news interview. jeff, and kim, and mr. g, and jellybean. thank you, everybody. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> that does it for us. i'm ari melber. trouble with the deal. let's play "hardball." good evening, i pem chris matthews in washington. the questions most reasonable people are asking concern u.s. security. was it good for the u.s. to have these five top taliban figures released back to the region? is it plausible the effort by the taliban to get them back is strategic on its part to have top commanders ready to take part in the eventual challenge to the afghanistan government once the u.s. pulls out?

are we being allied of a taliban push? was bergdahl was simply a pawn to return afghanistan to what it was before we invaded? and what's this claim that bergdahl served with honor and distinction? how does this square with the fact that he mailed his possessions back to his patients before he left his unit. is this an attempt to make the deal for his release a happier occasion than what it otherwise may merit? this has grown into a serious debate and is hardly the familiar democrat versus republican fight. even if the usual suspects on the right out there are doing what they predictably do, attack president obama. gentlemen, thank you for joining us. we've got a new development here.

senator dianne feinstein chairing the intelligence committee says the administration violated the law by failing to notify congress about the prisoner transfers. let's watch senator feinstein. >> i understand, and i believe the vice chairman does as well that there are circumstances when the president needs to act quickly and his article 2 powers allow him to do so. however, i also believe that given the past, that the concerns were bipart stan. and i strongly believe that we should have been consulted, that the law should have been followed, and i very much regret that was not the case. >> it wasn't the case that he never consulted them, parentally.

we're hearing that on the house intelligence committee side. the question is, these are politicians. i have great respect for dianne feinstein, but she's not just saying she wasn't consulted, not just saying the law was violated. she's implicitly saying i don't like this deal. what are you hearing from people about the deal itself? the five taliban leaders that are going back to the region whose one american's status was still murky when he left the service. >> people are glad we got bergdahl back. if he had been drug down kabul and abducted we would have still wanted him back. he had people killed for five years now to get him back. that's not a debate. the advisers think it's a good idea to embrace a guy we knew walked away from his post in a combat situation and ended up getting his buddies in difficult -- >> what do you mean by embrace? >> the fact that he walked out of his parents, the fact that we have him serving with honor and

distinction. he risks losing credibility with the armed forces. >> the president does? how do you get them out if the other side won't make any other deal but this one? >> we've got 60,000 killed or wounded. bergdahl's misconduct landed him in five years of misery with the taliban. it's possible we would have never gotten him back. the question at hand is, was it worth letting goth five most dangerous people in our hands. that's really the president's call, but at the end of the day, this was missed conduct. we should not characterize the guy as a hero. by the way, he shouldn't be an honorably medically staff sergeant a year from now. his misconduct should have been ruled not line of duty. >> let's talk about this, the five detainees released were all high-ranking members of the taliban, according to "the washington post." they included taliban army's

chief of staff. the former chief of taliban security. the former deputy chief of intelligence, senior commander, and the former interior ministry of the taliban government. today in poland, president obama defended his decision to swap these five leader for one u.s. soldier. let's watch. >> we get every soldier held in captivity. full stop. we don't condition that. >> a year from now, if we're still talking about this, it won't be about bergdahl. he'll be back home in idaho. we'll talk about what those five people were up to over there. meanwhile, the chairman chief of staff this. the question about this 108d jer's conduct are separate from our attempt to recover any soldier in captivity. like any american, he's innocent

until proven guilty. and let me go to colonel davis. the question i have, and i hope you can stick to it, is the reasonableness of this decision to release five dangerous men who eventually will find their way back to afghanistan, the country they wish to take over. and the question i have is from the other side. why did they fight so hard to get these five guys back. nept him back it seems to me for some strategic reason, tor part of what their plans are once we leave a year from now. your thought about the strategic danger of these releases? >> i would push back on the hyperbole about these being the most dangerous men at guantanamo. >> i didn't say that. don't push back at me, sir. i didn't say that. i said chief of staff of the taliban, one of the other was top intelligence officer. one of the kourn command guys. these guys were pretty high ranking.

my question to you is why did they want him back so much. >> in 12 years, we can never charge these guys. the taliban, clearly, they were affiliated with the taliban. it would make sense they would ask for them back. our legal basis to detain them is going to run out at the end of the with the close of the afghanistan war. get a soldier back with five people we couldn't haven't charged in 12 years. >> why are they no longer a danger to the united states in terms of that war front. and by the way, by your logic he could have led the general free in vietnam. he was certainly a threat to our allies and certainly a threat to our interests. >> we had no evidence -- >> these guys are an enemy of the united states. are they not? >> if we had any evidence they had committed any offense, we would have preferred charges against them. and in 12 years we couldn't do them. >> that's why we keep them in

gitmo. >> our legal justification is we are at war. by the end of the year, that war is coming to an end. so, you know, we've got to come up with a new legal -- >> do you think the war against the united states from the taliban point of view is going to be over when we check out of there? you honestly believe they're going to stop attacking us and our interests? >> i don't think we measure our behavior about what the taliban thinks. legally the war is coming to an end and that's what we've cited to the courts for a decade now. >> you're making these legal points which i question. i don't think they cease to the hostiles. but my question is this, if those guys get back in there and start killing american gi's stationed a at our embassies or wherever else, whose head is that on? yours or the president's? the person who let them go is responsible now. >> if uh you're going to wait until the risk is down to zero -- >> not zero. something plausible. do you think it's plausible they're going to retire from this war. >> we don't know. only time is going to tell. >> you don't think so.

that means something. don't you think it's plausible they will continue to fight against the united states. >> it's certainly possible. i wouldn't rule that out. >> and you want to let them go? >> we have to have some legal justification to detain them and in the absence of that, then yes, that's the alternative. >> how about a conversation with one of them when they say we're out to get the united states, we're engaged in active military jihad against the united states. isn't that enough evidence that they're a danger to the united states? when they say so? >> if there was some evidence that we could charge them with an offense we would have done it. these guys were never brought up for prosecution. >> they're down there for a reason. >> our military, what's our reaction of our military that you know to the fact that we're releasing five people hostile to the united states. they want to go back to where it was before we got there, obviously. the country they had control of, they want that back again, right?

we're giving them the chance to do it. it seems to me. >> the first question i would ask is when the president made this decision in the white house situation room, what was the opinion of the cia, of the counterterrorism center. what did the chairman -- >> susan rice was telling them that our guy serves with distinction and honor. we already heard that line. what else? they're going to be kept in house arrest a year. they have free roam in the country of qatar. >> it was a huge victory for the taliban. and again, i'm not disputing the president's right to make some of these calls. i just think in this case it was a bad judgment. and the worst part of it for the morale of the fighting forces of the u.s. army and marines was letting go a guy, embracing the parents, making it a public ceremony, calling it honor and distinction when we knew he had walked away from his combat unit. >> why do you think they did it? >> susan rice is smart.

why are they building up the case for bergdahl. >> i cannot imagine mao they sat around the table and came up with a good idea to have the president of the united states come out in the rose garden and announce this thing. >> let me go to colonel davis you know military law, i respect that. but what about the requirement that the president notify the congress for po days before he cut a deal. dianne feinstein is a solid member of the united states senate. the one true grown-up over there i think some days. she makes sure we know what she said a few minutes ago, late this afternoon. she doesn't like this. she thinks the president of the united states, her political ally, has broken the law. what do you make of that? >> i think she's wrong. go back to the bush administration and the memo in 2002 where he said congress trying to put any constraints on the president's authority as commander-in-chief is unconstitutional. he was talking about enhanced interrogation and the torture statute but the same rationale applied here. he said he was signing the bill but he felt it was an

unconstitutional infringement on his authority as commander-in-chief. so i understand her objection, but i think the president is right in this case that he had the constitutional authority to do this. >> so his signing of this bill meant nothing? >> it was the defense authorization act, but that provision -- >> but he signed it. >> yeah, well -- >> sign a law you have no intention of enforcement. the president is a serious man, when he signs something that includes the requirement of a 30-day notification. does it mean something? >> i think the constitution trumps the statute. >> even if he signed it? >> yes. >> well, that's certainly weird. that's weird. sometimes i'm glad i'm not a lawyer. thank you for coming on. you may be right. i always say that at the end of the shows. i may be wrong. i don't think so. thank you general mccaffrey and thank you, gentlemen, if for your service, of course.

the army is about to launch a high-level inquiry into bowe bergdahl's disappearance. and some members of his own unit are bitter that he walked away. also, tonight's tight as nails senate primary we think in mississippi. a tea party win could give democrats a plausible chance even to win in mississippi. plus what do you do when you lose two elections as a republican and a majority hispanic district, what else? you switch parties. let me finish tonight with this deal. we're talking about it raising more issues than it resolves. flight 294 is now boarding... looks like we're about to board. mm-hmm. i'm just comparing car insurance rates at progressive.com. is that where they show the other guys' rates, too? mm-hmm. cool. yeah.

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we're hearing a lot about bowe bergdahl from his platoon members who served with him. we're hearing a deep sense of bitterness that bergdahl left his post. i'm speaking with a medic in bergdahl's platoon in afghanistan. his appearance was arranged by capital media, partners of communications and strategy firm with republican ties. also with us eric schmidt, national security correspondent for "the new york times" whose

front page story today outlined the anger felt by bergdahl's former platoon members. another one of bergdahl's former platoon members who was team leader on the night bergdahl disappeared just told cnn that there's more to this story than a soldier walking away. the report says quote, within days of bergdahl's disappearance, teams monitoring radio chatter and cell phone communications intercepted an alarming message. the american is in. a village two miles away. he's looking for someone who speaks english so he can talk to the taliban. i heard it straight from the interpreter's lip said the former team leader. there's a lot more to this story than a soldier walking away. your thoughts and your feelings about the conduct of your former fellow soldier? >> he purposefully and willfully walked away from his post in our small outpost. he predetermined when and why he

was going to leave that was unknown to anybody except for bowe bergdahl. but he purposefully walked away and abandoned his post, abandoned his platoon and abandoned his army. >> what evidence do we have that he had a clear plan? do you have an idea whether he had a plan to go to the taliban? or a plan to just walk to the east to pakistan? i'm -- we're getting different stories. now the latest story that he may have been going to actually make contact with the taliban. we don't know it yet, but we just heard one report on that. did you ever hear anything like that before? >> you would never, ever tell anybody that you're going to walk off the post. because you would be pulled back from the frontline and get mental examinations and you would no longer be in actual combat arms. he never, ever told anybody guess what, tomorrow morning i'm going to walk off the post. because that would totally jeopardize his predetermined plan to actually leave. >> give me a sense of the position of your post at the time. i read some really frightening stories about how people are

really out there in the outpost out there all by yourself and you're always worried who's going to come get you. the old cowboys and indians movies. you don't know when there's going to be a sound in the night. >> did you have that feeling when you were out there? >> all the time, yeah. we were in a small outpost where it was just my play toon. and we were responsible for helping train this kind of roadblock setup where they could help train and figure, you know, what they needed top looking for. we were a three-hour drive from the nearest army base. so we were in the middle of nowhere. my platoon, just 30 of us and whatever supplies we brought with us. >> so if you left the perimeter, which you were guarding, you would be picked up by the taliban, whatever your intentions would be, you would have been picked up by the enemy? >> absolutely.

we got blown up more times than i can count. you knew they were around. you knew that they wanted to hurt you, kill you, capture you. so stepping outside of the wire by yourself without any authorization, without any help, it was pretty much a -- it was a death wish. you were almost expecting to get captured if you were to wander around by yourself. >> how does this story comport with other accounts you've been able to report on? >> well, clearly, josh has just gwynn his firsthand account of what the situation was like in this outpost of june 2009, very hostile environment in eastern afghanistan. not far from the pakistan border. and it was striking that by most accounts that i've been able to come up with, private bergdahl walked off the base without body armor, without his rifles. at best he's naive walking into the security situation that josh just described.

but i see no indication yet that he left deliberately to join the taliban, prince, and act against the americans. clearly, he had e-mailed back to his parents back in idaho that he was disillusioned with the war. he talked, i think, with some of his comrades there at the post. but a lot of what motivated this young man at the time is still unknown and we probably won't know it for several weeks or months to come. >> do you think someone of sound mind would have thought they would have walked to pakistan without being picked up by the taliban from your post? when you were in that outpost? >> i can't answer that. i mean, you would have to be very cocky or just dumb if you think that you could have just walked around in afghanistan by yourself without any kind of support, without your weapon, without your body armor. just go out with your project knife and your notebook and hope to survive. you would have to be dumb, naive or something else, i don't know. >> today's new york times post

front page, you address charges that some may have died in the course of searching for sergeant bergdahl. the furious search led to the deaths of at least two soldiers and possibly six others in the area. pentagon officials say those charges are unsubstantiated and are not supported by a review of a database of casualties in the afghan war. where are you on that have in terms of your reporting? were lives lost by soldiers courageously going out to try to find him before this deal was cut? >> it's still very unclear, chris, as to what the circumstances here were. as josh pointed out, these soldiers were in a dangerous part of afghanistan. so whether or not even if bergdahl hadn't been lost, they would have been out doing combat controls. they very well could have been coming under control there. so to try to link these very unfortunate casualties the americans suffered off that post, the search for bergdahl is somewhat problematic. particularly those that happened later in the summer. some in august and september.

some soldiers are now blaming on the search for bergdahl. that's been pretty difficult to substantiate so far. >> thanks for your service. when you're out there in an outpost, and i try to think about you guys out there, scared to death in some cases, who did you see on the side around you. when you thought about the taliban, did you think about it the way all soldiers do? they're just an enemy. did you get the sense they were weird and focused on religious fury. what did you think of the taliban surrounding you? who were these guys that this guy ended up being in contact with apparently. >> anybody who tries to blow me up, hurt me, hurt my platoon, anybody i care about, they're the enemy. i don't care what religion they are. i don't care how they were brought up. i don't care what their creed,

their ethics are. anybody that tries to kill me or people that i care about, that's my enemy. so i don't care if -- i don't care what their agenda is. if they are trying to kill me, i need to do everything that i can to protect myself and my platoon members. >> that's the amazing thing about bergdahl if we walked into a group of people and he shared your view, they were out to kill him and he walked into them unarmed. thank you for your service. thank you for the great new york times. i mean that. up next, the desperate attempt by one candidate to win a seat in congress with a new party and a new name. caesar chavez is his new name. da(????

>> back to "hardball." time now for "the side show."

the return of sergeant bowe bergdahl from afghanistan has a list of reactions in the country. obviously with many critics raising questions about the prudence of swapping five gitmo detainees in the exchange. last night, steve colbert effectively summarized both sides of the coin and came up with another possible reason for the prisoner trade. >> obviously, we should be happy for the family. they' gotten their loved one back. that's very, very important. the methodology and what we used is very troublesome. negotiating with terrorists. >> there's cause for celebration when an american comes home. we negotiated with terrorists. >> yes, it's a victory and defeat. all of it has us pumping our fist with joy while shaking it with anger. as happy as i am that sergeant bergdahl is coming home, it means that five terrorists are free to roam in a treeless desert with monitored by our predator drones.

you enjoy that freedom, fellas. >> a candidate in arizona has come up with an outrageous new strategy to win the hispanic vote in his state. scott fistler lost his bid for congress in 2012. now he's switched parties to run for the same seat as a democrat. but that's not all. he's legally changed his name to cesar chavez, taking the full name of the famous mexican civil rights act. fistler now, chavez, mr. chavez is unlikely to do well against his democratic rivals, one of whom has already described his candidacy as an affront to the community. finally, karl rove's super pac is getting ready against mark pryor in arkansas. it's a parody of the school spelling bee that's more cutting than cute.

>> your next word is pryor. >> may i have the definition, please? >> pryor, a washington liberal out of touch with arkansas, voted for the obama agenda. >> pryor, o-b-a-m-a. >> close enough. >> what a joke. up next, polls in mississippi close at the top of this hour. could a tea party victory tonight actually give the democrats something of a chance even in mississippi? if i told you that a free ten-second test

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a trip to poland. back to "hardball." >> welcome back to "hardball." as i showed you last night, the final test of the tea party strength takes place tonight in mississippi where polls close in just under a half-hour. the 36-year incumbent thad cochran and chris mcdaniel is expected to be close tonight and could at least potentially have an effect on the senate map this november. here's why we're focused on mississippi. right now there's 12 states with competitive senate races. we expect to be close in this november. ten of them, all in blue, democrats are playing defense.

in other words, they hold the seats now. they could lose them. the republicans need a gain of six to take over the senate. republicans are in a strong shape in the following three states, montana, south dakota and west virginia. they would only need to win a net of three more in the remaining nine states. to get three shots oit of nine. but back to mississippi. it's the last chance for the tea party to score an upset over the establishment candidate this primary season. with the arrest, however, of four mcdaniel supporters in connection with taking photos of senator cochran's bed-ridden wife in a nursing home, it could affect their chance for a victory tonight. michael steele is a former chairman of the republican national committee and an msnbc political analyst and joan walsh is also an msnbc contributor. michael, as a republican, i'm just thinking about this. i've always thought mississippi was hopeless, but then again, if mcdaniel is too far to the right, there is always the

chance that somebody down there, even maybe just one term, they could always give the democrat one term and say this will send a message. they used to do so that. i'll go this w this mooed earn democrat this time because mcdaniel is too far right. how do you see the race going? i know you have to predict in the next hour is tough, four guys going in and taking a picture of a woman who has dementia is pretty sleazy. >> it is. >> and to any extent that it happened, it did happen, it does somehow paint a picture of mcdaniel as part of that attitude of it's worth doing that kind of thing. >> what's interesting about this whole situation of mcdaniel and the picture is that it's not been as much of a drag on his campaign as cochrane's team thought it would be. and even some of the washington types thought it would be. but he's been able to weather this storm. >> you think he's got a good shot? >> the latest polls going in were tied. >> is he too far right for mississippi or is there such a thing?

>> i don't see a democrat even in the best scenarios taking a seat in november, even with mcdaniels at the top of the list. >> two step, the way i've heard it is 50-50 chance for the primary tonight between thad cochran, the 36-year incumbent and this guy, mcdaniel. and possibly if mcdaniel wins a 50-50 race in november, the democrat would have a chance. a chance. >> you know, i'm going to go with michael on this one. i think it's very, very uphill. but i think there are a couple of keys, a couple of potential things here. chris, you make a good point that not much has been made of the daniel supporter playing that dirty trick. it's dirty, whatever it is. and let's be honest. and you talked about this a little bit on the show last night. the problem is that the story line originates in rumors about senator cochran possibly having an affair. i'm not validating those. i'm not -- >> is that really true? i don't like the looks of it. >> wait a second.

henry barbour said to you last night. that's what they were tryinging to prove. it's ugly. i'm not endorsing it. i'm not saying that it's true. but that's how this whole prank or whatever you want to call it, originated. the cochran campaign had its hands tied. they don't want to pay a whole lot of attention to validate that story line. i think democrats could do something different about it. i think there are a lot of republican women who would be horrified at the violation of that poor woman's privacy. some suggest a politician got there because of her boobs, literally. he used that word. there are things democrats could do more with thad cochran if mcdaniel makes it. >> imagine this hot tamale or whatever you want to call him in this u.s. senate. just imagine his number the way he's playing these ethnic cards. all this craziness. and this guy thinking that you can say anything you want.

>> he's been a little bit of a loose cannon. but he's not been damaged in the state of mississippi by that. and the other thing to keep in mind is thad cochran, i have a great deal of admiration for, got caught flat footed. they came in, a lot of folks took the washington hype that this was going to be an easier walk for him than it turned out to be. he came up against a formidable tea party candidate and now he's, i think, kind of paying a little bit of that price because they didn't get on the ground early and work their votes so they could get 50% of the vote plus one tonight. >> let's talk about this. if cochran wins, a 36-year incumbent. this is the last tea party chance to win a race this year. if they lose them, they've lost them all. bad year for the tea party. >> tough year, but the tea party, i think, the tea party is playing long ball. you and i have talked about this. this is as much about 2016 as it is about 2014. >> do you think you could have a tea party candidate for president? >> i could say something like that happening in a republican

primary, sure. >> i do, too. >> absolutely. >> this is news. coming out of this, especially if this guy mcdaniel wins, it sends the signal, you would say i suppose there's still a lot of fury, a lot of steam, if you will. and they could actually win with a rand paul or a rick perry or somebody? >> without a doubt. >> you believe that, joan? the republican party would run somebody that far over? >> i do. because their moderates are really wounded. chris christie is probably mortally wounded in terms of his presidential hopes. jeb bush has lots of baggage. we don't even have to go into that. there's not a mitt romney or john mccain figure who's going to come through the primary and have all the tea party folks fights amongst themt themselves. if mitch mcconnell sur voois, you're going to have him thanking rand paul. they have the fire. >> i think we didn't get to '14 yet. when you agree, i get a little worried here.

i really think it's possible but i don't like to say. i think rand paul can win the early fights. then i think it's going to be one of those moment where is the party takes a agriculture check and says whoa. we're not handing this to hillary clinton. >> but then who is it? >> i don't know. >> the gut check is going to be for the party. every election, the united states asks questions, have we nominated the most conservative person we could? and the answer has been in the last two cycles, no. and the feeling with the base right now is we need to nominate a true conservative and if rand paul and others fit that bill, it could happen. >> hillary clinton is laughing right now. we got the center. thank you, guys. anyway, thank you, michael steele. up next, another bizarre example of willful ignorance of someone close to governor chris christie more in a hearing today. more developments. this story is going to cook for a while.

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>> more trouble in trenton. during the last round of hearings on the george washington bridge lane closure fiasco, we learned from one of chris christie's campaign staffer the order for those lane closures was given just hours after bridget kelly learned that the ft. lee mayor was not endorsing christie for reelection. now one of chris christie's appointees is under fire for his role in turning a blind eye to what happened after that apparent act of political payback. he was made aware of those lane closures on multiple occasions after they happened.

he said he got wind of a scathing letter warning that federal laws had likely been broken and said he received a personal letter from loretta weinberg on the matter. >> this whole issue had become very, very, i thought politically charged, quite frankly, or even partisan to a certain degree. quite frankly, it was not something i wanted to be involved in the middle of, quite frankly. that's the way i felt about it. it became somewhat political with regard to that. and my position with regard to that, i just didn't want to be in the middle. i saw this becoming a political football, and from my perspective, i didn't want to be involved with that. >> that's consistent. he didn't even want to deal with members of his own staff on the issue. here's more of his "i'm not getting involved." >> i think there may have been some tension between some of the new jersey permanent staffers

and the new york staffers. so again, that was another issue that played out with regard to that, and i just didn't want to be part of that either. >> dismiss it and ignore it, it's the playbook which the governor used himself. five investigations are under way right now. this isn't going away any time soon. brian murphy is an msnbc contributor. senator, thank you so much. what did you make of this guy, schuber, he's on the commission, it's his job to oversee the george washington bridge and what goes on there. but he seems to think his title is an honorary title. i don't understand how a guy can take a salary and say i didn't want to get involved in it.

>> let me just correct one thing. the port authority commissioners are not salaried. so they don't receive a salary, they get remunerated for expenses. but i was somewhat surprised, i've known pat schuber for many years. he's a former mayor of a community i represent. he is a former assemblyman, so he served in the legislature, and he's the former county elected executive. so i would have assumed that mr. schuber knew something about his responsibilities, but an e-mail is exposed from his executive director, the port authority executive director saying, laws were probably broken here. none of our processes were followed. people were put in jeopardy.

and his answer was, i just attributed that to tension between new york and new jersey, and i didn't want to be involved. my letter, which i wrote to him very early on in september, is before any of us knew the background of any of this. we didn't know about bridget kelly's e-mail, we didn't know about a whole lot of things. he dismissed that as partisan politics because we ran against each other in an election 15 years ago? i voted for pat schuber to be on the port authority, and i did it proudly, because i felt the county had an experienced voice from somebody who really knew our county. and i am really gravely disappointed in his actions over the last number of years. and it just points out, i think, why this port authority needs a good overhaul, because if pat schuber is indicative of his colleagues there, seems to me

the majority of them took a hands off "i don't want to know" attitude. >> it seems to me if you're put on a board, i stand corrected on the salary issue, but if you're on the board, you have a fiduciary responsibility to be responsible for any political hanky panky that's going on. he's a political appointment. he ought to be shrewd about what looks to be not on the level. the hearings that are probably corresponding to all the legal investigations going on, how are we moving on this? update everybody right now watching on the role of the governor, his people in this political hijinks that was probably -- it's certainly a cause for questions of legality or not here. >> i think we're at the point where, because of the federal investigation, the sort of --

the people that i would like to hear from and probably we would like to hear from, aren't going to be able to appear before that committee that the new jersey legislature has right now. so we're getting to some -- i don't want to demean pat schuber, but we're getting a b-list of witnesses right now, because all the a-list people are with the feds in newark. what we're learning is that the control of the port authority was tightly held. it's not an effective -- the board isn't really providing effective oversight. so it's back to the executive director and the chairman and bill barony and david wilestein, the people around chris christie and andrew cuomo, and what we know is they're in regular contract with chris christie's office, with the governor and the governor's top staff. in some ways, we didn't learn a lot about bridgegate today specifically. we learned the way the place functions makes it, again, extremely unlikely that we would

believe that he wouldn't have known something about what was going on or wouldn't have many opportunities to learn about what was going on. >> this guy schuber is like a mini me of the governor. he doesn't want to know anything. schuber told you today that he checked in with the ft. lee maye your at your request and that's the most anyone looked into the matter. here's more from today. >> i frankly, you know, maybe more could be done, but the fact of the matter, i think i'm the only one that reached out to nibble on this issue at all, quite frankly. >> was he responsive to you in real-time, senator? >> no, absolutely not. he's never responded to my letter. in fact, he seemed to indicate that he just didn't seem to realize that he needed to respond to my letter. i spoke at four different port authority committee meetings, and i addressed him directly.

i said, we had a phone call, you promised you would get back to me and you've never done that. and he still hasn't until his -- >> i think -- >> it's disappointed. >> i think they should have a sign on like a bridge, slippery when wet. thanks to both of you. we'll be right back after this. >> thank you.

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let me finish tonight with this debate over the prisoner swap. is the temperature rising on whether the president was right to swap five taliban leaders for an american who left his outfit in afghanistan? is this a matter of principle, not leaving a man behind, even a man who may have left his uniform, out fit and country behind? or was in a sound reason to believe these five taliban leaders will not come back at us in afghanistan with everything they've got? i think the second question is the far easier one. i find it hard to summon the faith that these taliban leaders will retire from the war. if someone could give me the assurance they will now proceed to peaceful pursuits -- if they were safe to let go, why not let them go before? this debate is going to rage for a while. i expect it will get a lot hotter.

that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. the right tonight is in full freak-out mode over the circumstances of the success or return of the only prisoner of the war in afghanistan, sergeant bowe bergdahl. if you're surprised by that, you have good reason. until bowe bergdahl was released by the taliban after nearly five years in captivity, it was a fairly common view that all steps should be taken to make sure he comes home. last year, republican senator james inhofe of oklahoma said it's important that we make every effort to bring him home. now he says the president negotiated with terrorists. the republicanat