting it out for this nomination, but they weren't the only two options you could vote for. people had the opportunity of voting for blank. not mr. blank or ms. blank. not a person named blank. just blank. and a lot of people voted for blank. it was weird. >> from the heart of this great commonwealth, 34 for charlie baker. 6 for mark fisher and 1 blank.

>> thank you. >> norfolk district 7-1 for baker. 1 fisher. 2 blank. >> 2 blanks. the voting for blanks. and basically every district that reported in cast some number of votes for blanks. nobody contested the establishment guy won most of the vote. what the fight has been about in massachusetts is blank. is about how many people voted for blank. how many people cast a blank ballot in addition to the ones cast for charlie baker and mark fisher. you need the total number of votes cast including the blanks in order to know if mark fisher did get the 15%. in order to get 15% of that total you need to know what the total is. mark fisher says he counted including the blanks and he made it. he made 15%. the state party says, no, no, no. you didn't make it. you were about a half dozen votes away.

but the tea party guy, mr. fisher, he has filed a lawsuit to prove it and force a primary election. this is the last thing the republican party needs institutionally. if you want to win in massachusetts, you need independent voters and crossover democratic voters. but you also need every single republican vote that there is in the entire state in order to win. so the republican candidate does not want to have to spend the next five months fighting it out with another republican over which of them deserves republican votes and which one doesn't. but this tea party guy has filed his lawsuit to get that primary and that has been working its way through the courts and then all of a sudden this week there was this bombshell in massachusetts politics. the lawyer for the state republican party sent this letter out to all the republican party committee members across the state. it's written to a representative for the tea party guy, mark fisher. look at what the letter says. quote, this is how it starts. as you know our settlement

discussions began with your demand on april 17 whereby you informed me that mark fisher wanted $1 million in exchange for dropping his lawsuit. really? a million dollars? yes. and then the "boston globe" broke the story this way, tea party candidate mark fisher asked for $1 million to drop the lawsuit by which he was trying to get on the ballot to run for governor. you want to clear the way for your establishment candidate? sure, just pay me $1 million. is it real does it really work this way? the letter from the republican party said after the party turned down the million dollar request to get off the ballot, mark fisher came back and asked them for $650,000 instead. but then here's the really weird thing. in this letter from the state republican party lawyer, which they released to "the globe" and sent out to people all over the state. they wanted maximum publicity for this. they accuse the tea party guy of wanting a million dollars or maybe $650,000 as the price of

him no longer trying to get on the ballot for that governor's race. essentially telling the state, telling the press in massachusetts this guy is extorting us. this is outrageous. but then at the end of the letter the point of the letter after accusing him of these outrageous demands, what the massachusetts republican party says is, okay. and actually we've decided it's okay if you're on the ballot now. in the best interests of all parties, i'm prepared to republic to my clients that the massachusetts republican party certify mark fisher for the primary election ballot. isn't this weird, right? the republican party has been fighting this tooth and nail. they not only fought it at the convention. they've been fighting it in the press. they have been fighting it all along in court. no, you cannot be on the ballot. you didn't win. you don't deserve to be there. you cannot be on the ballot. there's not going to be a primary. they have been fighting this. they decided we're not going to fight this fight anymore. what changed? you tried to extort money from

us, so now we're caving and you can have what you want? it's weird, right? the dynamic is backwards. it doesn't seem to make any sense. when we left the story last night it really didn't make any sense. and then today, good morning. today we got an alternate explanation for this had story that otherwise makes no sense. this is the tea party guy mark fisher. today in response to these revelations yesterday and these accusations yesterday from the massachusetts republican party, today he held a press conference in which he said, you've got it all backwards. i wasn't demanding money from the republican party in exchange for taking my name off the ballot. the republican party was offering me money to take my name off the ballot. they tried to pay me off. >> last december, i was offered $1 million to drop out of the race for governor. my first reaction was this is a bribe. this is illegal. this can't be done.

and my second thought was they have no reason why i'm in this race. they came back again, is there any amount of money you would consider. i would consider some amount of money if it was part after bigger deal, part after bigger deal that included my getting on the ballot to pay for the attorney fees. they came back again. what kind of number are you looking for? i said, you make the offer. what kind of number are you looking for? repeatedly they came back asking for a number. i told my attorney, tom, to shut them up, tell them it's the same number they offered me back in december, $1 million. it's a ridiculous amount. i knew it. tom knew it. and even lou knew it. because he responded at the time saying, is he serious? the same number that you guys approached me with. it's ridiculous.

>> this is absolutely incredible. have you ever seen anything like this in statewide politics ever anywhere else? i mean, you know you hear about these things going on. have you ever heard them talking about it like this? this is the tea party candidate and the republican party. now they're exchanging allegations about who asked for and who demanded a six to seven figure sum of cash to the tea party guy to get him to take his name off the ballot. and whoever started it, it sounds like these conversations did happen. the tea party guy's lawyer in addition to those statements today from mr. fisher himself, the lawyer confirmed to "the globe" they did talk about a million dollar payoff. he told "the globe," quote, we're trying to negotiate a reasonable settlement. you have to start somewhere. quote, mark fisher wants to be made whole financially. and, look, from the republican party's lawyer to "the globe." quote, do some negotiations include lots of terms and discussions? sure. do they include discussions about money?

sure they do. what's clear, he says, is that mark fisher's demands were always consistently rejected at the level he was demanding payment. oh. so nobody is outraged about anybody offering or demanding money here, it's just the amount that's the problem? so you were willing to pay him, just not the so much? you've heard the joke, right? we've already established what this is. turns out we're just negotiating the price. who would have thought that the one last place in the country where the tea party could be providing a legitimate headache for the establishment republican party would be in massachusetts of all places. and who would have thought that it could be even remotely legal for a major political party to negotiate with their primary challenger by simply trying to work out the appropriate cash price to make him go away. i procrastinated on...

buying a car because i knew... it would be a scary process. truecar made it very easy... for me to negotiate, because i didn't really need to do any negotiating at all. save time, save money, and never overpay. visit truecar.com let's see what you got? rv -- covered. why would you pay for a hotel? i never do. motorcycles -- check. atv. i ride those. do you? no. boat. ahoy, mateys. house. hello, dear. hello. hello. van with airbrushed fire-breathing dragons. ah! check. thank you. the more you bundle, the more you save. now, that's progressive.

last december i was offered $1 million to drop out of the race for governor. >> that was mark fisher today, a tea party republican hopeful for governor in the great state of massachusetts. first it was the massachusetts republican party alleging that he was demanding a million dollars from the state party in exchange for him dropping out of the race for governor and making it easier on their candidate. that was yesterday. now today it's the tea party guy, mark fisher, saying it was the other way around. the massachusetts republican party repeatedly offered him that much money to stop running against their establishment candidate. both sides are quibbling about the details whether he demanded the money or whether the party offered it. but it is surprisingly uncontested at this point that some sort of cash negotiations did take place here. i had no idea.

joining us now is frank phillips, state house bureau chief for "the "boston globe"." mr. phillips, thank you for being here. i appreciate it. >> that was a great narrative there, rachel. >> i have to admit i realize i'm not a lawyer and i realize that maybe i'm a babe in the woods, but doesn't this feel like the most illegal thing you've ever heard people admit to in public? is this legal? >> well, it's more like an austin powers movie, isn't it? $1 million. yeah, i've talked to some lawyers about it and prosecutors. they really can't see how illegal it is. it's a little sketchy. it sounds like bribery. mr. fisher brought it up, they offered me a million dollars and we nearly pounced on it. why at any time you go to the authorities? why didn't you turn them in to the fbi? you're running for governor, you're going to be a responsible law enforcement official, that's the thing would you do. he didn't have much of an answer for that. >> are we any closer to getting

to the bottom of who offered -- who first brought up the issue of money and who really was trying to leverage it? if you believe him, it was the offer of a bribe. if you believe them, it was him trying to extort that money out of the party. i think both sides seem a little sketchy. but it doesn't seem either side is convincingly denying they weren't talking about money. >> they were talking about money. i think even mr. fisher acknowledged that he offered to put $1 million -- put the offer at $1 million in the negotiations last month. who he talked to or where it came from, he just threw it out like that. he says, he admits he put $1 million down on the table when they asked him how much he wanted, and they went from there.

whether we're ever going to find out this tangled mess, with where it goes, where it comes -- came from -- i think we're at a loss. i think it will end up in some kind of negotiated settlement and everybody will be going home and we'll be watching another republican meltdown in massachusetts. >> on the issue of how this resolves, i guess the thing that made me feel like this was more than just an outlandish allegation was the weird term from the massachusetts republican party where they said this guy has been trying to extort money out of us and we're offended by that and highly inappropriately possibly illegal and we're also giving him what he wants. usually you don't respond to an extortion threat by saying, that's terrible. i cave. is it clear at this point if mr. fisher is going to end up on the ballot? is there going to be a contested primary for governor which is ostensibly what this is about? >> first he has to get himself on the ballot and the nominating

papers he has to put in to the secretary of state's office. we'll know in the next few days whether he has enough signatures. it may all be moot. they have offered him a chance. they went into court yesterday and said, look, we'll drop this suit and put him on the ballot. and fisher hasn't responded. he's demanding money now to pay for his legal bills, which he says are about $70,000 and he's asking for another $30,000 for the amount he paid to hire a firm to go get his signatures. so now he's down to $100,000. it's confusing. >> stretch it out long enough eventually they'll be able to settle it with a hoagie and three birch beers. you know what i mean? this is unbelievable. >> we don't have hoagies in massachusetts. you ought to know that. >> it would be worth nothing in the state. that's the point. bad joke. frank phillips, state house bureau chief for "the "boston globe"." thank you for helping us. >> it's always fun. 

in the state of the union in january president obama proposed an executive action to create a new kind of retirement account to help americans save more money for the future. you don't remember this and i had to look it up today not because it was so long ago, but because it never came to anything. it did not make the biggest political ripple in the world. but at the time former mississippi governor haley barbour thought that kind of announcement was a big enough deal that it was worth suspecting there might be an

ulterior motive for it. >> obama is trying to do it behind the congress' back with executive action. he has no authority to set the tax laws. >> why is he doing it? >> he wants to take people's eye off obamacare. >> republicans have accused president obama of using everything from shopping for his daughters on vacation to the war in syria to the minimum wage to everything else as a means of trying to distract republicans from talking about obamacare. nice try with inventing this retirement account thing, obama. we won't be distracted from obamacare. obamacare. we are focused on obamacare, no matter what. republicans are as of today officially distracted from obamacare. do you want to know how the obama administration did it? that's coming up. [ aniston ] we what i'm wearing,

i tell them aveeno®. because beautiful skin goes with everything. [ female announcer ] aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion has active naturals® oat with five vital nutrients naturally found in healthy skin. where do i wear aveeno®? everywhere. aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion.. and try the body wash too. aveeno®. naturally beautiful results™.

all those in favor to issue the subpoena will say aye. all those opposed no. the motion carries. >> congressional committees have the power to issue subpoenas, and a subpoena means it's not optional whether or not you respond. you have to go and you have to turn over whatever it is they ask for unless you plead the

fifth. some throw around subpoenas like confetti, basically issuing new ones every time they meet. darryl issa. but most committees don't. and the veterans committee in the house is one of those committees that doesn't throw around a lot of subpoenas since the republicans have been in control and jeff miller has been chair of the committee they've never sent a subpoena to anyone before the one they voted to send today. they did authorize sending one once before, but they never followed through on it. today looks like it's actually going to be their first time. the interesting thing is that they have not september these subpoenas today to try to figure out what's behind the recent allegation that is va facilities have been lying about their long wait times for veterans to get appointments. what they sent the subpoena for today is to get information about whether or not the va has tried to cover that up, whether the va has tried to essentially thwart the investigations that were started a couple weeks ago. basically the question is did the va shred the evidence, and if so, did the instructions to shred the evidence come from the

head of the agency, from president obama's cabinet secretary shinseki. if the va did shred the evidence and if the order to do so came from washington, that obviously would be a giant scandal. and that is what the committee was fishing for today with this rather unprecedented subpoena. in terms of the initial allegations, though, about whether or not wait times were cooked at the va facilities to look better than they actually are, the va itself says that it turned up its own evidence that was happening at a va facility in ft. collins, colorado. they say it was a training issue, people who worked there were being trained and told to do it that wrong way. the va is retraining everyone at that facility on how to record the wait record the wait times properly. you might call that sort of thing a scandal. on the surface it looks more like something you might call failure. the initial allegations from the phoenix va medical center, those

are being looked into formally. similar allegations have now been made about two va sites in texas. those are being looked into as well. but in washington with the va and its failures back in the spotlight politically there's been an interesting split inside the republican party as to whether or not firing the guy in charge, firing the secretary of the va might be the proper solution to what ails this giant agency. richard burr of north carolina, senator pat roberts who is a veteran, three republican senators have said they want generic shinseki fired from running the va. neither senator from arizona, the site of the initial allegations, neither arizona senator is saying that shinseki should go or the congressional delegation has said that firing shinseki is the way to fix this problem. and then today house speaker john boehner was asked a

question about this issue at his weekly briefing and he gave an answer on this issue nobody expected from him. >> what is your opinion on secretary shinseki and other problems at the va? >> the problems at the va are systemic. it's the backlog. the preventible deaths that have occurred within their system. there is a systemic management issue throughout the va that needs to be addressed. and i don't believe that just changing someone at the top is going to actually get to the solutions we are looking for. >> boehner saying firing the cabinet secretary in charge of veterans issues is not necessarily the way to help the va solve its current problems.

regardless of whether or not you think that eric shinseki should be fired, the reason that john boehner's comments on this shocked everybody today is because their basic framing was kind of practical. right is this it was about trying to improve governance and what might work to do that at the va. that does not sound like washington anymore. so politically the tide of criticism against the va and the man running the va is politically scatter shot right now. practically the task of getting a handle on the scope of the va's problems, figuring out which of them is just failure and which of them is scandal and figuring out how to fix them regardless of whether it's just a problem or a scandal. that practical question, that's the one that's still quite open. joining us now is ed o'keefe, "washington post" congressional reporter who has followed events at the va for many years. mr. o'keefe, thanks for being with us. >> great to be with you, rachel. >> in terms of oversight of the va, this massive agency, second only in size to the defense

department in terms of numbers of employees with these huge and deep responsibilities in the lives of our veterans, is congress very good at overseeing this agency? they seem to think they're better at overseeing veterans issues than they are on most. >> they are two aggressive agencies. they keep close tabs on these things. they've been moving legislation. and i think the fact that you've seen the leaders of the two committees, the senate -- well, an independent, bernie sanders, and then jeff miller, the republican chairman of the house committee not join this chorus to call for shinseki's head, they probably have a better nuanced understanding of the situation of the sprawling department than some of the republican senators who have suggested that he should go. you have the ones you mentioned, john cornyn and jerry moran, the republican congressman is another. he's a member of the senate

veterans affair committee but the senatorial committee. and there's another former republican senator who has called for his firing, scott brown, of course, who would like to return to the senate. has also said this week that shinseki should perhaps go. when it comes to congressional oversight i'm confident they could be doing much more. i think every oversight committee could be doing a little more. but it does appear at least this week several lawmakers jumped in and suggested that congress needs to do more than they're doing. >> in terms of what are the next steps for getting a handle on the scope of the va's problem, there's interesting data here, right? a lot of allegations that have been made, some explained by the va, some denied by va. and the most serious ones, eric shinseki and the rest of the va saying that looks really bad. we're having our inspector general look into it. we're not going to say anything then. sanders was essentially taking that line. he's expected to hear from eric shinseki at a hearing next week. he said i want to wait for that report.

is there something else that congress or the va could do to basically step up the speed at which we get real answers? >> you know, you used the important phrase, step up the speed. the problem is you have thousands of facilities run by the va that have to be checked conceivably. they announced they will do auditing to check the scheduling systems in place this began in a facility in phoenix. there were some problems at a spot in colorado. there were concerns about a location in san antonio, texas. which is a huge veterans community. look, the house has subpoenaed information on potential cover-up. they're doing that while the inspector general is out doing a report on the actual allegations themselves. we'll have very soon information on the crime and the potential cover-up, which these days in washington is all you really need if you're looking into some kind of purported scandal. >> i think that what i'm anticipating is what we're going to get is a relatively nonpartisan, nonhysterical response on the crime, on the

issue of what's wrong at the va. if they do find anything they're going to call a cover-up, that's where we'll see it turn into much more normal politics. interesting stuff. ed o'keefe for "the washington post." thanks for being here. >> great to be with you. take care. so john boehner went full robot today. he cries. yes, you might think he would rust if he went into robot mode. but that didn't happen.

are you a one note party at this point? >> it's clear that obamacare is the number one, number two, and number three issue going into this election. >> when president obama announced the resignation of kathleen sebelius and nominated sylvia burwell to replace her as head of the department of health and human services, sirens went off all over. will burwell's confirmation be another front in the obamacare war? business insider was more certain. here comes the next big fight over obama care. politico.com, republicans hope to turn burwell's nomination into a proxy war. fox news, the same proxy war idea. they should use the hearing as leverage against obamacare. reuters nails it right to the point, republicans to push anti-obama care message in u.s.

senate hearings to confirm burwell. they'll nail her. i will vote for her in the finance committee. >> great. best of luck. look at the headlines about how it actually went. obama's hhs nominee breezes through senate confirmation hearing. burwell gets friendly treatment. pick draws senators' praise at confirmation hearing. the plan to go hurricane force at the obamacare hearing, fizzled out. like republicans changed their minds against going crazy against obamacare. like today was the day they decide they'd were going to

leave obama care alone after all this time. and instead, go totally crazy about something else entirely. yes, today was the day they made that pivot. details ahead.

after your comments about the president, do you feel that voters are owed a better explanation than just i misspoke. >> i think that -- as i stand by my statement. that i misspoke and i apologize. >> okay. who are you apologizing to? >> you know i stand by my statement that i misspoke and i apologize. >> i apologize. we talk to you, a very forthcoming guy. who is telling you not to talk. >> i stand by the statement i wrote. you have. i misspoke and i apologize. >> was it that you thought it would go over well in albert county where folks are conservative and you would never

say something look that in the suburbs? >> i stand by my statement. that i misspoke and i apologize. >> is there anything that i can ask you that you will answer differently. >> i stand by my statement i misspoke and i apologize. >> the annals of congressman speaking like a robot. nobody will beat him. he stand by his statement he misspoke and apologizes. house speaker john boehner took his best shot at this title. which is weird. whether you look him or not. speaker boehner has no reputation as a robot. he cries all the time. you can't be a robot who breaks down sobbing on a regular basis. you will rust. but the speaker did go full robot today with nbc's luke russert. what luke was asking him an embarrassing thing, a special collect committee about attacks that killed the u.s. ambassador to libya in benghazi in 2012. a congressman, trey gowdy to head up the select committee. here he is.

>> would you suggest. fellow members while this investigation is going on they not use benghazi for fund-raising purposes? >> yes. i will cite myself as an example. i have never sought to raise a single penny on the backs of four murdered americans. >> yeah. >> so i, so, to the extent that, that they would look to me as some evidence of what is appropriate and what is not. there are two still, even in a culture of hyper partisanship, certain things that ought to be above politics like the murder of our four fellow americans. >> congressman gowdy, in charge of the 3 trillionth benghazi investigation. no one in his words should be raising a single penny on the backs of four murdered americans. one problem with hip saying that, trey gowdy has done fund-raisers at home in south carolina, one, where he raised money talking about benghazi. the second problem is the day

before, congressman gowdy went on msnbc and said he hasn't raised money off the backs of murdered americans at benghazi. the day before that, the national republican party, registered and created this fund-raising website. specifically to capitalize on trey gowdy, investigating benghazi. contribute, 5, 25, 100, 500, be a benghazi watch dog too. just like trey gowdy. embarrassing, saying fund-raising shouldn't happen. doing it yourself. having your party do it hugely in your name. nationally. right when you are on tv. saying that sort of thing is morally disgusting. so this know it a great start for mr. gowdy of south carolina in this high profile role. he decided to handle it by at least asking his own party to cool it with the fund-raising thing. >> the national republican congressional committee which raises money for house republican candidates they have a blog post up explaining what this committee says. it also asks for contributions you.

are not asking for money related to the select committee on ben -- benghazi. do you think that is appropriate? >> i cannot, will not raise money. >> but -- >> i advise my school leagues to follow suit in an unambiguous way. >> they did not listen. national republican party website where you donate to a benghazi watch dog, that is still up there. awkward, they're trying to raise money, mr. gowdy, saying they shouldn't do that. disgusting if any one tries. awkward for the republican party to deal with. they don't want to give up exploiting the attack for the money. the guy they have chosen as their poster child for giving money to the republicans. benghazi. this is awkward. what should they do. what should they say. when reporters ask about the problem that they have got. what could they say if they're not going to stop doing what they're doing. turns out john boehner at least can swallow his humanity, turn

himself into a robot or at least one of the dolls where you pull the string in its neck. the same phrase comes out over and over. turns out that is one option. >> our focus is on giving the answers to those families who lost their loved ones, period. >> our focus is getting the truth for the four families and the american people. >> our focus is on -- the 3 trillionth investigation into the benghazi tragedy, that republicans are determined to turn into a scandal. they're trying to up the seriousness of what they're doing. fund-raising an outfit like a

debate gaffe it is not a good first step. who knows what will happen next. watch this space. first look is up next. good friday morning, everyone. right now on first look, veterans scheme, whistleblower details a cover-up as the pressure on v.a. secretary grows. major damage left in the wake and major flooding as well. so, what's ahead for your weekend? we'll tell you. fighting back, a new audiotape surfaces of embattled nba owner donald sterling. dr. dre's beats and who are the most admired first ladies? hello. thanks for joining us today. i'm betty nguyen. secretary of state of veterans