when it comes to a range of issues, including his health care law, energy regulations, foreign policy, and education. the speaker still has yet to detail a specific action the lawsuit will target, but that's not stopping him from seeking authorization from the house to sue. as for the president, the white house refuses to be consumed by this. our friend perry bacon is senior political reporter for nbc news, and of course he's been writing about all of this. why the president is, quote, embracing a fight with congress. perry, this cis much ado about absolutely nothing. this president has really not done that many executive orders. there's him versus other presidents for first terms. even if to you extend it out to six and eight years, he's behind everybody except ford and the first bush, who of course, are one termers. even jfk, who only had three-some years had more executive orders than the president's had in six years.

carter had more. clinton, reagan, and w. had way more. but what else can the president do in a world where congress is basically engaging in obstruction. what else can he do? he can't allow them to say, you get to do nothing. >> i think the back story of this is earlier in the year, the president talked about how i'm going to do things on my own. i have a pen and i have a phone. i'm going to use them. he really got that message out there. what republicans are hearing when they get back to their districts from activists, the core conservative anti-obama crowd is a lot of, why aren't you stopping this? obama is doing executive orders. why aren't you doing enough about it? and boehner's lawsuit is a way to kind of reach that audience and say, i'm doing something about it. if you read the op-ed, boehner didn't say what the lawsuit was really about. i think that's intentional. it's in part because he's trying to make the conservative base feel like they are being heard and they are upset about obama doing his executive action. he's trying to address that

without necessarily having a lot of specifics behind it. >> and it also appeases the part of the house gop conference that wants to impeach president obama. people laugh about that, but there is a serious group of those folks who would love to see that move forward. i want to talk a little bit about dana milbank, who wrote a piece saying, if the gop were to pick up the senate, there would be no more excuses for republicans to put forward their own health care plan, immigration proposals, cuts to government programs, and gay rights. this would set up real clashes with obama. in sharp contrast, it would put him on the winning side of public opinion. mart of me, i agree with this. you see what president obama's trying to do here with executive actions. this would free him of this constraint of pacifying the left, which he'd had to do to some degree, and it puts the gop on the spot. do you think there could be a silver lining in the last two years of the obama presidency dealing with a full-on gop congress? >> i love you, luke, love dana.

used to work with him. don't agree with you on this point. i know the white house -- i talked to a senior adviser there. that person said we view the republicans getting the senate as basically even more hearings. we'll have double the hearings and even more gridlock. they are not optimistic about that. they don't think that's true. i guess a key point substantively is even if the republicans have 51 seats, that means the democrats can functionally block anything they want to pass as well. it's a recipe for more gridlock. also, it's not clear the republicans really have -- you know, they've had a hard time too. paul ryan wants to push this, here are the republican ideas on health care. i'm not sure they have a health care plan they want to release when they have control of the government. >> that's right. well, perry, another piece that's been getting a lot of pick up is one in "the wall

street journal" that is claiming that hillary clinton is starting to distance herself from the president ahead of 2016. people have long been speculating that this is going to eventually happen, that she's going to have to distance herself. all those divisions from 2008 are going to have to come back up. i haven't seen many signs of this happening. how about you? i haven't either. i don't see a lot of evidence of that. there's one issue, what obama should do about syria and when he should arm the rebels. that's the only disagreement i've heard her articulate with the president so far. that's one issue of literally ten she's addressed in this book tour. the book tour has been how much she's allied herself with president obama, whose poll numbers as we know are declining. she's had very little disagreement with him, to the point where hillary clinton was braving and praising obama for

how he meets and deals with republicans in congress. i'm not sure people in the white house would praise him on that ground in particular. they had to beg him to play golf with boehner, which he didn't really want to do. hillary clinton is more for obamacare than obama as far as i can tell. she's really been close to him on pretty much every issue. i think when she distances herself on a real from obama, it will be covered breathlessly on every network, including ours. that has not happened yet. >> there's still a ways to go. we talk about it as if the election is tomorrow. speaking about hillary clinton, there's a piece in politico that everyone's really talking about today. perry, i'm sure you've read it as well. it's titled "searching for hillary clinton's big idea." they write, if clinton has a big idea for 2016, the book is not the place to look for it. they go on to say, any campaign has to have a big idea it's wrapped around. that means clinton still has to spell one out, assuming that she actually has one in mind.

perry, i actually disagreed with the argument of this piece. if i were hillary clinton or if i were advising hillary clinton, i would say, why would you put out your big ideas right now? because we know how the media handles this. we know what the republicans are going to do. they're just going to attack, attack, attack, especially if she's the only one putting ideas forward. not to mention, we don't know what these big ideas are going to be for 2016. is it going to be immigration, health care? we don't know at that point. i think she's smart to wait this out a little bit. >> if you look at rand paul, he has a clear rational. he's against government overreach. she's the person who wants to fight the rich and make sure they don't have too much power. so i think the article was trying to get at that hillary clinton does not have this clear political rational that she's going to push toward. i would say that barack obama didn't really either beyond sort of bringing the parties together in 2007, 2008. a winning candidacy does not require you to have this one core idea, but i think what is going to happen is because hillary clinton doesn't have

this core idea, you're going to have a lot of parts of the democratic base kind of fighting with her to push an idea forward, sort of on to her. you're already hearing a lot of talk about paid parental leave, how that should be the idea for hillary clinton. universal pre-k, that should be the idea. i think because she's a little more of a blank slate than maybe a rand paul is in terms of what she wants to run on, there's going to be a push to put things on her platform the same way in '07, '08 there was a big push to say, whoever is the democratic nominee needs to have a universal health care plan. the activists were successful in doing that. so obama, edwards, and clinton all had health care plans. obama implemented one. this is a moment in this invisible early part of the primary to really push ideas on the would-be candidate. >> in 2008, it was more clear also that hillary would run on health care given that she had a history there. so it was more obvious what the focus of her campaign would be. but perry, you know, looking at 2014 again, one thing that's

happened pretty dramatically over the past few weeks is the ground has really shifted in terms of the conversation. we were having a really focused conversation about health care, particularly on the republican side. and now we're having much more of a conversation about immigration, which i would argue is a stronger position for democrats going into the midterm elections. i think it's one that drives a lot more energy in the base of the democratic party. what do you think about that? >> i think if the president can move the ground toward the republicans blocking the immigration bill, that is an issue where the republicans are wary and vulnerable. but right now the issue, i think at least, is talking about kids coming into the border and the u.s., not being sure what to do with them. that's an issue that gets to right now obama's ability to control the border, his competence. i think that republicans are in this place where they can criticize without having a real idea for fixing it, a place they like to be in. i think right now is not a great argument for the white house. but if they can get it on the

grounds of the actual immigration bill, legalization, the 11 million, public is with the democratic view on that particular issue. >> nbc news senior political reporter perry bacon. good to see you, brother. >> thanks, guys. >> love perry. we just touched briefly on the politics surrounding the border crisis. next, we're going to take you to where few of the leading voices in this debate have actually been, the border itself. that's next. it's "the cycle," and it's monday, july 7. >> 7/7/14. 7 plus 7 equals -- >> cut his mic. and i am so thankful to angie's list for bringing us together. find out why more than two million members count on angie's list. angie's list -- reviews you can trust. [ cat meows ] ♪ ♪ da-da-da-da-da, bum-da, bum-da ♪ ♪ bum-da, bum-da ♪ the animals went in two by two ♪ ♪ the sheep and the frog and the kangaroo ♪

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the crisis at our borders is

growing more intense by the moment. tens of thousands of children from central america living in dangerous and deplorable conditions are now escaping to the united states at alarming rates. nbc's miguel almaguer is along the border in california where emotions are running high on both sides. >> reporter: thousands of undocumented immigrants from central america, including several families with very young children, find themselves in the middle of a raging debate. they are being held inside facilities like this one all across the southwest. as you know, the city of murieta has become a flash point for the immigration debate. many undocumented immigrants, three bus loads, were on their way here last week when they were turned around after their buses were met by angry protesters. later on today, border patrol agents tell us they expect a flight of undocumented immigrants from texas to arrive here in california. they expect those undocumented immigrants to be taken to local facilities to be processed and released. it's unofficial, but we've heard

they may come to this facility. protesters say if that happens, they will return here. so we could see another explosive scene here today as crews and many of the local media and protesters and demonstrators wait here to see what will happen over the next few hours. >> thank you, miguel, for that. and a surge of these kids is putting a lot of pressure on the white house to act and to act fast. president obama will travel to texas later this week, but it is a fundraising trip. that's raised a few eyebrows about the optics at this afternoon's press briefing. >> we're not worried about those optics. that's simply because the president is very aware of the situation that exists on the southwest border. >> republicans, for their part, have certainly wasted no time turning a humanitarian crisis into a political football. texas governor rick perry hammered the president over the weekend. >> the president has sent powerful messages time after time -- >> governor -- >> about his policies, by nuances that it's okay to come

to the united states, that you can come across and be accepted with open arms. i have to believe when you do not respond in any way that you are either inept or you have some ulterior motive of which you are functioning from. >> now, the administration, of course, argues it has act l, but the real headline here is that of innocent children who have been ripped from their homes and their families. >> i've spoken directly to kids on the border who have told me they've held on for days an hours to the top of a freight train, literally holding on for dear life because they risk falling off and dying. we keep reminding parents of the dangers of sending your children unaccompanied on this journey, this long 1,000-mile journey, and that there are no free passes once you get here. our message to those who come here illegally, our border is not open to illegal migration. >> alan gomez is on the immigration beat for "usa today." he's been writing extensively

about the situation there. alan, welcome. >> thanks. >> so i do want to start with the voices of one of these child migrants, 15-year-old maritza from el salvador speaking about why she decided to make this treachero treacherous trip to the united states. she said, i'm here because the gang threatened me, one of them, quote, liked me. another gang member told my uncle he should get me out of there because the guy who liked me was going to do me harm. in el salvador, they take young girls, rape them, and throw them in plastic bags. are we really a country that's going to send a girl like her back to that situation? >> yeah, i mean, when you look at what they're coming from, you heard this from governor perry a second ago. there is a train of thought that a lot of this is due to obama rolling out the red carpet to undocumented immigrants. if you look at the situation in guatemala, honduras, and el salvad salvador, it's staggering. that young lady's tale is one that's repeated all over the

place down there. cartel activity throughout that region is really exploded. where she's from, el salvador, prisons are at 300% capacity because they've been capturing so many people down there. in guatemala, government officials have captured so many of the chemicals that go into making cocaine and some of these other drugs that the u.s. state department has deemed it an environmental hazard, and they're trying to help them figure out how to solve it. this is something that's going on all over the place. when you look at that level of cartel activity, the violence that comes with it, they try to recruit young men to be part of it. as the girl mentioned, they sometimes get raped or get recruited to be girlfriends of people in these cartels. it's really just all over the place. >> alan, it's such a tough situation because it is so heart wrenching when you read about the reality of what what goes on. we talk all the time more broadly about this issue for it being coming to the united states to get a better life, for economic reasons. but when you learn about many of these situations where the parents are faced with a choice

of either my child is going to, you know, get involved in a gang at a very young age or likely lose their life, or they can cross the border and hope for a better one. some of the time, obviously, it's the united states. how important is it for us to understand that the reality for many of these kids is different, and how do we approach this situation differently given that? >> well, that's -- i think that's almost impossible to do in washington, right. this all becomes a political debate. it turns into, is it because of obama's lack of immigration enforcement or because congress hasn't passed an immigration bill? this is one thing -- we've been seeing this. as these kids are taken in by the u.s. government, the feds are scrambling right now to try to find places just to house them, just to be able to take care of these kids for just a short while, while their deportation cases are resolved. a lot of people, a lot of politicians in these places where they're considering

sending them to, no, what if they get out, blend into the community? that's one of the things that's been really hard for me to understand. it's one thing to argue the policy debate here, to figure out why this is happening, to figure out how to stop it. in the meantime, we need to be taking care of these kids and fig grure out what the heck is going on down there. >> amen to that, alan. a lot of americans don't want to hear it, but we're complicit in what is happening here. not just because we can't get an immigration reform bill through congress. but you mentioned the cartel violence. it's drug violence that's the large reason why a lot of these kids are being sent through the desert. parents saying, wherever you go is better than here. honduras, we see they're the murder capital of the world. the world's highest murder rate. that's happening because the drug cartels, because of the war down there. so those of us who casually do drugs in america, we are the consumers who are fueling this drug war that is making these kids run from home and go

anywhere. >> yeah, i mean, the volume of drugs that is flowing through these countries is not for consumption in those countries. as a by-product, drug rates are going up to some degree in these countries, but obviously we're the main reason a lot of these drugs are coming. in honduras, 90% of the drug flights that are shipping cocaine from south america first land in honduras. from there, that's when the packages are broken up. they get shipped over here. that's where they're landing and that's where those fights are happening to figure out who gets to control the shipment. as a by-product of all that, a lot of people are dying. honduras, guatemala, and el salvador have three of the six highest murder rates in the world right now. >> alan, there's a lot of different crises going on right now. i was personally really touched by an article this weekend in "the washington post" detailing

the plight of a family. this woman takes care of 812 immigration orphans. this quote, a quarter of people deported from the united states now say they are parents of u.s. citizen minors, which means more than 100,000 american children lose a parent to deportation each year. a few thousand of those children lose both parents. immigration orphans is how the government refers to this group. if there's anything that should spur action, you now have 100,000 kids in the united states living without one of their parents and they're american citizens? this shows you how broad this problem is. >> well, and luke, i know you're familiar with what's been going on, on the hill. what we saw a couple years ago was the president create this executive order to allow for now up to half a million undocumented immigrants brought here as children to be protected from deportation. now what the push is, is to get their parents to be protected as well because of cases like the one you're talking about. so the president has been -- has ordered a review of his

deportation practices to see how he can do it, as he put it, more humanly. that's a big consideration as these families are getting broken up. it's great the kid gets to stay here, but the parents are still under threat every day from being deported. that's what a lot of immigration advocates are pushing right now. they see this as an opportunity to extend similar protections to parents of young children, to these families getting broken up. we're going to be hearing a lot about that in the next few weeks as the president finalizes that review. as he said the other day to boehner, all right, you guys aren't going to pass anything, i'm going to do this myself. that's what we're all waiting to see now. >> one thing that can be done without congress. alan goem, thank you for your time. after years of telling us the opposite, why the tsa is now demanding that some travelers turn on their electronic devices. we will spin. first, a quick check of the storm cycle. the severe weather threat stretches across a huge portion of the country into tonight from

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>> our job is to try to anticipate the next attack, not simply react to the last one. and so we continually evaluate the world situation. >> and he's absolutely right. we have to be anticipatory, not waiting to see what they do. you see the way battling terrorism becomes a game of whack-a-mole. terrorists doing something, we have to be a step ahead of them, which is nearly impossible. thank god we've been as good at it as we have been since 9/11. if you think about godwin's law and the pace of innovation, you

have folks with hundreds of millions of dollars and a bad will toward america, you see it's going to be hard to continue. we have to get all of them. they only have to get us once to have that impact. so we're going to have to have a real solution here and not just sort of battling, you know, like the boy who's putting his finger in the dike all the time. we have to have a real solution. battling global poverty. dealing with joblessness of young men in these countries where there's, you know, some ill will toward america and a sliver of them want to turn to violence against america. otherwise, we're going to have to be constantly looking over our shoulder. >> yeah, the best thing to fight terrorism is certainly opportunity. but i want to talk about the specific policy because i've seen on the blogosphere, on twitter complaining about this. what happens if my cell phone isn't charged? i won't be able to get on the plane? this is what the department of homeland security says is a viable threat to the united states' safety and security.

if you could not charge your phone, i'm so sorry for you. go to the little place at the airport two hours before, hook it up. and most americans don't fly more than three times a year, all right. a lot of this whining comes from people who fly more. do what you and i do. go to tsa-pre. it's very noninvasive. >> it doesn't take long at all. >> get yourself situated safely. i cannot stand people who complain and moan about the tsa. you're so right. all it takes is one time and everybody goes, where was the tsa? why did they fail? where were they? sack up, get in line, take off your shoes if they ask you, turn on your cell phones. prepare yourself. >> i don't think that people on the other side of this argument are whining. i think that people have a real concern about there being a slippery slope. you know, where do you stop when it comes to the tsa doing whatever they want with us? i think to your point, the terrorists are always going to be one step ahead. so it's important for us to be

realistic about that. but also be practical. we were talking about this in the office, the underwear bomber. there was a period of time after that happened where literally you were strip searched, right? are you okay with that? >> i was fine with it. >> we all went through it. we all dealt with it. >> reacting to the threat. >> i don't know. i know this is going to sound crazy, but i feel like it takes away some of your freedom. >> what freedom has been taken away? >> the freedom to keep your cell phone turned off. >> and to keep my pants on, honestly. >> when have you taken your pants off? >> no, i could imagine -- >> you were able to fly. that is freedom. being able to fly. >> i imagine living in a world where ten years from now you literally can't get through unless you have to be stripped. >> the trend has not been in that direction. it would be one thing if we've had, like, increasingly onerous burdens placed on us, but since 9/11, they've revised the rules to make them more sensible. i used to find it really, really stupid i had to take my baby daughter's shoes off. that was just stupid.

they've changed that. or you had to drink the milk. those things were silly. they weren't actually about security. they were about the illusion of security. this change actually makes some sense to me. i don't think people would about if it's something that's realistic for us to do. >> you know what you're getting into when you go to an airport. this is not coming out of nowhere. >> until luke is sitting in line for five hours. >> who's sitting in line for five hours? when has that ever happened? >> i'm happy to do it. i don't have any problem. >> i can't wait to travel with luke when his phone is not charged, his computer is not charged and they're like, you have to go back and charge it. straight ahead, the biggest choice america will make this election cycle, and it won't happen at the ballot box.

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president obama in 2008 and also a state that could help swing the senate back to the gop this year. college students have now joined the naacp, the american civil liberties union, and the justice department in asking a federal judge to block portions of the state's strict new voter i.d. law. we're talking photo i.d. at the polls and a student i.d. will no longer suffice. a full week chopped off early voting. no more same-day registration. the list goes on. states with similar laws already on the books are watching this north carolina challenge very closely, as are civil rights groups. one naacp leader calls it the new jim crow, quote. this is also a very important issue for voting advocacy groups like rock the vote. audrey gellman is their spokesman. she's also a contributing editor for "marie claire."

one thing about being american is the right to vote is presumably given to you when you turn 18 years old and given to you at birth. one they think i found interesting is that when you study this issue, and i have done it from a journalistic side, it's very difficult to see this widespread idea of voter fraud. one thing that is often bragt up, especially in the conservative circles, is this idea that 35,000 people in the state of north carolina double voted last time and that was the reason as to why this occurred. this was written about that study. a significant number of apparent double votes are false positives and not double votes. many are the results of errors, voters signing the wrong line, election clerks scan the wrong line with bar code scanner. it's fair to say this idea of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of fraudulent voters in any state is not necessarily a logical thing backed up by reason and evidence. it's more sort of taking these

issues i just sort of mentioned, signing the wrong thing, the wrong bar code, which mag anities is. there must be some huge conspiracy here. >> absolutely. i think what we see here is essentially that the -- that young people have -- i'm sorry. that young people's rights are under attack in these states. and what we see with voter fraud is that it's largely a fantasy. certainly there's no evidence that's been put forward that these new laws would remedy any voting fraud in the past, certainly from young people. young people have a lot of things to do with their time and concocting large plans to execute vote r fraud over and over again is not one. >> you're absolutely right. this is a solution in search of a problem. this is not something that young people or black people in the hood are thinking about. how can we vote three or four times? >> absolutely not. >> wait a couple hours so we can vote four whole times for barack

obama. and the part of hb-589 that really, really bothers me is the cut down on early voting. it cuts early voting down from 17 days to 10 days. the department of justice confirms that in 2008, 7 out of 10 black voters in north carolina voted early. this is not about integrity. this is the part that really unveils it as completely about suppression, right? even if you show up with an i.d., you can't vote if you're not voting within the window that they're trying to make it. just to even call the debate about voter i.d. is wrong. this is about voter suppression. >> it is about voter suppression, and young people were 2 1/2 times as likely to utilize early voting in north carolina in 2012 when the state went for barack obama. i think we see this as a very clear -- it's make no mistake. these laws are designed to prohibit young people from et going to the polls and limit access. >> and the young people, voters that are 30 and under, are now speaking out more, which i think will have a huge impact on this fight. people just assume that they

don't get out to vote, that they really don't have much of an impact. if you look at 2012, they actually cast more than 20 million votes. i think that was 15% of the overall electorate. north carolina, the turnout was 57%. probably one of the highest in the country. what effect is this going to have? >> i think it's going to have a tremendous effect. i think what we're seeing with the duke avengers, the seven college students in north carolina that are litigants in this case, is sending a strong message to states in the rest of the country where controversial voter i.d. laws have been passed. i think it has a significant impact on the potential turnout in north carolina but also nationally. i think what we're seeing with rock the vote is that young people don't want to be told that their voices are being taken away. when you see these laws being put forward and coming into play this cycle, that's what young people feel like. they feel like they -- they're watching lawmakers not make it easier for them. they're making it much harder. and it should be a common sense argument. >> it already wasn't easy.

>> we should be reaching out to the next generation and engaging them in this debate. >> in 2012, we talked a lot during the election cycle about the various voter suppression measures that were popping up all over the country in an attempt to keep barack obama from winning a second term in office essentially. there hasn't been as much focus this time around on measures continuing, on implementing new pressu measures that are popping up. do you think we'll see the same kind of attention and backlash from young people as they realize it is their rights that are under attack here? >> absolutely. we've heard -- again, the message to young people that their voices are being silenced is incredibly effective and powerful. that's what you're seeing. >> so you're seeing a big backlash from that? >> absolutely. midterm elections are a tough sell with young people. 23% of young people turned out in the last midterm election. i think we always are going to be facing a challenge when you're getting people to come out and telling them the president is not up for re-election, you know, but what we know is that the composition

of congress is at stake here. crucial legislation, immigration reform, you know, many other important pieces of legislation are going to be determined by the composition of this congress. so i think we're seeing a lot of backlash, that they're being told, your voice shouldn't play a role in deciding those. >> what's interesting about this issue is when i'm on the hill and talk to a lot of republican operatives, none of them want to go there. >> they don't want to touch it. >> yeah, they did that, it's a state issue. the other thing that i find fascinating about this, if voter fraud was such an issue, where was this when ohio was voting republican? where was this when north carolina was reliably republican? where this was when florida was reliably republican? where was this when virginia was reliably republican? it seems when states turn purple, there's a higher propensity for these laws to come down. >> pure coincidence, luke. >> i think incumbent lawmakers want to keep their districts safe. they're gerrymandered to be that way. so they don't want the roles

flooded with new voters who they can't proteedict. i don't think it's necessarily a partisan issue -- -- >> it's definitely a partisan issue. >> both sides have done it, to luke's point. >> it's different this day and age. >> absolutely. >> but it's a coincidence, luke. when they turn purple, we got to suppress the votes. >> protecting voter integrity, toure. audrey, thank you so much. up next, why coming face to face with a great white shark could be the best thing that ever happens to you. i disagree with that. "jaws" up next. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, like me, and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain.

this is humira helping me lay the groundwork. this is humira helping to protect my joints from further damage. doctors have been prescribing humira for ten years. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira is proven to help relieve pain and stop further joint damage in many adults. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, have happened. blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure have occurred. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live in or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. take the next step. talk to your doctor. this is humira at work.

ugh. heartburn. did someone say burn? 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. alka seltzer heartburn reliefchews. enjoy the relief. if you're cursing that sunburn you got over the july 4th weekend, trust me, your day at the beach could have been much worse. this is a story i'm sure you have heard about. a long-distance swimmer was bitten in the chest by a great white shark off the coast of california's manhattan beach no less. luckily, a nearby surfer went the distance to save him. >> i saw that shark just eyeball to eyeball, just like you and i. exactly the same distance, and it came in and bit me. i grabbed its nose, and i started trying to pull it off of me, and i got lucky that it

released itself. >> there he is recounting the crazy story with that good samaritan. maybe it won't be a shark bite, but most of us will experience at least one trauma in our lifetime. what we learn from them is the basis for a new book "super survivors," the surprising link between suffering and success. author of the book, dr. david feldman, joins us now. welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> so we all have traumatic experiences in life that change us forever. you make the interesting distinction that while some people as a result of a great tragedy experience serious psychological consequences, others redirect their focus and end up accomplishing extraordinary things, meeting goals they never would have met otherwise. you call these people super survivors. help us understand, why do people react so differently to life changing events? >> i think we're all familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a real issue for people following trauma. you know, the nightmares, the

flashbacks, et cetera. but i think what a lot of people aren't aware of is that although ptsd is a real serious issue that deserves a lot of conversation and treatment, only about 20% to 30% of people who experience a trauma end up with ptsd. but the statistic that -- another statistic a lot of people don't know is that 50% to 80% of people in the aftermath of trauma end up growing in some way. they may see the sky as bluer and the grass as greener. they may discover new friends. they may deepen in their spirituality. they may discover new paths in their live. what we did was interviewed -- actually, we interviewed over 100 people, but we ended up telling the stories and looking at the science related to 17 cases where people revolutionized their life and dramatically changed their life. one of the things we found that was really common to all of them was a particular kind of forward-looking yet realistic thinking called grounded hope.

>> dr. feldman, i couldn't agree more with your premise. i lost my father unexpectedly a people fret about as meaningless, oh, my gosh my cell phone isn't charged, what am i going to wear tonight. you have a certain amount of time on this earth. enjoy it. i still get mad about traffic. after a significant traumatic event you view things through a different lens and keep living and realize so much of what is burning others is not that important. >> absolutely. and there's no question that trauma is incredibly painful and, you know, trauma is simply a bad thing, period. but what you're pointing to is the idea that when people survive traumas, often it gets them to look at their life and ask themselves, well, now that i've been through part of the worst that i could possibly imagine, what do i want to do with my life.

people often discover new goals, new opportunities, they make new choices that they wouldn't have made previously. we talk about in the book about a woman named asha who was a work a day, business womb, working at a start-up in new york, living a good life of a 20-something year old but an unchallenged life and then the unthinkable happened to her at the age of i believe around 25, she got breast cancer. a particularly virulent breast cancer and she thought she was going to die. you know, flash forward a few years she's now cancer-free but what was hardest for her getting back to her life. she realized through her ordeal that she could no longer live the life that she was living. she ended up moving to los angeles and taking up the electric violin and a few years later she's playing with jay-z, on the "american idol" band, "the tonight show," just incredible transformations. >> what are some of the principles that distinguish the super survivors from people who

don't get that i guess benefit out of their trauma? i know one of the things you talk about is in a situation where the trauma has been caused by someone else being able to forgive that other person? >> absolutely. so forgiveness is a big predictor of people's ability to move forward after trauma. but i think that people often misunderstand what forgiveness is. we talked to a woman whose name was clem mentin and she was a teenager, actually a young girl, and she saw her family killed in the rwandan genocide and she narrowly escaped and bounced from u.n. refugee camp to u.n. refugee camp. flash forward she's a graduate of yale, speaking for the u.n., working alongside oprah winfrey at the leadership academy for girls. we asked what helped you move forward. she said it was forgiveness. she said forgiveness is not a gift you give to the perpetrators. her perpetrators didn't know she

had forgiven. it was a gift she gave to herself, the permission to let go of the fear, the anger, the hurt of the past, and to move her sights, to look to the future and begin to put one step in front of the other to set goals and build a better life. >> forgiveness is a powerful thing. thank you so much for being here. all right. a quick break and when we come back, torere on the long-lasting effects about women's rights and it's not hobby lobby. during the day, we generate as much electricity as we can using solar. at night and when it's cloudy, we use more natural gas. this ensures we can produce clean electricity whenever our customers need it. ♪

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we believe our customers do their best out there in the world, so we do everything we can to be there for them when they need us. plus, you could save hundreds when you switch, up to $423. call... today. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? in 1994, a 22-year-old anti-abortion activist walked into a woman's clinic in brookline, massachusetts, and opened fire.

he killed the receptionist and wounded others and went to another clinic and killed a second receptionist and wounded more. he was convicted of first-degree murder and doing double life. massachusetts said we have to do more than send the killer away. we have a problem. a 1996 "frontline" documentary showed these scenes of chaos in front of women's clinics in brookline. the legislature tried to balance the first amendment rights of protesters and the privacy rights of patients. they ended up giving clinics a 35-foot buffer zone, something the rehnquist court found constitutional. when the roberts' court ended its session it found that buffer to be a violation of the first amendment in part because of the lead plaintiff 77 elmore mccullen who said having to stand 35 feet away from the door i'm limited as far as my message of caring can go. there are many anti-abortion activists who are kind and nonthreatening like miss mccullen, peaceful prayer vigils common in front of clinics but

the massachusetts state rep who helped write the buffer zone law this notion somehow we were eliminating these wonderful compassionate conversations between protesters and patients that persuaded women not to get abortions that's a fiction. what the protesters did was in very aggressive, even offensive ways, to interfere with and to intimidate women going into health clinics to exercise their right to choose. some anti-abortion protesters have, of course, even gone further and engaged in what the anti-defamation league has called america's forgotten terrorism, the murders of dr. george tiller and dr. david gun and dr. john britain as well as escorts and receptionists and clinics that have been bombed draw that connection to domestic terrorism. violence against civilians with the aim of making them so afraid they change their behavior. this is what the buffers were supposed to protect again against. they were intended to diffuse the interaction between protesters and clinics because

intense interactions filled with rhetoric has led to an atmosphere where some will leap to violence to make their point and the radical edge of the anti-abortion movement hails those that commit that violence at morally justified heros. >> people who shoot doctors and bomb clinics and try to bomb clinics and set clinics on fire, they are not run-of-the-mill, crazy killers and vandals of the kinds who commit other sorts of crimes. they're part of a movement that not only does this stuff but celebrates this stuff and supports one another when they do these things. >> that is a world in which buffers are essential. in 1994 a chief justice rehnquist wrote, the first amendment does not demand that patients at a medical facility undertake her culen efforts to escape protests. two lower courts ruled against miss mccullen finding ample means of communicating. this is a world that lives in a court nicer and sweeter than

ours, strangers meet on the sidewalk to discuss the issues of the day. seems like there's a buffer zone around the supreme court one that keeps it away from reality. that does it for "the cycle." "now with alex wagner" starts right now. >> welcome back, congress. the border battle awaits. it's monday, july 7th, and this is "now." >> congress returns to a border crisis. >> thousands of undocumented immigrants find themselves in the middle of a raging debate. >> what do you do when the immigrants are children? >> we are a country that hopefully does the right thing. >> i want to tell the president don't turn your back on these kids. >> the problem turns on the very definition of asylum. >> it's fairly hard to deport the children immediately. >> the one hand, they say he doesn't follow the law that he's an emperor. >> the law states these kids have to stay until they get their immigration hearing. >> when it comes to