>> system failure, a report of widespread misconduct to hide long delays for veterans ats va hospitals across the country, leading to a bipartisan call now for eric shinseki to fall on his sword. >> it's time for secretary shinseki to step down. and if secretary shinseki does not step down voluntarily, then i call on the president of the united states to relief him of his duties, to fire him. >> collision course, today's white house summit tackles the growing risks of head injuries in young athletes, a serious concern that hits close to home for all parents, including president obama. >> sports are important to our life as a family, jst like they are for families all across the country. the reason we're here today though is all across the country, parents are also having more troubling conversation and that's about the risks of

concussions. >> and good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. edward snowden, out of the shadows. the man responsible for the largest intelligence theft in our nation's history, giving his side of the story to brian williams, covering his actions and life in russia and 9/11 and even the smartphones we all carry every day. >> until now, it was largely theoretical for most americans but edward snowden's claims made the government's extensive capability very real. >> people at nsa analysts can actually watch people's internet communications, watch them draft correspondence and watch their thoughts form as they type. >> the law says targeting individuals for surveillance

requires a secret court order. in practice, snowden claims that doesn't work. >> the problem is that the capabilities themselves are unregulated, uncontrolled and dangerous. >> i want to ask you about this device. what can the nsa do with this device if they wanted to get into my life? >> they can turn it into a microphone. they can take pictures from it. they can take the data off of it. that's pretty scary. >> it was 9/11, the event that forever changed government surveillance that snowden said also changed him. >> i remember hearing on the radio the planes hit and remember thinking my grandfather, who worked for the fbi at the time, was in the pentagon when the plane hit it. >> he enlisted in the army special forces, washed out, joined the cia and became an nsa contractor and became disillusioned over the false case for wmd for iraq then his concerns about privacy. driving him to what he calls civil diso beadance, others call it treason.

>> a lot of people would say you have badly damaged your country. >> if after a year they can't show a single individual harmed in any way by this reporting, is it really so grave? >> when the president and others have made the point that you should have gone through channels -- >> i actually did go through channels and that is documented. the nsa has records, they have copies of e-mails right now to their office of general counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks, from me, raising concerns about the ns a's interpretations of its legal authorities. >> nbc news confirmed snowden did send one e-mail to nsa lawyers but officials say he wasn't sounding alarms. >> the response more or less was you should stop asking questions. >> what about suggestions snowden is now spying for russia? he denied it saying he didn't even bring any documents into

the country. >> have you met putin? have you spoken with putin? >> i've never met the russian president. i'm not supported by the russian government, not taking money from the russian government. i'm not a spy, which is the real question. >> what do you miss about home? >> i miss my family. i miss my home. i miss my colleagues. i miss the work. >> edward snowden with brian williams, joining me now, chuck todd, nbc justice correspondent pete williams, and msnbc national security analyst michael leiter. pete, first to you, he's clearly saying i want to come home, negotiate with me, make me a deal. what kind of deal if anything would eric holder and the justice department be willing to offer to edward snowden? >> well, they made it pretty clear that what snowden really wants, come home, all is

forgiven, clem enltcy is not going to happen. so what really is the question here is, does he have enough to offer the government in exchange for some kind of reduced sentence? the three statutes he's charged with carry a maximum each of ten years in prison. not clear whether the sentences would be concurrent or consecutive but he could be facing that at the minimum, five or ten years in prison. the question is what he'll say, i can give a full accounting of what i did but doesn't retain the documents himself. and often times in these cases if somebody can give the documents back, that helps. he turned them over to journalists and could say, i'll ask them to give them back but can't bind them to that promise. that is a bit of a problem for him. we're told that no serious bargaining has started, that the two sides have had some initial conversations but sort of -- how do we reach you kind of conversations, nothing of substance. >> michael leiter, he says he

hasn't caused damage, there's no military secrets that he released. there may be military secrets that were given to journalists in terms of what he scraped up. what is the reality here? >> i think he's being very simplicity. not a single individual has been harmed, there are sources of collection that have clearly been lost because of what he's disclosed. two quick examples, how the syrian military communicates, he disclosed that and reporters disclosed that and that makes it harder for us to know what's going on in serious and defuse that conflict. he disclosed who we work with on those problems. that can't happen adds effectively anymore. can i name a single individual harmed by that? no, but that certainly does not mean there's not really serious and potentially grave national harm. >> chuck, the white house watching this interview, looking at edward snowden, seeing the

man behind the mystery, what was their reaction? >> well, it's been very -- i told you yesterday and you've experienced this, nothing has really changed in their view. there's an anger that's buried underneath particularly among the national security folks at him personally because of all of the harm that they've experienced as far as the reputation of the united states in europe when they are doing deals back and forth. as far as the -- as far as what they want to see, nothing has changed their opinion. you know, you do see this sort of small little opening of saying, clem enscy is out of the question but they don't say he has to face the music and face the maximum charges. it does seem as if they want to present publicly the illusion they will have a conversation, not as much public opinion nationally, but what snowden has

which potentially helps him in any sort of let's make a deal game, he has supporters on capitol hill. they support the idea that he started the conversation. so he's got sympathy there that gives him public support, which is what he's going to need in some form if he's going to get the government to the table. >> he raised a number of legal issues with brian williams, pete. he said the fourth amendment is base he c basically shredded and doesn't have whistleblower protection as a contractor as he would as a employee. we can sort of understand that. but he also said he tried to sound alarms. that there's a paper trail of e-mails to his superiors, to the office of general counsel, and that he tried and that he was warned that if he kept making noise, they would quote, destroy him. >> the legal experts say he's wrong as a technical matter but

right as to what protection the law would have given him. as a contractor of the nsa, he was covered by the intelligence community whistle blower protection act, but that act provides no protection against reprisal against someone who does speak out as -- unlike other whistle blower protections for other government employees. yes, he had protection but the law doesn't give much protection. what it says if you got a problem, you go to the inspector general. if you don't like what the inspector general says, then you can go to congress but you have to notify your bosses of what you're doing. if you do, you still don't get protection from reprisal. it was just kind of a nonentity. >> and we did get confirmation from multiple sources from one e-mail and this was described variously and not a major you're breaking the law and violating the constitution as he would lead you to believe and not multiple e-mails. it could be the case and this is what we're being told also, that

no one is 100% sure that the nsa turn the over everything or even ha their arms around everything in this case. finally, he made a big deal about the capability, the cell phone, watching in rereal time. it was very graphic when he told it. >> absolutely. >> but there's a difference between having the capability of doing that and actually targeting inappropriate people, people not approved by the fisa court, legitimate targets? >> these are powerful tools and u.s. government and other governments have an incredible ability to identify individuals and know what they are doing. just being able to doesn't mean it was done. and sometimes it is done against u.s. persons and when it's done against u.s. persons there is a degree of oversight. now he says unregulated, uncontrolled. the fact is, it may not be controlled or regulated to the extent it should be, and certainly not the extent he believes but the idea is not

unregulated completely, it's just false. fisa court has been involved and review occurs. so can it be more transparent, can we have better oversight? yes. >> chuck, i know you've got to go to the briefing and prepare for all of that. what about the fact that he has so -- you alluded to the fact that he's angered people. he's angered them because the revelation about merkel's cell phone and spying on foreign governments has put the president and secretary of state and very definitely on defense whenever they go abroad. >> reporter: right, they are made because they've been embarrassed, right? what the white house and national security folks will argue privately is that okay, yes, we got caught doing this or it's been exposed. they are doing it to us too but we're somehow -- we've lost the high ground. so that's where i think a little bit of this embarrassment comes

in. politically and this has been a criticism this white house has gotten from sympathetic former obama folks who say the president never had the political conversation with the country, never had -- he had an opportunity there last summer, has had opportunities last fall and this conversation has been in fits and starts. you wonder, is this yet one more opportunity? does he try to figure out how to be more transparent about having an adult conversation with the public about what is this line of security versus privacy? that's still something that i think that that's why he's in this political bind a little bit that he's been in. and why snowden still is the threat of all of the problems he had in 2013, the thread that did the most unraveling. >> chuck todd and pete williams and michael leiter, our dream team, thank you so much on a very important story. joining me with reaction from moscow, nbc chief foreign correspondent richard engel. he says he has no relationship with russia's government, that

he's never met vladimir putin. how does he exist as high profile as he is being granted temporary asylum which runs out the end of july, beginning of august, without a relationship, whether he knows it or not, with the fsb equivalent of our intelligence services? >> reporter: that's a very good question. one he did not answer. a lot of people we've been speaking to in russia over the last several days since the interview took place was what do they think about snowden being here? and just as a lot of americans were baffled that edward snowden would end up in russia, he says he didn't want to come here but he is here because this is hardly a place where free speech is tolerated and hardly a place where no surveillance took place. a lot of russian journalists said it actually hurts his case tremendously being here because every time he tries to speak out about what the united states is

doing, he's doing it under the protective wing of a government that for the last year in particular has gotten more and more repressive of its own freedom of expression. today after the interview, there hasn't been a great deal of reaction. the russian newspapers and television stations have been mentioning the interview. they've been playing it pretty straight reporting on the same kind of headlines that other news organizations have, with one slight difference. the russians like to take a little dig at the u.s. and like to say, if the u.s. security services are that good, why did they let him end up in russia? how did they let him get away? they say they should never have taken his passport away while snowden was in moscow giving him very few options to leave. they shouldn't have downed or forced to land the wrong planes and shouldn't have intimidated other people to not cooperate

and take him in. vladimir putin himself has said it was poor intelligence work, that they should have played it more cool. the united states should have allowed him to get on a plane an transit out of moscow and arrest him somewhere else. other than that little dig, generally here the coverage has been pretty straight. >> switching gears because moscow is so directly involved in everything that's happening in ukraine, particularly in eastern ukraine, there's this horrible shooting down of the helicopter, 14 ukrainian soldiers killed today. any claim of responsibility? what do we know about that? >> reporter: we are hearing from the ukrainian government that a military helicopter was flying over slovansk, that is effectively occupied by the pro-russian militias.

inside there's a medium size city, there's a lot of checkpoints and buildings occupied by these well armed pro-russian militias and they used a portable anti-aircraft rocket to shoot down this ukrainian military helicopter, killing 14 people, including a senior army general. so this is the kind of thing that could lead to more response, more reprisals and we're starting to see what could be not just a civil strive on the ground with molotov cocktails but a still escalating military conflict. >> troubling indeed. thanks, richard engel in moscow. from moscow to viewers in ellie cot city, his interview sparked a wide range of reactions. >> i don't agree with him breaking the law to do things he

did, even though he firmly -- it seems as though he firmly believed they were correct and they were right. >> his approach, i was not expecting that. it was a calm demeanor, almost you could trust him, he was trust worthy when he was talking. >> i'm not going to call him a traitor, he's by no means a patriot to me. what he did was wrong. >> using #patriot or #traitor, 60% tweeted they think he is a patriot. we ask you to continue to weigh in. here's a example of your thoughts. confused and narcicisstic but not necessarily a traitor. ann marie, traitor, he should make his case here, he infuriates me. and definitely not a traitor, but should have been more discreet about what he choose to release. we want to know. join us on twitter at mitchell

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today there are growing calls from republicans and democratic senators to resign after the devastating inspector general's report confirming allegations fz wrong doing at the va hospital in phoenix. at least 1700 veterans waiting to see a doctor were never placed on a waiting list, putting them at risk being lost or forgotten. 226 veterans waited an average 115 days for their first primary care appointment, that's much higher than the 24-day average initially reported. tom rarantino, chief policy officer for iraq and afghanistan

veterans and speaking today at the justice for vets conference. your organization was in the forefront, uncovering this, worrying all of us, telling us there was a real problem here. so far you were right. >> well, andrea, this is what our members have been telling us for years, not just our members, but what the vaig as well as the gao has been telling us for years. the difference is this is finally a point where the american people are paying attention. we actually have a chance to get real reform at the va and get veterans the care they deserve. >> general shinseki according to our own kristen welker has been on probation with the president and his team since this all broke. there's a meeting this afternoon. are you getting the sense that anything is imminent? >> we're not sure. i'm hopeful we'll be hearing some action coming out of the va this afternoon in washington. what we really have to focus on

is not necessarily making heads roll but how we're going to fix the problem. is -- is an announcement out of the white house part of fixing the problem? i'm not sure about that. we're talking to our membership about it. but what is absolutely important is we don't let that distract from the actual problem, whatever solution comes out of this, we have to make sure it is comprehensive and it actually fixes the problems in the va health care system. the worst thing that can happen if we take our eye off the ball and once again ignore this health care system and have veterans again start not getting care they deserve. >> now, there were five senators and five democratic senators calling for him to be ousted and john warner -- mark warner has also joined those democrats. now you've got six democratic senators, that's a critical mass really, that many of them on key committees. so if you don't replace the va secretary, what do you do? what actions do you guys want to see? >> first of all, we have to kind

of start at the beginning. we've got to fully fund the va and make sure that the health care system that the managers within the health care system are held accountable and make sure the appointment system actually works. and this isn't rocket science. we haven't cracked medical appointment technology last week. this is not new stuff. we have to make sure that the recommendations that go all the way back are being put in place so we have a modern 21st century health care system. this is what our members have been asking for and what the va so far has not been able to deliver. >> tom tarantino, thanks for being with us today. >> thank you, andrea. >> another set back in the search for the missing malaysia flight 370 that disappeared nearly three months ago. australian search coordinators announced they have finished searching the area where they originally thought they detected pings that could have come from the black boxes. the navy bluefin 21 combed 330 square miles of ocean floor but

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(laughs) it's more than just a meal, it's meow mix mealtime. with wholesome ingredients and irresistible taste, no wonder it's the only one cats ask for by name. when the president and others have made the point that you should have gone through channels, become a whistle blower and not pursued the route you did, what's your response? >> i actually did go through channels and that is documented. the nsa has records. they have copies of e-mails right now to their office of general counsel, to their oversight and compliance folks, from me raising concerns about the nsa's interpretation of its legal authorities. now, i had raised these complaints not just officially, in writing through e-mail, to these offices and these

individuals, but to my supervisors, to my colleagues, in more than one office. >> and that was edward snowden claiming that he had attempted to raise the red flag within the nsa before leaking those documents to the world. nbc has confirmed with multiple forces snowden did indeed send at least one e-mail to the general counsel's office raising policy and legal questions but officials say he wasn't sounding alarms. nbc news filed a freedom of information request for that and any other records to be continued. i'm joined by jerry bash and also served as chief of staff to jane harmon, current director of the wilson center. you're both very good lawyers. let me ask you, first, jane, we know of one e-mail but officials are telling us from the white house and hill, they can't be 100% sure that the nsa is sharing everything, that speaks to the lack of credibility of nsa officials on this point.

>> i think they should declassify that e-mail. in 2002 i was briefed on the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the cia general counsel and wrote a letter and it was subsequently declassified and it expresses my concerns about whether there was policy review of these techniques by the white house and it suggests that they not destroy videotapes which of course we learned later were destroyed. and i'm proud i put that in writing. if snowden actually did this, i think the nsa should share it with the rest of us. >> let me play a little bit more about snowden and what he had said about the government operating in secrecy. >> the government has decided without anybody in congress without not anybody but without the body of representatives in congress knowing that all of the

data can be collected without any suspicion of wrong doing on our part or underlying justification. >> jeremy, you know the law and helped write the law. >> it's a complete distortion. in 2007 and 2008, congress had a tremendously robust debate on whether and how to amend fisa, the legislation, the bill that allows us to go to a fisa court and that was voted on many times and amended and signed into law. it was an open debate on the house of representatives in the senate about how to use -- go after foreign targets when they are communicating using american internet service provides. we passed a law. it's been operating. and this goes to the issue of whistle blowing, which is what would he whistle blow about? there was no illegality here. everything he has pointed to is authorized by law. >> what he's also saying it is so pervasive and invasive that

somebody had to blow the whistle because our privacy, all americans, being vit lated, that people are being targeted -- >> they are not being targeted. the collection of so-called metadata, which is just numbers on a sheet of paper, is quite vast and congress is acting now to move it out of the government -- >> and two panels have said it's illegal. >> they've said that the legal basis -- i know of one panel, but i was involved in congress in august of these debates. we both were, and fisa, the foreign intelligence surveillance act was passed in the '70s to correct the abuses of the nixon administration and system under fisa, there is federal court review of what the program is and then congressional oversight. that has occurred here and there's not one shred of evidence that the metadata has been abused, not one, zip. >> the first document he disclosed was an order to verizon for phone records as

congress harmon pointed out, that's the only thing -- 1.7 million other documents about the chinese military, about the north korean missile still and leadership intention and syrian regime and al qaeda. what does that have to do with american's fourth amendment privacy and civil liberties? absolutely nothing. everything he revealed was about our adversaries. for him to say i'm a patriot, no, he could have just raised that one issue and said i believe that one piece of the patriot act is being misinterpreted and then stopped. i think if he had done that, stood in the public square in america, i think people would give him a little more leniency. >> the president now has said it went too far and asked for changes. >> on that one issue. >> the house was voted -- >> on the other 1.7 million documents, no, snowden has not revealed anything that has to do with your privacy or congresswoman harmon's civil liberties. >> there is another point, the

bush administration after 9/11 did start new programs in secret under the president's commander in chief authorities. i was not aware of that. i was the ranking member on the house intelligence committee -- so-called -- >> you should have been aware of it. >> the briefings kept saying we strictly comply with law. i can't reveal anything more about that. >> basically saying trust us. >> but it was department of justice law, it wasn't the foreign intelligence surveillance act. as soon as that program leaked and it was -- and president bush declassified what we were doing, congress acted swiftly to bring it fully under the foreign intelligence surveillance act. to have the debate we could have had had a few years earlier in the administration had handled it differently. >> it is frustrating to intelligence officials, as snowden gets an hour on prime time and gets to say outlandish things, our officials at the white house -- >> they have had plenty of opportunity. there is no reason why they cannot come on. they don't want to engage in this debate.

some of the president's own advisers are saying to us, chuck todd and me, he missed the opportunity last summer when this blew up and let his critics and intelligence community's critics take the initiative. did not have good spokespeople on the hill -- >> they are not going to come on and explain chinese spying -- >> they can come on and make the defenses that you did. just briefly, jeremy, should the nsa put everything out that all communications with edward snowden and respond to his claim that he was a whistle blower and tried and couldn't move the system, therefore had to do something illegal? >> i agree. i would like to see that correspondence. it should be open for people to review to see what he did raise. i'll bet it showed he made some claims about programs that he didn't agree with, not that they were illegal but he didn't agree with. it's hard for an agency to deal with that. that does not give him the right to flee to china and ultimately

to moscow and unveel all of our nation's secrets. >> should he get a plea bargain. >> i doubt he'll be exonerated. just a final comment on this guy because he says i'm not a spy. i watched that interview as i think many, many people did. he was a technician, that's all he was. he was not an analyst. no, he wasn't any kind of senior employee and what he did by taking our technology playbook way beyond the issue he was so upset about has damaged the security of the united states. >> jane harmon, jeremy bash, thank you very much. in a touching tribute to six classmates killed last friday in the deadly rampage, 2,000 students took to water for a ritual called a paddle out. on surf boards and rafts, ventured into the pacific ocean forming a circle splashing and chanting. participants said it helped clear their mind of stress and anger brought on by the deadly

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we've got to have better research and data and protocols and every parent and coach and teacher recognize the signs of concussions and need more athletes to understand how important it is to do what we can to prevent injuries and change a culture that says you suck it up. >> the white house is sounding alarms about brain related injuries for athletes. president obama spoke moments ago, the first white house summit on sports safety for kids. according to the white house, 250,000 young athletes a year end up in the emergency room with brain related injuries. bob costas joins me by phone. thanks so much. this is such a growing problem and growing awareness of the problem. it's not just football but football comes to mind. >> yeah, football comes to mind

and that's what's going to bring the most folk u. the recent revelations about the extreme dangers of football and the lingering effects sometimes tragic of those who played football throughout their lives and into the national football league is what brought these other issues into focus, girls soccer and even cheerleader which has excessive risks attached to it, the way cheerleading is carried out today. a lot of damage that occurs to young athletes when brains are still developing is actually the research tells us even more detrimental than similar head trauma later on. >> and in fact on our last nbc news/wall street journal poll, people are asked are you concerned about concussions for your youngster? 40% said yes. 57% said no. four in ten parents are concerned and also thinking they would not want their kids to play football, that they would

want them to play some other sport. >> four years ago, andrea, i xtd commissioner roger goodell on the air what he would say to the parents of an athletically gifted 13 or 14-year-old boy who said we're lifelong football fans and love the game but knowing what we now know, we will not let our son play football. and commissioner goodell, acting in good faith to try to improve the safety conditions of his game to the extent that's possible, really couldn't answer that question because he knows that it's a valid concern. he knows that reasonable people, not wimpy people, reasonable people have reservations about this and it's measurable now. participation in youth football is down 5 or 10% as people become aware of the ongoing dangers zpl helmets are not protection enough? >> what the helmet does, as it's now designed is protect against a skull fracture, but what we

now understand is that the brain itself rattles around when there's head trauma within the skull. and the tellmet does not protect against that. it's the constant hits and directly c directly -- that do brain damage, sometimes more apparent down the road. junior sea committed suicide, that was pretty convincingly attached to depression connected to brain trauma and brain detear yor yags. he never had a diagnosed concussion during his career but he was involved in thousands and thousands of football collisions and therefore subconcussive effects. >> which as you pointed out cumulative.

what about the pulling a child off the field and making them be checked the way our nfl players and pros have to go through a procedure. does that take place in schools and on playgrounds around the country? >> it takes place in some schools that have the funding. part of the problem is that the kind of care that you need, an independent neurologist on site as the nfl has now, baseline testing so you know what the condition of a person's brain is before any trauma occurs, so you can measure what has happened. that sort of sophisticated treatment and ongoing observation just isn't financially possible when you talk about every school district or every youth league. that's a problem. >> bob costas, thanks so much for taking the time to clear up a really important subject. thank you very much, bob. >> thanks, andrea. >> michelle obama is in a food fight with republicans in congress over the federal nutrition standards she was instrumental in getting passed

into law four years ago. today a house committee has taken up a bill that would let some schools opt out of requirements for more whole grains and fruits and vegetables in school lunches, arguing the children aren't eating the healthier foods and it's costing money. it allows school thats prarting at the loss of a one year waiver. michelle obama wrote an op-ed, when congress declared that the sauce on a slice of pizza should count as a vegetable in school lunches, you don't have to be a nutritionist to know this doesn't make much sense. we're seeing the same thing happening again with new efforts to lower nutrition standards in our schools. as parents we always put our children's interest first, leaders in washington should do the same. you use tide pods? yeah! but i thought you were the queen of the pre-treat soak treat soak? those are fond memories, but those things are amazing. once i saw what they did, i actually started to relax.

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senator thad cochran is not taking his tea party challenger lightly. the senator is out with a new ad ahead of tuesday's vote. trying to link his opponent with that shocking invasion of privacy of cochran's ailing wife by one of his opponent's supporters. >> the worst, chris mcdaniels supporter charged with a felony for posting video of thad cochran's wife in a nursing home. had enough? >> say yes to our strong conservative leader thad cochran. joining me now, chris cillizza, msnbc contributor and editor of post politics.com. if you looked at the primary calendar and one of big stories of the 2010 and 2012 election was republicans not getting their preferred candidates ending republican incumbents, you would have circled, june

3rd, long time appropriator, the kind of member who hasn't had a real race in a long time and may not have the apparatus ready to go. chris mcdaniel, tea party backed uniting tea party folks. i think had this nursing home issue not come up and essentially the add touches on it. this is a story that someone who sports mcdaniel, he has no real contact with but someone who sports mcdaniel snuck into the nursing home in which cochran's wife has been for a decade, and took footage of her and posted it on the internet. had that not happened, i think we might be talking about thad cochran losing this race. i think it will probably still be close but this is engulfed the last two and a half, three weeks of the race. i think cochran has a little bit of an edge now. they think it's a cutting issue because they are spending probably their last ad before the primary on this issue. >> this is mcdaniel's ad

fighting back. >> you've probably seen cochran's negative attack ads, newspapers call him shame also, i call him outrageous, but nobody said changing washington, d.c. was going to be easy. >> so it's a classic case -- this isn't going to change the makeup of the senate. this is going to be a republican senate seat but thad cochran, appropriator, veteran senator, conservative, colleague of hall by barbour. >> this is a fascinating case. you mentioned haley barbour, henry barbour, very strongly behind cochran. so this is the mississippi republican establishment fighting back against sort of the tea party uprising. we saw earlier this week in texas, the texas republican establishment represented by david dewhurst beaten badly. i'm not sure we should draw the

who won, who loss, this nursing home issue so dominated the race and so out of bounds. you and i spent a lot of time in many races and talked about it many times covering this stuff. this is so outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior. if thad cochran wins, it seems to me that this controversy played a big role in it. >> gives dirty tricks a whole new -- >> oh, my gosh. it's appalling. appalling. >> chris cillizza, you're not appalling. >> i do my best. >> great to see you. in one of her last public appearances maya angelou came to the smithsonian for the national portrait gallery, she shared what she considered her greatest achievement over eight decades as a writer and poet and civil rights lieder. her answer, patience, you can only have patience if you have courage. that painting by ross rossen was installed for public viewing at the national portrait gallery.

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before we go, we've got breaking news, the white house official told us own kristen welker that eric shinseki is now on thin ice. stay tuned for that. the white house briefing is delayed for a half hour. i don't know what odds you put on the veterans administration secretary lasting a day. >> 24 to 48 hours. it seems to me a when, not if question. >> keep watching on nbc and stay with us on twitter also at mitchell reports. "ronan farrow daily" is up next. . the problem isn't likely to go away... ...on its own. so it's time we do something about it. and there's help.

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either. >> today a house committee will take up a bill that exempts school districts from federal rules that require healthier school lunches, critics, including first lady michelle obama say it's bad for our nation's kids. >> we're now seeing efforts in congress to roll back these new standards. this is unacceptable. >> a new study reveals an alarming rise in obesity and u.s. topping the list with 87 million americans considered obese, about 13% of the world's total. >> secretary shinseki -- >> the va secretary is on thin ice. >> some possible cases of civil and criminal violations. >> somebody has got to get in and make sure they understand they answer to the american people. >> people are going to find it hard to believe that president putin hasn't taken a run at you or what you know. >> once i agree with john kerry that edward snowden is a trai