to be associated with this. the more reporting like the excellent reporting you have done and thank you for that, jeremy schaap, thanks for that. that is all in for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. thanks, man. thanks for joining us this hour. in 2005, a "washington post" reporter named dana priest broke this story about how the u.s. government, specifically the cia, was helping conduct the bush administration's war on terror by holding and interrogating prisoners at secret facilities around the world. secret facilities called black sites. at the time back in 2005, those revelations from "the washington post" were pretty astonishing. we knew about guantanamo, we knew about places like abu ghraib. but on top of all of that, it turns out the american government had secret prisons all around the world where we held anonymous prisoners, totally off the books. we didn't admit to anybody that we were there, let alone that they were there. we interrogated those prisoners using methods that nobody knew anything about.

that story changed the way the world saw the united states, probably permanently. it changed the fundamentals of what we know about this war on terror idea. and the fact that the story was published frankly changed the way the u.s. government felt it could get away with while conducting its war on terror. two years later in 2007, followed up on a tip she got in a random unsolicited phone call. she pulled the threads she found and she ended up following another investigative thread in the post. and this one didn't have to do with the way the united states treated terrorism suspects. it had to do with the way we treat americans. specifically americans who fight to protect this country overseas. and this second "washington post" story was as big if not a bigger scandal for the u.s. government at the time. it was just an unbelievable story that was happening in plain view, right there for

anyone who cared to see it. this was the headline on this groundbreaking story. soldiers face neglect and frustration at army's top medical facility. it was published february 18th, 2007, the first national article to reveal what turned out to be deplorable conditions that were being faced by injured soldiers returning from iraq and afghanistan to the walter reed army medical center in washington, d.c.. >> tucked away in a northwest washington neighborhood is a former hotel the army simply calls building 18. it's an unlikely place to house injured soldiers in the nation's capital. but the respected walter reed army medical center, just across the street, is overflowing with the wounded from five years of war in afghanistan and iraq. so for some of the 700 outpatients, building 18 is now home. walter reed clinical social worker, joe wilson. >> they had to do a quick renovation, which was very quick

and very cursory, that didn't necessarily address all of the issues that you'd want to address if you were building a barracks. >> reporter: many soldiers living here are being treated for brain injuries and psychological stress. they've been promised the best the nation can provide. >> we owe them all we can give them. >> reporter: but as a "washington post" investigation found, conditions here are far from ideal. mold and peeling wallpaper, shower rot, mice and cockroaches. walter reed staff members and outpatients told "the post" that conditions here at building 18 are symptomatic of a symptom overwhelmed by more injured soldiers than the pentagon expected. >> looking back at that story now, reading some of it today, watching that footage today, i can still remember the first viscerally repulsed feeling that i had in learning about how the u.s. government who sent these troops to war was now acting essentially as a slum lord toward them when they came home wounded and looking for care that we had promised them. details about the cockroach

infested buildings at walter reed, those details stuck at the time. they are viscerally repulsive that we ever did that as a nation. but some of the most complicated and outrageous revelations in that story from "the washington post" were actually about paperwork, were about the bureaucratic mess that we were asking hurt soldiers to deal with as they were returning home, while many of them were also in the midst of literally fighting for their lives. look, quote, the typical soldier is required to file 22 documents with eight different commands, most of them off post, to enter and the exit the medical processing world. 16 different information systems are used to process the forms, but few of them can communicate with one another. the army's three personnel databases can not read each other's files and cannot interact with the separate pay system or the medical recordkeeping databases. "the post" documented the struggles of one iraq war staff sergeant, who despite his eye patch and the visible skull implant he had due to injuries he sustained in combat in iraq,

he could not get anyone at walter reed to believe that he had actually served in iraq, because they'd lost track of him in their ridiculous system. literally, what he was trying to do was to get the military to give him a new uniform to replace the bloody one he had left behind on a medic's stretcher. but he wasn't in the system. paperwork wasn't in order. as far as the system at walter reed was concerned, hey, maybe he'd never even been in iraq. they had no record of it. that wounded soldier finally had to bring in his actual purple heart, the physical medal, as his attempt to prove that he had served in iraq and that's where he had been hurt. so he could try to get a fresh uniform to replace the one that they had cut off of him as he bled. three top officials at walter reed were fired or resigned because of that scandal coming to light, including the commander of walter reed at the time, and the guy who was supposed to replace him. president bush ape pointed a bipartisan commission to

investigate what went wrong, how to keep it from happening, and again, defense secretary bob gates, he also named an independent review panel, congress held hearings, soldiers testified. the problems at walter reed were not new to people who had been living them. they were not new to people in the military and the families that were coping with this ongoing disaster. but when "the washington post" broke that story open in 2007 and the nation was revolted by what was going on there, things did change at walter reed. in 2011, walter reed army medical center, as it had been known for more than a hundred years, it was closed by the military. they furled the flag. it was combined, ultimately, into the national naval medical center, and today that facility is known as the walter reed national medical center. it's located in bethesda maryland, about 5 1/2 miles away from the old facility in building 18. president obama today gave a major foreign policy address at west point at commencement

there. it was heavy on the details about syria and somalia and the differences between his take on fighting terrorism and the old idea of a global war on terror all over the world. it was a serious, detailed foreign policy address. this was not soaring oratory president obama, this was multi-lateralism and international sanctions to stop russian aggression in ukraine president obama. this was a working speech. but the one sustained round of cheering and applause that the president received in this speech today, it came when he told a story about a cadet who had recuperated from his war wounds at walter reed. >> three years ago, gavin white graduated from this academy. he then served in afghanistan. like the soldier who is came before him, gavin was in a

foreign land, helping people he'd never met, putting himself in harm's way for the sake of his community and his family back home. gavin lost one of his legs in an attack. i met him last year at walter reed. he was wounded, but just as determined as the day that he arrived here at west point and he developed a simple goal. today, his sister morgan will graduate. and true to his promise, gavin will be there to stand and exchange salutes with her. >> it has been more than seven years since "the washington

post" broke that story. but now, the mention of walter reed in a presidential speech, that name, that phrase, no longer conveys a sense of terrible american failure and outrage. instead, those words in context now convey, as they should, that a soldier was in a place because he was grievously wounded in wartime, but he got good care. he got state of the art care. that's what walter reed means to us today. but alongside that success, that turnaround over the past seven years, from crazy failure at walter reed to what you're able to say about walter reed today, alongside that success, that turnaround, there is still failure, still ongoing failure and still new failure. as the president spoke this morning at west point, the headlines in today's morning papers, about new allegations. this time, it's the womack army medical center at ft. bragg in north carolina. the huge base there. this is their hospital. the commander of that hospital was fired yesterday. and three top deputies were

suspended after two patients who were only in their 20s died at that facility in the past week and a half, after seeking help at womack's emergency room. one was a 29-year-old woman, mother of three young children. she died after a very routine, low-risk surgery at the facility. she had a tubal ligation. most people call it having your tubes tied. it is a relatively simple, relatively low-risk operation, but this young mother, she had that operation and then she apparently returned back to the army hospital within three hours of having the surgery, because she was feeling very sick. she knew something was wrong. and in that circumstance, if you come back to the emergency room that soon after having surgery, you should be seen by a doctor right away. you should be triaged right to the front of the line. you're just out of surgery. but instead, this young woman, reportedly, was told to sit there. she waited for about two hours without seeing anyone. ultimately, she had to go home, she had to return home to feed her youngest child. and by the next morning, the day

after that surgery, by the next morning when she did come back to womack army medical center again, the next time she came back, it had to be by ambulance, and then she died there. "the new york times" describes a second case, within a week and a half of that case, a 24-year-old active duty service member who also died after surgery at womack, and a visit to the emergency room at womack. the circumstances of his death so far are less known, but we know that he is 24 years old, he was on active duty, and he died. the defense department, as i said, has fired the commander of that hospital at ft. bragg and suspended three top deputies. defense secretary chuck hagel has ordered an immediate investigation into the military's health system. that review is expected to take 90 days. and these new revelations today out of ft. bragg and this health system that chuck hagel has now put under review, keep in mind, this is a totally separate something, a totally separate system from the ongoing stories is and scandal about the health care that our veterans receive.

the military health care system and the veterans health care system are separate systems, but this is all going on at once. when president obama last week first addressed these allegations about the v.a., about staff at v.a. health centers around the country, manipulating wait lists to make it seem like veterans were getting timely care, he said in those remarks, he gave prepared remarks and answered questions, and he said during his answering questions, that something that we've sort of been puzzling over ever since he said it. this was what the president said about reaching out immediately to veterans who were on these bogus wait lists. watch. >> what i said to rick today is, let's not wait for the report retrospectively to reach out immediately, to veterans who are currently waiting for appointments, to make sure that they are getting better service. that's something that we can initiate right now. >> that was the president speaking a week ago today.

and when he said that, that sounded like something that really wasn't about waiting. something that they were going to get right on. but no further details were released about that immediately. and we called and called, both the white house and the v.a. to get an answer about what the president might have meant when he made these comments, reaching out to veterans who are currently waiting for appointments to make sure they're getting better service. we couldn't get anyone to explain to us what the president meant at the time. but the day after the president made those comments, the v.a. said they're initiating something they're calling their accelerated care initiative. they said they're assessing the capacity that each v.a. health center has, what their capabilities are in terms of seeing patients who have been on wait lists before now, how many new appointments they can get people in on. the v.a. says it has until friday, this friday, the day after tomorrow, to finish those initial assessments. once those initial assessments are completed, the v.a. says it is going to reach out to the individual veterans who are on these wait lists. they're going to reach out up to three times to try to find them all. they're going to try to get

those veterans an appointment. if they can't get them into a v.a. facility, if they say there's no appointment available at a v.a. facility, they're planning to help arrange an appointment at private practice and they're doing this immediately. so those there are the specifics on those things that the president casually mentioned last week. now we know what he meant, because the v.a. are apparently doing it. if they are doing it, that's a piece of positive news for the v.a. as they handle this ongoing problem. they're at least doing something besides studying the matter and answering questions on it. of course, there are also multiple investigations by the white house, by the v.a. in the form of in-person audits they're doing at v.a. medical centers across the country, and by the independent inspector general for the v.a. the tentative timeline for that inspector general to finish his final report is august. but today the inspector general released an interim report, that focused mostly on the v.a. medical center in phoenix, arizona, which is where this new iteration of these allegations started, although it does address some systemic findings.

and the findings so far from the ig do both confirm the initial allegations and shed light on the scope of the problem. the v.a. inspector general says that he found that there are 1,400 veterans on the wait list in phoenix, waiting to see a primary care doctor, but there are 1,700 veterans who would also like to see a primary care doctor, but who haven't actually been put on the list. the inspector general found that the manipulation of wait lists and inappropriate scheduling practices is white spread across the v.a. health system and it is not confined to just phoenix. these veterans languishing in wait list pergtory are at risk of being forgotten or lost in the convoluted scheduling process at the phoenix v.a. following the release of this interim report today, more than 30 minutes of congress, including more than a dozen democrats, today called for the resignation of v.a. secretary, eric shinseki. and obviously some of those calls for eric shinseki's resignation carry more weight than others.

one is congressman jeff miller, head of the house veterans affairs committee. he had not previously called for general shinseki's resignation, even though he was critical of the agency during this scandal. today he called eric shinseki a good man who has served his country honorably but also who should resign immediately. he also called for eric holder to launch a criminal probe into the wait list manipulation. in the ig report today, the inspector general says where they are finding information about potentially criminal actions by members of the v.a., they are working with the department of justice on further investigations and potential criminal investigation of those instances. on the senate side, the head of the senate veterans affairs committee is senator bernie sanders. he has not yet joined in the calls that have been made by other members of congress that eric shinseki should resign. he said he's mindful of the need to fix the v.a.'s problems, but also the need to protect the

v.a. from those who have never really liked the idea of it in the first place, and who have always wanted an excuse to destroy it or dismantle it. of the veterans groups themselves, major veterans groups, only two, so far, have called for eric shinseki to resign, but veterans groups and increasingly elected officials and just human beings all around the country are increasingly mad about this. what's going to happen here next? n? actually it can. neutrogena® ultra sheer. nothing outperforms it. nothing feels cleaner. its helioplex formula provides unbeatable uva uvb protection to help prevent early skin aging and skin cancer. all with the cleanest feel. you won't believe you're wearing such powerful sun protection. it's the best for your skin. ultra sheer®. and for on-the-go, new ultra-sheer face & body stick. from neutrogena®.

the independent inspector general in the veterans affairs -- in the veterans administration today, put out an interim report on its investigation into these allegations that not only are there unbelievably terrible wait times for veterans to get served in v.a. medical centers, but more worrying, that v.a. medical center staff have been ginning up false data to make it look like the problem isn't as bad as it seems. as appendices to their report today, the inspector general, you could sort of feel the seething as you read it. appendix "c" to the inspector general's interim report today is a list of other highlights from the inspector general pointing out this same problem in the v.a., going back to 2005, nine years of inspector general -- inspectors general trying to sound the alarm that this sort of problem was happening in the v.a. that's appendix "c." appendix "d" is a list with handy hyperlinks of 18 different inspector general reports,

specifically on patient wait times, at veterans affairs. 18 different ig reports. appendix "e" is other members of the v.a. trying to sound the alarm about this problem and trying to stop it. a memorandum that went out systemwide in april of 2010. appendix "f" is a list of 16 different times the v.a. inspector general has testified on this problem, of v.a. wait times and the way they schedule appointments and the way they manage the data about whether or not people are getting into the v.a. 16 different times, that inspector general has testified to congress, just since, oh, 2007. you can feel the anger, not only that this is still happening, but that it has been going on for this long, that it has been something that people have been sounding off about, for a decade, but now we're deciding that this is the scandal we have to deal with, because we're absolutely shocked it's happening. joining us now, paul rykoff, good to have you back. >> my pleasure.

>> so what happens next? >> that's the big question. looks like there might be a house cleaning. we need massive congressional reform. we need congress to pass the v.a. accountability act. but let's take a big step back here. this is not new. we've been hearing about this for year after year after year. and it seems like nobody cares. veterans have been sounding the alarm, the ig has been sounding the alarm, and if you weren't outraged years ago, you weren't pay attention. this goes bigger than the president. we've got a senate veterans affair committee that has no veterans on it. you have bernie sanders later, he's been an apologist for the v.a. so what you continue o to see, everyone has failed us here. they have all failed america's veterans. and they haven't been listening to us for years. so i'm glad the country is finally paying attention. we just wonder what the hell took so long. >> has there been anybody in v.a. or in the administration

who has both appreciated the problem and tried to make it better. you work on this on a day-to-day basis, this is your life to try to make things better for veterans. is there anyone who have been doing it right, if the people in charge aren't doing it right? >> i think chairman miller has been very aggressive in oversight. he's been sounding the alarm. i think speaker pelosi has been aggressive for year after year after year on these issues. and obviously the veterans groups have been pounding away. but it doesn't seem like america is paying attention or america cared. so i think we've been trying to sound the alarm. now that everyone hears it, what do we do? mr. president, are you going to answer this call or not? this is a defining moment of his presidency. this is a defining moment in american history. are the american people going to step up and support our veterans or not? that's the bottom line here, because this is not new. now you'll have the finger pointing in washington. now you'll have people calling for heads, and that's a step, but there is so much more here. you touched on d.o.d. and now the ig is looking at 42 cities. there may be 42 more phoenixes

out there in the days, months, maybe even years to come. that's how far this goes. >> in terms of the scope of the problem, one of the things that i think made this ig report a real mark of seriousness today is when the ig said, yes, we can confirm that these allegations are accurate. that this is the sort of thing that happened. but this is not a phoenix problem. this is a system problem. the v.a. has a system problem. and the v.a. has had this specific system problem that's manifested in slightly different ways over the past decade. so whatever they've -- they've known about the problem, have been trying to fix it, they haven't fixed it. who do they need to do differently than all the other flubbed fixes? >> i don't even know if they've acknowledged this problem. how many times has secretary shinseki been before congress and not sounded the alarm, we've known about this because we've been reading ig reports. has the secretary not been reading these reports? has the white house not been reading these reports. we need to remove the entrenched bureaucracy. i think they've mismanaged the

amount of funding they have, but i think they've also mischaracterized how much they'll need in the future. there's been a total failure across the board, and it's been that way for year after year after year. i'm almost exasperated. they need to understand, this isn't going to be over in a week. this could go on for years. and we need to finally make veterans issues a top priority for everyone. >> do you feel whether or not the focus on whether or not eric shinseki should resign puts a horizon on this problem, that if he does resign, then people will be like -- >> that's exactly what we're concerned about. even if he stays or goes, there's still much more to be done. we need to be able to empower the new v.a. secretary to fire people, to be able to focus people on quality and not quantity. we need to also try to celebrate and elevate the good v.a. employees. there are a lot of them out there, who feel failed by this bureaucracy and are reaching out to us every single day. i hear from people in the last couple of weeks across the

country, that this is the way we've been taught to do this. we've been taught to cook the books. >> that's the systemic nature. >> that's how far it goes. >> paul rieckhoff, thank you. >> joining us now, senator bernie sanders of vermont. senator sanders, thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> thank you. i want to ask you to respond to paul's criticism, saying that essentially you've been apologist for the v.a. in your role on the senate veterans committee. i want to ask your reaction for that comment from him? >> needless to say, i don't quite agree. a few months ago, i brought forth what was widely to be believed the most comprehensive veterans legislation to improve the lives of the veterans of this country, in terms of health care, employment, education, advanced appropriations, and many other areas, have the support of every veterans organization in the country, including mr. rieckhoff's organization.

unfortunately, we were only able to get two republican votes to support that. rachel, look. the allegation -- the report that came out today is enormously serious. it is beyond belief and unacceptable that anybody is manipulating data. those people must be punished. but we also must be pointed out, and what took place at a hearing that i held a week ago thursday, and this is extremely important, is that we not throw the baby out with the bathwater. what every veteran's organization testified to when asked by many, whether or not v.a. health care is good, what they said, it is good to excellent. the problem that we are having now is having to do with access. and that has a lot to do with the fact that in the last four to five years, 4 million new

veterans have come into the v.a. health care system. because they perceive it to be a good system. and in my view, there are areas of the country, of the southwest, phoenix, the south, other areas that have experienced a huge increase of new veterans, of older veterans, of the vietnam war era, and the crises that the v.a. has not stood up and said, you know what, we need more resources to take care of veterans if we're going to provide them with quality health care in a timely manner. something that every veteran in this country deserves and must receive. >> let me ask you about one specific element in the inspector general's interim report today. which i found sort of blood curdling. and it was about 1,700 veterans at phoenix, who are not on the list. who are not on the wait list. and what the inspector general's

interim report says that as a direct consequence of not appropriately putting veterans on the wait list, phoenix leadership significantly understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointments. and they did in their performance appraisal accomplishments, which is one of the factors considered for awards and salary increases. so at their meetings where they're negotiating essentially their own bonuses and the basis of their own bonuses, that's when these numbers came into play in terms of what was real versus what these veterans lived experience was. thereafter, the inspector general notes they will be looking into potential criminal allegations, if they find them and working with the department of justice. >> and the u.s. attorney is now working with them on that. rachel, again, what i think the point is, is that if they did not have the resources, the doctors, the nurses, the other staff needed to take care of veterans within the very ambitious goal set by the v.a.,

which was 14 days, that is better, by and large, by the private sector. what they should have done is run the flag up the pole and made it very, very clear, we do not have the resources. and instead, what you had is people manipulating data, which is completely unacceptable. the other point that i would make, and i'm chairman of a subcommittee that deals with primary care, if you think we only have a problem in terms of waiting periods, within the v.a., you would not be right. we have tens of millions of people today in america who were not in the v.a., who cannot access primary health care. we have in cities all over america, very long waiting periods of time. and that is because we lack sufficient numbers of primary health care physicians and nurses, all over this country. and we have got to make a real commitment. because what the experts tell us, we need 50,000 new doctors within the next ten years alone.

last point that i want to make. and again, i want to put this into context. you mentioned the tragedy that took place in the d.o.d. facility, where two people died recently. i don't know if you're aware of this, but there was a study that came out a year ago, just on that issue. for america as a whole. and what the study showed is that between, and no one refuted this, between 200 and 400,000 people a year, this is not within military hospitals or the v.a., are die rg from medical errors in our hospitals. what's my point? my point is that as a nation, we have serious health care issues. we have problems within the v.a. that must be addressed, because when men and women put their lives on the line to defend this country, they are entitled to the best care in a timely way. but anyone who thinks that we can just, you know, make a quick brief statement or hold a press conference and solve the problem is wrong. we need far more doctors in this country, we need to get them into the v.a. as quickly as

possible, and we need to guarantee veterans the best quality health care that we can provide. >> yes, i agree with you on point, and there is also something special about the v.a. which is that we have made an explicit commitment. the united states government is the provider of record to those people, so we are both writing the check and expected to cash it. and if the problem here is not just the same sort of medical errors and the same sort of problems that happen in other health care, but a systemic effort to cover up bad care that is being delivered, a systemic effort to lie about the way that veterans are being treated, that is a problem that is beyond health care. that's a political problem. >> that is, rachel, a huge problem that has got to be addressed, that has got to be addressed immediately. >> senator bernie sanders of vermont, chairman of the veterans affairs committee, sir, thank you very much for your time tonight. >> all right. >> we've got much more ahead tonight. we'll be right back. da( ???? 

if it's wednesday, that means it's time for another member of congress to run away from dana bash at cnn. run away, run away! here she comes. >> at this point, cochran is trying to avoid unforced errors, going to head-scratching extremes to avoid talking to us. we tried to catch cochran after this event, but when an aide came out and saw us, they did a bait and switch. the car they told us cochran was getting in screeched away without him, while he snuck out another door to a different car, leaving reporters like us in the dust. >> cnn reporter dana bash can do that to anyone, apparently. but the latest member of congress to run away from her as she chased them is republican senator thad cochran of mississippi. mr. cochran has a primary challenge next week in

mississippi to try to hold on to the senate seat he's had for 35 years, but that primary has featured with a leading paper in the state is calling, quote, one of the dirtiest tricks in state political history. it's also led to one of the creepiest political scandals anywhere in years and that story is next. [ julie ] the wrinkle cream graveyard. if it doesn't work fast... you're on to the next thing. clinically proven neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair. it targets fine lines and wrinkles with the fastest retinol formula available. you'll see younger looking skin in just one week. one week? this one's a keeper.

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just about the first thing anyone knew about chris mcdaniel, from the week he announced his tea party run in mississippi, is that he had a history of spending time at reenact the confederacy events, hosted by groups who would like to see the south rise again. so chris mcdaniel, neoconfederate tea party guy, he was challenging thad cochran in the republican primary. and the first thing people learned about him was the neo confederate stuff. and then they learned that he had left an awful lot of audio tape laying around in his past. >> so help me, i'll take it a step further. let me just get crazed with it. if they pass reparations and my taxes go up, i ain't paying taxes. do you have a sister. how do you say that in spanish,

jeremy? como esta a seniorita. the reason canada is breaking out with brand-new gun violence has nothing to do with united states and guns, it has everything to do with a culture that is morally bankrupt. what kind of culture is that? it's called hip hop. you're listening to right side radio. >> you're listening to chris mcdaniel, state lawmaker in mississippi, and right wing shock jock talk radio guy. so number one, neoconfederate. number two, right wing talk radio. and now, the tea party challenger in this republican senate primary in mississippi is known for something new. because chris mcdaniel is now mired in the single most tawdry, with tangled scandal of the 2014 elections, at least so far. a couple of weeks ago, a hair on

fire conservative website published this purported expose about senator thad cochran. quote, thad cochran's executive assistant accompanied him to 42 countries on 33 taxpayer-funded trips. well, the next day, the biggest newspaper in mississippi, the jackson clarion ledger, they wrote that senator cochran was defending his travel with that staffer as essentially normal senate travel. but three days after that report appeared in the local paper in mississippi, police in mississippi arrested a local conservative blogger and charged him with sneaking into the nursing home where senator cochran's wife has lived for the past several years. they accused that blogger of taking pictures of mrs. cochran in the nursing home without her permission. for some sort of sting video against senator cochran. the arrested blogger goes by the name, constitutional clayton. he doesn't seem like your usual political mastermind. for example, on his constitutional clayton youtube channel, you can find a clip labeled, army gun boats operating in louisiana, spelled

with two ns. the caption, as you can see there reads, are they preparing for operations inside of america? his wife says he had been put up for the stunt by mysterious people on the interwebs. but the blogger's wife is not the only one who thought other people had to be involved in this weird and gloss scandal. the next week, police in mississippi arrested two more suspects in the case. one of them is a high school soccer coach from chris mcdaniel's home county in mississippi. the other is a tea party leader in mississippi and a regular volunteer for the chris mcdaniel campaign. but then the day those two new suspects appeared in court, officials announced that they were charging yet another person in the case as well. and this person was a real mystery. his name, his almost ungoogleable name was john mary. he had a tea party booster of the chris mcdaniel's campaign. mystery man, at first nobody

seemed to know who he was, why he'd been arrested, why he'd be connected to this case. but then, oh, look, there he is, shaking hands with chris mcdaniel at a tea party meetup in hattiesburg. and look at the caption. he is chris mcdaniel's sometime radio cohost, with a special name he only uses on the radio, john butter. that connection was first made by a website called practical politicking. well, today investigators say they believe that chris mcdaniel's radio co-host was kind of the hub of the whole thing. he was at the center of the alleged tawdry nursing home sting video scheme. they say he was the one who was in touch with all the other suspects who had been arrested. as this scandal has unfolded, day after day, in mississippi, as we get closer to next week's primary, both of the campaigns have insisted they had nothing to do with what happened in the nursing home. chris mcdaniel insisted that first of all. how dare you try to tie me to this.

but so far, one of his leading tea party boosters has been arrested and charged in the case, this story is right up next to chris mcdaniel. senator cochran has been running ads that link his challenger to this disgusting scandal. but senator cochran is also avoiding reporters' questions about it. one of these candidates is going to win this muddy, muddy mess of a republican primary on tuesday, and then will go on to face the democrat in november, a former congressman named travis childress. the tea party started out with a real chance. they thought this was maybe their best chance in the country, not just to unseat the incumbent in a primary, but to go on to win the senate race in the fall. mississippi leans republican enough that that was a real possibility. this is the tea party's best chance of picking off a normal republican. well, the primary happens on tuesday. after all of this, is a tea

party victory still possible in this primary and what happens to the big race in november because of out? joining us now is sam hall, political columnist for the clarion ledger newspaper in jackson, mississippi. mr. hall, thank you very much for joining us. it's good to have you here. >> good to be here. >> so one of the things that's been interesting to watch with this saga is the way it has sort of unfolded slowly. little details leaking out, drips and drabs, something new every day. should we read something into that? is this being sort of professionally presented as a political op, or is it just the circumstances of the way this story has been sourced? >> well, that's mcdaniel's chief complaint about this. the cochran campaign has said that they learned about it the day the video was put up, which was about three weeks before they went to the police and the arrests were made. the timeline they gave is, we learned about it, we researched it, we took it to the senator, the senator talked with his attorneys about it, to figure out which was the best venue, and then we went to the city of

madison with it. they investigated, made an arrest, and that's the story. so i don't know if that takes three weeks or not, but mcdaniel and his supporters really hitting hard the fact that, hey, they sandbagged this so it would come out two weeks before the election. >> well, is this scandal having a palpable political effect? i mean, is it advancing either candidate? is it driving up interest in the primary election, driving turnout potentially up or down? is there any way to tell how voters are responding? >> well, i think it's really energizing mcdaniel's base, which could be, you know, an unintended consequence of cochran's ads as as well. i've seen more out of them. they seem more intense. and they seem more engaged than they've been in the last few weeks. it's real personal. and they're genuinely angry at cochran and his team and they blame them for mcdaniel being called up in it.

the other side, the ads that cochran has out running, they have to be effective. they are very straightforward and they lean mcdaniel directly to the scandal. not saying he was involved with it, but linking him to each one of the players in it. >> in terms of how this happens and how this goes forward to november, depending on who wins next week, does this necessarily -- i mean, what it feels like is it makes sort of the republican primary seem like a very salacious place to be winning your way on to the ballot at this point. does it in some ways does it end up helping travis childers no matter who wins tuesday? >> probably a little built. conventional wisdom was if he wins the primary he wins the general. if mcdaniel wins the primary, it is a fight. but mcdaniel is favored. i think that still holds true. but i think it really gives a

lot more for democrats and the national left to take a looking at mississippi and say, "you know what, we have got a harder map to defend the senate. do we want to spend a little money in mississippi." half a million dollars in mississippi goes a long way. we have cheap media markets compared to other states. i can see them getting involved to see if he can get a foothold. i still think if cochran wins, he, he wins the general. it will just be a little bit uglier perhaps. i think he is the favorite. he has the baggage that childers and others will pound on him with. >> sam hall of the clarion ledger newspaper in jackson, mississippi. thank you for helping us understand. the story seems to change a little bit every day. thank you for helping us. >> of it does. thanks. >> we have much more ahead. stay with us tonight.

>> there is big news tomorrow out of the great state of texas. coming up next, we are basically going to set your news alarm clock. so you know how and when that is likely to go off. and that story is next. neutrogena® ultra sheer. nothing outperforms it. nothing feels cleaner. its helioplex formula provides unbeatable uva uvb protection to help prevent early skin aging and skin cancer.

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moratorium on killing prisoners for the past month. today they made that official in the state of ohio. a federal judge called off the next two killings schedule ford ohio in july and august. those executions cannot be rescheduled the judge says until he is satisfied that the state knows what it is doing with whatever the plan will be for how they want to kill the two men. i'm not sure when somebody rings the bell to let the beltway know that a national story is happening. but there is a remarkable national story happening now on the death penalty. and tomorrow, keep an eye on texas. this its the attorney general in texas. greg abbott, running for governor against wendy davis, you might know. right now the texas state attorney general. greg abbott's office in texas repeatedly ruled the open public records law means the state has to disclose how texas kills its prisoners. the drugs they use. where the drugs come from, et cetera. texas like other states has had trouble getting the drugs that

it wants to use for executions because the companies that sell the drugs don't want them used in executions. the texas prison system is therefore turned to compounding pharmacies to make them batches of drugs. the texas prison system is being sued by death row prisoners who wants to know who is making the drugs, how they're being made. tomorrow, the office will give the ruling on whether or not the prison system is allowed to keep secret about the drugs or tell the public in the past. but also, in the past year, greg abbott has taken huge donations from a guy who runs pacs. gave abbott quarter million in january, $350,000 from the compounding pharmacy gift. the recipient of the $350,000, texas ag greg abbott is expected tomorrow to make the decision

about whether that wish of theirs is going to be granted or whether the public has a right to know. watch this space. set your news alarm clock tomorrow. alarm clock for that one tomorrow. "first look" is up next. good thursday morning. right now on "first look," nbc news exclusive, edward snowden talks only to brian williams about 9/11, espionage and believing that he is a patriot. >> being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen. >> that and much more in this revealing interview. scathing report. the inspector general's v.a. report is damning. embattled secretary shinseki. plus maya angelou.