an american soldier is released by the taliban after five years in captivity. but did do the u.s. negotiate with terrorists? >> draw down that will leave fewer than 1,000 u.s. forces in that country by the end of 2016. this morning, a week lay later an army sergend named bow bowe bergdahl, the seoole u.s.

soldier was released after five years in captivity. we have the latest details on his release, including reaction from defense secretary chuck hagel who has arrived in afghanistan for his own surprise visit. and die sikt the political blow-back in the united states. reaction to how his freedom was obtained. when word arrived of his release, these pictures taken in idaho his hometown. >> he seemed frightened during this video first taken when he was captured. >> i miss them, i'm afraid i might never see them again. >> several dozen special operations forces and a group before 18 taliban fighters, both sides heavily armed, an american attack helicopter circling overhead. they met in eastern afghanistan.

the taliban members handed bergdahl over. once he was on the helicopter, defense officials say bergdahl wrote down the question "special forces" on a piece of paper. he was told yes, we've been looking for you for a long time. the sergeant broke down in tears. six hours later, five high-level taliban detainees were flown from guantanamo bay, cuba, to qatar. in other words, a prisoner swap. last night bergdahl's parents joined the president in the rose garden. >> we can't communicate the words this morning when we heard from the president. >> we committed to winding down the war in afghanistan. and we're committed to closing gitmo. but we also made an iron-clad commitment to bring our prisoners of war home. that's who we are, as americans. that's a profound obligation within our military.

and today, at least in this instance, it's a promise we've been able to keep. >> as the president who is now under political fire for how bergdahl's release was achieved. critics charge the release of five taliban prisoners could ultimately put american lives at risk. once released, it's possible or even likely that they will return to the battlefield. republicans in congress like senator john mccain, chairman, chairman mike rodgers of the house intelligence committee believe the obama administration negotiated with terrorists, breaking long-standing u.s. policy. afghanistan this morning, defense secretary chuck hagel told reporters this is a happy day. it was a prisoner of war exchange and that bergdahl's health was in jeopardy and that there were no direct talks with the taliban the u.s. did not negotiate with the taliban. instead. messages were passed by the government of qatar. is this semantics? or is the proper lens for

viewing what has taken place? there's no question that having sergeant bergdahl in a u.s. medical hospital in germany and ultimately home to his family in idaho is a great thing. long overdue. but what was the true cost of bringing that about? joining me now, we have congressman jerry nadaler, a democrat from new york and perry junior a reporter. >> we're in uncharted territory here. prisoner of war exchanges in the traditional sense, nothing new, if the u.s. is at war with another nation, we have some of theirs, we have some of ours, there could be a swap. we've seen it before. we're talking about an insurgency here that captured bergdahl. possibly you could say it's a terrorist who had him and we're dealing with a middleman. is it appropriate for the u.s. government to be negotiating the way it did when it's not an enemy, a governor government who has him captured. >> i think it is appropriate.

we've done this b. obviously going back to the civil war. going back to the revolutionary war. prisoner of war exchange. are there risks to it? sure there are risks. on the other hand, if you left sergeant in the custody of the taliban. there's a huge risk there. one thing we always tell our troops is we don't leave people behind in the battlefield. tough do something like this we have prisoners in guantanamo. and the theory with which we're holding them is that they're prisoners of war. not that they're terrorists, they're prisoners of war. if they're terrorists, you should try them. but we're holding them without trial under the theory they're prisoners of war. if they're prisoners of war, you can have a prisoner of war exchange. >> the reporting that's coming out say that the five who have been released from guantanamo are actually among, at least accord together report. they're among the more dangerous in there. two apparently senior militant commanders from "the new york

times." they were linked to attacks that killed americans and allies. also to mass killings -- >> linked to attacks that killed americans. in a war. either it's a war or it isn't. we are holding them as prisoners of war. if we're not holding them as prisoners of war. you have to try them or release them. we're holding them as prisoners of war and of course enemy soldiers kill americans and we kill enemy soldiers. >> as a member of congress right here. on the one hand, are we concerned about what they might do? yes of course i'm concerned about what they might do and also i'm concerned about the fact that sergeant bergdahl could have died in captivity. you have to get your people out. we're in a war, perhaps without end. you can't leave your principlers therefore ever. >> perry, let me read, we referenced this i think in the intro here, this is mike rodgers, republican chairman of the house intelligence committee he said i have little confidence in the security assurances

regarding the movement and activities of the now-released taliban leaders. i believe this decision will threaten the lives of american soldiers for years to come. >> so apparently these five have been released back to qatar and there's some kind of assurance, a travel prohibition for a year. there's a question of how do you enforce that. how enforceable is that? what can happen when they're still in qatar. the domestic politics of this, we're seeing criticism like this being raised from republicans, is this something you expect to hear more from? >> i do. this happened during a week where republicans were upset that the president set a precise timetable for when troops are leaving afghanistan. you're seeing the president views this as a war, a war with an end. his view the war should end soon and will be ending in 2016. part of it is running the troops and part of it is having the prisoners be released. president obama mentioned it yesterday. the problem, republicans don't view it this way. this is a war that should end. they view people as terrorists

who could threaten the homeland. the second thing, it's not clear the president had the authority to release people from guantanamo bay in the first place. congress actually and the republicans in particular tried to restrict what he can do with those prisoners there. i think you're going to have those two debates, did he violate the law? is he treading a line. >> i guess there had been a signing statement that was recently attached. he's claiming that the signing statement gave me the right to do that. first, nbc's kristen welk certificate live for us at the white house this morning. kristen, i wonder if you can talk from your reporting just about the basic dilemma here for the white house. on the one hand, you absolutely want to get sergeant bergdhal home. on the other hand, the risk of putting five potentially very dangerous people back out there. what ultimately tipped the scales for the white house? >> i think there were a couple of factors here, remember these

talks have been going on in some form for the past several years. and then just several weeks ago, there was an opening in the talks, i think the white house saw there was an opening and they felt as though sergeant bergdhal's life and safety were in jeopardy. quite frankly. according to officials here, who i've been speaking with, they needed to move quickly, they needed to seize this opportunity, they felt in order to save his life. a couple of points i'll make. of course a lot of people are saying the u.s. doesn't negotiate with terrorists, the white house push-back on that is they didn't negotiate directly with the taliban. instead, the qataris served as intermediaries. what happens to the five detainees that have been released, they'll be held in qatar for a year and the official there is have given the united states assurances that they will take steps to protect the united states' national security interests. but the gig question, steve, and

the question in the coming days is what is going to be, what happens to those five detainees after a year? how can the qatari government continue to assure that they can protect national security interests when essentially the deal is only to hold them in qatar for a year. i've been told that the obama administration was really fighting to have them held there indefinitely and that's just something that the taliban wouldn't agree to. so this was the ultimate decision in an effort to get sergeant bergdhal out and an effort to save his life. steve in. >> my thanks to kristen welker at the white house. congressman, let's pick up the point. we've talked about it, but in terms of the government of qatar making this assurance of you know one year, travel ban. how do you look at that? do you say, we can trust this this is enforceable? or do you say they've been released now -- >> they've been released in a year. i don't know what happens in the year.

i assume that the government of qatar will keep them there for a year. but at the end of the year, they're essentially released. and that's the price you pay for the american prisoner of war in a war. and when you exchange prisoners in a war. yeah, they may return to combat. that's unfortunate. >> i think they're not going to be, they're not going to be prisoners in qatar. they're going to be living -- >> more important question is what happens after the year? after the year they presumably can return to afghanistan and join the taliban in combat, i assume. that's what you have with a prisoner of war exchange. sergeant bergdal can return to the united states army and if we're fighting somewhere, can he fight. hopefully we won't be fighting anywhere, but that's a different question. the israelis were asked by the united states government and did release about 800, i think, terrorists as part of the peace negotiations.

>> you have, in a prisoner of war exchange, is a normal procedure. and unless we want to leave our people -- >> but you're also talking about, so you've got the situation with the americans and allied forces who have been killed. you have going further back, apparently being linked to the mass killings of shiites in afghanistan. you're, it also raises the question of people who have participated in sort of bringing about the instability in afghanistan, that brought this all, this whole global war on terrorism about. 12 years ago. being released back, maybe eventually finding their way back to afghanistan. which perry brings me back to the question. is there some suggestions in the reportings, a longer-term game that the boimt obama administras playing in trying to bring reconciliation to the government and trying to bring the taliban into the fold. maybe this is a first step. do you see anything like that? >> they are trying to do that. the core question is, we've had ten years of war. is the result going to be iraq

as a dictatorship, which is moving in that direction and the taliban, as strong in afghanistan after these years of war as well. that's what the republicans are asking, are we going to leave these countries like where we started? >> that's a very different question. my view is it was a mistake to go into iraq. we, we exchanged a sunni dictatorship for a shiite dictatorship. it's going to be allied with iran. that was a net negative. that was predictable, i and others predicted that at the time. and in afghanistan, we should have withdrawn years ago. whether we withdraw now or five years from now, the result will be the same. continuation of the 35-year civil war that's been going on there. we have neither the ability nor the duty to dictate the outcome of that civil war. >> it's one of those situations where i think there's, i can't imagine any american right now isn't thrilled for the sergeant's family and watching his parents with the president, it was a very emotional thing to

watch. at the same time you do wonder what the longer-term effect is of having some dangerous people back out there and we'll see, my thanks to congressman nadler and perry bacon. much more ahead, including what do you do when you feel that a democrat isn't blue enough. we'll find out how the governor of one of of the most blue states in the country is able to beat back liberals.

we learned some answers this week to questions that have been festering since a massive u.s. intelligence leak around this time a year ago.

american citizens, sat down with nbc's brian williams this week for his first extended interview with a u.s. television network. snowden described his years as a member of the u.s. intelligence committee. he said in addition to working as an nsa contractor and a c.i.a. employee, he was trained as a spy. u.s. intelligence officials confirmed to nbc news that snowden had been a c.i.a. employee and had passed routine psychological testing. snowden told brian williams that the government has never shown quote a single individual who has been harmed in any way by his disclosures and answered yes when asked if he sees himself as a patriot. >> being a patriot means knowing when to protect your contract, knowing when to protect your constitution, knowing when to protect your countrymen. from the violations of and encroachments of adversaries. and those adversaries don't have

to be foreign countries. >> the interview comes nearly a year after snowden first made his disclosures, a year since he fled the united states for hong kong. one year since he tried to seek permanent sanctuary in south america, only to end up stranded in the moscow airport. the russian government decided to grant snowden temporary asylum and the one-year deadline on that is coming up this summer in all of that time, one of the most persistent questions about edward snowden has been whether or not he shared any of the documents he took from the nsa with russia. he said he hasn't because he destroyed every document before he got there. >> let's put it this way, if i'm traveling through russia, i know i'm traveling through russia and i know they have a very aggressive, very professional service, and i look like tweety bird to sylvester the cat. if i look like a little walking chicken leg with all of these documents, if i've got control for that. that's a very dangerous thing

for me. >> edward snowden told brian williams that whistle-blowing wasn't his first attempt to fix abuses of u.s. intelligence, he tried to raise his concerns through official channels. >> i had raised these complaints, not just officially, in writing, through email to these offices and these individuals. but to my supervisor, to my colleagues, in more than one offic office. >> the nsa fired back saying it had found only one email from snowden in which he asks for a clarification on a legal issue. not whistle-blowing. snowden responded to nbc news on friday saying quote the nsa's new discovery of written contact between me and its lawyers after denying for a year that any existed raises concerns. the fact is i did raise such concerns both verbally, in writing and on multiple continuing occasions. as i have always said and as the

nsa has always denied. the obama administration has challenged snowden's credibility on many fronts, before and after the interview aired. national security adviser susan rice, dismissed his allegations as a spy. >> you can go back to the pentagon papers, edward snowden is a coward, he 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. >> snowden said in the interview he wants to come home, but believes under the espionage act, he wouldn't get a fair trial. backing him up on that is daniel elseberg himself, the pentagon papers whistleblower that kerry used as a comparison. >> he's a fugitive. not as secretary kerry says, from justice, edward snowed sn a fugitive from injustice. he has no chance of getting a fair, just trial in this

country, any more than any of the other whistle-blowers who have faced prosecution. i was not able to put out a defense at all in fact. under those terms. it was ruled as irrelevant that motive is not relevancy. therefore i could say nothing about the fact that these secrets had been improperly withheld all this tight. >> there are many who would feel fine with seeing snowden go to jail. but there are many who view him as a hero. you don't have to take sides to believe that every american has the right to a fair trial. a year later, let's talk about the value of what he hadrd snowden has done and how well he explained the situation to the american audience. i want to bring in a lawyer for snowden and a director of the aclu speech and privacy project and bill share, a founder of the site liberal oasis.com, he made the case this week in politico about when the nsa was still good for america.

in terms of how to organize this discussion, there's two questions i want to start off with and get your feelings on this. i think there might be some differing views. let me start with the question of idea to the u.s. intelligence community. damage to the united states allegedly done by these leaks. in the interview, edward snowden says the government has had a year, they can point to no damage. ben, i assume that's something you agree with. can you make that case? >> i think there's a lot of accusations and little evidence. we're talking about information that has been disclosed through news organizations. the number of documents that edward snowden has revealed to the public remains zero. everything that has been released to the public has been released because reporters and editors of the "new york times," the "washington post," the "guardian" and others, in consultation with the government have decided to publish these stories because they've calculated that the publication was in the public interest and have not agreed with the government's claim of national security harms in those stories. i want to make that clear as a

factual predicate here. >> these are documents that he took, this is, these are highly classified documents that he took. >> i'm not talking from the question here of legal culpability. i'm talking about the claim of harm to national security. the government has not pointed to specific concrete harms from the publication of the story, in fact we've seen the pulitzer prize committee agreeing with snowden, not the government in giving a journalism award. >> if somebody can take this many documents, documents this sensitive, and give them to a journalist and have them published, isn't there some damage there? >> damage to -- >> i agree there's a serious problem. there's a serious problem, the nsa can't say on the one hand, we have 100% auditability, that's what keith alexander said. we have great internal controls, we have excellent discipline to make sure that your information stays private. and then say that a contractor who wasn't even employed by the nsa could walk out with an untold number of documents. we don't know how many times this has happened before.

so seriously, there are serious, serious security and privacy problems at the nsa. whey think snowden was arguing here, was that the publication over the last year of story after story about nsa over-reach tlar , that the government has been unable to point to concrete harm from the publishing of those stories. we've seening the federal courts calling these programs unconstitutional. we've seen congress engaged in an historic reform debate and the president ending one of the programs, and a panel say the nsa is out of control and a global debate that should have happened before the programs were rolled out, not after. >> so bill, no concrete damage a year later, are you satisfied there was no damage from these leaks? >> no, we shouldn't take snowden's word on that he says there's no concrete evidence of damage. he can't prove concrete evidence of abuse by the nsa. there's some inherent secrecy here, that it's hard to get all

the data for a public discussion, because it's an inapparently secret program. the elseberg argument doesn't make sense, because his papers released did not reveal current operations, it's a different type of crime. so snowden is facing harsher music because he did a harsher thing. and if he doesn't want to cop to that, that's, that's his problem. >> i'm not sure, steve that the documents that snowden released didn't show concrete abuses by the nsa. one of them was an inspector general report that showed that the nsa had abused its own authority 3,000 times in one year and the senate intelligence community hadn't seen that report before it was published. >> there's a part of this interview that jumped out at me. on the surface it seemed scary and brian williams took out the cell phone. and edward snowden described hey, here's all the ways they can monitor you and profile you just with this. if you search for a new york rangers hockey score in this cell phone, they can build a whole profile about you.

that sounds scary and big brother. has that been happening to ordinary citizens? is the government using this for sort of, you know, for malign purposes against ordinary american citizens? is there any evidence of that? >> well, look, we're learning more about that. i want to say this and snowden explained himself quite well in his first interview on the "guardian" website a year ago. the danger is not only what the government is doing with this architecture today. the danger is what it might do with it tomorrow. that it is building a system without the consent or approval of the public, that allows it to capture and store all communications. and essentially to create a surveillance time machine that allow it is to hit rewind on all of our lives. today that's justified as a counterterrorism measure. tomorrow that's going to be used by the fbi, by the d.e.a. and by local cops, because this kind of database doesn't help stop terrorism, there is a lot of terrorism. you build a haystack to look for a smaller needle.

but it's an incredible forensic tool. it would help solve a lot of crimes. you're going to have this inevitable mission creep where the massive, massive databases are turned over not to intelligence officials, but to law enforcement, and that's something that the framers would have been very concerned about. >> it's exactly that kind of dismissiveness, towards a threat of terrorism, which is why i can't take snowden's word that he has not caused any kind of damage to our counterterrorism operations, he said in the interview this week -- i take the threat of terrorism very seriously. that's not what he said a week after he reveesed himself and did an online chat at the guardian. where he said there's no way the nsa is doing this about terrorism. why would they go after a potential terrorist when our police kill more americans than terrorists do? that's not an attitude that says you're taking terrorism very seriously. i take the point that there isn't a lot of terrorism in the world. but there are actual terrorists this is not a made--up concern.

>> no you, but it's not what the nsa doing mass surveillance for. if you believe that, you've been suckered. they're not spending tens of billions of dollars a year trying to intercept every communication in the world because of terrorism. >> why are they doing that? >> they're using it for economic espionage, for diplomacy. they have all kinds of customers, and agency who is go to the nsa and tell us this, that or the other and some of the stories we've sceneriesly have involved nsa passing this information to the fbi. passing it to the d.e.a. for drug investigations when they're intercepting and storing every single phone call from the bahamas, that's not because of al qaeda. the real concern here is not today, it's tomorrow. and we need to have a national debate. right now, this is the key, the key lesson from the last year, is that technological capabilities have out-paced democratic controls and democratic debates. we should have been having a conversation a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, while

enduring the deployment of this. instead of waiting until it was in place. >> should edward snowden come back and face a trial? >> it depends on what you think should happen to somebody who launched this global debate. who is his revelations have led to historic reforms, to ending programs that even the president thought had gone too far. if you think he should spend the rest of his life in prison, he should come back and face trial. daniel elseberg -- >> he got off because the nixon administration bribed a judge. >> he didn't try to flee the country. >> daniel ellsberg said the only reasonable option for edward snowden to be able to participate in debate -- remember ellsberg was out on bail for two years while his trial was going on. edward snowden because he face as legal regime which doesn't distinguish between sharing information with the public or selling it to an enemy has no choice but to go where he is now.

the government needs to meet us halfway. >> you've got the one-year russian rule coming up here for expiration. we'll see what happens with that. i don't know, it seemed to me part of the deal, fair or unfair if you're going to claim whistle-blower status, leak highly classified stuff if you're going 0 bring it out there, part of the deal is you've got to stand and take the consequences. >> do you think people who used the underground railroad should have stayed and faced the consequences of the fugitive slave act? >> that's quite a comparison. >> i'm saying if reverend king had gone to new york instead of going to prison in birmingham. no one would have said he didn't stay in birmingham to face the music. >> part of the moral power of that was that he, you know, civil disobedience, he was willing to get arrested, willing to pay the price legally. even if it was unjust. that's part of the moral power of civil disobedience. >> and it may be that edward would have more moral power if we never saw him again because

he was in a special -- special administrative measures in an isolation cell and couldn't speak to the public and couldn't speak to the press. >> instead he's in a country that does that to its own citizens routinely. he's in russia. >> my view is that the response to what he did should not be a life in prison. i do hope that he can leave russia. he hopes that he can leave russia. one possibility fo would be for the u.s. to agree that he could go to a another country. one that would be better for everybody's national security and the ultimate goal is for him to come back to the united states. >> we've run long here. i'm sorry, this was not a balanced timing. an organic discussion, i appreciate it. i want to thank bill share from liberal oasis.com. and ben wizner. coming up, a small party on the left that's causing major possibles for a big-name democrat who is not seen as liberal enough. we have the late-breaking

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there's a lot of excitement and interest in her candidacy. but democrats have an even riper opportunity to break through and win a statewide contest in the lone star state this year. for an office that weirdly enough may actually be more powerful than the governorship. this is the race for lieutenant governor. an office that in most states isn't worth a warm bucket of spit but in texas, the lgb becomes president of the state senate. it's no ceremonial perch, it's one of the most powerful jobs in austin. this past tuesday there was a rebellion inside the republican party against the current lieutenant governor. david dewhurst is his name. lost his bid for a fourth term in the gop primary to dan patrick, a tea party insurgent. >> secure the border, lower your property taxes. we're going to get that done. the people of texas have given us a mandate tonight to get property taxes lowered.

>> the democrats believe that the mandate that patrick received from the gop base, or the mandate he thinks he received, could end up unnerving just enough republican-friendly voters to tip the race to the democrats. you can hear patrick's past as a talk radio host in the political rhetoric he uses today. saying that the texans must stop the invasion from mexico. that undocumented immigrants are bringing third-world diseases with them. the state democratic party launched a website calling patrick unfit to lead. but patrick said their attacks on him will not stand up. >> some democrats have said they wanted me to be the nominee? well they've got me, and i'm coming. >> to run against him, democrats have turned to state senator letitia vander did the put. a pharmacist, candidates for lieutenant governor run on their own in texas. they aren't officially linked

with their party's candidate for governor. democrats privately believe that this race, the race for lieutenant governor, not the race for governor, is actually their best chance to put a win on the board in texas this year. that's why the "washington post" recently profiled vandepeugh ran a headline saying meet the woman that could turn texas purple. democrats see a chance that in texas. can under the right circumstance be assembled right now. here to talk about this race, we have a democratic state senator vetitia, the party's's candidate for lieutenant governor in texas. senator, we appreciate the time. let me start with the question that your opponent now we know is going to be dan patrick. we know that texas is a red state.

at least right now. we know democrats think it's going blue. it's elected some very conservative people. this is ted cruz, rick perry. people texans have voted for very recently. the case being made that dan patrick is too extreme for texas. what is it about dan patrick that makes him more extreme than a ted cruz or a rick perry or someone texans have been electing. >> my colleague in the senate, dan patrick, who is now the offici official. >> he certainly knows how to use the power to connect. >> but it's his record. not just what he has said. it's whey promises he will do. and that is, you know when he says no more property taxes or lower property taxes, our state doesn't have a statewide property tax. that's local governments, that's how they build roads and how

local governments, including our schools, have those structures. so. >> he's the candidate you want dodd run against, you had the lieutenant governor incumbent. this is the guy you wanted, didn't you? >> this is going to be a very stark contrast from the really, the pro center portion of my platform, and what my record has always been. and what dan's record has always been. so there's going to be a clear choice in november. for texas voters. >> so give us a taste then, you say too extreme. again, you have a debate with dan patrick, this november, this october. let's say. and you get a chance to contrast yourself with him. what is it? what's the one most important contrast you want voters to see between yourself and dan

patrick? what is the difference-maker for you? >> well texas is always known for its spirit with working with everybody across the aisle, democrats and republicans. what dan patrick brings is to infect us with that washington, d.c.-style politics of my way or the highway. he's already said that he would not work democrats. well, that's not what we do. we focus on what's important for the state. and so the real contrast is, do you want to move forward, bring everybody to the table. take care of our infrastructure like roads and highways, public education universities, or do you want to stick to the very narrow and reckless view and the type of politics that dan patrick brings to this state. >> i want to quickly ask you, this was the republican primary that we just, we just watched unfold this week, finish up this week, it was ugly. one of the reasons it was ugly was lieutenant governor david dewhurst's campaign used from the 1980s, the story of dan patrick, he had a personal bankruptry in the 1980s, there

were tax liens, they drudged it up and used it against him. are those issues fair game for you in the general election? >> well what we saw in the republican primary was a horrible, low in the gutter personal attacks. on each other. mainly on dan, because i think the records on his prior finances. but i think the voters are tired of that. >> your campaign will not be, there will be no mention of the, none of that from your campaign going forward? >> well i think that -- all of people's paths and character, when you're electing a leader, certainly financial steadfastness, the ability to make sure that our budget is crafted in a way that is sustainable, that's important. but i could tell you as a pharmacist for 34 years, i was appalled. that so much of that personal records, were out there with, with dan's mental health issues. i don't think that serves us

well at all. and i think people reacted to it by actually voting for dan patrick. >> i want to try to make it clear, you are saying you think the bankruptcy is an issue in this campaign? >> i think finances are an issue. i think people in texas respect those that pay their debts. certainly you know, we know that you can use bankruptcy and it's in hard times. but when you're a multimillionaire and you haven't paid millions of dollars in debt? i think folks are questioning that. but more than that, it's the direction that he would bring this state. i mean if it's really such, he's such a great business person, how come he doesn't realize that our trade with mexico is $720 million a day. that's our number one trading partner. yet, he chooses to demean and insult the people who live in the border areas that are such a vibrant part of our economy. >> all right. thank you, texas state senator,

leticia van de putte. more on the long-term strategy of texas is next. she can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. ♪ my mom works at ge. ♪

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when you book at wyndhamrewards.com. it is important when that the democrats understand, that when they say battleground texas, they picked the worst battleground ever to have a battle on. >> texas state senator and lieutenant governor dan patrick on tuesday after asking the incumbent lieutenant governor, david dewhurst in the republican runoff. we spoke to his democratic opponent. and the question now for democrats in the lone star state. jeremy birdie. with a group working to change the state blue. >> thanks for joining us. we're talking about the idea of texas going blue, because of demographics, the state is becoming more diverse. that's a long-term thing. we're not there yet when the

state is still electing ted cruz and rick perry. when i listened to the speech on tuesday from dan patrick, he he's calling your group out. what does it mean if dan patrick is able to win in texas this year? what does it mean for the long-term trends in the state? that your party is farther behind than you think? >> he's good at one thing, which is lot of bluster, which you saw in the speech. you just talked with senator van de putte. it's a discussion about having the electorate look like the population. and dan abbott's candidacy means that we can accelerate that we have two incredibly talented candidates, in wendy davis and leticia van de putte. if we can get the electorate to

look at those candidates, we can make the state competitive. >> if you're going to put a win on the board in texas in 2014, the lieutenant governor's race, especially with dan patrick as the republican candidate, that's your best chance right now in 2014, isn't it? >> i think we can win both of these races, think we can win the governor's race and the lieutenant governor's race. if we can make the electorate look like the population. the polls you see now, the kind of rhetoric you see now from dan patrick and greg abbott are about the 2010 electorate. if we can get those unregistered voters out there, if we can get the folks that are registered, but not turning out to vote, we can make both of those races competitive. this year. and that's just at the top of the ticket. if you look down the road, we have a number of great candidates on the bench running for state house, state senate races, county commissioner races, it's about the whole picture and we can make all of those races competitive this year. >> this is a story that people have been watching in texas and are going to keep watching to see if the demographic evolution

matches up with the part san evolution. thank you, jeremy bird with battleground texas. still ahead, new details on the release of sergeant bowe bergdahl who now at a u.s. host in germany. at this means? the greater the curvature, the bigger the difference. [sci-fi tractor beam sound] ...sucked me right in... it's beautiful. gotta admit one thing... ...can't beat the view. ♪ introducing the world's first curved ultra high definition television from samsung. if your denture moves, it can irritate your gums. try fixodent plus gum care. it helps stop denture movement and prevents gum irritation. fixodent. and forget it. and prevents gum irritation. what's your favorite kind of cheerios? honey nut. but... chocolate is my other favorite...

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breaking news in what might be the biggest story in the 2014 election that nobody is talking about. a liberal block of voters in one of largest democratic states in the country decided their governor wasn't delivering on their liberal promises to them. so they decided to do something about it. how did they do? it came to a head late last night. we'll tell you all about it, straight ahead. come on in. i've been shaking these bounce bursts into my washer, they bring all the bounce freshness of the outdoors indoors, so... (laughs) i guess i just forgot i wasn't outside. here! see for yourself. (harp music) behold! i love being outdoors. i love bark.

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national democratic politics from what could have been an election-year nightmare in just a minute we'll talk to one of the key players who cut the deal. there's questions about it and even some allies seem unpersuaded. but first the story, andrew cuomo is the governor of new york. even though he runs a deeply blue state. there's a lot of unhappiness of how he's governed. his he skews the left on cultural issues, but to the right on economic issues. cuomo has cut taxes on millionaires, estates and banks, while reducing spending on public schools, championing charter secures and sparked bill de blasio's efforts to raise taxes. so while cuomo is on course to crush his republican opponent when he runs for re-election in november, things don't look good if you add in a third-party candidate. here's what i'm talking about

the most recent poll, andrew cuomo, democrat at 57%. westchester county executive rob astorino 28%. and give votaries third choice, a candidate from what's called the working families party. own automatic ballot line in new york and cuomo's support drops like a rock 20 points to under 40%. those are very scary numbers for andrew cuomo. yes, he still leads the three-way race, but suddenly a lot more unpredictable with the third candidate, albeit an unnamed candidate thrown in the mix. cuomo has made little effort in hiding his interest in running for president and part of his plan to roll up a massive re-election margin this fall. as the polling shows, the working families party has the potential to muck that plan up for cuomo if they field a candidate. that's what the drama of the last 72 hours, that's what came to a head last night.

that's what it was all about. new york is what's known as a fusion voting state. what that means is that different political parties can nominate the same candidate for the same office. this is how small parties like the working families party stay in business. 2010 for example, the wfp gave its ballot spot for governor to cuomo. and because voters checked out the working families spot on the ballot, cuomo has elected. wfp has gotten stronger, allied with labor. and some of its allies have won major victories, like bill de blasio, the new mayor of new york city. of course there is growing grassroots energy on the left for progressive economic ideas and causes, the kind of frontal assault on economic inequality that elizabeth warren is championing nationally. and then of course, the other thing that happened is that andrew cuomo has moved to the right on economic issues, so the working families party had a

dill maxt the rank-and-file members are deeply upset with cuomo. many of them saw the poll we showed a minute ago and wanted to run their own candidate this fall. liberal candidate to cuomo in the general election, to carry the torch for economic progressivism and deliver a message to cuomo and other democrats that there are consequences for snubbing the liberal base. this past wednesday came a report that diane ralph itch, the nationally known critic of charter skills, was shown as being interested in running against cuomo. on thursday, she stepped out and a new name emerged. zepher teach headlinout, a former howard dean organize another teaches at fordham university. by friday she had other own campaign website and was calling herself a candidate. cuomo not only failed to do anything real to prevent wealthy donors from buying politicians but proposed severe education funding cuts. this evidently scared cuomo back

to the bargaining table and party leaders struck a deal with the governor. in return for giving him the spot on the wfp's line, cuomo agreed to publicly endorse key items on the wfp's agenda, like anowing new york city and other cities in towns to raise the minimum wage on their own. but the heart of the deal involves this -- it involves control of the state senate. this has been a dead-end for progressive legislation for two years. there are actually right now more democrats than republicans in the new york state senate. so democrats on paper should control it. but since last year, a band of those democrats has teamed one republicans to control the chamber, thereby stopping progressive legislation from making it to cuomo's desk. when the break-away democrats made their deal with republicans made their deal last year, they did it with cuomo's support. it infuriated the left. this year many of those break-away democrats say the state is facing primary

challenges. last night this is how cuomo described the democrats. either they announce they agree to come back to the democratic party or face primaries this year from our unified democratic coalition. don't want just a majority. i want a majority for us, i want a comfortable majority if we have a majority, we will win and have a progressive agenda for this state. shortly after that, the roll was called and cuomo was formally nominated as the wfp's candidate. there was a lot of dissent. reporters describe delegates reaction this way, end of cuomo's speaker phone call. boo, we don't believe you. liar! and that's the question now for the progressives who made this deal with cuomo. we know that he got whey wanted. but will he actually deliver on anything he said last night? or did the left, which had a major piece of leverage with a major democratic governor, just get rolled? here to answer that in about a million other questions is dan cantor, the executive director of the working families party.

he was at the convention last night is on about two hours of sleep. dan, thank you for joining us. i have a ton of questions for you. i want to start, it's one of these things, this is an issue, a story with huge national implications. but it's also a very new york centric thing. this issue over the state senate is shocking. the major concession that you got from this democratic governor last night is that this democratic governor is now publicly said he wants his own party to control the state senate. >> it must sound odd to the ears of viewers across the country, but this in a sense turned into a little bit of a fight for the soul of the democratic party. though it took place inside the working families party. inside a third party for the reasons you described. you know think of it nationally, there's the elizabeth warren/jeff merckly/keith ellison clsh bill de blasio wing of the party and there's the bob reuben wing. our side cares more about

equality. racial equality, environmental equality. on the other side, they care more about one millimeter to the left of the republicans and being more worried about their donors, from our point of view than voters. so this was about whether something called the working families democrat, like there's a tea party republican? we think there's something called the working families democrat. we want to see those people emerge as the leaders. so that's what was going on. it's no secret that we have had big disagreements with governor cuomo along the lines you described. around his economic program. around taxes and spending especially, that's the heart of what government does. this became kind of a petrie dish. could he make enough pledges that could be verified? that would allow us to endorse him? >> let's look at these pledges and the verifiability of these pledges. control the state senate this is a huge issue for progressives in new york. state senate has enough democrats to control it but the

democrats have broken away. so he now says last night that he wants these democrats to come back to the party and give the party control. how do you enforce that? >> well, by organizing. listen we're making a bet that this is, that it's in his interests now. as well as our own. as well as mayor de blasio who played a very prominent role last night in albany at this convention. to flip the state senate, not just to flip it to democratic control, but to flip it to working families style democrats who can get this quite-important agenda on minimum wage, on public funding of elections, on marijuana decriminalization, on women's equality act. >> he said it, has he committed to provide money to you? has he committed to campaign to you? >> there is an exciting, maybe transformational coalition of forces, that de blasio and we and the governor and many of the unions and many of the community organizations and environmental groups are forming to take back the senate. will we do it? that's the bet we're making.

we think they can, when we do. we'll have the opportunity to do all these other things. listen, politics is hard. zepher teachout gave a magnificent speech, electrified the crowd and it ended up being quite a close vote. >> on the other side, the crowd was by all accounts, i followed it on twitter, the crowd was very hostile to andrew cuomo. saying we don't believe him. what they're saying is, he stood up there, he didn't stand up there, he called in by speaker phone last night and said i want democrats to control the state senate. they say fine. he says that, it's lip service, he'll turn around and say, hey, you guys should come back to the democratic party. they'll say no, and he'll say hey, i tried. status quo stays, what's to prevent that from happening? >> that's the task of organizers and citizens and activist who is want to see this happen. we expect him to be out there in a very, very public way. helping. >> and he committed to that? >> obviously he committed last night. >> is there, there are also reports last night that he had

committed $10 million to a fund -- is there any financial commitment from the governor? >> this is all to be worked out in the course of time. obviously it's going to take money to win these races and a money is going to come from a lot of different sources. but what will carry the day in our point of view is ideas is hard work, people on the ground hitting the doors. these are not gigantic turn-out races, we can win these races. >> there is no financial commitment from the governor at this point? >> new york city there's not. there's a commitment to the overall project. and we believe that everybody knows how, what politics requires. it requires, we have to have good candidates who are committed to this, we don't just want to elect more corporate democrats, we want there to be a shift. listen, there's history here, and you know, we will find out. whether we got rolled or do the rolling. in the spring. >> well next spring. here we are right now, it's june 1st. we've got a long time to go. there will be primaries this year for the state senate. a long time to go between now and november. if come november we get to the general election and those democrats, those break-away democrats are still with the

republicans, the state senate is still basically not a democratic state senate and andrew cuomo has not turned the state senate around, do you still vote for him? he's going to have your line. >> we'll be unhappy if that's the outcome. >> do you vote for him if that doesn't happen? >> in november? sure, because he's on the party's line and we want to maintain the party strength and vigor. >> i mean that's what, the complaints that i'm hearing are saying, you gave away your leverage. you gave him what he wanted and now you don't really have -- >> it depends what you got for your leverage. we believe that these are, as deblal yoe said last night on stage this is a transcendent moment in new york politics. we're uniting forces that have never been unite and we're saying we're going to take charge of the process, flipping the senate. making it better, uniting with the lower house and starting to pass some very important things that will make this event workwhile. politics is hard. you don't know ahead of time how it's going to turn out there was an actual political debate at a political convention. >> this was the most

unpredictable political convention i've seen in a while. the other way the split was described to me in the working families party is that there's the money for the working families party, a lot of the money organizing force comes from unions and the citizen activists. the citizen activists wanted teachout. they didn't want cuomo to have the line. the unions that have to have a working relationship with an cuomo much more resist tonight doing that. were you afraid if you didn't give cuomo the line, was there any indication that the union was pull out some or all of their financial support? >> no. there's, energy and resources on both sides, accurate description of the tension, we think it's a healthy tension to have between the organized institutional players and the grassroots activists. it was hard-fought. there was a lot of goodwill and love in the room, even by the end. i think people will stay united. and that we will see if we can pull this off. i'm optimistic that we can. and so you know that's time will tell on that score.

but this notion that it's not enough just to be you know, half a degree better than republicans, i think that emerged as definitive in new york state and we hope national politics. there needs to be a working families-style democrat running for all of these offices around the country if we're going to yank the democrats, save them from themselves, so to speak. that's what we think we accomplished last night. >> we've been watching andrew cuomo as governor for four years, we'll see if this is a turning point. a new andrew cuomo after this. this is a to be continued story. still ahead, the very plausible scenario that could have control of the senate come down to just one race on election night. everyone waiting to find out who wins until december, a month after the election. it's a road we've wednesday down before. ugh. heartburn. did someone say burn?

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habit of sometimes ending in december. ask al gore. we know there's a chance it could happen again this year. a chance in the senate, that comes down do one seat that we might not find out whether the democrats will hang onto the chamber or if republicans will grab control for a full month after election day. while the rest of the country is making its final choices in november, louisiana will be holding what's called a jungle primary. even though it will be the general election day. where all of the candidates for the senate, regardless of their party, will be listed on the same ballot. if no one breaks 50%, the top two face off in runoff to be held on december 6th. that's why the polls in louisiana are tough to read. if you look at this one from the "new york times" last month it might look like the incumbent mary landrieu is blowing out the field. but all the other names are republicans. if one of them forces a run-off with her, the race will get a lot closer. this is the fourth time that mary landrieu has run for the senate in louisiana two of her previous three elections were decided in runoffs.

only one incumbent senate democrat is running in a state that hostile to barack obama, mark pryor in arkansas. the president's disapproval rating in louisiana is 54%. all of this makes mary landrieu, perhaps the most endangered democrat up for re-election in 2014. but landrieu has defied louisiana's political gravity before and her strategy this time is to make the state's unpopular republican governor, bobby jindal an issue. his popularity is the same as obama's and while some red-state democrats are reluctant to embrace the affordable care act. landrieu said people of her state will find themselves in the jindal gap because the state refuses to expand the health care gap. landrieu chairs the energy and natural resources committee which holds sway over issues critical to la las oil and gas industry. republicans don't necessarily

have to win the race to take back the senate but their path will be a lot harder if they don't. which is why democrats badly want to win this one. question is, whether mary landrieu can convince voters in a very red state to give a democrat a fourth term in the senate. well in new orleans now joining us is jarvis berry thanks for taking the time this morning. a couple of different ways of looking at this louisiana race. it's so fascinating because you've got that you know, red state, democratic senator. you also have the other dynamic is it was president obama's approval ratings in the state are not good at all. president obama has not done well in louisiana but the republican governor of louisiana, bobby jindal is basically in the same polling territory as obama right now. how much of an opportunity does bobby jindal, do bobby jindal's struggles present to democrats. it's a senate race, you're talking about federal issues, federal election it doesn't technically involve the governor. do you think there's an opportunity with jindal's struggles for democrats to benefit in the senate election?

>> i don't think jindal will play that much of a role in the senate race. i think that obama and his unpopularity in this state will probably be a lot more determinative in the november election. than jindal's popularity. >> what is the the path then for somebody like mary landrieu? if an unpopular rrn governor you don't think will matter that much and president obama's struggles in the state. mary land rrieu has a shot at this. what is path for her to survive in a state like louisiana? >> if the path exists at all and there is some question if it does exist any more, think it will come from getting people who traditionally identify as republicans, to vote for her in this coming election. she had an ad recently featuring boise bollinger, a ship builder here in louisiana, who employs about 3,000 people. he's one of the most prominent republicans in the state.

he is now recorded an ad for mary landrieu. saying her seniority in washington is important. that we can't just give this away, based on partisan lines so her real path is convincing people, look, you may not agree with me on health care or agree with me on some of the more social issues that democrats favor, you but you need me at the table in washington. if you don't re-elect me, the state will suffer for it. >> when you say the path may no longer exist for a democrat in louisiana, i've seen a lot of the nationally talk about demographics, are you talking about specifically louisiana, it's a southern state. you know sort of the racial polarization of the electorate is more pronounced, especially in the deep south than it is elsewhere? are you talking about the post-katrina changes in demographics having an effect now? >> i think the post-katrina demographics play a role in it, but it's not all of it across the south, you see that republicans are getting more and

more and more positions that were traditionally held by democrats. so, yeah, i'm guessing that kr played a minor role, katrina. but it's not the more significant role. the more significant role, i think that being republican is becoming more and more of a part of what it means to be white in the south. and because of that, she is struggling mightily, with white voters, she has lost them since 2002. and now she has to cling on to them desperately. so if white republicans, white voters are more republican than they used to be, then the past to her re-election has to come about from convincing some republicans to vote for her. >> you're right. i've seen the stats, i don't know louisianians offhand, but the exit polls, mississippi, alabama, states nearby, if you break it down by race, obama was getting 95%-plus from african-americans and mitt romney was getting 90-plus% from

whites. thank you for joining us. does the press make the president or does the president make the press? we'll try to untangle that riddle ahead. our priority has always been saving the day. because our priority... amazing! ...is you! the amazing spider-man 2 delivered by the united states postal service.

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make this occur. the transaction really was done by the qatar government and the amir's commitment to getting that accomplished. we facilitated that in different ways in the interest of our own intelligence and procedures, i don't want to go much further than that. >> this morning, bowe bergdahl is being treated as a u.s. military hospital in germany. we're told he has not yet spoke ton his parents. we'll be right back.

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former secretary of state hillary clinton is about to meet the press, her new memoir "hard choices" about her time leading the state department will be released next week. including interviews with journalists. this week nbc news learned that clinton's camp has hire ed national security council's spokesman. their job will be to train and deploy surrogates. after more than three decades in public life. it seems to say, safe to say at least this much about bill and hillary clinton, if you don't like the political media in a recent piece in politico. two reporters surveyed 30 people close to hillary clinton. concluded if clinton doesn't run, the biggest reason will be the media. when asked why clinton hasn't had a closer relationship with the press, one veteran of her campaign told the two reporters quote she hates you. period. that's never going to change.

former clinton white house press secretary, mike mccurry put it delicately quote when you get beat up so often, you just get very cautious. clinton ran for the democratic nomination for president in 2008, news coverage was often kinder to then senator barack obama. a 2007 report from the pew research center found clinton got dramatically more negative coverage in the first months of the presidential campaign than barack obama. pew studied the number of positive and negative stories written about the two candidates and while her coverage tilted negatively by 11 points, obama's coverage tilted positively by 31 points. multiple "saturday night live" sketches parodied this. an ex-paasperated clinton said >> in the last several debates, i seem to get the first question all the time. i don't mind, i'll be happy to

field them, but i do find it curious, if anybody saw "saturday night live," maybe we should ask if barack is comfortable and needs another pillow. i find it curious that i keep getting the first question on all of these issues. >> the amount of time she spent with the media would letter their reporting. why? because she only spent 90 seconds with them when she brought them bagels to the back of the bus? if she spent nine minutes the coverage would have been fair? that's apparently the take-away, because she didn't spend enough time with them and their bagels, the coverage couldn't be fair. she toured the white house two months before bill clinton was inaugurate rated, back in 1992, first lady barbara bush and hillary clinton had this exchange. >> i was going to say avoid this crowd like the plague.

>> that's right, i know that feeling already. >> in her notes from a conversation with clinton clinton on thanksgiving day, clinton confidante said i know i should pretend not to have any opinions, but i'm not going to do it i'm used to winning and i intend to win on my own terms. hillary publicly conceded she should have had a closer relationship with the media in the '90s, saying i kept the white house press corps at arm's length for two long, it took a while to understand that their resentment was justified. will clinton's approach to the media change? will the media's approach to hillary change? as this week's "new yorker" asks, can they learn to get along? we turn to two veteran reporters for the answer. glenn thrush, a white house

reporter for politico. and perry bacon junior is back, a senior political reporter at nbc news, he covered clinton's campaign for the "washington post" and democratic strategist kiki mclean, she's been hired by clinton to manage the media around her new book "hard choices." perry, i'll start with you. as we showed in the clip from november of '92. the story of clintons and the media goes back a long way. you covered her campaign back then. we have the stats and certainly especially in the early going in that campaign, a lot less negative press coverage for obama than for clinton. clearly it rankled her and it came out in the debate that time and other times. at a basic level, was the press out to get hillary clinton? or was it that hey, she came into this thing as the biggest front-runner, anybody had ever seen. there was an open question of whether it was going to be a competitive race and barack obama was the underdog there seems to be a bias in the press always towards the underdog. is that what we were seeing?

or was it more directed at hillary than that? >> i think she was right, obama got covered more favorably. obama was a writer, he's a person who seems like he could be a journalist. he related more to people who like write or think in terms of writers and journalism, people related to him little better. clinton was known nor not wanting to talk to reporters very much. i covered both of them on capitol hill. obama was someone could you grab off the floor and talk to hillary was very careful what she said from the senate and so on. i think that colored people's perception. obama on the campaign trail wasn't particularly open, either and didn't give a lot of bagels to reporters, either. but the perception was that obama was a new person. people were excited about him. people were dreading covering hillary because her campaign was more closed off. the beginning was definitely a perception was obama was someone more fun to cover. >> i read the bagels line from phillip raines and i didn't think anything had changed.

kiki, i know you've been eager to get in here. >> first i want to make sure everybody understands i haven't been hired by secretary clinton, i'm giving a hand as a volunteer because the volume of interest is so big, i want to make sure that's clear. the other thing to remember is relationships between any groups of people change. and they evolve all the time. i think that people saw tremendous coverage of the work she was doing as secretary of state. and people, people love to write the media-on-media story. as a career press secretary, there sure have been days where i felt like maybe some coverage to her or somebody else i worked for wasn't fair. and there were days when it was probably a little too good. but the bottom line is the dynamic of the relationship. when you look at somebody like hillary clinton, because of the role she's played in our country and around the world, the volume of interest is so big and so intense, there's no way to satisfy all the press. there's no way to give all the access that everybody would like. because the reality is she's got

a day job of things to go do. now as a private citizen she does them. there's not enough hours in the day to respond to everybody that would like to have access to her. >> kiki, in somebody who has some sort of institutional experience with the clintons, you go back with them for a long time. when i see comments like we played from the debate in 2008. when i read the comments like i did this week in the "new yorker," i say i suspect that hillary clinton in the clintons look back at the 2008 campaign and they see, they see the media, their media coverage as one of the big reasons why hillary clinton lost that race. do you, do you think that's right? >> i'm not sure that in any campaign reflection there's any one thing that loses a race for somebody. and i think people want to place that blame on anything. i certainly think that there are days that president obama got some good coverage and good for him. he earned it and he deserved it. and there are days she got good coverage. she at that point you have to remember had a much deeper record. for both as first laid dirks as the first lady of arkansas, in the senate for there to be

critical coverage. but the, again the intensity and the desire to cover her is always tougher. and those analyses are always difficult. i will tell you as somebody who has worked for both president clinton and secretary clinton over the years, i was the press secretary at the dlc who took president clinton to his first "new york times" editorial board. those were great moments, i've seen them engage in the press and recognize the role that they have. i think it's one thing that secretary clinton and president clinton admire and respect, is the role that the press plays in our democracy as a catalyst, as conveners to move the country forward. and that's something they care about. but just like any other group of people, under any other conditions, there are good days and bad days. >> so speaking of bad days, glenn thrush, in politico, hillary and me, the 2008 campaign was a nightmare, 2016 will be, will 2016 be as bad? it sounds like you had a lot of bad days covering hillary clinton, tell me about that

experience? i love ki ki, she should have been at the state department given her gift for diplomacy right there. the problem really wasn't necessarily just volume. we completely understand the sense that everybody wants a piece of secretary clinton. you're going to see that. and a lot of resentments boiling up over the next couple of days as she sort of cherry-picks who she wants to talk to. but the problem was, this incredibly toxic relationship with the press that was really engendered by her and transmitted to her now-infamous war room in rolston, virginia there was a real sense of combat and from the interviews that maggie and i did with a bunch of former staffers who have become our friends and associates over the years, she was always hitting them with the question -- why aren't you doing more to defend me? she tended to view the role of, of press, of her press staff, as defensive. fundamentally defensive. she did very, very little to, to sort of cultivate any positive

press. and i think one of the reasons on the flip side, why she was subjected i think to more negative press, than obama was, i think that's really undeny yabl, pew study or not, was the core people who covered her at the very beginning, i started covering her for "newsday" in january of 2007, full-time as a presidential candidate. a year before a vote was cast, one of the big problems and steve knows this as well, is the core coverage was done by the tabloids. it was "newsday," "the new york daily news" and "the new york post." the three of us covered her every single day. so there's a certain tenor of coverage from the new york tabloid press that is fundamentally different than any other press in the country. >> kiki, pick "up with steve kornacki" up on that point and have there been practical lessons that hillary clinton took from the 2008 campaign. if she runs again, will she do it differently? >> first of all tlrks no

campaign to have that conversation around. >> i said if. >> i don't like to speculate about a potential presidential candidacy. that's theirs to do. with a i can tell you is i think every day, particularly as the media is evolving and glenn notes that there are now different communities within the media, right? and every year the dynamic of what is the press corps and what the deadlines are and technologically how they work, change. and i think every side has to evolve with that as they move forward. they're very different, the way a campaign is covered today is very different than it was 10 or 14 years ago. i think those things move forward. >> quickly glenn, respond. >> the other issue i think is where she stands. she's very unlikely to get a challenger from the left. think that really threw her off her game. so her candidacy will presumably be foumtly different, too. >> the nature, we've never seen a primary like that we may never see one as dramatic and as stretched-out as that, too i guess that would drive any

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and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can. . i could stand up here and say, let's just get everybody together, let's get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, selecelestial choirsl be singing and everyone will know we will do the right thing and the world will be perfect. maybe i just lived a little long, but i have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. >> that was then-presidential candidate hillary clinton in 2008. maybe you remember that. we've been discussing the relationship between her and the media with two reporters who have covered her on the campaign trail. okay, so perry, that moment

right there, she wasn't just talking about the press. but i think there was a little bit, that's how she felt she was being, that obama was being portrayed by the press, by everybody. not the most inspiring statement, but one we remember. were you saying something interesting in the break. about a distinction between covering hillary clinton personally, and dealing with hillary clinton personally. what that experience is like as a reporter. versus interfacing with her staff. >> like glenn said, her staff had this very much that the reporters are out to get her in some ways and they, any story about any subject, you'd have this very, in '08, very aggressive, hostile emails, very tough. in a way that was stories, about trying to explain a policy. every interaction was very negative. particularly in the 2007 period as obama was rising. hillary clinton herself. if you ever get to talk to her, we had some off-the-records with her, would be very friendly in a way, i covered hillary and obama some. i got to know hillary much more than obama. she was one that would ask, she remembered people's birthdays, she called one of the reporters,

one of the reporter's girlfriends on her birthday and said he's not going to be here, he's with me. she was very friendly with the reporters themselves. >> did the public ever see her? >> almost never she was much more relaxed in the behind-the-scenes moments a little bit more and i think pretty funny. and she could tell a joke and understood the coverage about her. there were moments where you saw that but i thought in general she did not do a good job of portraying herself as someone who i knew was more friendlies that she portrayed herselves. her twitter messages in the last, last moments have shown me a little bit more, she's going to run more like herself. she's more comfortable now than she was in 2008. >> glenn, the hillary clinton that perry is describing, i've heard people who are closer to her than i am, describe her that way to me. so i, i mean it sounds to me like if the public saw that, it would do wonders for her.

do you think they're going to see it in 2016? is there something that's presenting her or the people around her from letting americans know the preventing americans from letting them know? >> there's a duality there. there's no one hillary clinton in private. there are really sort of two if you want to paint with a broad brush here. she can be enormously charming, funny. she has a really biting wit. she's more entertaining to be around than almost any other politician i've been around. i talked about this hillary and me piece this amazing incident in 2007 where i was staking her out in little rock, arkansas, and my wife calls me up and tells me that our then 4-year-old son has a seizure. it was very scary. passed out. one of hillary's staffers came up to me and asked me what was wrong. a minute later the candidate herself was in front of me asking how my son was doing. she can really be that warm when

she narrowed you down. in terms of the way she left with staff. and she could be enormously caustic. it almost as if a switch would get flipped and a hillary we were more comfortable around and off the record very personal understanding would toggle back to viewing us as a group of people collaborating with the obama campaign or the vast right wing conspiracy. so the issue with her is not what is the real hillary? there are multiple real hillaries. and which she chooses to highlight is important. it's much more a matter of discipline, managing herself. she doesn't have to love us. she has to develop a good enough relationship it doesn't work to her detriment. >> it will be so different this time. she's now much more liked.

her secretary of state experience has changed. they think of her as someone who voted if r the iraq war we all viewed in political terms. now in obama, someone who opposed this for the right reasons. and now the conduct is going to be so different. if elizabeth warren and i got in as being more candid and right, right now she's in a primary, unopposed. shast going to change the coverage a lot, too. >> the difference between being opposed by them. but thanks this morning to politico. i appreciate that. a busy, busy news morning. we just received word from a senior defense official that the five top level taliban detainees have arrived in cutter. they were releelsed six hours after army sergeant was handed over to special operations forces in afghanistan. he has arrived at a u.s. military hospital in germany. we'll be right back. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters.

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all right. it's the time when we find out what our guests should know for the week ahead. we only have one guest left. >> monday the obama administration will announce new rules on the existing 600 coal power plants. this is kbig o big news. it's a big story in terms of policy. this is the biggest policy the president will announce in the next few years. it's a huge policy story. it's also a huge political story. . you'll see it play out in kentucky and west virginia where they argue the president is leading a war on coal. this is a seminole event in terms of policy and politics. >> one that was here in november. kentucky, that's your state. prediction out there. i'm a little groggy this morning. i stayed up late watching san antonio last night. anyway, i want to thank nbc news. another reaction from melissa. msnbc news political reporter

for coming in. if you saw yesterday's show, you know up against the clock had celebrity pop-ins. next week is no different. another big name celebrity guests joins contestant row. hint, hint, i feel the earth move. next, here's melissa harris-perry and how is this happening. who is it happening to and what's being done about it? is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap.

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