and steve clemens, from west point, to cafe milano, you got tonight's last word. now it's the president's call. let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews. up in new york, let me start tonight with this, a week ago president obama warned veterans administrator eric shinseki that he, the president, was waiting to see an inspector's general report on that agency. there is going to be accountability, the president said in stern words, if that report came out bad for the va and the people running it. the president predicted also ominously that if general shinseki learns he is doing a bad job running that agency, he, himself, will resign. late today the i.g. report did come in bad, very bad, said veterans at the va hospital who

faced a waiting time of over 100 days were recorded at waiting less than a quarter of that time for attention. bottom line, the worst stories of long delayed treatment and deliberate coverup have been shown to be true, as "the new york times" is reporting late today, "the report validates that employees in phoenix kept an off the books waiting list or used other artifices to cloak long waiting lines many veterans faced for medical care." so it's come in bad. is he going to do what he made clear he was going to do, is the commander in chief going to issue a command or not? john mccain, whom obama beat back in 2008, has called for general shinseki's removal. late today, democratic senators began calling for shinseki's head, as well. tonight, the question hovers over the capital, will the president act on what everyone of both political parties believe is a genuine scandal?

chuck todd, nbc news chief white house correspondent and david bennett. gentlemen, first with you, chuck, the politics of this thing, time is everything in politics, timing is. the president made clear a week ago when he set this mouse trap he'd wait until the i.g. reported. the i.g. reported late today with a bad report. the president said if the report was bad, he was going to act. in fact, he said pretty clearly shinseki would act himself to remove himself, in not so many words, but pretty darn clearly. what's the president doing now? >> well, look, they are making it clear, they seem to be creating momentum, if you want to call it that, for shinseki's exit. perhaps it's to give him room to make the decision himself, but when you see the things that they've done behind the scenes, a senior aide told my colleague that shinseki is considered on probation for the past week.

this, obviously, this i.g. report doesn't help that probation status that the president was unofficially putting him on very well. you have the democratic politics on this, so, for instance, last week it was about republicans piling on calling for shinseki's resignation. today you could tell pent-up anxiety against democrats, maybe wanted to speak out but decided let's look for an avenue, give him time, wait for the i.g. report. boy, what do you have, mark udall, who has a tough race for re-election in 2014, becomes the first incumbent democrat to say time for shinseki to go. blumenthal, big veteran, spends a lot of times on veterans issues, this is a pretty big democratic supporter of the president's, he didn't call for shinseki's resignation but called for a criminal investigation that this i.g. report is so bad. the point is this, politically, chris, you know this feeling when it happens in this town,

the dam has broken in the president's own party. he almost has to act because members of his own party are begging him to do so. >> is it too cynical, only reason he hasn't fired him cold is he doesn't want to step on his own headlines of a major foreign policy statement he made at west point today, wants that to be the headlines tomorrow, not the firing of shinseki, is that a fair estimate or too cold hearted? >> might be a little cynical, but you do have to realize, the president doesn't like to sort of act in haste when it comes to staffers. when you look at sort of his pattern to how people get fired from the obama administration, really stan mcchrystal, the general out there in afghanistan is the only one that's gotten fired, made a mistake, two days later, out of a job. that isn't the way president obama operates. in many ways, if you're sort of led to believe, hey, there's the door, you should go find your way out, but you're given time

and space to do so, so while i hear what you're saying and that certainly makes sense if you're in the communications staff of the white house, this also fits the other pattern of the president wanting to give shinseki the opportunity to resign before the president's hand is forced. >> well, let's go back to last week, gentlemen, when president obama told reporters in no uncertain terms that the va secretary was on thin ice. here's the president setting basically what looks to me like a trap for action. >> i have said to rick, and i said it to him today, i want to see, you know, what the results of these reports are, and there is going to be accountability. >> well, the first report is in, it came in today, and it isn't pretty. an interim report from the inspector general confirmed allegations of wrong doing involving that phoenix hospital, where some of the most explosive accusations were first made. the report says, "1,700 veterans were kept on unofficial waiting

lists, the hospital was reporting wait times of just 24 days, when in reality, veterans were waiting an average of 115 days, four times as long to see a doctor. staffers also destroying records to destroy the long back log. most damning, the wait times were a factor in rewards and salaries for staff." they are laying out a lot of information here. long waiting times to get medical treatment for a veteran, covering it up by making it seem it was only a fourth of that time, quarter of that time, and having a program of rewarding people based upon what they reported as the waiting time, which i said was way shorter than reality. >> yeah, that's right, chris. i mean, what we're seeing is everything that we've been expecting for the last couple of weeks. this is not new information. this is confirming, you know, the allegations that were coming out of phoenix and now increasingly more and more of these va hospital facilities. i mean, this is clearly a

systemic problem. there is apparently perverse incentives rewarding people for gaming the system and cooking the books instead of delivering care for our veterans. >> let me get back to chuck on the politics. seems the president has a hat trick, if you will, of problems or republicans claim are scandals, irs, benghazi, fast and furious, they claim they are scandals, we'll see down the road if anything comes up, but now a real scandal, which both parties recognize. my question, does he risk sitting on this too long where it becomes a foursome and gets blamed for all four and this becomes the top one, because this is the most credible claim of a scandal? >> well, look, i think the real issue here, i think, that really hurts the president is the fact that combine it with the health care mess, there is this perception of a competency question about this administration, right, that, boy, they couldn't get the website right, can't seem to manage the va. yes, your heart may be in the right place and your policies

may be there, but there's sort of this question that a swing voter might have of, look, do these guys know how to manage anything, do they know how to run the government? and i think that that's the narrative when you want to talk about narratives, you know, and people hate when we talk about things like that, but that is a story line that the president can't afford to have out there. >> chuck, i think there's something else here, tell me if i'm wrong, not just the agency down the line screwed up. nobody blames the president particularly for doing that, some do, partisan critics, but they want to believe when the president finds out the problem, when the true king finds out about it, he's going to fix it, and now we have the president did ling for a week. that's no question. will he did l another couple days and wait for shinseki to do something when, in fact, it's a executive decision from the top guy at this point? it's not shinseki's decision now, this is a crisis of the administration, it's the president's administration

whether he stays or not, not shinseki's. >> well, i think that's right and where democrats have been torn. look, personally, what you have to understand about general shinseki is his relationships on capitol hill are very good. he personally is very good at playing old washington politics. he calls up senators, he's always on the phone, always working the phones, he's very responsive on that front, so he got a lot -- he sort of bought himself time, particularly with democrats. look, john mccain only came out today, you know, people may think john mccain's operating as a partisan republican, but there are a lot of republicans that have been giving shinseki space on this because shinseki himself has sort of this personal loyalty that is bipartisan, sort of above board, there's a lot of people that honor his service, so i think that is playing a little bit more of a role here, chris, than you realize. i'll tell you another issue that the white house has, the replacement for shinseki needs to be a big presence, needs to be a commanding presence, needs to be a stylistic change, and i

think part of this is, you know, before you fire somebody, you better know who you're going to have to replace. why did stan mcchrystal so easily get fired by the president? he had david petraeus ready to go, boom, suddenly it looked like a very commanding decision. >> let me -- >> let me tell you real quick, if the president's on the phone right now and says, general, are you ready to do this and that's who he's got replacing, he can fix this problem perceptionwise in a hurry. >> let me ask, this is sort of a constitutional question. you know, i saw this with colin powell during the iraq war, he acted like he was still a general of the army and still required to take orders, a civil servant who was a fighting man, as well. this guy, shinseki, a fine man, of course, out there doing the best job he can, but he's not just a civil servant, not a headless nail. he's not covered by the -- he is a cabinet officer, he is supposed to walk.

when your administration and your cabinet agency is a disaster area, you walk. that's what you're supposed to do. you don't wait for the president to fire you. you're not a civil servant who has rights under the law to keep their job. he ain't a headless nail, and yet shinseki's acting like one, like he's got some right to that job. that's not the way it works in politics. you're there at the pleasure of the president and if you do your job right, you keep it, but if you don't do your job, you accept the resignation that comes to you naturally, don't have to fight, you know, cling to office like it seems like he's doing. your thoughts. >> i agree with that, but if you listen to secretary shinseki, sounds very much like he continues to have the pleasure of the president. he also is very personally attached to this issue as a veteran himself, but more importantly, general shinseki didn't bring these problems with him. >> do you want him out or in, derek, what do you want? >> not question whether he's in or out, but let's fix the va.

>> what's the first step here, get rid of him and move on, or move on and keep him? >> we're asking our members that question right now, chris, we're member driven, know this is a big decision for the president, but i agree with chuck, who is the next one in line? >> okay, thank you. well said by both you guys. thank you for the intelligent viewing of this whole thing. breaking tonight, chuck todd and derek bennett, thanks so much speaking for the veterans. coming up, let obama be obama. the president's forceful defense of his foreign policy. gone is the idea that the united states needs to intervene militarily wherever there's a problem for or fear of looking weak. plus, how do you keep guns out of the hands of people with mental health problems, disturbed people, should they have access to guns because it's their constitutional second amendment right, would they? also, edward snowden makes his case, says if snowden were a real patriot, he'd come back home to the united states and make his case to the american people and see which way the cards break.

anyway, the weasel words, new mayor of new york city has a lot of difference with rudy giuliani, but nobody said it would come to this. and this is "hardball," the place for politics.

well, the democrats need to stop republicans from picking up six senate seats in order to keep control themselves this november, and we've got some new polling from key senate races. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. first to kentucky where mitch mcconnell is battling alison lundergan grimes. mcconnell is up by 3, 47%, 44%. still close, even by a republican pollster. next to michigan, a blue state republicans hope to flip this november. it's congressman gary peters leading now former michigan secretary of state land by five points. it's peters 40%, land 35%, and that's good news for the dems. that's in line with an epic mra poll that has peters up by six,

44% to 38%. finally good news there. next, new west virginia poll shows republican u.s. congresswoman shelly moore capito up by 11 over democrat natalie tennant. 49% to 38%. and we'll be right back. 

yesterday president obama outlined his plan to end military operations and combat operations in afghanistan by withdrawing all troops by the end of 2016. all combat by the end of this year. well, today he followed that announcement with an emotional and forceful defense of that order, while also defending nearly every choice he's made as commander in chief in a commencement address today at west point, president obama described his approach to intervention overseas as one of reluctance and agony. here's what he said about his decisions specifically in afghanistan. >> four of the service members

who stood in the audience when i announced the surge of our forces in afghanistan gave their lives in that effort. a lot more were wounded. i believe america's security demanded those deployments, but i am haunted by those deaths. i am haunted by those wounds. and i would betray my duty to you and to the country we love if i ever sent you into harm's way simply because i saw a problem somewhere in the world that needed to be fixed. or because i was worried about critics who think military intervention is the only way for america to avoid looking weak. >> those words are exactly why a lot of people voted for barack obama. the country clearly wants less intervention abroad based on all the polls, but what happens now? in afghanistan, for example,

only a matter of time before the taliban is in charge over there and what does that mean politically? and perhaps the biggest question with so many americans giving their lives in that decade-long conflict in afghanistan, was the whole thing worth it? richard engel joins us now from moscow and eugene robinson with "the washington post" and an msnbc analyst. richard, i want to ask you, these are tough questions, but on the ground, can we estimate right now the comparative strength of the taliban, its cultural strength, its military strength, its popular support, against the government of karzai, whoever else succeeds him in kabul? who's going to win that fight in the long run? >> well, i think the comparative strength is probably 80/20. the taliban is not particularly popular. even in places like kandahar, it is not especially popular. a lot of afghans experience the taliban, they didn't enjoy it, they had a foreign invasion and then a years of painful

occupation, girls didn't go to school. a lot of afghans don't want to roll back the clocks. the taliban remains strong in a lot of rural areas, a lot of places where the government simply can't project any power, but i don't think you have necessarily a situation where the taliban is going to come in, take over the government, but if it's 80/20, that still leaves 20% of the country, that means a very strong insurgency that they are going to have to battle for a long time. >> what about the point of the comparison of ferocity, people who join the taliban, i assume, are ready to get killed and kill. are people in the afghan army or wearing those new uniforms and have been trained, do they have that same killer instinct in the battlefield? >> some of them do. there have been loyalty issues, but the question is, will that killer instinct continue once u.s. troops leave? so far they have been doing very well in battle with u.s. troops, they are shoulder to shoulder in the tactical operations center,

giving them intelligence packets, effectively saying here is the target, go and get this person. when the u.s. isn't doing that anymore, isn't providing those intelligence packets, will they be as aggressive? if their pay gets cut off, will they continue to operate? so the u.s. has to continue to stay committed for this from the afghan perspective for the government to stay strong, but we're also going to have to see what happens with the new government. you have a new government coming in. it looks like it could be abdullah abdullah, although there's still another candidate. will they be popular? towards the end, hamid karzai's government was immensely unpopular with the people. he proved not to be an inspiring figure. if either one of these men is inspiring, then it could be a game changer. a lot will play out over these next two years. >> gene, here's the question i have, why didn't the president say the word taliban yesterday or in his long speech at west

point? not one reference to the forces we'd be afraid of, talking about leaving afghanistan, and no mention of the people who are going to be there in the field against people supporting the karzai government. why is the president not talking about the main threat to our policy over there? >> well, i think because he didn't want to mention what was not achieved in afghanistan, and basically, you know, look, i think what's implicit in what the president said, we're really no longer in the post cold war era. we're kind of in the post-post cold war era. we were in the post cold war era, we felt, or our policy makers felt, that with our ideals and enormous financial resources and our powerful military forces, we could essentially shape the world in our image and create these pro western democracies, and we tried it in afghanistan, we tried it in iraq. in both situations, we're ending up with far less than that and as a side effect, we're vastly

strengthening one of our geostrategic enemies, iran, and the president acknowledges, no, we're in a different era now, one that has to be more realistic and, frankly, more modest in terms of its goals of shaping the world into a collection of pro western democracies. that's not really happening. >> i think that's a fair assessment of the pluses and minuses, if you're going to be more modest in aggressiveness in the world, which i support, you're going to have to set lower goals. here's more from president obama today further emphasizing his reluctance to get involved in conflicts around the world. of all kinds. let's listen. >> it is absolutely true that in the 21st century, american isolationism is not an option, but to say that we have an interest in pursuing peace and freedom beyond our borders is not to say that every problem has a military solution.

tough talk often draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans. as general eisenhower, someone with hard-earned knowledge on this subject, said at this ceremony in 1947, war is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly, to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. >> what a strange camera shot that was. instead of coming tight on the president, they wanted to get the teleprompters in the picture, that was strange. according to a new poll from last month, americans clearly want less intervention abroad. everybody pay attention to this baby, 47% said america should have a less active role in the world, only 30% said it should be more active, and let me go back now to richard engel. at the same time, they are not satisfied with president obama's

farm policy, only 38% of his handling of foreign policy support that which is at the lowest level of his presidency. isn't that an interesting paradox, richard, and you're out in the field in harm's way too often for my liking, but the fact s you're out there. how strange it is the president is in unison with the country in terms of not getting involved, no freedom agenda, no aggressive neo con foreign policy, at the same time, they give him very little credit for his success. >> well, i'm not sure why the polling data appeared that way, but one thing about the foreign policy that i think deserves to be talked about and one thing that struck me in this, i thought quite emotional speech at times, commencement speech at west point, was, yes, the commitment to end these two 9/11 era wars, the war in afghanistan, which is ending, and he outlined that off-ramp, and the war in iraq, but he also talked quite extensively about

military intervention by use of drones, and he used the word specifically drones. a couple of years ago, no one in government, no one in the military, was allowed to talk about drones. if i called a military source and asked about drones, they had to pretend like they didn't know what i was talking about, and he talked about drones going forward, how there's going to be sort of a moral justification for their use that they can be used, that they are legitimate, just as long as they don't create more enemies than they take off the battlefield. so i think you're seeing this obama doctrine, if you will, emerging. we got to end the big wars, the huge troop commitments, so the forces can be more nimble for these drone operations, which he was talking about to the cadets, presumably these are the people who are going to be one day involved in these multiple kinds of fronts in dangerous places all over the world. >> thank you so much, richard engel and eugene robinson.

up next, the talking bird republicans hope will help them win the senate. this is "hardball," the place for politics. peoi go to angie's listt for all kinds of reasons. to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you'll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare.

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time now for the side show. new york mayor bill de blasio has broken with his predecessors, mayors blumburg and giuliani on numerous issues, but his latest is over something you never expect to make headlines, whether to lift the ban on keeping ferrets, there they are, as household pets. ferrets. yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, the weasel prohibition is back. originally implemented 15 years ago by giuliani, the ferret ban was more contentious as you might think, giuliani ridiculed

a ferrets rights activist on his radio show in 1999. the exchange became so famous, "slate" magazine made an illustration out of it. >> let me introduce myself again, executive president of new york ferret advocacy. last week when we spoke, you said a very disparaging remark to me that i should get a life. that was very unprofessional of you. here we're trying to get something seriously done, without you talking over me, we're trying to get something done -- >> david, you're on my show, i have a right to talk over you. you have totally misinterpreted the law because there's something deranged about you. >> no, there isn't, sir. >> the excessive concern that you have about ferrets is something you should examine with a therapist. there is something really, really, very sad about you. you need help. you need somebody to help you.

this excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness. >> well, it just so happens that today is also rudy giuliani's 70th birthday, so happy birthday, mr. mayor, you're a tough guy. finally, an ad by the club for growth action is not only hitting mark begich and pryor for parroting affordable care act, it's taking a crude shot at "the new york times," as well. here's the version airing now up in alaska. >> if you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. >> keep your doctor. >> if you like the plan you have, you can keep it. >> you can keep it. >> reality is, you've got an insurance plan now, you like it, you keep it. >> if you like your plan, you can keep it. >> have a doctor you like, keep your doctor. >> keep your doctor. >> tell senator begich to stop parroting obama. >> you can keep it. >> people remember those ads and very subtle, weren't they? anyway, we'll be right back after this.

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hey there, everyone, i'm alex witt. here's what's happening, author, poet, professor maya angelou has died. she passed away this morning in her home in north carolina. angelou was 86 years old. and ex-nfl player aaron hernandez has pleaded not guilty to killing two men in a 2012 drive-by shooting. police say hernandez shot the men after an altercation in a nightclub. i'm alex witt, back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." well, the tragic killings near santa barbara, california, again sharpened the nation's focus on gun violence and where it intersects with mental illness, the old nra slogan, guns don't kill people, people kill people, so who are the people getting guns? here's who.

>> well, this is my last video. it all has to come to this. tomorrow is the day of retribution. >> that, of course, was elliot rodger in his final video before he went on a stabbing and shooting rampage killing six people, then himself. then there's adam lanza, who killed 26 people up at sandy hook elementary school, most children, his own mother, then himself, killed them all. james holmes, opened fire in a colorado movie theater, and jared loughner, who killed six people, wounded 13 others, when he opened fire outside an arizona supermarket. well, the u.s. senate manchin/toomey bill came closest to tightening background checks, falling just six votes shy of the votes it needed to avoid filibuster. among its goals, to enhance the current background checks process in the u.s. to ensure criminals and the mentally ill are not able to buy guns.

up next, both guests are involved in the effort to increase awareness of the red flags that are out there of mental illness through the mental health first aid training program. while you can't argue this program could have prevented these tragedies, the tragedies put a focus on the overlap between mental illness and gun violence. patrick kennedy, cofounder of one mind for research, linda rosenberg, ceo and professional council for behavioral health. what was your first reaction when you took a look at this video and saw that this guy had the state of mind that he did, the condition he was in, and the fact he had guns in his hand, three of them? >> well, obviously, it was horror, because here we see the same situation repeat itself over and over, as you've just mentioned with all those previous shootings. i also thought about those families who had lost loved ones.

you know, my own family has been a victim of gun violence and i take very serious the access to guns. in fact, when i was in the state legislature, where a lot of these laws are going to be passed if we can't get the federal law, it was a chance for us to do a deeper background check. in the brady bill i wrote in rhode island, we allowed local police chiefs to do a more thorough background. most police chiefs really know what the people who are red flagged, so to speak, where they have cop cars going out to their house repeated occasions throughout the week. they should be able to veto a gun purchase where they know that there is someone who may not show up on the background check, okay, because even domestic violence is pleaded down as a misdemeanor in many cases, so you can have a serial batterer who's beating his girlfriend or his wife and they are not ending up on the background check, chris, so we ought to be more intent on addressing violence as it relates to guns more than just

stigmatizing the whole community of people who have a mental illness. >> i agree with that, of course. linda, let me go to you. i watched that thing, the whole seven minutes of elliot rodgers speaking the other day and you can see pretty clearly this guy is totally delusional. it's obvious he's operating from a world we don't know. it's a different world view of the world, yet you wonder sometimes whether a gun owner, a gun salesman in some shop could watch that and sell the same guy a gun. if you go to a bartender and have five or six drinks, the bartender has to legally stop you from having seven or eight. you know what, there's something about that guy that says to me he shouldn't have a gun, and if you don't act on that, you're not obeying the law. is there any way to make gun salesmen be responsible for checking out the guy or woman who comes in and buys the gun who's got a mental disturbance under way?

>> i think what we know is that is easier said than done. in fact, in this case, i'm not involved in the treatment, you know, i can't speak to it exactly, but what we do know is the police had been called to actually go and talk with him, and they, themselves, couldn't discriminate the fact that he was presenting danger, so to expect a shop owner to be able to do that may be above and beyond what we can hope for. >> expect bartenders to do it, i tell you that, they are not supposed to serve too many drinks to somebody. anyway, let me go back to patrick kennedy on this. it's a larger issue, and i know how much you care about the challenge of mental illness. tell me about this first aid thing, about what you can do if you spot somebody who has a problem, a mental problem. >> so, chris, even doing this story, it re-enforces the stigma, because the only time people hear about mental illness is during these tragedies, so no one wants to put their hand up and say they have a mental illness, because they are afraid of the stigma.

so we're trying to normalize how we treat people with a mental illness, just the same way as we'd treat people with a cardiovascular disease. if someone had a heart attack, we'd do cpr on them. we'd know what to do. if somebody has psychosis, a mental illness, we in our country don't know what the tools are. we don't even know how to talk about it in a way where it's -- >> give me an example, patrick. give me an example of a first aid you could do if you knew somebody you love, a neighbor, somebody you bumped in on the subway, what can you do to a person that you see is in trouble? >> well, first, chris, our health care system only today treats mental illness like a physical illness, so rather than walking by that guy on the street who's talking to themselves, you would call and get help for that person. we look at mental health as a

personal character flaw as opposed to a brain chemistry issue. it's not as if someone who's acting bizarrely has a matter of choice in the matter, and that's the kind of big attitude barrier we need to overcome as a society. >> well said. thank you so much, former u.s. congressman patrick kennedy and linda rosenburg. it's not the right time to talk about mental illness generally, but it is a concern of most people of people that have the problem of mental illness get their hands on guns. that's a hell of a mixture. up next, he's a hero to some, traitor to others, now edward snowden is speaking out and u.s. secretary of state john kerry is speaking back. this is "hardball" with a great debate coming up here on the place for politics. memorial day weekend may be over,

but the savings continue all month long! so, if you're looking to buy a car, now is the time and truecar is the way. just go to truecar.com to lock in guaranteed savings without negotiation. thank you! visit truecar.com! take a look at this, national public radio put together a list of what they call the best commencement speeches ever, some 300 graduation speeches going back to 1774. the list includes speeches by john f. kennedy, bill clinton, and barack obama, but also includes the commencement speech i gave at fordham university here in new york back in 2006. i told those fordham graduates something that applies to anyone looking to get started in life, if you're looking to play a game, find where it's played and find a way to get in that game. things happen when you get in the game. and we'll be right back.

we're back. it's been a year now since edward snowden leaked classified intelligence that the government was collecting information about the phone calls of 120 million americans. and since then, the former nsa contractor has been called a traitor by some, he's been hailed as a hero by others. we know all that. now in an exclusive interview with nbc news' brian williams, stone is defending his actions for the first time in an american television interview. and brian asks snowden what he's done in russia, why he's there, and here is snowden's response. >> i, personally, am surprised that i ended up here. the reality is i never intended to end up in russia. i had a flight booked to cuba and onwards to latin america. and i was stopped because the united states government decided

to revoke my passport and trap me in the moscow airport. so when people ask, why are you in russia, i say, please, ask the state department. >> well, secretary of state john kerry reacted strongly to that answer by snowden. and here he is earlier today with chuck todd on msnbc. >> what he's done is hurt his country. what he's done is expose for terrorists a lot of mechanisms which now affect operational security of their terrorists and make it harder for the united states to break up plots, harder to protect our nation. don't go to russia, they don't seek asylum in cuba, they don't seek asylum in venezuela, they fight their cause here. edward snowden is a coward, is a traitor, and he has betrayed his country, and if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so. >> andrea mitchell is msnbc's chief correspondent and david

corn is washington bureau chief for david jones and an nbc analyst. straight scoop. the american people are trying to decide about this fellow. is it a roarshack test. you said, he's telling the truth we need to know. >> i've spent a number of days trying to sort through the truth. one fact that the secretary of state got wrong is that he wasn't seeking asylum in cuba, as is very clear, he was trying to go on to latin america, to ecuador, to a friendly country that would have given him asylum and not extradited him to the united states. he was not trying to, according to snowden, stay in russia, not trying to stay in cuba, and, in fact, got trapped in the airport in russia for three weeks before putin gave -- >> what does that tell us -- help us to unpack that. he wanted to go to a left-wing african-american country, why is that distinctive from going to russia? our cold war enemy in the old days?

>> there is a certain stigma being attached to being in russia, according to certainly mike rogers and a number of the critics of snowden on the intelligence committees, who say, both on the democratic and republican side, if you're going to go to russia, presumably carrying something, and it remains to be seen whether he was, in fact, carrying something. he says he was not carrying any of this information. he had given it to the journalist. >> yeah, we know. >> but david, i've got to get your thinking on this. i'm not sure i know what it is. there's a indignation in the way he responded to brian, that he was somehow mishandled and go to russia, when in fact his intention all along was doing what he wanted to do, what he felt like doing, knowing it would be seen as a betrayal, would objectively been seeing as being a traitor and then getting angry at the government. to sit around and say, why'd they get mad at me.

look at what he did. >> well, he fled the country because he realized he had broken the law. he broke the law because he wanted to stay true to what he thought was, what he considered a principle, in terms of being transparent and letting the public know that the nsa had gotten much further than most of us realized, and probably even further than most of the people who do the oversighting on the hill realized or believed he should have done. so i think he did trigger a very, very valuable debate. but he did so at a cost. he fled the country before these revelations came out, because he did not want to be arrested and go to jail. he was hoping to go to iceland or greenland, whatever it was originally, and -- >> permanently? >> yes, i think so. >> go and die there in a hundred years or fifty years from now, those were his plan? >> those are perfectly fine places to live, chris. >> people tend to love their countries and not want to leave it. banishment has never been an ideal career goal.

>> he realized that otherwise he'd probably spend the rest of his life in jail. and i think it's natural that he would want to avoid that, even though -- >> okay, let me try something by a veteran journalist, one of the best there is, maybe one of the best in our business, you, andrea mitchell. wouldn't there have been a way without incriminating yourself to leak that information, not the paperwork, but the fact of the way we tap into people's information, their data, their electronic data, and online stuff. and why wouldn't he have done it that way? there's ways to get this information out if he wanted to do it and not get in trouble with the law. >> i think this justice department has been so aggressive at going after leakers and people, journalists who receive leaked information. more prosecutions than in any prior -- >> so he wouldn't have gotten away with it? >> he would have never gotten away with it. the question that has been asked by critics on the hill is why didn't he pursue whistle-blower protections? now, that question -- and there

are some answers to nap >> there is a good answer to that. >> you'll see some of those tonight. i have not seen the tape, but there are answers in terms of -- >> but we do know that because he was a contractor, a private contractor, and not part of the nsa or cia officially, he didn't have the whistle-blower protections that our laws afford people and again and again and again, those whistle-blower protections usually are very, very weak. we have a whole history of cases where people have tried to be whistle-blowers in the national security -- >> david, let me point out -- >> hold on, andrea, last word. >> there is a question as to whether he went to the inspector general, the office of legal counsel, there is some indication that he may have, and there'll be more information on that coming up in the next couple of hours. >> this is fascinating. i think there should be a way that people can leak important information to the press. how's that for a statement? anyway, thank you, andrea mitchell, and i'm sure mother jones would like to hear that point of view. we'll be right back after this. hey, buddy? oh, hey, flo.

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and file downloads you'd take that test, right? well, what are you waiting for? you could literally be done with the test by now. now you could have done it twice. this is awkward. check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. let me finish tonight with the big news we began with, that report about the veterans administration. there are scandals and there are scandals. white water, the big noise in the clinton administration turned out to be a dud. as stein once said of oakland, california said, when i got there, there wasn't a there there. the same may be true of benghazi, the fast and furious, those pieces that they like to approach to the american people whenever they approach a live microphone.

the same is most certainly not true with the v.a. scandal. the idea that america's fighting men and women have to wait four months to see a doctor and then have it recorded that they only had to wait a month, which is bad enough, is not something an administration can live with. the president needs to say now that he, not a member of his candidate, is the top officer in such matters. when a crisis occurs, he, the commander in chief, is the top officer. the one as harry truman well said, where the buck stops. he, not general shinseki, was elected as the country's chief executive. and he, again, not general shinseki, is the one who has to act. the british have a wonderful way of taking responsibility when a cabinet minister presides over a departmental scandal, he's the one who must step forward and resign. we don't have that system here, at least not anymore. when there's a scandal, the president the the one who has to act himself. if he doesn't, he gets blamed himself. and these are those times that the people are watching to make not just sure that the lights

are on at the white house, but that somebody's home. that's "hardball." thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. big headlines out of kentucky, and a tough editorial today from one of the state's biggest newspapers show that the marquise u.s. senate race in the country may turn into the answer to a deceptively simple question, what do you call obamacare? >> tonight, the hunt for the number one republican in the senate really begins. >> a showdown to the midterms, including the huge battle that's going to play out in kentucky. >> they have made it official this week, it's going to be mitch mcconnell versus allison lurnd grimes. >> it's the biggest senate race in the country. the man who's perhaps the biggest single opponent of the president and his signature achievement is up for re-election.