>> the fact that he was a dancer, a ballerina, what does that mean? >> i'm sick of people saying we always went after deserters. when we got them, we shot them or hanged them. >> he said he was growing his beard because his son was in captivity. your son's out now. you don't have to look like a member of the taliban. are you out of razors? >> i don't want to contradict your hatred of facial hair, but if you gave bob bergdahl a bandanna and duck, you would like him just fine. who is sergeant bowe bergdahl? that question is now at the heart of a sweeping political fight for how america treats its soldiers and how it treats some of its enemies. a new video released by the taliban is adding fuel to that fire. video shows the handoff of 28-year-old sergeant bergdahl waiting in a pickup truck for the u.s. military helicopter,

being escorted to the waiting americans who quickly shake hands with the taliban fighters and getting checked for weapons and being loaded into that aircraft and to freedom. the pentagon says there's no reason to doubt the authenticity of that video, and this morning deputy national security adviser ben rhodes told reporters what's on the video wasn't surprising. he said, quote, we didn't tape the video to release ourselves, but this was a very transparent exchange carefully negotiated, so it went off without surprises in tems of how it was executed. the video, though, has left americans with a lot more questions than answers. the white house insists it couldn't wait to notify congress in advance, because bergdahl was in danger. his health so deteriorated, that secretary of defense chuck hagel said it would, quote, essentially save his life. what do you think looking at this video? there's the vividness of the man seeing the man who some say abandoned his fellow troops. moments ago army specialist joshua cornellisson said that to

tamron hall. take a listen. >> he was a good soldier at the same time. he always wanted to learn more. he always wanted to be -- know everything we were doing, how all of our battle drills, he studied and studied and studied. he didn't just want to know how, he wanted to know why do we do this, how do we do this and why do we do that. as a team leader, it was actually very refreshing to have a soldier who was that committed to the job that we were about to go do in afghanistan. >> he absolutely 100% deserted his post, without any shadow of a doubt. he intentionally left his duty station in our o.p. >> two different perspectives, deserter or not. and should it matter to the decision whether to bring home one of our soldiers. joining me now via skype is a sergeant who served alongside sergeant bergdahl in

afghanistan. thank you for joining us. when you see that video and bergdahl's release, what goes through your mind? >> thanks for having me. i actually haven't seen the video, so i don't know. >> he's getting handed off and you see the taliban fighters. when you see the images of sergeant bergdahl in general, what does it conjure for you as someone who has memories of him? >> mostly anger and resentment. >> because you feel that he abandoned his post and should not have? >> i know he abandoned us, and deserted. >> and many who served with him agree with that sentiment. what do you think that should have as an effect on the negotiation process for a soldier's release? should it change things at all if someone deserts? >> it should completely change things if someone's a deserter, or just captured. especially when you're talking exchanging other prisoners that we're holding, bad prisoners, for somebody who was a deserter,

making that exchange makes all the difference in the world. >> and this has ignited so much, sort of partisan furor. republicans saying one thing, democrats saying other things. everybody's weighing in. do you feel that the story of these soldiers in afghanistan is being used as a political football. >> >> well, what i'm trying to do, and what my buddies are trying to do, it has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with getting the facts out, getting the true story out there for the public, for america to hear for themselves. there's nothing to do with right wing, left wing. politics has nothing to do with it. >> when you say you want to get the true story out, tell us more about that. what do you recall about sergeant bergdahl? what kind of a man was he during that brief period when he was serving? >> he was actually in the country with us for a brief period of time. he deployed late, was probably only in the country for maybe a month, a little over a month before he walked off.

quiet guy, kept to himself. studied, trained. not a bad soldier, but still, it doesn't take away from him leaving his appointment, and walking off. >> what about this other element of his release, that there was a trade of sorts, the white house is being careful not to say a trade, they're saying a transfer, but five guantanamo bay senior taliban leaders were released to secure bergdahl's freedom. how does that make you feel and do you worry that puts the price on the heads of other service men and women? >> it does anger me. i do fear it does set a bad precedence. i don't think the exchange should have taken place in the first place, with everything surrounding bergdahl right now. the questions of why he did it, and what happened while he was in captivity. there's too many questions just to exchange prisoners like that. >> and if you could say one thing to the president about

this, what would it be? >> to open up an investigation, look back at all the sworn statements with michael tombroon. the same thing we wrote on that piece of paper and what everybody else wrote that day and the days afterwards, are the same things we're saying today. >> sergeant, thank you for your time. and thank you for your service. >> thank you. for better or worse, this has become a deeply political fight. some of the soldiers are rallying against that, but people on the hill seem slow to drop it. joining me to weigh in, karen finney, former communications director at the dnc and host here on "disrupt" here on msnbc. thank you both for being here. karen, i start with you. with all these suspicions about sergeant bergdahl, but also about his family, his father whose alleged tweets are getting blowback for being sympathetic to the taliban some critics are saying, was the rose garden conference announcing this

release a bad move? should the president been photographed hugging this family and announcing this triumphantly? >> it depends on how you feel what happened. if you believe in the idea that we don't leave anyone behind, no man, no woman behind, and that this was a successful effort to get him back, his parents obviously very happy to have him home, then yes, that is appropriate. i think certainly there are questions, and i do think the white house probably should have been better prepared for some of the questions that would come out. because obviously we're having multiple discussions about not just questioning the president's decision, but also questions about bowe himself. i think they should have been better prepared for that. >> john, some republicans have been comparing this to benghazi, you know, there's been a lot of railing against the kind of soldier that sergeant bergdahl was and saying that makes this transfer more inappropriate. deserter or not, he is a soldier. do republicans letting the critiques run the risk of d denigrating our troops? >> i think republicans have to

be careful. we all have to be happy that we've got bergdahl back in the states. we've got to say, listen, i think you can question the trade, though. i think the fact that they traded five high-value taliban strategists who as the president himself said have probably a pretty good chance of being recidivists, will wage jihad against america again, you have to ask yourself, is this the right trade. the other question is, was the obama administration -- they initially went out and said this guy was a hero when they should have known he abandoned his post. which brings up so am anger from the troops themselves. i think the anger from the troops themselves is kind of the most significant part of this. they're mad. they're mad, saying that this guy is some sort of hero when he clearly was not. >> the information was out there, right, karen? >> right. >> to the michael hastings piece. >> there's a couple things we need to remember. you know this having been at the state department. i know this having been at the white house. we as the public don't have all

the information that the president and national security team has, and that the department of defense has. we're trying to judge this from the outside without the benefit of all the information. i think that's an important point to make. and i do think it's important that we let mr. bergdahl, i want to hear bowe bergdahl's side of what happened. we're hearing from the men who served with him. that's important. but let's hear from him before we decide to convict him, before we decide what should happen to him. >> i think a lot of people are eager to. john, i want to get your reaction, so stick around, both of you. actually, we're going to have you weigh in on everything coming up next. including an unusual voice in congress. someone whose personal experiences give her a unique acquaintance with what the meaning of that phrase "no man left behind" really is for families. don't go away. ♪ [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon.

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a new taliban video of sergeant bowe bergdahl coming back into u.s. hands is now inflaming tensions over the recovered soldier. no more so than on capitol hill where ire is mounting by the minute to the president's failure to announce to congress about the handoff and releasing five guantanamo bay detainees to secure it. >> people are just understandably so upset about this. i heard about it this morning, speaking to a rotary club. it was one of the big questions that they had, what are you going to do to the president, why did he do it this way, why did he do it in secret, why does he think he can work outside the law. >> even the democratic chair of the senate intelligence committee, dianne feinstein, said it's unclear why the white house didn't go through the necessary channels. >> as i understand, he was

undernourished, not necessarily malnourished, but undernourished. the last assessment was made a few months before, i think in december of last year. so unless something catastrophic happened, i think there was no reason to believe that he was in instant danger. >> that's both a political and a legal question. that's because under the 2014 defense authorization act, the secretary of defense is supposed to notify congress 30 days prior to any transfer of gitmo detainees. the president did issue a signing statement at the time saying he thought he could override that restriction. but there's no sense of whether that's going to stand up to the hill, and potentially at some point the courts. joining me now is congresswoman lois frankel of florida. her son is a marine veteran who served if afghanistan and iraq. congresswoman, thank you so much for your time. i know you feel really passionately that no soldier

should be left behind as the president said. and that bringing sergeant bergdahl home was a good thing to do. but do you not think that the president needed to disclose more earlier to congress about this? >> well, there have been a lot of questions that are raised, and i'm going to hold judgment on that. i have great confidence that my colleagues back in congress and the senate, that they'll take a good careful look. and i hope and expect that the president's going to give us some answers. so we can come to that judgment. >> setting aside this case, in principle, do you think that when we leasing prisoners like senior taliban leadership, congress should hear about it ahead of time? >> well, that's the law. and i certainly believe in the rule of law. the president has said that there were exigent circumstances. i think he does need to let congress know what they are and we'll make a judgment after that. i think here's what's important, for me, and that is, we have

brought a prisoner of war back. there's been a lot of complaints, i think, by some, that he wasn't worthy of being brought back. i think that the principle that we leave no fallen soldier on the ground, that we bring our men and women back from war, is a good principle. otherwise we have every man for themselves type situation, which i think would bring chaos. >> congresswoman, what about the release of these guantanamo bay detainees? does that risk putting a price on the heads of other service men, given that this was, although the white house isn't using this word, essentially a swap of sorts? >> well, i will tell you this, i think our service men always have a target on their back. this is a very dangerous world. you know, there were essentially, it seems a couple ways to get the soldier back. one was by a military action, which i don't know was possible,

and apparently you put more soldiers at risk. the other is some type of negotiation. the president made a judgment call. i know there's going to be a lot of time now for us to take a look at as to whether or not we agree or disagree with that judgment call. i'd like to wait and hear some more of the facts. >> congresswoman, as we mentioned, this is also a perm question for your son as a marine veteran. >> yes. >> what was it like if or you to watch that video of sergeant bergdahl's release? >> you know, i've said this before, i think for a parent whose child goes to war, one of the greatest nightmares is not that your child would be killed, that is a nightmare, but that they're going to be captured. and who knows what, put in a cage, tortured. i mean, the thoughts are unimaginable. and i just thought about his parents. i can't even -- i mean, the relief that they feel brought a

lot of tears to my heart. >> congresswoman lois frankel, i'm glad your own family is safe. and a lot of us share that reaction to watching that video. joining me again now -- >> thank you. >> -- to dissect the political reaction is karen finney, former communications director for the dnc, and john feary, republican strategist. john, if this were a republican president, and we had this same swap, do you think it would get the same kind of blowback? how much is this a political question than a substantive one? >> i think it's more substantive. i think if someone like john mccain who was a prisoner of war or sam johnson who was a prisoner of war, they're o outraged not about the politics, that they think this is a bad trade for national security. you've got to understand about bergdahl, he wasn't captured by the enemy, he kind of wandered off and sort of gave himself up to the enemy. that's differently than being captured in a dogfight.

this is -- there's substantive questions. congresswoman frankel is absolutely right, we have to get to the bottom of the questions and find out exactly what happened. >> you brought in the desertion allegation. should that make a difference? >> more importantly, it's an allegation. john, you're not in a position to say you know exactly what happened. let's give this young man an opportunity to give his side of the story before we convict him. >> but that's what his comrades are reporting. >> i hate the fact that this is political. i really wish this was not so political. but if we want to go to politics, let's go to politics. hundreds of prisoners were released from guantanamo bay by president george bush. many of whom returned to the battlefield. if we're going to be angry now, we should have been angry then. >> how many documented instances of this tit for tat that people find dangerous? >> we don't have all of the information. i agree there are plenty of questions out there that need answering.

as you know, there's a difference between the taliban and al qaeda in terms of operationally. this conversation had been going on for several years. a number of these members of congress have been part of that conversation. some said they would not favor a swap. then you also have stories, i've seen video of john mccain and others saying, we should do whatever it is that we can do to get them back. >> that is, by the way, a substantive reaction in some. i share the lament of how political this has become. one of the most striking examples is rick perry said is this about take ging the va scal off the front pages? is that going too far in terms of political accusations? >> i don't know about that, ronan. i know leon panetta was against releasing these five prisoners. these are high-value prisoners who could cause a lot of national security problems for the united states. so we have to look at the bottom of this. we have to ask ourselves, was he trying to do this -- was the president trying to do this for

political reasons. was there something he wanted to get off his plate? many are making that charge. not just republicans. the fascinating thing is, the president thought he would win on this issue and it's really becoming a problem for him. >> i think he thought he was doing a good thing by bringing a soldier home. >> many are admitting the rose garden may not have been the right choice. we may come back to both of you on this, because it will be a story that keeps on going. appreciate it. up next today, you can't spell pig castration without tea, the tea party favorite makes a giant leap toward washington, d.c., right up ahead. if i can impart one lesson to a

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party was one in the bag and the other still steeping. too close to call. promises of hog castration and guns led state legislator joanie ernst to victory in the iowa gop senate primary. >> i grew up walking beans, canning food and feeding hogs on our family farm. and yes, some of you may know that i did more than just feed the hogs. >> only because they keep reminding us, in mississippi a race between thad cochran and tea party challenger chris mcdaniel, they look like they're headed to a runoff. last night mcdaniel did some waxing victorious. >> this is a historic moment in this state's history. and because of your hard work, because of your dedication, we

sit here tonight leading a 42-year incumbent. >> one way or the other, i promise you this, whether it's tomorrow or three weeks from tonight, we will stand victorious in this race. >> for his part, senator cochran merely sent out a tweet. new campaign starts tomorrow. three weeks to victory. or, you know, three weeks to victory i guess? but we must also go west to california. where in the race to replace henry waxman representing the skid row's malibu and slums of beverly hills, there were 17, count them, 17, actually, don't, that will take awhile, candidates on the ballot. how did that shape up? republican elan car is in the lead followed by the 16 others including some democrats, a couple of independents, and, oh, marianne williamson with an iconic voice supporting her

campaign. williamson is in fourth place. it's like rain on your voting day. next up, it's the 25th anniversary of an act of senseless repression that captured the world. it's being remembered with more repression? we go to china's tiananmen square right up ahead. unlimited. as in, no limits on your hard-earned cash back. as in no more dealing with those rotating categories. the quicksilver card from capital one. unlimited 1.5% cash back on everything you purchase, every day. don't settle for anything less. i'll keep asking. what's in your wallet?

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66 people have been detained in the run-up to today's anniversary, lawyers, journalists, activists. internet searches are being curtailed. elsewhere, people are remembering. "the new york times" released a retrospective today of the hair-raising pulitzer prize-winning accounts from nicholas cristoff. by ordering soldiers to fire, it created an incident that will surely haunt the government for years to come. haunt it does, but can it effect change or dissent in china at a standstill? joining me is nick cristoff from "the new york times." thank you for joining me. >> sure. >> of everything that you covered, what's the memory seared in your brain? >> the single thing i remembered most is the courage of ordinary people, and i think so often we've heard the narrative that people in poor countries less

educated aren't prepared for democracy. at some level there's something to that, democracies are less successful. but that night the real heroes, when the army opened fire on the public, were people like rickshaw drivers who rescued the bodies of the dead and injured, and drove them -- >> you told that incredible story of the one man with tears running down his face. >> sobbing as he did that. and there was -- on the old airport road, there was a bus driver who blocked -- who drove his bus across the road to block the troops. and they came at him at gun point and ordered him to move the bus. he took the keys that were in his hand and threw them as far as he could into the grassy verge. when people are capable of that kind of courage, then you can't say, oh, you know, you're not prepared for democracy. >> one of the observations you had about one of the individuals that was fighting so hard that night was he might not have known the meaning of the concept of democracy, but it was instinctively something he wanted to fight for. >> people wanted better economic management, they wanted less

corruption and they couldn't articulate when they called it the ninju democracy. but it was some kind of a government that wouldn't entail shooting the public, using an army to mow people down. >> it seemed like that fire is diminishing in some quarters. there's a very interesting column in "the new york times," helen gowe, to mark this anniversary that writes, youth are an thpathetic. why do you think that is? >> i don't buy that. in early 1989, people were saying exactly the same thing, that, oh, sure, back in 1987, in the early '80s people cared about democracy. but now we're busy getting rich. the moment came when you could protest safely, and, you know, millions of people went out on the street. and right now as you create a more educated class, a more middle class, expose people more to corruption, when people think they can get away with it, they'll be out on the streets

again. >> you think the fire is still there? >> i think that fire is absolutely still there. >> it seems like what gowe was attributing it to is the lack of ability to google and people not wanting to go through the trouble of getting a vpn to be on the internet. we looked at that challenge with the partnership with a data mining firm. they went deep into this idea of censureship. >> do you know what happened in china? >> 25 years after thousands of chinese students gathered in tiananmen square for an extraordinary show of civil disobedience, in beijing today there is a real sense of historical amnesia.

>> back then, the students' demonstration against corruption and equality and lack of basic political freedom was crushed by the military. and the men who ruled china in the buildings around the famous square also known as the gate of heavenly peace. these days, the tanks have been replaced by an army of digital sensors who wipe out any public mention of the tiananmen square crackdown. >> it's a tremendously massive undertaking. we've been collecting thousands of posts from the chinese version of twitter, and then tracking the ones that are mysteriously removed from state s censures. >> this aggressive and sustained censureship campaign has been

enormously successful. >> many chinese we spoke to have clearly moved on. >> this man didn't want his face shown.

>> so when it comes to civil disobedience in china today, it's less about what's happening on the streets and more about what's happening online. not even the great firewall of china can shut that down. >> nick, what's the answer? will the solutions come from pressure from outside groups, like google, maybe from the corporate world, or is it going to come from within china? >> i think it's basically going to come from within china. but i think we can add to the pressure to remember, and not forget. we can speak up for people like the great nobel pulitzer prize winner not only in prison himself, but his wife is under house arrest, being brutalized as pushing pressure on leo.

and the government does to some degree at the margins respond to pressure. and in that sense, there's been progress over the time i've covered china. dissidents used to be tortured, but now they're locked up and not tortured. when we had independent labor unions clubbed in the streets, that will be progress for china. >> in terms of progress, when you put yourself in your 1989 shoes, has there been more or less progress than you expected? >> less progress. there's been more economic progress, and i think more ideological progress. you don't really have people who believe in communism anymore. there used to be hard liners, you don't have that. you have the communist leaders believing in their families becoming billionaires, they believe in staying in power, but there isn't an ideological content to that. you have pluralism of clothing, pluralism of economy, what you don't have is political pluralism. tiananmen is still an unmenti

unmentionable word. >> hopefully economic progress can fuel other forms of progress. nick, thank you so much. >> thank you. just ahead on the program, you may be against gun violence, but is your retirement fund? the high-caliber ten sons up ahead. [ dennis ] it's always the same dilemma -- who gets the allstate safe driving bonus check. rock beats scissors! [ chuckles ] wife beats rock. and with two checks a year, everyone wins. [ female announcer ] switch today and get two safe driving bonus checks a year for driving safely. only from allstate. call 866-906-8500 now. [ dennis ] zach really loves his new camera. problem is...this isn't zach. it's a friend of a friend who was at zach's party and stole his camera. but zach's got it covered... with allstate renters insurance. [ female announcer ] protect your valuables for as low as $4 a month when you add renters insurance to your allstate auto policy. call 866-906-8500 now. what are you doing? we're switching car insurance. why? because these guys are the cheapest. why?

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they say leave your guns at home when you go out to dine. but it's not just leaving your guns at home that's in the news. an increasing strain in this conversation is about putting your money where your mouth is. so look at yourself. where do you invest? more than 51 million people have a 401(k). and $1.97 billion mutual fund dollars are invested in three american public gun companies. money some gun safety advocates say could trigger change. >> they're making money off the backs of dead people. i just can't tolerate it. and i won't let my money support it. get that thing out of my home, out of my assets, out of my future. i wish i could get it out of my past. but at least i can get it out of my 401(k). >> could divestment be more in the gun war. the father of two children, who survived the shooting at sandy hook elementary. he also appeared in that video you just saw. also, jennifer fiore, the

founder of unload your 401(k).com. jennifer, history does tell us divestment can work like we saw with the 1990s movement against the tobacco industry, in the '80s the response to apartheid. given that you're going up against a very large well-oiled blogging machine, do you think you can succeed here? >> i think so. the political process has stalled. i think when we've run up against this time after time again, and the other side is just incredibly powerful minority, but very vocal minority that seems to carry an unwieldy amount of power, politically, that the only options left to us is one of economic divestment. as you pointed out, it's true, the divestment campaign organized by students in south africa was incredibly powerful. and the united states, within the united states, and harvard

university was one of the first campuses to divest from south africa, and is known widely as the leader among that movement. and of course, the dominos began to fall, and the south african apartheid regime eventually fell along with it. in the tobacco movement, this was also powerful and helped bring the tobacco industry to the table to negotiate. yes, divestment is an option. >> university endowments being a part of this. a number of schools divested from chinese oil companies who were supposedly underwriting some of the violence in sudan. so there are both recent and now going back a ways precedence for this. eric, on the personal side of this, what would you say to people who have investments in gun stocks? >> first and foremost, i'm not anti-gun. there's a lot of people who want to paint me that way. i'm not. i am appalled at the behavior of this industry, though, how it puts profits before lives.

i do believe that we can market guns responsibly, and legislate them responsibly in a way that will have a meaningful reduction in the gun violence problem in this country. with that said, a lot of folks say if you don't like guns, don't buy them. one of the refrains i have to that is, what if i don't like gun violence. this is something that you can do. if you're an individual who feels powerless in this stalled situation that jennifer alluded to, one of the things that you can look into, and it's very easy to do, just do a google search for a campaign to under do your 401(k). it literally took longer to just look up what funds i have in my company's 401(k) than it did to figure out which funds that they might actually be supporting. so it felt good to know i'm not invested in subsidizing the sale of guns, and hence, gun violence. >> what do you say to people who argue gun companies are just good american sources of commerce, and that the better targets for this kind of a campaign would be the

legislators, or the lobbyists on the hill? >> one of the things that we know is campaigns require money. and where there's a profit motive, but there is no disincentive to continue a certain course, you won't see a change in behavior. it's not going to be driven by companies that -- the people who run these companies actually have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits, as long as they're not breaking the law and they're working within the context of the law. in some cases i could see if they were to take an action that would be counter to their profits, they might be sued by their investors. if you look at what happened with ruger in the late '80s when they -- bill ruger made the point that, i don't want to see large capacity magazines in the hands of civilians. he believed those were for soldiers. i think he was correct in that assumption. the backlash against that company, it took them years before they ever recovered. >> this is something that can really change the bottom line

calculus for people. as people constantly come to us saying, what can we do, whether they're passionate on the right or left of this issue, this is something you can do to make your voice heard. i hope you both hear that call. it's an option, depending on your point of view, put your money where your mouth is. eric, jennifer, thank you so much. >> thank you. remember, all week as our call to action, we urge you to lend your voice to this fight. send a postcard to your elected message, not one more. head to our website, where we have a link to the postcard on the every town site. sign it, enter your zip code, and the site will identify your representatives and send your message along. so far 540,000 people have sent more than 2 million postcards. not one more. people like sean blader, who said he stands with richard martinez, father of the ucsb shooting victim christopher. also, one tweet saying, she misses her son, jordan, every day of her life.

and in madison, wisconsin, letting the light shine for children's safety. up next, stay with us, because some of the world's most famous athletes are about to head into an increasingly dangerous country. what could possibly go wrong, right? the safety concerns about the world cup, up ahead. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪ 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. ♪ and cialis for daily user you. my mom works at ge. helps you be ready anytime the moment is right. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines,

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it is the most expensive world cup ever. at an estimated $11 billion triple the amount spent by south africa four years ago and seven times as much as germany doled out in 2006. the reason for the big price tag? part of it is six brand new very expensive stadiums. the brazilians seem to be not pleased. a new poll found 61% of brazilians think that hosting the cup is bad for their country siphoning off much needed funds that could be used for schools, health care, variety of other

public services they need. perhaps including security, muggings in one reo neighborhood have increased 60% this year. officials are carrying out ever more emergency drills. with fans and players traveling thousands of miles to stadiums around brazil how safe are they going to be? let's turn to our guest who played for team usa in the 2006 world cup and is currently on the you tube channel kick tv and knows a lot more about sports than i do. jimmy, thanks for coming back. how do players prepare for security threats? >> when i played in 2006 in germany there was a big threat to our safety. they had three s.w.a.t. team cars ahead and behind of our bus, a helicopter following with snipers making sure we were protected. >> and there is jimmy. see him right there. >> what a good looking kid that guy is. and we had to take different routes to practice because they didn't want anybody to be able to set up and do that.

players, understand it is part of it but it throws you off a bit when you see guys with machine guns following you around all the time. >> i bet. do you think this is going to wreck people's games? this must be a threatening atmosphere. in brazil it seems the security threats are even more present. >> no question. i don't think they understand how many people are going to invade their country from a tourist perspective. i'm a little nervous about the infrastructure. we talked about the stadiums and the stadiums aren't going to be used after the tournament is over but do they know really how many people are coming to the tournament? are the airport ready? are roads ready? i'm not quite sure and that is going to be a problem when we get down there what would you say to players trying to maintain their competitive edge and not get distracted? >> focus on the game as pluch as possible. worry about what you can control not what is happening all around you. it's all cliche's but that is the basis of everything. >> you, yourself, are headed to brazil next week. are you taking extra precautions? >> i'm taking a speedo. >> that is the most important thing. >> you have scantily clad

people. >> we'll see you in a full carnivale -- >> that's the plan. >> good plan. we'll take live footage of that for sure when you're down there. thank you for that update, jimmy conrad. >> thank you. >> that wraps things up for today's edition of "rf daily." now it's time for joy reed. are you going to be playing football on the show? >> for the entire hour. very much so. next on "the reid report" as more republicans swift boat, we'll show you how it might back fire. next, "the reid report" starts now and it is now. [male vo] inside this bag exists

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report" and i'm joy reid. today the hill explodes at the white house over the return of an american soldier. >> members of congress including some democrats believe the white house violated the law. >> why the white house did not provide congress with notice. >> i strongly believe that we should have been consulted. >> the obama administration decided, no, we don't have to follow the law. let's do what we want. >> some lawmakers complained they didn't get their 30 days' notice prior to the trade of five taliban members for sergeant bowe bergdahl. but it turns out, surprise. some key republicans were for the prisoner swap before they were against it. it turns out the real choice facing the white house might have been a question of five taliban for bergdahl or five taliban for nothing. former under secretary of defense larry corb will explain. plus --. >> he deserted not only the army but also left myself and my platoon and my company to clean

up his mess. >> some of his former colleagues and also members of the right are calling bowe bergdahl a desserter before all of the facts are even in. we will separate the politics from the actual facts on what the army sergeant could be facing. also ahead, if you thought the nra was coming to its senses, think again. after calling the people who show up at restaurants and stores armed with giant, loaded guns weird, scary, and downright unneighborly, the backtracking has already begun. but we start with the continued controversy surrounding the release of army sergeant bowe bergdahl. as republicans ramp up their questions about the trade for taliban prisoners. and even one key democrat criticizes the white house for, she says, leaving congress out of the loop. meanwhile, the right has gone into partisan hyperdrive attacking the president and even bergdahl's father. this all comes as the taliban released a video they say showed the moment u.s. special forces took custody of sergeant bergdahl from taliban members. in the video, men believed to be bergdahl's former captors can be