the incumbents strike back. thad cochran pulls off a win in mississippi that no one has done in 80 years. and it looks like new york's charlie rangel could squeak by for one more term, but nothing is official yet. plus two newly minted

nominees, travis childers on what is now an uphill fight against cochran. and republican james lankford and how he ended up crushing what turned out to be a mini tea party push in oklahoma. also this morning an nbc news exclusive with former president bill clinton as he tries to beat back the wealth of criticism that has been facing his better half on her book tour. good morning from washington, it's wednesday, june 25th, 2014. let's get right to my first reads of the morning. isn in a reminder that campaigns still matter, six-term senator thad cochran beat back a challenge from state senator chris mcdaniel winning nearly 51% of the vote. in a runoff, mcdaniel got 49%. >> we all have a right to be proud of our state tonight. thank you very much. thank you for this wonderful honor.

>> before this race ends, we have to be absolutely certain that the republican primary was won by republican voters. there is something a bit unusual about a republican primary that's decided by liberal democrats. >> you can tell mcdaniel is not ready to concede. according to our friends at smart politics, cochran's win marks only the third time that a second place mississippi u.s. senate primary finisher came back to win the runoff. the last time was 80 years ago, an incumbent in second and then winning, unbelievable. at this hour mcdaniel still refuses to concede, as you heard. more on the mississippi mud fight in just a moment. but first another race that still hangs in the balance. new york congressman charlie rangel leads adriano esp achlai.

there are 2,000 absentee ballots still outstanding, all of which need to be returned by next week. espaillat has not conceded and the associated press has yet to call this race but last night rangel was happy to declare himself the winner. >> we have reviewed the results as they continue to come in and we feel this race is too close to call. >> the chairman has won! the chairman has won! >> i want each one of you to go home and know that this was your victory. this is your congressman. and you can rest assured all i will be doing is thinking about you and bringing these resources home. thank you. [ speaking spanish ] >> there you go, charlie rangel talking to the more diverse

district that he now represents. now he gets to go out on his terms. from coast to coast, last night was a bad night for conservative insurgents and a pretty good night for incumbents and establishment republicans. bad night for democrats. republicans got the candidate they want in colorado -- in the colorado governor's race, former congressman bob beauprez. he got 30% of the vote. he'll take on john hickenlooper in the fall. beauprez who lost the 2006 governor's race to bill ritter by 17 points told supporters last night, quote, i grew up in an america where you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. this is a very different environment than 2006. >> i'm not sure i ever flip-flopped on any of those. i think you look at the hard decisions you make day in and day out, i try to get all the information i can. in the end you make the decision. you try to respect other people's points of view, but we haven't flip-flopped.

>> that was actually john hickenlooper. we had a little video mess-up there. he was responding to a question about the idea that he's flip-flopped on the issue of guns. so that was his reaction to the beauprez win and obviously he says he is not a flip-flopper. and says that stuff caught on camera is something that, you know, is -- that he can work through. more good news for the gop establishment, in the oklahoma senate race support from senator ted cruz and former governor sarah palin could not boost state house speaker t.w. shannon. james lankford beat shannon pretty badly by 23 points, escaped a runoff. democratic senate race is headed into overtime, though this is going to be an uphill battle for whoever is the nominee. state senator connie johnson and perennial candidate jim rogers will face off in an august 26th runoff.

maryland lieutenant governor anthony brown won big and may be on his way to becoming the state's first african-american governor. he won the democratic primary for governor with 51% of the vote. closest candidate was at 24% and he'll face larry hogan in november. meanwhile republican businessman kurt clausen because the special election in florida's 19th district to replace former congressman trey radel. cochran's victory last night was a reminder that campaigns matter. the cochran campaign realized they would lose a campaign that was a referendum on the senator. so beginning with that nursing home incident they were able to transform it to a bit of a choice and make mcdaniel's character an issue. that made their appeal to the state's african-american voters five weeks later a lot more credible. two, the only way cochran was going to win was to expand the electorate. guess what, his campaign did just that. turnout was up from 319,000

voters in the june 3rd primary to more than 360,000 yesterday. and then to just show you the impact of african-american voters, here's hiennds county. they are 70% african-american. nearly 50% more voters turned out yesterday than they did three weeks ago in the republican primary. in the june 3rd primary, cochran beat mcdaniel by fewer than 6,000 votes. last night cochran's margin was nearly twice that at 11,000. in a race cochran won by 6,000 votes, that's pretty much your ball game right there, folks. there's another aspect to that. mcdaniels' defeat is what happens when you outsource your campaign. when it comes to mechanics and money. they were relying on outside groups. we showed you the disparity yesterday. mcdaniels struggled with money and organization for his own campaign and at times it was not clear the right hand knew what the left hand was doing when it came to all of his supporters. meanwhile cochran was a fund-raising juggernaut and organizational juggernaut. that's a huge loss for the club for growth. they wanted to build up their national reputation and their

influence inside congress by taking down a couple incumbents this year. two that they put in their cross-hairs, one was idaho's mike simpson and the other was thad cochran. they failed in much places. it's going to be much harder next time to threaten a member of congress if they don't like a piece of legislation. it's a loss for the tea party as a whole. their only big win was a candidate they didn't help, dave brat in virginia. it's clear this morning that some conservative activists are frustrated. check out what red states eric erickson writes this morning. i continue to oppose a third party. i did just not sure what the republican party really stands for any more other than telling obama no and telling our own corporate interests yes. that's not much of a platform. cochran will still face democrat travis childers in the fall. he'll join us later this hour. of course the question there is would childers have run if he knew cochran was going to be the nominee. joining me now for a little whip-around daily rundown style of the results, i've got kasie hunt live in hattiesburg,

mississippi, msnbc's "up" host steve kornacki is in new york for me and curtis lee is in denver. kacie, a little redemption for stewart stevens, by the way. stewart stevens one of the brain childs of the cochran campaign, but stewart stevens, strategist for mitt romney, his home state is mississippi. a win for him. >> reporter: a win for him. three weeks ago i asked some of cochran's top supporters how they planned to win this runoff and i got a text message back that just said win, organization, hammer. at the time i was pretty skeptical but they pulled it out in the end. you could see it early on in the absentee ballot numbers. they were much higher this time around than during the primary. and that suggested some pretty aggressive organizing. at this point it's not clear what mcdaniel is going to do next. it sounds like they're eyeing some legal challenges, but you mentioned the club for growth and they just put out a state congratulating senator cochran.

that suggests that at this point mcdaniels well money backers are probably abandoning him. as you also pointed out, with travis childers, democrats said privately they had data showing that he could potentially beat senator chris mcdaniel if mcdaniel was in fact the nominee but the numbers show the opposite thing with senator cochran. so the big question in addition to see what childers himself does is what national democrats do with their money. >> well, i guess the only shot here is if somehow mcdaniel tries to generate some sort of write-in or third party or independent kind of candidacy if he's that bitter. do you sense the bitterness is that big? >> reporter: i do think that there is probably a limitless pool of bitterness here. it's really hard to overstate the anger that was on display in the room at mcdaniel headquarters last night. i mean it's also -- if you think about how close this runoff was, to have it split that way, yes, cochran won but in some ways this isn't a total victory from the perspective of, you know,

the tea party anger is very real. it's a very significant part of this electorate. and i think mcdaniel would see some support from voters here if he were to decide to do something like that. >> right, but it would end up probably potentially causing republicans headaches. thanks very much. let be go to steve kornacki in new york. the big race charlie rangel. he declared victory. everything you've seen in the numbers. it doesn't appear there's not enough vote left for espaillat. >> yeah, i don't see the path to victory yet for him but he's not conceded yet. obviously you played the sdpreen charlie rangel's celebration last night. the striking thing to me about the results is this is a rematch of a race that happened in the democratic primary two years ago. he nearly beat rangel then. it took two weeks to get that officially finally resolved. the margin actually very similar, if you look at the map of this district. there's a very stark, a very striking divide. this is a lot to do with ethnic divisions. the more dominican latino

portion of the district, the western part and northern part strong for espaillat. the heart of harlem, very strong for charlie rangel. really the issue was charlie rangel bought himself one final term, a 23rd term in congress by promising everybody in this campaign this is it. you can pull the lever for me one final time. i don't think he's going to look at this now and say i want to try again, but we'll see. >> right. what else did you see in new york last night in some of these house races? it looks like republicans feel pretty good. they're actually targeting quite a few seats in new york state. >> the interesting one, richard hannah is more of a moderate republican congressman from upstate who was challenged in a primary. he's a pro gay marriage republican and it was sort of a test there of can a pro gay marriage republican survive a concerted primary challenge, and it looks like he's -- very narrowly but it looks like he pulled that off.

he's one of the very first republicans out there to come out in congress and say he supports gay marriage. >> and it just underscores what we saw at the ralph reed event why nobody wants to talk about marriage anymore. it seems like the social conservative movement is lacking a lot of energy on that issue. steve kornacki, thanks very much. let me go out to colorado. let me bring in the "denver post's" curtis lee. curtis, i look at the republican ticket as a whole. if the party bosses had gone back through a smoke-filled room, i guess this is the ticket they would have come up with, beauprez for governor, gardner for senator. >> absolutely. i think out here establishment republicans this morning are breathing a little easier knowing that bob beauprez is on the ticket. obviously he defeated tom tancredo as well as two other candidates but there was a lot of concern if tom tancredo was on the ticket, he could hurt folks like cory gardner who's running in a very competitive senate race against incumbent mark udall as well as congressman mike kauffman who's in a very competitive sixth

district congressional race so i think staff for republicans are breathing a little easier knowing bob beauprez is on the ticket. but bob beauprez did lose in 2006 in his gubernatorial bid that year. >> i remember when he was recruited, everybody had high hopes for him both as a statewide candidate and he has flopped on the statewide stage. i've got to ask you, it seems like john hickenlooper is still on the defensive here. does he support the gun legislation that he signed? >> that's a good question. i mean in these recent weeks, the governor has seemed to kind of backtrack on supporting a bill that limits ammunition magazines. he spoke to a number of republican sheriffs who were staunchly against these new reform that say democrats passed last year, gun control reforms. video captured him essentially saying, hey, i don't know if this was the right thing to do. and he kind of was backtracking on it in the video. but he's come out after that in

reports and said, hey, i do stand behind these laws. but that also makes it seem like -- makes him a little vulnerable. does he support this, does he not. what does he say behind closed doors speaking to other people and that's obviously something republicans will hammer him on in november. >> question quickly, curtis, do you sense that the gun issue is a problem for him? >> you know, it's not -- it's an issue to a certain extent but there's obviously other issues on the ballot this year. out here in colorado there's local -- there's possible bans on oil and gas drilling that are going to be very contentious. i think that it plays in to a certain extent but i don't know how big of a factor it really is going to play in november. >> it has just been interesting to watch, his body language and watch his words. curtis lee in denver. thank you, sir. great whip-around to all three. oklahoma senate primary was a loss apparently for the tea party, if you want to call it that, but a big win for republican congressman james

lankford. he's up next. it hasn't happened in more than 30 years. travis childers on his fight to become the first democratic senator from mississippi since the '80s. first a look ahead at today's politics planner. president obama and the veep meet with the new hhs boss, sylvia matthews burwell. and a little nascar at the white house. jimmy johnson. i thought we should be honoring the other jimmy johnson, shouldn't we? you're watching "the daily rundown" only on msnbc.

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unfortunately, tonight did not turn out the way we had hoped, but hope is not lost. >> i can tell you in our house, runoff was a dirty word. you couldn't say the word "runoff" in the house. we've taken it as a long job

interview and said you've got to pick who you're going to hire and be grateful to have that trust. now we have to live that trust out and keep it. >> oklahoma congressman james lankford cleared the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. he's the republican nominee in the race to fill the rest of senator tom coburn's term. lankford's win was a defeat of sorts for sarah palin, ted cruz and the other conservative populist crowd who decided to parachute into oklahoma and campaign for t.w. shannon and who never really explained why they picked shannon over lankford. both are conservative rising stars in their states. congress ann lankford joins me now. good morning to you, sir, congratulations. >> thanks, chuck. good morning. >> so what is the -- what do you say, is this just a statement that oklahomans don't like outsiders coming in telling them what to do or in the case of ted cruz they don't want a texan doing it, i half kid on that one. what do you make of the outside stars were trying to jump in with your primary opponent and

it went nowhere? >> it's one of those interesting things, you talk about the great oxymoron when you talk about the national tea party. there is no such thing as a national tea party, it is grassroots or nothing. it is functioning within a state with the unique ideals and perspectives and values of that state. that's a basic thing among grassroots folks. they don't like being told who to vote for. they're going to choose who to vote for. so that will work out in the days ahead. as you mention all the time, campaigns do matter, candidates do matter and we get a chance to engage in issues face to face, it does make a difference. >> let me ask you a few things about the u.s. senate. you're going to be a heavy favorite. i know you're not going to assume anything about november. >> right. >> mitch mcconnell has senate republican leader, are you comfortable supporting him as that? >> yeah. we're going to get a chance to walk through that in the days ahead. yes, i am because i don't know who else is running. this goes back to speaker boehner, there was a lot of noise and conversation is speaker boehner the right person

but no one challenged him. there is no one challenging mitch mcconnell that i know of at this pointing so that does put him as the leader. >> let me ask you one of the stories out of there. there are a lot of special interest groups in washington that say they represent sort of more of the grassroots of the conservative movement. do they -- does the club for growth senate conservative funds, do you feel as if they'll have less influence over individual votes that are taken place in the senate or the house these days? >> no, people have to listen to their district. we've done that in the house. i have to listen to my district. i have to read the actual legislation. everyone will have a different perspective. there are folks in d.c. that say they're going to key vote certain things and they want certain things accomplished. i have to be able to read that and make a decision on my own and i think that's important in the house, i think that's important in the senate. you follow the constitution, you listen to your district, you apply your conservative principles and they actually do work. i understand not every group agrees with everything that you're going to do but that's the nature of being elected. >> let me ask you about a couple of issues that are going to pop up actually in the house coming

up pretty soon for you so you have to vote on it. the export/import bank and the reauthorization of that. where do you stand? >> when we come back two and a half years ago when it was being discussed, there was a mandate there would be a major reform and i have not seen that. that's a real problem. when we put out there and said we needed to see a major reform, we should not have wealthy overseas governments being funded by u.s. tax dollars, that's a real problem. are there struggles? absolutely, there are. it's very difficult to financial regions but that's not the majority of what's happening right now and with that reform it should not be there. >> so you believe there should be some form of it, you just don't like the one that's in place right now? >> i would tell you i'm not a fan of it at all. but if we're going to have it at all it better have major reform and very exclusive for the smallest area, and i don't see that coming at all. >> just give a sense, tom coburn is a frequent face here that we see.

"morning joe," my show and some others. what will make you different from senator coburn? >> there are not two dr. coburns. this is like for conservatives to say where's the next ronald reagan. there's not another ronald reagan, there's not another dr. coburn. he's a very unique individual. we have very, very similar passions about debt, about budget, about trying to get some efficiency, about being an independent voice. we're very similar in those aspects but you're not going to get another dr. coburn on that. i do take the responsibility to walk into that seat if god willing i'm elected in november but i'm going to be exactly who i am and not try to repeat dr. coburn. but those things that he worked on, there's a lot of unfinished business. after ten years of him hammering away on duplication in government, we have yet to get rid of a lot of areas of duplication. we've got to get rid of those things. >> a lot of reporters love his annual report on pork. it's an interesting read. james lankford, now the republican nominee for u.s. senate in oklahoma, congratulations on your win. >> thanks, chuck.

turning to mississippi, senator cochran may have won his runoff, but democrats hope his primary problems echo for a little longer. joining me now is the democratic nominee for the u.s. senate in mississippi, former congressman travis childers. congressman, congratulations to you on being the democratic nominee for u.s. senate. >> good morning, chuck. thank you very much. we're very pleased with our primary. >> let me ask you this, would you have run if you knew thad cochran was going to be the nominee? >> i don't think that has anything to do with what our party does. what i would do as a candidate. here's the situation that we have in our state right now, chuck. not only is their party divided basically right down the middle, that has spilled over into and divided our state as a whole. and our state is not going to move ahead until somebody can put it back together and unify our state. i believe i'm that candidate. >> what's senator cochran's fireable offense? you've got to make that case to voters to say, you know what, you've got to fire him and elect

me. what's the fireable offense? >> well, i've had a long, long record of working with both sides. i'm a problem solver. what's going on in washington, d.c., isn't working, chuck. it just isn't working. everybody sees that. whatever they're doing isn't working. nothing is getting done up there. it's a stalemate. just because one side has an idea, the other side automatically rejects it. this partisan bickering. let me tell you, mississippians are tired of that. they're tired of it. >> you know, it's interesting, you put out a release that indicated you thought a majority of republicans had rejected senator cochran. you believe it was democrats that made the difference for senator cochran? >> i'm not sure that it made the difference, chuck. i don't think there's any question that many democrats voted yesterday for senator cochran. but quite frankly, he asked for their vote. i will be asking for their vote in november, just as i did in my

primary where mississippi democrats gave me 74% of the total vote. i'll be back asking for them again. chuck, as i travel around the state and listen, listen more than you talk, you know, and you learn a lot of things. a lot of families struggling in our state. president roosevelt spoke about the forgotten man in 1932. it's amazing how that speech is still relevant today. i can't tell you how many people across our great state feel like they have just been forgotten. forgotten men, forgotten women and, sadly, forgotten children. 300,000 people in our state because of the republican-held legislature and governor and republicans in general, 300,000 working poor have no access to health care and no hope of getting any. that's just wrong, period. >> you're going to have to convince democrats like harry reid, michael bennett who runs the dsec, to invest in your candidacy. they played your candidacy when they recruited you as the

insurance policy if chris mcdaniel was the nominee. how do you convince them to invest in you against senator cochran? >> chuck, mississippi has more democratic elected officials than almost any other state that you can name probably in the south. i have a long history of winning. i won or led the ticket four elections in 2008, won the -- i won a full term in 2008, i won five times in 2008 in what could arguably be called the most conservative district in the state of mississippi. so mississippi is not only a red state. a lot of democrats, a lot of people, a lot of independents, some republicans absolutely feel like they're not even represented any more. again, i'm a uniter, not a divider. >> and how do you differentiate yourself from national democrats? do you have to differentiate yourself from president obama? are you concerned that that would be a negative for you in trying to win over those key swing votes? >> well, let me say this, i

disagreed with president obama on certain issues when i served in congress. i feel quite sure i'll disagree with him again. i disagreed with my own party. i stood up to my party, i stood up to the other party when i thought they were wrong. i said no to president bush when he came -- i was there when he came and asked for $700 billion to bail out the big banks, i said no. i didn't think it was right. when we passed -- when the house passed the health care bill, i thought we could have done such a much better job on that, chuck, and i harped on that the whole time i was in congress. but nevertheless, it passed. it's the law of the land. all of these people who scream with repealing it, they're just being untruthful to their constituents, so stop saying that because they know good and well it's not going to be repealed. so try to fix it. it has problems, sure it does, but it also has some good things. but the people need to quit -- these candidates and politicians need to quit just being untruthful with their constituents and the american

public. >> all right, travis childers, the democratic nominee in mississippi. good luck on the trail. stay safe on the trail. >> thank you, chuck. thank you very much. >> you got it. up next, the supreme court keeping us in suspense again. big announcements expected the next hour. do we get the big one? hobby lobby. and from commander in chief to explainer in chief. former president bill clinton trying to smooth over some book tour bumps for the family's presidential prospect. but first, today's trivia question. who is the youngest elected speaker in the maryland house of delegates? first person to tweet me the correct answer will get the on-air shoutout. the answer and more is coming up on tdr. spokesperson: the volkswagen passat is heads above the competition, but we're not in the business of naming names. the fact is, it comes standard with an engine that's been called the benchmark of its class. really, guys, i thought... it also has more rear legroom than other midsize sedans. and the volkswagen passat has a lower starting price than...

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make sure you always know what's coming - and are ready for it. make it matter. brand new nbc news/wall street journal numbers show that a vast majority of americans do not believe the war in iraq was worth fighting. that number is now up to 71% of americans now say that the iraq -- the initial iraq war was not worth it. compare that to the same question we asked 18 months ago in our nbc/wall street journal poll in january 2013, 59% said the war in iraq was not worth it. meanwhi meanwhile, that was also a plurality of republican who say now say the war in iraq is not worth it. americans are relatively split down the middle when it comes to taking action in iraq now and the idea that america has a responsibility. the poll found by 50 to 43 margin u.s. does not have a responsibility to assist the

government in fighting these insurgent troops. 50% do say we have a responsibility among republicans and among men. the 300 special operations advisers, if you want to call them that, promised by the white house are getting into place to support iraqi fighters. and this morning iraqi prime minister nouri al maliki called for unity. those comments were a bit more divisive when the insurgents first attacked earlier this month. perhaps john kerry's pleas to him are starting to pay off. or he's just desperate to hold on to power. meanwhile former president bill clinton is back playing the role of explainer in chief, this time for his wife, defending comments she made about the former first couple's finances after they left the white house. in an exclusive sitdown with my pal, david gregory, the former president stood up for mrs. clinton. >> it is factually true that we were several million dollars in debt. i think i had the lowest net worth of any american president in the 20th century when i took office. but i still could have been tone

deaf. and, you know, now i don't and we've got a good life and i'm grateful for it. but i still -- we go to our local grocery store on the weekend. we talk to people in our town. we know what's going on. the real issue is if you've been fortunate enough to be successful, are you now out of touch and insensitive to the agonizing struggled other people are facing. >> you know what's coming, guys. the full-fledged stakeout at the chappaqua grocery stores the next few weekends. i half tease, only half. this trouble began when hillary clinton made these comments about the couple's wealth. >> we came out of the white house not only dead broke but in debt. we had no money when we got there and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for chelsea's education.

you know, it was not easy. >> of course the clintons net worth is estimated at over $100 million. and all of it has been acquired since they left the white house. and really most of the money comes from two groupings, book deals and speeches. as we told you earlier this week, hillary clinton has been taking pains to explain the difference. part of it probably has to do with where the democratic party is these days but she has wanted to make a distinction between her newfound wealth and that of more established rich politicians, think mitt romney. she told a british newspaper, quote, because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names, and we've done it through the dint of hard work. >> but secretary clinton did say unlike people who pay taxes just off capital gains, can you understand as a political matter that could strike people as being out of touch? >> yeah, but she's not out of touch and she advocated and worked as a senator for things that were good for ordinary

people. >> yes, secretary clinton was in the audience during that interview. it makes it all the more interesting. but debating the definition of wealthy is not necessarily in the clintons' best political interest. you can see much more of david gregory's exclusive wide-ranging interview with the former president this sunday on "meet the press." up next, a watershed moment in the struggle to save a national treasure. i'll talk with maryland senator ben carden on the latest chapter in the long-running battle to restore the chesapeake bay. first our soup of the day comes from samo's restaurant in baltimore, maryland. they're serving up chickpea with kale. that sounds incredibly healthy and i'll just leave it at that. we'll be right back. try alka seltzer reliefchews. they work just as fast and taste better than tums smoothies assorted fruit. mmm. amazing. yeah, i get that a lot.

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states share a vested interest in one of the most controversial watersheds in the country, called the chesapeake bay. yesterday 39 lawmakers asked a federal court to block a plan to clean up the nation's largest estuary. millions of people will be impacted by this fight. chesapeake bay's 64,000 square mile watershed extends from cooperstown, new york, to norfolk, virginia. the bay itself holds more than 15 trillion gallons of water and produces 500 million pounds of seafood a year but pollution has decimated the bay's fishing industry. pollution from farms and factories led to the massive fish kills, including this one that killed two million fish in 2011. agriculture is the single largest source of nutrient and sediment pollution on the chesapeake bay, killing off fish, oysters and crab. the federal effort to clean up the bay initially started in 1983 when the epa signed an agreement with surrounding states acknowledging to do something. adds tom brokaw reported four

years later, pollution was still a problem. >> the chesapeake bay is fighting for survival. more than 100 major companies and sewage systems dump their waste into the scenic waters. runoff from surrounding farm fields feeds still more chemicals into the bay. >> last week the governors of maryland, pennsylvania, virginia and delaware all signed a new bay restoration agreement. it's the fourth pact that's been signed in 31 years and now the federal effort to clean up the bay is under fire. 39 lawmakers and 21 attorneys general are asking a federal court to block the epa's plan to clean up the chesapeake bay watershed. president obama issued an executive order to clean up the bay in 2009. this week lawmakers are accusing the epa in making a power grab in setting pollution limits. i'm joined by ben carden, part of the senate's water and wildlife subcommittee. i remember back in the late '80s, early '90s in washington,

d.c., every drainage -- one of the watch words was remember where this goes, this goes to the chesapeake bay, that was in washington, d.c. and virginia trying to get people to do their own parts when it comes. what is the status of the bay today, is it safe? >> first of all, i'm very proud of the progress we made. i was in the maryland legislature, speaker of the house in the early '80s under governor hughes' leadership of maryland. we started at the state level of the chesapeake bay program and of course the federal government joined us and the surrounding states. it's a partnership between public and private entities. it's our recognition that the bay is critically important to our region. $1 trillion of our economy is dependent upon the bay. it's part of our way of life. it's the largest estuary in our hemisphere. there was more coastal area in the chesapeake bay than the whole west coast of the united states. we have made progress, but we still have a long way to go. and that's why this new agreement is so important that we double our commitments to deal with today's challenges. today's challenges are farming activities, its developers, it's

the loss of trees and land. as more and more land becomes impervious. it's the challenges of climate change, when it's doing to warmer temperature with our sea grasses. we need to have overall commitment to continue the effort that we started in the 1980s. >> do you believe anything that the epa is trying to do has been an overreach? >> no. they're acting under the authorities they have under the clean water act. they're doing what's right. we think the chesapeake bay is the model for the rest of the country. what we're doing here, which is a partnership, all stakeholders are involved, not asking one segment to do it alone. we're asking everyone to join together. what science tells us we can get done to protect our bay for future generations. that's what the policies should be based upon, best science and everyone doing their share. >> you know, this has been a 30 long year fight and commitment and i know you say things have

improved but it doesn't always feel that way. it does feel like one step forward, two steps back. is this just going to consistently be a problem, it's industry or what do you believe it is? >> i think some of us remember when we didn't think it was safe to go near the inner didn't think it was safe to go near the harbor in baltimore. it could be better but it is better than one time. i look at the river and the problems we've had and what we've done with fish elevators and trying to preserve the fresh water supply and the commitments made from new york to maryland we have joined together and made progress. but the challenges are great. there's 5 million more people living in the water shed than in the 1980s when the program was developed. we have bigger challenge wes have to meet. >> senator, before i let you go. let me make you answer our trivia question. who was the youngest elected speaker in the maryland house of delegates? >> i think i was, wasn't it? >> there you go! that's right. age 36. >> what do i get? >> that's right. a little more air time and the

shoutout. senator ben cardin. that's right. the youngest elected speaker. you served in congress and u.s. senator. the actual winner, by the way, we'll throw it out there is rebecca harris. she gets the shoutout. senator cardicardin, i appreciau being with us. thank you for chat the about the chesapeake bay. we'll be right back. jump on the bed. the rules can wait, it's time to play freely, in pampers cruisers. they adapt at the waist, legs and bottom, with up to 12 hours of protection for pampers best protection and fit, and all the freedom to play. wishing you love, sleep and play. pampers. it says here that a woman's sex drive. increases at the age of 80. helps reduce the risk of heart disease.

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as tax exempt social welfare groups under the tax code and both political parties are pointing blame. republicans say that just conservatives sounding groups were targeted by the irs. that's why they want to see the e-mails. democrats responded by claiming, hey, liberal groups were targeted, too. but here is the story many are missing. why should primarily political organizations get a taxpayer kpemgts basically get a handout from the tax code? both sides are in an uproar because they couldn't take advantage of a borderline shady way to raise money for political purposes or launder money. the irs is not a good guy here. they have been terrible about being forthcoming. are there any real victims? folks, the scandal is not black and white since frankly two wrongs don't make a right. we know what really is working here for republicans. beating up the irs, good for the debates. good politics there makes for great fundraising e-mails.

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strange. there is something a bit unusual about a republican primary that is decided by liberal democra s this is not the party of reagan! [ shouts ] >> we're not done fighting! >> cochran eked out by a win around two points. it came down to turnout. african-american turnout. up as much as 40% since the primary. cochran was courting the african-american community after the june 3rd primary. joining me now is nicholas, political reporter for the new york times. and senior editor from msnbc.com, beth. it's great to see you. nick, starting with you. the african-american vote could cochran have won without it? >> probably not. and, you know, it was funny. it's not the party of reagan. well, reagan won by partly by