so when i hear allegations of misconduct, any misconduct, whether it's allegations of staff covering up long wait times, or cooking the books, i will not stand for it. not as commander in chief, but also not as an american. none of us should. if these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable. it is disgraceful. and i will not tolerate it, period. >> right now, on "andrea mitchell reports," breaking news. a political firestorm over alleged cover-ups at veterans hospitals. president bush gives eric shinseki another chance to produce results. >> for folks who have been fighting on the battlefield, they should not have to fight a bureaucracy at home to get the care that they've earned. >> 26 facilities are now being

investigated across the country, including that phoenix hospital where as many as 40 veterans allegedly died while waiting for care. will anyone be held accountable? >> if somebody's mismanaged or engaged in misconduct, not only do i not want them getting bonuses, i want them punished. >> and good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where we have breaking news. president obama standing by his controversial secretary of veterans affairs, at least for now. they had a meeting today on how to fix the va health care system. >> across the board, he has put his heart and soul into this. but i said to ric, and i said to him today, i want to see, you know, what the results of these

reports are, and there is going to be accountability. >> accountability. well, joining me now, nbc news white house correspondent chuck todd, and jim, and kerm colonel jack jacobs, and legislative director for iraq and afghanistan, veterans for america. let me take this out of turn, alex, and go to you first. your group has been critical of the va, critical of general shinseki. did the president do the right thing in standing by him today for now? >> we were disappointed in the president's remarks. we certainly understood he may do that, but we're disappointed. he needed to come out with a lot more reforms. >> chuck todd, why send the president out to say something about the va, when he's not ready to take bolder action? >> this was an attempt to stop the political bleeding that was taking place.

i apologize when we're talking about serious medical issues. >> but it's a metaphor. >> that's what's going on here is this has become a political problem for the white house. the president himself hadn't spoken on it publicly since asia. okay? and the trip to asia, which for me feels like months ago. it was about three, four weeks ago. so there needed to be a sense of, he had to come out and say something. you know, this is -- there are going to be people who are saying, why isn't he firing shinseki, why isn't he doing something more dramatic to at least give a sense of urgency to solving the problem. and a sense of buying political time. you know, the more politically expedient thing to do is hang shinseki out to dry, bring some political stability to the situation. but if you look, this is his pattern. he never does this. it's always very, very -- always

a more drawn-out process. he almost gets his back up the more people tell him you must feed the political beast. >> you know him well. he told you he's not going anywhere. this is, of course, after the false promise, if you will, the fake resignation last week when it turned out the deputy in the va whom supposedly resigned last week with some fanfare from the white house, actually had resigned -- submitted his resignation months ago and was already replaced in terms of another nominee going up. so, again, why do this, this sort of minimal announcement at the white house today? >> that episode last week, when they put the deputy up as what many call a scapegoat or sacrificial lamb was really almost laughable. and i think the va got stung pretty badly for trying to pull that one off. but, you know, while shinseki may have his job, at least for the time being, you know, the

most nervous people have to be those at these various veterans administration hospitals and facilities who are now under personal investigation. not only by the va inspector general, but in some cases, according to the inspector general, by the veterans affairs criminal investigators. the fbi said today they're not involved yet, but if the allegations are true, as the president said, they will be punished. there's a real possibility here that if some of those allegations are true, it could involve theft, fraud, even obstruction of justice. so, you know, i wouldn't be surprised to see eventually some kind of criminal charges arise as a result of all this. >> now, colonel jack, i wanted to bring you in to ask you, first of all, about john mccain's response. his initial response today. let me read this. while i am glad that after many weeks of refusing to acknowledge

the widening scandal, president obama finally saw fit to speak about it today. it's wholly insufficient. as a medal of honor recipient and someone who served in vietnam, was wounded in vietnam, dealt with the va system in medical procedure after procedure, what is your response to what happened today? >> well, i think john mccain -- i don't always agree with him, but he had a very interesting point there. and that is, that the response itself is effectively too little, too late. that the president should have been talking about this for a long time, ever since it began. don't forget, we had big problems not that long ago when the wait times at the veterans administration was as long as two years in some cases. it's been halved. it's much lower. but it's still much too long. the president should have been talking about the va, and done

something about it long before now. so john mccain is right. he raises an interesting point about the systemic nature of the veterans medical agency. and the fact, one has to ask the question whether or not it is ever going to be capable of delivering what we want. and that is timely, first-class medical care, to the men and women who serve this country. my conclusion is that because it's a bureaucracy effect i68, it's a large and ponderous bureaucracy, and it does sound like a redundancy, but it's a very large bureaucracy, that it will never be able to deliver what we want, no matter who runs it and how much money we give it. >> alex, do you agree? i think it was said last week, that we should just get rid of the va and have our veterans go through normal health care. >> we don't agree with that.

we think it can be fixed. i think the consensus within the community is we need a va. we need the president to step up and do something about it. >> chuck, this feels a little bit like the health care situation, the management issue, as to how the president addresses a problem when there's something close to him, a cabinet secretary whom he likes and add meyers and respects, who is not managing well. >> you can apply the same thing to syria. he's very, you know, this is -- but this is how he ran. he ran as somebody that was going to be more prosecutorial about it. he was there is a sense on this one where the confidence is lost. and i think that that to me seems to be the disconnect from the white house right now. to the perception that's out there. i think the white house thinks they're dealing with a washington problem right now. this is not a washington problem.

this is every veteran in america watching this. and is relating to it, even if it's not the specific incidents that are taking place about this. h they're relating like, yeah, why doesn't the va do this. confidence is lost. is shinseki able to restore that confidence. now, i understand that the president, there's also to a lot of democrats, general shinseki was a very important political touch stone when he turned on the iraq war and turned on president bush. >> and pushed out by donald rumsfeld. >> that's right. there's a sense of loyalty to him, too, for what he's given to his country. and you get that. and you can hear that in the president's voice. he was walking that line. but you can feel the lost confidence of the va. i don't know how he continues. >> jim, the ig testified last week, is there confidence at the pentagon, and among vets whom you speak to, that the ig can fix this problem and can come out with a report that will be credible and that will be the

turning point? >> nobody has a lot of confidence in just about anything the va sets out to do. now, the one encouraging thing, even to some critics, was that the ig did say last week that if necessary, he would rely on federal investigators, prosecutors, the fbi, the justice department, if in fact any illegalities were discovered. and back to this idea about shinseki resigning. you know, the president made a point today that he himself, shinseki, is a wounded veteran from the vietnam era. so in a accepts, some critics believe that shinseki, even though he's under constant fire, is actually shielding the president from some of that. and serves the president -- serves a purpose besides just being the secretary of veterans affairs. and they predicted long ago that it would be unlikely that even

if shinseki did offer his resignation, that the president would accept it. >> colonel jack jacobs, at this stage what would you do if you were advising the president? >> i would tell him to do exactly what he's doing for the time being. don't forget that he is a lawyer and he will wait until the investigation is over before he does something. he's the kind of person who doesn't like to do anything precipitously. but he does have a serious political problem. one thing that chuck said really resonates, and that is that veterans, even if you're getting great care from the va, we all perceive that we're all in it together. if i'm getting great care from the va, i feel really badly for those veterans who are not. i think he's got a big, big problem, the democrats do, with respect to this, among all veterans when elections come up in november. >> jack jacobs, thank you so much. and jim and alex and chuck todd. for more on the issues we're

joining by maryland congress woman donna edwards. i know you've got a lot of constituents directly affected by this. what are you hearing from them? >> i do. and we're hearing a lot from them. maryland actually happens to be one of these states that has one of the highest density of veterans in the country. i'm a daughter of a veteran in the united states air force. we need to get the report from the ig and then act on those concerns. i think it's really important, because we know this is a really systemic problem within the veterans administration, that we get it right, and not by second-guessing what the problems are. identifying them, and correcting them for our nation's veterans. >> are you convinced that the white house is taking this seriously enough and is acting quickly enough? >> well, i listened to the president today. i think what we heard from the president was somebody who, from day one, when he took office,

has expressed his concern, that we've had greater resources put into veteran services than ever before, but also who's presiding over ending one war and coming to the conclusion on another, where we have a lot of veterans who need to be served. and that's not to put the problem at an arm's length, but it is to say that we have a veteran system that was already problematic, that is greatly overwhelmed with the number of claims, and processes that we have now. but it has to be fixed for our nation's veterans. it's a commitment the president made. and it's a commitment that each one of us makes to our veterans and to their families. >> this is one issue. another issue that's going to play into the political mix going into the midterms, you chair the red-to-blue committee. the day after the primary results, your take as to how democrats are going to try to do? the tea party candidates didn't do very well at all.

you don't have in some of these key senate rates the republican candidates that democrats might have wanted to run against. >> that is true in the senate races. and i know in our house races, where i'm chairing some of our most important races and paying attention to them, what we do have still is a stark contrast between democrats and republicans in the congress. when i look at our candidates who are red-to-blue candidates in the house, what i see are people who are problem solvers, who want to get beyond this mess that's going on in washington, and the entrenchment that's in there, and want to create jobs and opportunities for the middle class. republicans have not been focused on the middle class. the ryan budget points to that. i think our candidates have a very strong message going into november, to show the difference between the republicans who shut down the government, and want to end medicare. and democrats who want to solve problems and create jobs for the middle class. >> why do you think democrats rejected allison schwartz, a congressman from philadelphia,

well known, in a race against a political novice who self-funded with $10 million in ad money way up front? >> i think you can never really predict what's going to go on in any one congressional district, or state. there are a lot of things at play. what i can tell you is that when i look at our candidates and our house races, that each one of these districts is different. that the kaejts who run in them have to distinguish themselves, and we have to spend the resources we need on the ground turning out our voters and making sure we have a message that appeals to the middle class. >> in pennsylvania, a former congresswoman, clinton in-law, who failed in her bid to be renominated as a democrat to go to the house? >> as i say, again, i think each one of these districts is different. it's clear that we'll have a strong democrat coming out of that district, even though she didn't win in that district.

we also across the country, in many of these swing districts, the focus is going to be, what are the opportunities for job creation for building the middle class, for advancing the investments we need to make in education for the american people. democrats will have that message, and already have that message going into this election. and nobody can predict in may what is going to happen in november. >> that's for sure. that's what makes politics so interesting. thank you very much, congresswoman donna edwards. >> thank you. ahead, fighting the cybersecurity war on multiple fronts. mike rogers joining me next. the battle for the midterms continues. we'll recap the results from super tuesday's big races. while the marquee matchup in kentucky is already heating up. >> barack obama's candidates preach independence but they practice loyalty above all else.

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today another example of our vulnerability to hackers. ebay announcing it was hit with a cyber attack, and is asking users to change their passwords. according to an ebay statement, quote, the database compromised between late february and early march, included ebay customers'

names, e-mail address, physical addre address, phone number and date of birth. mike rogers, chair of the house intelligence committee wrote some of the leading legislation on all this. congressman, what do we take away from ebay's announcement today? and i want to broaden it to talk about the cyber threat. >> sure. even non-nation state actors, people not affiliated with governments around the world, are getting more sophisticated. you have china leading the way on economic espionage at a breathtaking pace. you have these non-nation state actors, some of these used to be with government agencies overseas, especially in the eastern bloc countries that attack the -- target was a great example where they walked away with 80 million credit card and personal information. now you see what's happening to ebay. this problem is getting exponentially worse, and we need to take more aggressive action if we want to give the private sector an opportunity to defend

itself. >> what about the action the justice department took this week in laying out charges against specific chinese officials? not just saying china was generically doing this, but going after individuals. was this just a head fake? you know, for public relations? there's nothing we can really do against these foreign officials, can we? >> no, they'll not wind up in a u.s. courtroom. but it was a shot across the bow of the chinese military and military services. we know who they are and what they're doing. their government tasks these military services to steal company secrets from the united states, repurpose it, give it to chinese companies to compete against the united states. we have lost hundreds of billions of dollars worth of intellectual property, and literally tens of thousands of jobs that go with it, all because they're cheating. they're stealing our stuff and repurposing to compete against

us. this is only a shot across the bow. i'd say, buckle up, it will get bumpy here shortly in the relations between china and the united states when it comes to this. but this had to happen. it is so bad, there is no company out there that hasn't been penetrated by the chinese. if you have anything valuable to steal. and that's why i think the case was so important, the charges were so important. and now you have to back it up with allowing our industry and government to work together to defend those private networks against this onslaught. >> i could point out to our viewers, any who don't know this, that you're not just the chair of the house intelligence committee, but you're also an fbi guy. so you know about these kinds of cases. are we driving vladimir putin into the arms of the chinese? we know that putin is under fire from europe and the united states, in particular, because of ukraine.

he turns up in shanghai yesterday. and now announced this big energy deal with china. is china going to bail putin out from the economic problems he's experiencing because we've sanctioned them, and more sanctions are threatened because of what he's done in ukraine? >> you know, that's why foreign policy is a long-term game. and it always hurts. and as you know, i've been pushing a lot of these issues for the last five years. you've got to get out ahead of them. you have the options you have today because the earlier options weren't taken advantage of. but we are where we are. this in and of itself did not send the russians into the arms of the chinese. but the collective pressure that russia is feeling, i think sent them into the arms there. syria, when you look at what's going on in ukraine and other places, all of that pressure that's being pushed on russia, and the reaction of selling more arms or opening up more arms to go to the assad regime in syria, what they're doing as far as

eastern ukraine, all of that is in response to this. this gas deal is clearly a signal to europe and the united states, that they're not going to be bullied. if they want to steal your territory, they're going to do it. the russians are equally capable, in many ways more capable than the chinese when it comes to cyber espionage. and cyber attacks and cyber theft of intellectual property. again, most people don't see it. this is so breathtakingly bad, that i felt it was important for the administration to do this, to send a very clear signal. we have got to start putting pressure on the chinese, stop stealing this stuff. it sends a clear message to the russians we're paying attention. as the former fbi guy, what it tells you is we were able to signature that cyber theft all the way to individuals in china. that tells you where our cyber capability is when it comes to figuring out who's stealing our stuff. >> and before i let you go, i've got to ask you about general shinseki and the president's announcement today that he's mad as hell, if i can paraphrase it,

and he's on the case. but wants to wait for the ig report to see whether shinseki can fix this, and that someone will be held accountable. is that good enough? >> i don't think so. as a veteran myself, i am horribly disappointed in what i saw today on behalf 6 the president. he's very good at the glitz and glamour and sternly worded memos. but this is about governance of the they've had an 8% increase in veterans since 2009 and 34% increase in spending. this isn't about winding one war down and starting another. that offended me. this is about taking care of the men and women who served this country honorably. and for the fact for the president to come out and say they just talked to them this morning and have a plan for a review next week, and neighbors is going to come out next month with another one, is absolutely unacceptable. all of the targets they set going into the administration, they have missed. mr. shinseki has been there for

five years. i think they've run out of excuses. somebody needs to pay a price soon. we know that there's mismanagement. a good manager gets in and starts managing. that means relieving people of their duties, taking back these bonuses right now until there's further investigation pending. those are real decisions. this is just more, i'm mad, and we're going to review it, and maybe i'll get to it next month. that's just the wrong answer when you're talking about these people who deserve america's faith and confidence and support in a very difficult time in their lives. >> thank you so much, chairman mike rogers. thank you for being with us today. >> thank you. serious allegations now against the nfl. in a new lawsuit, a group of nearly 600 former players say that they were routinely given powerful painkillers illegally without prescriptions. so that they could keep on playing. in some cases, the full extent of their injuries was hidden from them. the eight players named as plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit including super bowl winning quarterback jim mcmann, and hall of famer richard dent.

mcmann said he became addicted to painkillers after he was given pills for a broken neck and ankle that he was never told about. this is the second major lawsuit brought against the nfl by former players, concussion related lawsuit was settled last year for $765 million. that case isn't closed yet. the judge ruled the amount is insufficient and has thrown the settlement out. mine was earned in korea in 1953. afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

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ok cont e yllyodeon. because you can't beat zero heartburn. woo hoo! [ male announcer ] prilosec otc is the number one doctor recommended frequent heartburn medicine for 8 straight years. one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. welcome back. november's midterm battles are taking shape after a round of national primary results late last night. you can expect the political fights across the key states to ramp up now. joining me now, msnbc contributor, and washington post national political reporter, welcome both. let's talk first about kentucky,

where you've got allison grimes, and, of course, the senate republican leader mitch mcconnell. this is really setting the stage. mitch mcconnell, first, chris, he cruised over that tea party challenge. >> he deserves credit. when mat bevin got into the race, he was to the right. there was a case to be made that he could come close. he didn't come close at all. mitch mcconnell did a good job of doing the things that mitch mcconnell does, which is making a race a referendum not on mitch mcconnell, but on matt bevin. there was a cockfighting incident that matt bevin attended a cockfight by accident. so mitch mcconnell did a good job. but that does not mean he is not in a, what i would say a serious race of his political life. because he quite clearly is. >> except that i think the race is not going to be against

allison. it's a race against barack obama. who is extremely unpopular in kentucky. and i think that mitch mcconnell, while he certainly is known for bare-knuckle politics against his opponent, is also running as the guy standing in the way of barack obama. >> here's an excerpt from allison, direct to camera initial ad coming out of the gate. >> it seems no matter how many elections we have, nothing gets better in washington, it only gets worse. a lot of that is because of the people at the top in both political parties. if we keep sending them back, nothing will change. >> so, chris, it looks like both are running against washington. >> oh, you heard her in her victory speech. you heard her in her victory speech last night that she doesn't agree with barack obama using the phrase, war on coal. obviously his energy policy is not going to be popular in

kentucky where coal mining is a big deal. karen is exactly right. mitch mcconnell will try to run against some hybrid of barack obama. alison is going to try to say, this race is about mitch mcconnell. barack obama is not on the ballot. she said those exact words. she said it last night. you're going to hear that in ads, in speeches. the question is, who's less popular, barack obama, mitch mcconnell, alison grimes? it will be a race to the bottom. this is not going to be a pleasant race to be involved in. it's going to be expensive and it's going to be nasty. >> speaking of nasty, there's georgia's republican runoff, karen. two candidates now running off to face off against michelle nunn, the democratic nominee. >> georgia and kentucky are the only two pickup opportunities that the democrats are looking at this year. and both of them are really uphill races. but what the republicans did in this seven-person race was they sent into the runoff the two guys who are going to have the

strongest chance in november against michelle nunn. she's going to have much less of an opportunity to pick off republican leaning voters than she might have had, had the republicans nominated somebody really sort of far to the right. >> so you've got david purdue and jack kingston in runoffs, in that seven-way race one got 30 and the other 25. and now, that's going to be the matchup. very briefly, chris, just to button it down, you've got the two toms going against each other, tom corbett, the republican governor of pennsylvania, and tom wolff, the self-funding millionaire, i guess, who put all that money in and beat alison schwartz. >> wolff came out of nowhere and won almost 60% of the vote in a four-way democratic primary. all four candidates were serious folks. tom corbett's numbers are in real trouble and have been for

some time. >> thank you both. meanwhile, general motors has yet another addition to the growing list of recalled vehicles. now an industry record. the latest recall includes 218,000 chevrolet vio cars from 2004 through 2008. gm said the daytime running light module can overheat and melt and cause fires. four other recalls involving 2.5 million vehicles were announced tuesday related to a slew of problems relating to safety belts, and retention clips. no, that can't happen. that's the thing, you don't know how long it has to last. everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive.. confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor can get the real answers you need. well, knowing gives you confidence. start building your confident retirement today.

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become the next business to discover the new new york. predibut, manufacturings a prettin the united states do. means advanced technology. we learned that technology allows us to be craft oriented. no one's long their job. there's no beer robot that has suddenly chased them out. the technology is actually creating new jobs. siemens designed and built the right tools and resources to get the job done. it's about our parents. the reason we're here is our parents made the sacrifices to bring us to the country that they did not know of, to provide a better family. now that we're here we want to serve our country. we want to serve our parents' memory and our community. >> a group of undocumented immigrants joined lawmakers on capitol hill yesterday pushing for the right to serve in the

military. the military dreamers are unable to serve in uniform because of their immigration status. some members of congress are trying to change that. >> there are a group of people, these dream act students, who if given the opportunity would do well in our u.s. military academies, who would serve the only country they've ever called home. >> i'm joined now by congressman castro from capitol hill. and here's one of the military dreamers. thanks, and welcome. great to see you here. i want to ask the congressman first, you got blocked by the republican leadership in trying to get the enlist act into an amendment on the floor as part of the defense authorization. where do you go next? a stand-alone bill? do you have any assurance of getting this into legislative action? >> sure, andrea. we'll try to get the senate to put it in the defense authorization bill, and hopefully it will come over to the house.

but then also, these bills will be filed as stand-alone bills. jeff donourh had an amendment, and i had a bill for students to get to military academies. last year, they made -- they were going to allow a vote on it. he withdrew the amendment because the republican leadership pledged to work with him to make it happen. they broke that promise to him. quite frankly, if they're not willing to entertain even this smallest issue on immigration, i really don't think they're going to do anything on immigration. >> and miriam, what was your experience? this is your first time lobbying for something. you went up to the hill. and you've been rebuffed on the sort of initial ask. but what are your hopes? why do you want to go into the military? >> first, know that i'm not the only one in this country that is undocumented that wants to serve

our nation. there was a group of individuals that came from all over the country yesterday for the same reason that i did. and that is because we support this country. and this is our country, the place we consider our home and we want to serve it. just like thousands of other undocumented individuals who want to do the same. not only did we come here because that's our dream, but we also came because our families have a dream as well, right? and because we want to make they get relief and stop deportation and our families are also included as part of a solution to the immigration problem that we're having. >> congressman, there's a debate internally, we're told, between members of the administration, at the cabinet level, as to what the president should do about the deportation. we're expecting to hear something from jay johnson from homeland security pretty soon. >> first, i'm glad that the director of homeland security jay johnson is undertaking review of the deportations, that many of us have been asking for,

for some time. so that's a very positive step. i think what you'll see from him is a short-term solution, and then later on a long-term exclusion on deportations. i think you'll see some of the deportations curbed and more families being able to stay together. but all of that is just a bridge measure. ultimately the congress has got to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and republicans have got to allow a vote on it. it would pass if they did. and it's clear that the majority of americans, overwhelming majority want this to pass. >> congressman, do you think that the republicans are blocking you on this, because they now realize after the midterms that it would give a leg up to democratic candidates, if the administration and congress achieved something on immigration, this close to the midterm elections? >> oh, i think as this, with many other issues, they see everything that might happen here at the capitol as a victory, a potential victory for the president. and they want to deny the president in i kind of victory. but while doing that, they're hurting the country.

they're not hurting democrats, they're hurting these young students and hurting the nation. >> miriam, the white house was able to act on the dreamers. you're a dreamer. and you're in community college. you got a deferral. so your hopes are, you want to get into the military. but what happens if you can't get into the military when you get out of school? >> being able to continue my education, right? ultimately, like you said, i mentioned before, my ultimate goal is actually to serve this country. and be allowed to join the military. but if fought given the opportunity to even given my education, which i can't either, because we don't have state aid in new jersey. and pause also the government in general is not allowing undocumented students to continue their education. not providing the resources that we need. and ultimately, also for my family. my family also needs relief. i have a sister who is unable to apply for different action, who missed it by a month. my family is still in threat of deportation. i think a lot of dreamers want

our families to stop living that fear of getting deported at any moment. >> speaking for myself, our country is lucky to have you and your family and young dedicated people like you. we wish you well. we hope to stay in touch and follow your story. congressman, i want to make sure it is you i'm talking to and not your identical twin. i know we'll see a lot more of him. i know you can't talk about it, but he has been talked about potentially for hud. it will only gets worse if he comes to washington. >> i try to keep him away. but it looks like he may be coming here. >> we'll talk about it another time. >> sure. >> thank you very much. great to see you, congressman. and miriam as well. >> thank you for having me. the department of transportation plans to address airline passengers' biggest gripes. i've got a few. in a new set of rules to protect fliers' rights. the proposed guidelines would require airlines and onlike booking sites to be upfront about extra fees like checked

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diversifying your portfolio? e*trade gives you the tools and resources to get it right. are you type e*? in nigeria, there's been a new round of terror today. boko haram has reportedly attacked three different villages killing more people. they killed at least 118 people mostly women and children. nbc chief global correspondent bill neely joins me from abuja with the latest. bill, this is just horrendous. it indicates the nigerian government, and with all the help, is not able to get its arms around this threat. >> reporter: absolutely right, andrea. and you wonder when this is going to stop. and the answer is, it probably won't stop the frequency and the ferocity of these attacks.

absolutely frightening. as you say, the latest reports are that three villages in the northeast have been attacked with 48 dead. locals are blaming the islamist group boko haram. one of the villagers was just five miles from chibak which is where the school girls were kidnapped five weeks ago. as you say, it follows yesterday's bombing in the city of jobs, which wasn't just one of the biggest bombings in nigeria, it's one of the biggest bombings in africa in a decade, with 118 dead. >> the state department has issued a statement condemning the attack. we know they're offering military aid. it's very quiet what they're doing because of local sensitivities. any indication that there might be progress on trying to track down the missing girls? >> reporter: there really is none. the international effort is

growi growing. israeli experts arrived in the last few days. a british surveillance plane is on its way, or may already be here. but there is no sense that the search is making any progress. there was a theory that maybe the nigerian army had been advised not to go into this vast forest, to allow the surveillance planes to try to home in on any large groups that might be the kidnapped girls. either way, there is no progress, and nothing has been heard of the girls since then. nigeria's prime minister keeps making the statements about the 20,000 troops and more troops being sent in. it's now showing it's not just its own stronghold that it's capable of operating in. the city that was bombed yesterday is not really in its territory. it's on the dividing line between muslim north and

christian south. and of course, here in the capital of abuja five weeks ago, it killed more than 100 people. it seems to be able to just attack at will. and that's a big problem for nigeria's government. >> thank you so much, bill neely. and to our viewers, this story is so important, that we powered through despite the satellite interruptions. it's really important for us to keep on this and know what bill is reporting from this very dangerous part of the world. which political story will make headlines in the next 24 hours, that's next on "andrea mitchell reports." could save them money on car insurance, right? you see the thing is geico, well, could help them save on boat insurance too. hey! okay...i'm ready to come in now. hello? i'm trying my best. seriously, i'm...i'm serious. request to come ashore. geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance.

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which political story will make the headlines in the next 24 hours. i think we'll be talking about rob na bors going to phoenix to see if they can get their arms around this problem that is going to become more politically controversial. >> andrea, look, i think with

president obama's comments earlier today, you see the very difficult thing he is trying to do, which is to express significant outrage about these allegations, while also not jumping to conclusions and saying we need to find out all the facts. that can take time. people want answers more quickly. it's a tough predicament. >> thank you, chris. see you tomorrow. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." tomorro "ronan farrow daily" is next. thunderstorms will be widespread in the ohio valley and northeast. we're not talking tornadoes. but we could get damaging wind and large hail. something to keep an eye on. baltimore, washington, d.c., back through ohio and indiana, especially kentucky, the deep

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problem. >> republicans fended off threats from the tea party. >> tea party favorites lost in all of the most important republican races. >> in kentucky mitch mcconnell cruised to victory. >> alison grimes is barack obama's candidate. >> as kentucky's next united states senator, i'll answer to the people of this state. i will speak for myself, and no kentucky woman, mitch mcconnell, will sit on the back bench. >> now for the bombshell lawsuit against the nfl. >> the lawsuit claims doctors gave players painkillers to hide serious injuries and keep them on the field. >> the fbi is considering the relaxing the policy on marijuana smokers. >> one of our challenges we face is getting a good work force, at the same time when young people's attitudes about marijuana are leading more and more of them to try it.