thank you for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. good evening. i'm chris matthews. the two big stories of the night. on any other night we would lead with israel's invasion of gaza and all its dire consequences. but we are beginning our coverage with an update on the jet liner horror over war-torn ukraine. malaysian airlines flight 17 en route from amsterdam to kuala lumpur with 295 people aboard was flying normally at its cruising altitude of 33,000 feet when it suddenly disappeared from radar over eastern ukraine today. you are looking at the latest images from the crash site. there are no reports of any survivors. senior u.s. officials tell nbc news it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, a

s.a.m., speaking in stark termsing about the situation vice president joe biden told a group of democrats in detroit it was apparently, quote, not an accident, blown out of the sky, he said. earlier today president obama and russian president vladimir putin spoke by phone where, according to the white house, president obama confronted putin by noting there was extensive evidence that russia has been supplying heavy weapons to separatists in the region. we are now confronted, of course, in this country and in the world with a highly dangerous situation. with nearly 300 innocent people dead in a region of intense hostility. the big questions for us and for the world -- who did this? how did they do it? and why? we'll start our coverage tonight with nbc news chief pentagon correspondent jim miklajewski, and john cox. mr. cox, hold on for a second. i want to hear from mick. let me ask you about this question of the technique yusd

here. this is a b.u.k., a s.a.m., surface-to-air missile. does the government possess such weapons or only the russians and allies in ukraine? >> kiev does possess some soviet-era surface-to-air missiles or buks as they are called. if you read up on it, many military and weapons experts aren't sure ukraine -- the weapons ukraine has are even operable as of now. they have had them so long. there is a question of what would the ukrainians shoot at? their battle is with separatists who don't have any aircraft. the idea that the ukraine may have fired this missile was ruled out pretty quickly by the u.s. military services. i can tell you since february when it appeared the russians would invade ukraine, u.s. spy

satellites have been trained on the border. 24/7. it was in very short order they figured out that it was a s.a.m. missile that was launched, that eventually struck the plane. that was an infrared satellite that picked up this heat signature of the launch and the impact into the plane. but they are still wondering tonight was it separatists or russians? as you said, the president has said russia keeps supplying heavy weapons to the separatists in ukraine. that includes these buk missile systems as well as artillery and tanks. it's a reason why president obama slapped harder sanctions on the russians. but the feeling is whoever pulled the trigger -- separatists or russian -- it was most likely a russian weapon that did the damage. >> do we have reason to believe they would shoot down a

passenger airliner, in this case a malaysian passenger airliner on purpose thinking they were shooting at a bomber of some kind, a military plane? >> that's the head scratcher here. analysts are trying to figure out what else could they have been shooting at. there is one kneery that there may have been a ukrainian military plane in the area. these weapons are not necessarily infallible. they are radar guided. what satellites detected was first the radar being turned on. then almost instan tan kwously the missile being fired. was it a fault of the system, of the operators who probably don't have as much training as the russian forces unless russians were controlling the weapon. nobody knows it for sure. it very well could have been an accident. every military analyst we are talking to said in a situation like this there would be no

reason for the separatists to shoot down a civilian plane. >> on purpose. >> even if that was the target they must have thought it was a military plane. >> listening to you the two options or probabilities. one, they thought it was a military plane and launched. two, they launched toward another plane and it ended up hitting this plane unintentionally. >> those are both definitely options on the table now. the an will lists know for sure this was a missile fired either by the russians or separatists. it hit the plane, brought it down. they are not sure about motive. >> do we know where it was shot from? russian territory? separatist territory? rebel territory? >> they should be able to figure it out. if it was along the border it may be one step this way, one step that. who knows? >> john cox, tell us what you know.

what you can surmise and what you have been able to figure out as an expert. >> first i saw the size of the debris field. there was an in-flight break-up. that would be consistent. the boeing 777 has been in service for years. it never experienced an in-flight breakup. that me to conclude it was the possibility of external force that caused this airplane to break apart. also when you look at the debris itself a lot of it was consistent with the in-flight break-up. you can look at the engines and larger pieces. if the airplane had been intact they would have hit differently than they apparently did. all of the evidence is consistent with the fact that it could have been a missile. now with the government confirming that it all comes together. >> these missiles move a mile a second. does that suggest the pilots had no idea they were targeted?

that they were about to explode in the air? >> i think it's unlike tli pilots had any idea there was even a threat. the missile is so much faster than the jet. they usually track it from behind. they would have been flying along on a normal day. the weather looked good. all of the sudden catastrophe struck very, are very quickly. >> in a normal situation when could we nail down what happened? i suspect there will be disputes because the russians won't admit it, the separatists won't. the kiev government blames the separatists. will there be a tribunal recognized in the world to give us the facts? >> i'm not sure there will be. first and foremost, let's look at the voice recorder and the flight data record arer and see what actually occurred. and the reports that they may have been recovered. the world needs to put pressure

on whoever has the recorders. let's get them in the hands of somebody that can read them that's not in any way a party to this. and find out first what happened. then we can start looking through the military systems to figure out who did it. let's first get the recorder. that's probably the next step. >> let's go to nbc news tom costello. trying to trust the russians -- and we have been through it. i remember the space program they didn't tell us there was a human being until after he came back safely. how do we get the black box back before it's been tampered with? can they be tampered with? how do we get the truth? >> i'm sorry, i missed part of your earlier conversation with mick and john are. we are told the plane went down in rebel-held territory. if rebels are the chief suspects in this case it is hard to believe they will be object

sieve in an investigation here. there are some reports that they already hold the black boxes. will will they hand them over to ukrainian authorities or an international body? i don't know. i would be doubtful myself at this point. i talked to u.s. sources. the state department has been in consultation with the with ntsb and other government authorities about whether they might consider going there. but the former head of the ntsb told us a short time ago if she were still in charge she would be reticent to send u.s. investigators into a war zone, a situation where all the evidence suggests the plane was prougt down by military action. i suspect, and i would be anxious to hear what mick and john say, i suspect the conclusive word will have to come from probably the u.s. military and intelligence sources which say they have seen indication that is the plane was shot down by a missile and the

question now is whose missile. if it's a russian-backed missile was it from russia, ukrainian authorities with the missiles or, in fact, was it the russian separatists? >> mick, this is the question. will a black box be determinant here? the question is who shot the plane down -- whether russian or so separatists. would it tell us who? >> i would suspect not. particularly since as you were talking a minute ago the missiles move so quickly and the pilots didn't have a clue. once it hit, it was over. there will be telemetry they can use. maybe some discussion by the pilots in the last few seconds before the plane fell apart. i think it will be difficult. tom knows more about what the

black boxes can tell you. >> let's assume there is no black box recovered intact because people on the ground with first dibs on it will not be interested in getting the truth out. my question to you, mick, what will our military be able to establish independently? >> they can look very closely and super analyze whatever data they have. if they can determine was it launched from the ukraine or russian territory and as of now we are told they are trying to figure out who fired the shot. there was intercepted radio communications that are apparently from the separatists to the russians in which one said, hey, we screwed up here. it almost sounds as if the separatists, through not

willingly, revealed that they may have been the ones that fired the shot. as i said, there is intel that showed a number of these missile systems crossed the border from russia to ukraine just recently. it's a reason the president imposed tougher sanctions. >> does kiev have on tape the conversation -- >> we do have it. >> yeah. tom used it in his piece tonight. >> yeah. i have heard it myself. we have also had multiple russian language experts within nbc news listen and confirm the translation. the exact word he said is we f'd up. or something along the lines of it is f'd up. then goes on to describe we have hundreds of bodies and talking about the fact that they have come down in an area that's residential. the man who is alleged to have

been the russian lee san said do we have the pilots. the idea is they may have shut down the ukrainian military plane. the suggestion is were there weapons on board and the conversation becomes no it's passenger, it's civilian. >> that points to the fact that it wasn't a military plane and they hit a passenger plane. >> i need to stress this. nbc news has not verified the authenticity. this is from the ukrainian government that released this. we had our people listen to the conversation. to me it harkens back to korea 007 in 1983 when the soviets then shot down a plane and denied it. it wasn't until u.s. intelligence released those recordings of the soviet pilots talking about what they had done that the world realized what the

soviets had done. they became the evil empire is. >> nothing like hearing them say, we got him, target destroyed. >> to your point, chris, somebody may have doctored the tapes or put them together. i don't know that it could have been done that quickly. to then be intercepted by the ukrainian. i don't know who would script f'd up in any kind of cover-up. >> sounds like a slice of life and death to me. thank you very much for your expertise for nbc as always. and tom costello, you have been great today. we'll be right back. from 2000 to 2011, on average 17 manufacturers a day shut down in america.

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welcome back to "hardball." more now on the downed malaysian flight and what caused it. we are getting closer to that now. the united states believes it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile called s.a.m.s. they haven't yet determined who fired the missile exactly. a launcher similar to the buk system has been seen by some of the reporters in separatist-held areas of eastern ukraine. the separatists have them and saw them this week. it has the capability of hitting a target up to 72,000 feet. that's 12 miles. by the way, the 777 plane was thought to be flying at 33,000, well within range. barry mccaffery is an msnbc military analyst. michael weiss is a foreign policy columnist and editor of the interpreter. we are going to have a clip for you in a moment here. by the way, here is a clip that nbc's tom costello mentioned earlier. it's audio are released -- we don't have it yet.

general, we have a tape now we'll be playing here that basically has russians basically in cahoots with separatists saying i think we screwed up here, using the f-word, because we shot down a passenger plane instead of a military plane. we are close to the reality of the horror here. >> no question. look, chris, what we should have known in u.s. intelligence within an hour or two, i have been on the radio and listened to the launch of scud missiles. our satellite systems get the hot point. they know the location of the missile when fired. it will compute a that projectry of what where it is going. we should have known where it was fired from almost immediately. secondly, it was a target acquisition radar that got the aircraft. we can see radars like flashlights in a dark room. we should know where the

acquisition ray tdar was. finally, i don't think there is much question but the nsa would have picked up the same background chatter and other reports from the russian fed are radiation and spraeparatists. we know where it was fired from and probably have ruled out the ukrainian government. i hope we ruled out the russian military. these missiles work pretty damn good when they are in part of a brigade with radar access. this is a lone firing platform. >> i'm worried and we can see perhaps the minds of the people in the separatist crowd operating within ukraine aren't as advanced as the systems hands on. so, michael weiss, why would the russians put a weapon of this stature in the hands of rebels without the command and control of the russian military? these weapons are capable of

going up to 25 miles, knocking down any kind of aircraft. how do you trust somebody to know when to fire it and what assurances they have of what the target would be? >> that's a great question. >> aren't they guilty as accessories before the fact using criminal language if the russians gave this weapon to people who didn't know how to properly use it? >> the separatists aren't a rag tag militia. the so-called commander in chief, igor strelkov is identified as a russian military intelligence officer, an agent of the gru, or a russian spy in charge of overseeing the russian insurgency. on a social media platform similar to russian facebook this is the page he used. he had a statement saying today we downed a ukrainian cargo plane and identified the

location. then he said we warned them not to fly in our skies. that message was deleted from his profile. >> why say that if the voice recording showed the person who launched knew they made a mistake well before he made a claim of victory? >> actually there are two leaked conversations between separatists by the ukrainian security service ares. the second one establishes they were told. they said we watched on t that it was a ukrainian military plane. they got there and said, hang on, it says malaysian airliner. there was genuine confusion in the ranks of the separatists. >> they claimed victory over a military plane before realizing it was a passenger plane to kuala lumpur. >> then they tried to erase the evidence of claiming victory. the twitter account for the people's republic of donetsk, the separatist governmental or administrative system, they had a tweet showing buks. they said look at the new toy.

that was taken down. we have a screen capture of it. it's been sent around on social media. when they say they are blaming ukraine, that happened later. initially they said, good for us, we downed a ukrainian plane. then they realized. >> here's the clip from tom costello. it's audio between a ukrainian rebel and a russian military intelligence officer discussing the downing of flight 17 after the fact. >> there you have it. this horrible recognition by the people who shot this down. they weren't shooting at a

ukrainian bomber. they were shooting at a passenger plane with almost 300 people on it. >> no question. a lot of discussion about the black box. we won't need that. we will need access to the fuselage of the aircraft. it will be another conclusive evidence that this was an external strike by a guided missile. so i think at the end of the day we'll know separatists did it. we have to sort out what to do about it. it was irresponsible of malaysia airlines or anyone to be flying over the region given the threat capability. it's hard to imagine this escaping being a localized conflict. neither nato, the united states or the e.u. has any military capability to do anything about it. this was a diplomatic and economic action for now. >> let me go to michael weiss. the minute i heard of this, i thought about the korean airlines flight in 1983 in which a regional commander of the old

soviet union said you come into our air space, i launch. they shot it from the air. they said target hit. pretty cold-blooded. frightening. this is more indirect. they gave the weapons system to the separatists. remember the old arguments with barry goldwater, who gets to make decisions? here, a separatist made the decision. loyal to what? what higher moral authority? you said a member of the russian military, but really is a leader of the rogue operation. >> there is a question of what happened in the separatist ranks. particularly last week. putin has decided, look, there are too many amateurs running the show. we need adult supervision. there is a new battalion on the ground. this is the name of a russian are gru controlled army unit

that used to be comprised of chechans and people from the caucuses. the head of the unit is a defector from the sbu. he was based in bonndonestk. there is a question if they are trying to pull power from mr. strelkov and other separatists on the ground. you can see the guys are going rogue, untrustworthy. >> this is the most horrific examplove ovef that. thank wow. >> my pleasure. >> general are, thank you for your knowledge. we'll be right back.

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plane and the investigation which is going pretty quickly. first, thousands of israeli soldiers crossed the border into gaza, just hours ago. commenting a full scale ground invasion after hamas rejected a proare posed truce agreement to end the ten-day fight across the border. israel announced the mission open ended. they are going to gaza designed to eliminate infrastructure and weaponry dispersed tlouts the densely occupied neighborhoods of gaza. they have stressed the intention to minimize civilian casualties. today's escalation follows an israeli missile strike yesterday that killed four young palestinian boys, the images of which splashed across the front pages of morning newspapers. joining me is richard engel from gaza and andrea mitchell. we can't do better than you two. richard, how far will the idf go in getting control of the

weapons system and reducing the danger from hamas? >> it appears that israel does not intend to come into the center of built-up palestinian area. we are now right now in gaza city. this is the biggest city in gaza. it is a densely populated area. there are no israeli troops here. instead we are hearing israeli drones in the sky. we have been hear ing impacts, explosions, air strikes on the port area and in the distance. most of the operation at this stage is focused on a very small sliver, a band of territory around the gaza strip specifically the border areas between gaza and israel because israel said it is focusing this ground assault on the tunnels that hamas has been digging and has used in the past to infiltrate into israel, to sneak up on israeli towns, to capture

or kidnap israeli soldiers. as far as we understand this is not an attempt to take over the gaza strip. not an attempt to go through cities like this very densely packed gaza city to look for rockets, hamas leaders, but fo to focus on the border areas, destroy tunnels and be closer to carry out operations, drone strikes, against hamas leadership if they see those targets available. >> obviously benjamin netanyahu responding to the dangers to his people. they are being hit by rockets every hour. how does this action going into gaza stop those attacks? >> it's clear since the withdrawal from gaza israel no longer has the intelligence to target the rocket and placements. they have hammered gaza over the last week or so from the air, from the sea. the bottom line is they have not

gotten to the rocket in placements. the tunnels are more extensive. the rockets are better supply and demand, so they have not neutralized the threat. ben met net has more support than ever to be much tougher. this was the most telegraphed ground invasion ever. they thought by arraying the tanks they might threaten or bluff hamas into agreeing to the cease-fire. hamas wasn't about to do that without its terms. they believe they need to go in on the ground to find the rocket in placements. >> it seems israel is wise to public opinion and in many cases isolation that they know the costs they will pay in international press. the world press will be against anything israel does generally. that's my assessment. they must have known this was the best thing they could do.

they couldn't with stand rocket attacks, put up with relentless shelling. in this case, the full cost could be very high. the consequences of them going into gaza. >> as you know are, this is the third time we have seen a war between hamas in the gaza strip and israel in the last five and a half years. each war has been different. each time we have had different calculations. the first war was after hamas came to power and tried to show strength. israel wanted to come back and hit hamas hard so the group wouldn't think about becoming a threat. the second time was in the middle of the arab spring spring. the muslim brotherhood was in power in egypt. hamas launched this war against israel and israel fought hard. hamas said it was iz are reel that launched the war. whoever started it and there are recriminations on both sides.

the muslim brotherhood was on the rise and the arab spring was on the move. hamas felt it had the whole arab world with it. times now are different. egypt is no longer controlled by the muslim brotherhood. the muslim brotherhood isn't as popular. i think hamas felt isolated. one of the big reasons hamas is fighting this war is to the try to break its isolation. to put its case back in the news. to put it back on the arab television stations. so far that's working. if you watch al jazeera they are not covering the downed airliner nearly as much as they are covering the ground invasion here in the gaza strip. they have to be careful drawing in public support, creating aggression against israel. but i don't think they need to

be as worried as they were when the arab spring was under way. next door in egypt was the muslim brotherhood in power. >> the old david and goliath story. anyway, thank you andrea mitchell and richard engel. up next the shooting down of the malaysian airliner over ukraine. the white house reaction coming up next and the investigation which looks to me like it's getting places very quickly. finding out who did this. we'll be right back. of the services your vehicle needs. so prepare your car for any road trip by taking it to an expert ford technician. because no matter your destination good maintenance helps you save at the pump. get our multi-point inspection with a synthetic blend oil change, tire rotation, brake inspection and more for $29.95 or less. get a complete vehicle checkup only at your ford dealer. dad: he's our broker. he helps looks after all our money.

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we are going right back to our top story. this afternoon president obama promised to offer assistance to help in the investigation of downed malaysian air flight 17. the president also offered condolences to the victims. let's watch. >> obviously the world is

watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the russia/ukraine border. it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. right now we are working to determine whether there were american citizens on board. that's our first priority. i have directed my national security team to stay in close contact with the ukrainian government. the united states will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why. as a country, our thoughts and prayers are with all the families of the passengers wherever they call home. >> it was only yesterday the president announced a new round of sanctions on russia, tough ones. the new york times described them as the most punishing measures taken to date in this fight, targeting some of the so-called crown jewels of the financial, energy and defense industries. kristen welker is a white house correspondent for nbc news, of

course. michael crowley is the chief foreign affairs correspondent. the president has been saddens. he's talked of the tragedy. none of the judgmental way in terms of the guilty, it seems. your view? >> i think that's right, chris. the administration, the president being extremely cautious in their language. they don't want to get ahead of the investigation. of course vice president biden sort of made the strongest remarks in regards to what happened today saying it appeared the plane had been blown out of the sky. but the president, taking a much more measured response to what happened. saying that the investigation is what's important now. he spoke with the with president of ukraine poroshenko. offered u.s. assistance in the investigation. one interesting thing about the phone call is president obama stressed the need to keep the

investigation scene intact, to make sure that it is not hampered, changed in any way so they can get to the bottom of exactly what happened. as you pointed out, this comes against the backdrop of yesterday. president obama announcing the stiffest sanctions to date against russia. earlier today he spoke with vladimir putin are. it was during that phone call we are told president putin told president obama about reports that the plane had gone down. lawmakers on capitol hill have been saying that will change the equation seriously from the perspective of the united sta s states. senator john mccain saying there will be, quote, hell to pay. >> thank you, kristen. if what looks like happened happened, the separatists had

access to this advanced system, they did it. it was a mistake. they were aiming at a military target, they thought. they hit an airliner. what would be the repercussions? >> there is a new blast wave of pressure to hit with more. >> would the world blame him for putting the weapon in the hands of those who used it recklessly? >> absolutely. there are reports that the separatists captured missile systems. >> did they have the buks? >> in late june a television station reported that the separatists captured a ukrainian buk missile system. it's possible they didn't get these directly from moscow. what the world is going to see, quite properly is this is a problem putin created.

he's the master mind here. the moral culpability belongs to him. >> if you are an accessory before the fact you are blamablement. >> europe remains not enthusiastic about the sanctions. there is a view that you are can't change putin's behavior without a degree of sanctions -- >> this is a plane coming from amsterdam. >> yes. >> there were a lot of europeans on board. >> it will cause europe economic pain. there is a question of the dead americans and what is president obama's response now that we may have unconfirmed dead americans. >> i asked you the question. if you get people killed from different countries every

country will want a hide on the wall. thank you, michael and kristen welker from the white house. we'll be right back with more on the investigation. getting there, especially with the tape recordings. we haven't been able to authenticate them. there are tape recordings out there with the separatists using the f word for how they messed up. seems like a bad slice of reality to me. we'll let you know what we think, what we know is going to happen. we'll be right back. if there was a pill to help protect your eye health as you age... would you take it? well, there is. [ male announcer ] it's called ocuvite. a vitamin totally dedicated to your eyes, from the eye care experts at bausch + lomb.

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of swedish experience in insidperfecting the rich,ars never bitter taste of gevalia. we do it all for this very experience. [woman] that's good. i know right? gevalia. welcome back to "hardball." we are continuing with our breaking news coverage of the malaysian boeing 777 airline shot down in eastern ukraine killing 298 people aboard. there is a photo of the leader of the pro russian separatists arriving there. the plane went down in ukraine. a senior obama administration official said the u.s. will offer assistance to investigators. here he is. this is the quote. initially it would be investigative assistance focused on determining the cause of the

crash. are recovery, reconstruction, black box analysis. joining me now here on "hardball," dan hampton, former combat pilot, daniel rose, a rose, military trained pilot, and aviation attorney, and james hall, the former chairman of the national transportation safety board. let me go to -- let me go to mr. hall now. what do we -- what further evidence are we looking for here if this tape recording, let's look at this tape, by the way. take a couple seconds to get this up. this is a conversation which was picked up by the kiev authorities involving a conversation between a russian officer, military person, and someone in the separatist movement in which the separatist movement basically the guy basically admits that he screwed up, or his phrase, f'd up the situation by hitting a passenger airliner rather than a military target. let's watch this.

>> well there you have it. mr. hall, tell me what you think of that -- it hasn't been authenticated completely but part of the nbc report tonight by tom costello. >> well, chris, i think what's important here is the integrity of the investigation. it should be important to both russia and the united states because both of us have a substantial economic interest in the safety of international aviation. >> but why were the russians -- well let's hope that they are interested in truth, but i've never thought of the kgb as a source of truth, and i wonder why mr. putin would want it out, if you will, his allies on the russian separatist movement and say they're the ones that did this. even if he knew it. what would be his motive for telling the truth? >> well, they may possibly come forward with that admission in the next 12 to 15 hours.

but regardless, i think it's important that this event be fully investigated and the investigation be conducted by an international body. >> mr. rose, you think that's reasonable? is that going to happen? >> i wouldn't bank on it for the reasons i think you've articulated. you know, he's got his motivations to maintain the image that he wants in the world, and it's not consistent with our concept of openness and transparency. so i think, you know, we may have a very serious problem in terms of getting some of the evidence that we would like to get. i don't think that means that you're not going to figure it out or figure out exactly who shot the plane down. but i don't think you're going to get any cooperation from putin. >> well, in order -- mr. hampton, first, then the rest of you, can you tamper with a black box once you get control of it, manipulation it to produce different evidence than it should normally produce?

mr. hampton, first. >> you've got to remember that the russians don't really control this area any more than the ukrainians do. it's a battlefield. so the whole notion of getting an investigative team in there and fig wruring out what's happening, you know, i think is a pretty far-fetched hope at this point. >> so this is not going to be adjudicated by any objective tribunal, it's not going to be like it is in the united states when we have an accident? >> no, it isn't going to be like that, but, again, you have to -- you have to remember, russians are chess players, okay? so putin's going to try to figure out a way, i think, to turn this around and use it to his advantage. and one thing that i would seriously consider if i were him is using this whole incident as an excuse to declare marshal law. and move into that part of the ukraine saying, look, we can't afford to have all this stuff happening. we're not doing it because we want to, because we're good guys. we're doing it for the safety of everybody else. that's something that a russian would do. >> which would be to protect us from their friends.

the separatists. which sounds outrageous. gentlemen, let me ask you all this. do you think -- i'm going to start with mr. hall. will we get the truth here eventually or faster than we think? it seems like this conversation we just heard between the russian and the separatist seems to be pretty interesting already. >> well, it's certainly interesting, but to answer your earlier question, that's a very sophisticated black box on the 777 with over 1,000 parameters of information. it that black box is tampered with, i think there are experts that would be aware of that. >> okay. thank you so much, dan hampton, daniel rose, and jim hall. we had to be brief tonight. there's a lot coming at us. when we come back, well, we'll be right back. [ r&b slow jam playing ] ♪ yeah, girl ♪ you know, i've been thinking about us ♪ ♪ and, uh, i just can't fight it anymore ♪ ♪ it's bundle time ♪ bundle

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let me finish tonight with a flashbook. from the moment i heard about today's shooting down of a malaysian airliner over ukraine, i remember that 1983 shooting down of a korean airliner over soviet airspace. back then, the soviets still in a cold war mindset refused to admit responsibility for the deliberate murder of 269 passengers including u.s. congressman lawrence mcdonald of georgia who was aboard. here's how president reagan reacted. >> what can we think of a regime that so broadly trumpets its vision of peace and global disarmament yet so callously and quickly commits a terrorist act to sacrifice the lives of

innocent human beings? what can be said about soviet credibility when they is a flagrantly lie about such a heinous act? >> i can tell you, he was speaking for the american people back then who were absolutely furious at what the soviets had done. their cold-blooded killing of so many innocent people, their brutal destruction of so many human lives, their utter lack of compassion for the people aboard that plane. here's the way our president and we, the american people, felt. >> we know it will be hard to make a nation that rules its own people through force to cease using force against the rest of the world. but we must try. this is not a role we sought. we preach no manifest destiny. but like americans who began this country and brought forth this last best hope of mankind, history has asked much of the americans of our own time, much we have already given, much more we must be prepared to give. >> events like this today that no one forgets. especially not today.

that's "hardball" for now. on a very dark day. and thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight, we are "all in." >> the world is watching reports of a downed passenger jet near the russia/ukraine border. >> malaysian airlines plane was shot down over ukraine near the border with russia. >> shot down. not an accident. blown out of the sky. >> now the question is, who has the military hardware capable of hitting a plane at 33,000 feet? you crane, russia, and the separatists all deny responsibility. so what happens next? >> i think there's going to be hell to pay and there should be. plus, ground invasion. ten days after israel began its offensive against hamas, israeli troops move into gaza. "all in" starts right now.