good afternoon at 3:00 in new york. i'm toure. right now president obama is wrapping up a meeting with central american leaders. the presidents of guatemala, honduras, and el salvador, three countries at the center of the b border crisis. more than 57,000 unaccompanied minors have crossed the border so far this year, a 117% increase over last year. the president is offering to help make things safer if these kids do have to go home and hoping thousands more don't decide to make the same treacherous trip to america. here's what the republicans are offering according to two-term south carolina republican mulvaney. conferen they discussed a larger national guard presence on the board and a decrease in the amount of time it takes for processing and the idea that the last in will be the first processed. here's another big thing the

republicans think. they can do this for a quarter of the cost of the president's proposal. all the sudden they think they can do it in the next week. >> if the house is able to pass a piece of legislation next week, if the senate can pass it to provide the money necessary to do the things that i've talked about just a few minutes ago, that we can secure the border. and that will allow us to then continue the discussion on the other issues. >> nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker has the read out from there. what's the thinking there at this hour? >> well, white house officials are skeptical, first of all, that this is going to pass through the house but certainly skeptical it would pass through both chambers. first of all, the white house is asking for $3.7 billion. white house press secretary josh earnest just said in his briefing that that's the amount of money the president thinks is necessary to deal with this crisis, both in terms of adding new immigration judges as well as beefing up security along the border. so they say this amount, this less than $1 billion, really

doesn't address the broader problem. there's another potential sticking point here, toure, which is that this republican legislation, the contours of it seem to be aimed at changes a 2008 law. if that law is amended, it would make it easier for the obama administration to expedite the immigration process for these kids. however, it's something that the white house, by the way, says that they would back. but they don't want it to be linked to the extra supplemental money they are asking for. the reason for that is because a lot of democrats don't support changing that 2008 law. they think it would lead to a lot of these unaccompanied minors getting sent back to their home countries and being sent back to environments that are racked by violence and poverty. if this law does come together, if it's linked to changes to the 2008 law, you're going to see a lot of democrats in the senate oppose it. it's hard to see it would get through both chambers. all of this is coming as president obama is meeting with the three leaders of the central

american countries. his message to them, as i understand it, is we have to do a better job of cracking down on these migrant smugglers. we also have to do a better job of getting the message out to parents that they should not encourage their kids or send their kids to come across the border. not only is it dangerous, potentially deadly, but the vast majority of them could be sent back. so that is the message that i think president obama is sending to them. by the way, during a meeting on capitol hill yesterday, some of those leaders said to lawmakers on capitol hill they blame, in part, the policies of the obama administration, saying that they're not clear enough, that they have encouraged unaccompanied minors to come across the border. the obama administration pushes back against that, but they acknowledge there has been a surge and that is in effect sending the wrong message. so messaging is important. the campaign the white house launched several weeks ago to get that false information corrected, they say, is critical. they say they've seen a decrease in the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border over

the past month. they say that's due to a number of factors, including the weather. back to you. >> all right, kristen welker from the white house. thank you for that. blake, glad to see the president meeting with these central american leaders. part of the reason why we're in this situation is those countries are somewhat like failed states. these three men don't really have total power over what happens in these countries. >> absolutely. i don't want to put any cold water on anyone's ice cream sundae here, not on a friday. but this meeting is really not going to accomplish a whole lot. i think there's an important some bollic value in showing these countries this is a very important issue to us. but the bottom line is there's so much enmitty coming from these countries. as a result of us cracking down so much on the drug war, we pushed a lot of the cartels down to mexico. mexico cracked down. so where do these cartels go? into these countries. there's a lot of resentment from them towards us. and the united states feels there should be more of a

crackdown in those countries in terms of drug trafficking. it's a massive problem. there's not a large amount of stability in these countries to really crack down on these bad players. so you've got a really difficult situation here that i think you're quite right in saying it's going to be very, very hard to solve that problem, especially with just a meeting. >> another part of this problem is the central american leaders are upset with us because we helped fuel this. we helped keep these drug cartels alive. i think the presidents of both guatemala and honduras pointed to this. they pointed out we're a part of this as well. doesn't this make it a little harder for us when we ask for something? >> i think absolutely. that's exactly right. and there are two parts to this equation. one is the violence we were just talking about. president other is the consumption of drugs. that's a big thing you've had the leaders of these countries talking about. i think you're going to start to see more conversation in the u.s. about the drug war and what were the effects of the drug war. obviously if you have a prohibition on drugs, what that

will do is increase the -- that would drop the supply in the country and make it better for the cartels and for the drug ta traffickers and illegal drug traders to get more and more profits. that's another part of this equation. we already have rand paul talking about it in a different context and several on the left as well. that may be where the conversation starts to drift a little bit. >> that's true, but at the same time, these crises drive the asylum seekers. they can't drive the policy. so the drug crisis is one problem. we had a lot of asylum seekers from haiti, from vietnam. the wilbur force act here was to deal with sex trafficking. you work for the new york attorney general. you work for senator clinton. if you're going to craft a policy that's durable for all these crises, it has to deal with this in flow of these requests. it's striking that the president and senator mccain have both said, well, maybe we need to move more of these requests back further away from our border. i think that's an interesting idea, but do you think it creates a risk of making it even

easier to locally seek an asylum that's the genesis of the overflow we have right now? >> that's a very interesting concern. one of the things the white house is saying, that they will hold to the number of refugees that we have now, they're going to hold to that same number. the idea is to make this a bit easier and to prevent this flow of people coming through the border. it's very dangerous to travel through mexico. that's one of the big parts of this. if you have offices set up in honduras -- by the way, if it works in honduras, they might set this up other places. if you have the office there and do the processing there, then the actual transport of these people over to the border would be a lot safer. it's not meant to make it easier. in fact, they're claiming and it remains to be seen whether this can be done, they're claiming they will make sure the number of refugees will not be increased as a result of this. >> which is hard to buy. >> it is a little bit. but to me, there needs to be an organized, legal process here. if you want to stop people from sending their kids on this dangerous journey and they do actually qualify as asylum seekers, you should give them a process in country that they can

go to. but looking further out at comprehensive immigration reform, which is of course not going to happen through congress, this president has said he's looking into what sort of further executive actions he could take in that regard. hopes are pretty high among immigration rights advocates that it's going to be a pretty big action, potentially as large as backing all of the individuals who would have impacted by that senate bill that did pass on comprehensive immigration reform. are we set up here for immigration rights advocates to really be disappointed if the president doesn't go that big? >> it's a great question. i think if you look at the obama administration record, there is some reason to believe that maybe there shouldn't be total, absolute optimism because this has been an administration that's focused much more on the enforcement that other mechanisms. that being said, they've obviously been ham strung by this congress. in terms of moving forward, you're right. there are a lot of activists who are excited about the idea that

perhaps the president would use his executive authority in order to grant some sort of temporary legal status to the millions of people who would have gotten that through the senate bill. another version of that, which would be, you know, less of a source of celebration for them, would be if he kind of took that number and said, well, we'll make some additional requirements or conditions. for example, people who have one relative already in the united states, we'll limit it toe that. there are ways you can sort of limit it within that scope, but it certainly seems possible and likely that they will seek to increase the number of people who get that temporary legal status. i'm just cautioning it may not be that big number we saw in the senate bill. >> i have more optimism it could be some big sort of number, maybe the 5 million folks who have a spouse or relative in the country. and that could change american politics as we know it. >> absolutely. oh, yeah. not to bring politics into everything, but since you asked me about the politics, i will do it. clearly this is one of the big concerns on the right. it's that if you have all these new citizens who come in and by

and large tend to lean toward the democrats for a number of reasons -- >> because you keep demonizing them. >> that's right. the democratic party is trying to help them come into the country. others have talked about they have this big conspiracy theory that democrats only want to bring in these illegal immigrants for politics. it's something they very much fear. it is something that probably would happen. it's an inevitable democratic shift. >> republicans are going to have to face those facts sooner or later. >> i think they should welcome millions of new taxpayers, millions of new consumers. thank you very much, blake. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> up next, the latest from the mideast crisis where the death toll continues to crime and a truce cannot come soon enough. developments on that. "the cycle" is rolling on. it's friday, july 25th. [guy] i know what you're thinking-

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we're streamlining an algorithm. we're going public! [cheering] the fastest in-home wifi for your entire family. the x-1 entertainment operating system. only from xfinity. breaking news. israel's security cabinet has unanimously rejected secretary of state john kerry's latest cease-fire proposal. here's what secretary kerry had to say about that moments ago. >> why are we not announcing that's been found yet tonight? for a simple reason. that we still have some terminology in the context of the framework to work through. but we are confident we have a fundamental framework that can and will ultimately work. >> kerry, of course, has been in the region for much of this week working to end this latest episode in the decades' long fight. just today hamas rockets once again rained down on tel aviv. a number of them landing within

feet of the airport. the very same airport the faa banned flights to for some 48 hours. in fact, the first air canada flight to arrive there since that ban was lifted had to circle for several minutes as rockets sirens sounded. meantime, u.n. officials are calling an attack on one of its schools in gaza, quote, appalling. at least 16 people were killed at a building that had been deemed a safe haven from all of this fighting. that incident has sparked palestinian protests in both the gaza strip and the east bank. nbc news tel aviv bureau chief martin fletcher gets us up to speed on all the latest. martin? >> reporter: hi, krystal. well, the great disappointment, of course, is the cease-fire. secretary of state john kerry was speaking in cairo. he said he's going to be continuing, now leaving cairo, going to paris, where he said he's going to keep working. he said he's going to try to narrow the gap between israel

and hamas. but full marks to kerry for what he's been trying to do. when the israeli cabinet rejected it, they didn't reject it outright. they said they're seeking modifications in the seek-fire proposal. and of course we haven't yet heard from hamas. there's so far been no reaction from hamas at all to kerry's proposal. no public reaction anyway. so his work cut out to get the two sides together. there seems to be in urgency on the israeli side or palestinian side despite the terrible loss of life in gaza. there seems to be no great urgency to reach a cease-fire. each side is still insisting on its conditions. the idea of stopping the fighting in order to relieve the burden on the people in gaza, that doesn't seem to be a major priority in the calculations of either side of this time. now, hamas called for what they called a day of rage in the west bank. there have been demonstrations in half a dozen locations during the day. four more palestinians were shot dead in the west bank in those

demonstrations. and now that it's nighttime, last night it was only when it was dark in the evening at about 10:00 that between 10,000 and 20,000 palestinians took to the streets, made their way towards the border, a crossing point between ramallah, the west bank, and jerusalem, on the way to jerusalem. that's where the confrontation took place there, ending in the death of one palestinian. now we're waiting to see what will happen this evening where the palestinians on the we've bank will take up the challenge of hamas in gaza, challenging palestinians in the west bank, calling upon them to stop what hamas called a third uprising against israel. so without a cease-fire, it does seem as if the violence could spread to the west bank. meanwhile in gaza, it's continuing, it's been growing in intensity. the israeli army is continuing to look for tunnels. those tunnels that have been dug from gaza into israel,

threatening israel's rear, if you like, to attack civilians and soldiers alike. without a cease-fire, though, it looks as if the violence is either going to spread or get more intense in gaza. >> all right. martin fletcher in tel aviv, thank you so much. and joining the conversation now is fawaz, director of the middle east center at the london school of economics. we just heard martin's reporting there. of course, no cease-fire deal reached today unfortunately. according to martin, no seeming urgency on either side. where do you see us standing at the moment? are we getting anywhere close to a cease-fire deal here? >> i think we are seeing the -- i mean, broad contours, the parameters of a cease-fire initiative. and it's hopeful. what john kerry has suggested is a two-stage process. you have a humanitarian pause or cease-fire for five or seven days in tandem with talks between the israelis and

palestinians and the americans to bring about an end to the blockade of gaza by israel. a blockade, as you know, that has had devastating effects on the lives of 2 million people. and in the last year and a half, egypt has joined in blockade. what you have now in gaza is a war by starvation. so what john kerry is trying to do is to basically call for a cease-fire, yet at the same time, basically have political talks between the major parties to address the central concern. the central concern is to stop the firing of hamas rockets but at the same time give hamas and the people in gaza some hope about the lifting of the blockade that has been devastating. >> fawaz, what can we expect over the weekend? we know ramadan is just coming to an end. the festival will go on for a couple more days. will that have any sort of impact on a potential cease-fire, you think? >> well, in fact, there's a real

fear that if a cease-fire is not achieved by sunday -- sunday is the end of the ramadan for muslims worldwide. you might have major, major upheaval and protest. as your correspondent has just mentioned, armed clashes basically have strapped the west bank and east jerusalem. scores have been injured. we might be witnessing really the making of a third uprising. palestinians are enraged by the large number of palestinians killed, in particular civilians. for your own viewers now, the numbers are mounting. you have 830 palestinians. most of them are civilians. almost 200 children. you have 50 women, 50 elderly. you can imagine how this particular, i mean, mounting tragedy, not to mention the humanitarian crisis.

150,000 palestinians living in u.n. places in gaza. if a particular cease-fire is not achieved, you could have major waves of protest not only on the west bank and in east jerusalem, but in many places in the world. in jordan, lebanon, and other places as well. >> that's absolutely right. we're starting to see that palestinian anger rising to a boiling point. you talk about all the children who have been killed. you talk about the civilians who have been killed. we're talking about this largest west bank protest in years. none of this makes us think about the long-term seeds of peace being able to be planted in this region. >> well, i think we need to make one point very clear. the new round, the current round of violence basically followed the break down of the obama administration's peace initiative. let's remind our american

viewers that barack obama and john kerry had been working very hard to bridge the divide between the israelis and the palestinians. let's remind our american viewers it was the netanyahu government that has basically preferred to create facts on the ground than to accept a palestinian state, living side by side in peace with israel. let's remind our viewers that the conservative government in jerusalem has been creating facts on the ground and building settlements. john kerry, the first time probably in modern american history, has indirectly blamed this government for the break down of violence. the question, really the central question is not whether to bring about the cease-fire, and we should sooner rather than later, how do we address the root cause of this particular conflict? a two-state solution. a secure israeli state living in dignity and peace in its neighborhood and an independent, viable state for the palestinians. palestinians who feel dignity.

at the end of the day, we need to remember there's a sense of hopelessness and despair among the palestinians that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. i mean, look at gaza. we keep talking about what's happening. eight years of a blockade that has basically turned gaza, 2 million people, into one of the biggest prisons in the world. and yes, the rockets are foolish. the rockets are immoral. the rockets are terrible. but the reality is there's a context that we need to know what's happening. not just in gaza, on the west bank and east jerusalem as well. >> as you say for the american audience, you walked through several recent series of important events. i don't think there's any doubt that the netanyahu administration has not been very assertive or forward leaning in trying to create peace. having said that, another interpretation of events is that, as you say, after these efforts, john kerry, george mitchell, hillary clinton,

barack obama taking a bit of a different tone that is previous u.s. administrations, that none of that engendered a greater cooperation from hamas. what do you say to that aspect of this? because hamas is noti welcoming any kind of two-state solution. >> really, in a way, you can look at hamas as, in fact, the other side of the coin. the ultra conservative shift in israel itself. you have hamas and you have the ultra conservative right in israel. two sides of the same kind. ask an ultra conservative right wing in israel if he or she believes in a palestinian state. hamas would tell you the same way. we're talking here not about the ultra conservative hamas and the ultra conservative right wing within the government of netanyahu. we're talking about majorities in israel and palestine who believe in a two-state solution. the question on the table here

is that the netanyahu government caters to the ultra conservative right. the netanyahu government is more interested in stealing palestinian lands than accepting a secure settlement, a settlement that takes into account, according to barack obama and his secretary of state, the security, the fundamental security interests of the israeli people and the dignity and the security of the palestinian people. this is the central challenge facing both israelis and palestinians and the united states can play, has tried to play in particular in the last year or so thanks to john kerry, but it has failed. why it has failed, because the obama administration does not have the nerves and basically the will to pressure benjamin netanyahu to accept a two-state solution based on what we know, a consensus, an international consensus in the international system. >> fawaz, thank you so much. we'll continue, of course, to watch that situation as it

develops. up next, another big story this week changing hour to hour. military police are now being sent into help investigators secure that mh-17 crash site in rebel-held eastern ukraine. experienced military pilot in the royal air force, michael kay, tell us us what concerns him most about the standoff, and it's something you may not have thought about next. no problem. you want to save money on rv insurance? no problem. you want to save money on motorcycle insurance? no problem. you want to find a place to park all these things? fuggedaboud it. this is new york. hey little guy, wake up! aw, come off it mate! geico. saving people money on more than just car insurance. it means trying something new. [ woman ] that uncertainty of what's to come. ♪

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involved. turns out it was just an elderly woman who actually had been cleaning out her own doll collection and what she thought would be nice to donate them to people as a good deed. the neighbors are now relieved. and last night was an odd but important night for baseball. those words from a minor league manager who sang "take me out to the ball game" while getting a prostate exam in the press box. i kid you not. ♪ take me out to the ball game take me out to the crowd ♪ >> he says he was inspired to do it by a 10-year-old brain cancer patient. he agreed to the exam if her facebook page got 10,000 likes. as you can tell, she did, and that is your news cycle. >> all right. >> awesome story, krystal. turning gears now back to the unfolding crisis surrounding the down of malaysia airlines flight 17. this situation with russia could soon escalate into cold war ii,

as "time" magazine declares. america's top military commander says we're pulling out our old cold war plans. whatever happens next, he says is, will be putin's doing. >> if i have a fear about this, it's that putin may light a fire he loses control of. in other words, you know, these ethnic enclaves, there's a rising tide of nationalism. and nationalism can be a very dangerous instinct and impulse. there's a rising tide of nationalism in europe right now that has been created by, in many ways, by these russian activities. >> on the front page of today's "new york times," details on the lack of details surrounding the investigation of the downed flight in eastern ukraine. investigators simply have not been able to get into the rebel-controlled area. the russians are certainly not making things any easier. we learned just this afternoon

that there may be as many as 15,000 russian troops already amassed at the eastern ukrainian border. lieutenant colonel michael kay was an adviser to the u.k. ministry of defense. the brits certainly have a big stake in finding out what happened here. they lost ten of their own. michael, everything in this situation seems to be playing into putin's hand. his people still love him. no other nation is willing to try to stop him. other world leaders try to avoid crises. they seem to only make putin stronger. >> i think he's been a very good strategist. we've seen two very good pieces of evidence of that over the last six months. the first one was the way he intervened in syria. actually gave obama a way out in the corner that obama had painted himself into, in terms of drawing that red line and not being sure how to get out of it. i think he was very clever in the way he intervened and made to look like the good guy. i think success in sochi from a security perspective lended a hand to that. i also think the way he went

about hissubversive actions in crimea. it may not have been right, but it was impressive. let meics plain why. i don't think is a cold war ii. crimea should have sent western military strategists into a planning frenzy when it started to occur. if we go back to the cold war, that was conventional warfare. it was state-on-state warfare. it was underpinned by a nuclear deterrent. it was a soldier versus a soldier. it was a soldier that complied to the geneva conventions, the international criminal courts, the rome statute that had rules of engagement. there were boundaries laid out in the cold war. we then went to the balkans. it was kind of a hybrid between conventional warfare and the asymmetric warfare i'll come on to in a second. in the balkans, it was easily to distinguish combatants and

noncombatants. 2003, we get into this asymmetric warfare. the thing the west still hasn't got their head around. doesn't matter how many tanks you have, how many warships you have, how many air defense fighters you have, you're fighting an ideology. it's almost impossible to do. with over 150,000 u.s. troops in iraq in 2008, they could not contain the situation. we are kidding ourselves. >> you also write that we're in an environment where nato is simply battle fatigued. >> yeah, and that's absolutely spot on. what happened was is when putin went into crimea, what he did was he leveraged a militia. we haven't seen this for a long time. he leveraged a militia to fulfill his political agenda from a state operator's perspective. that's really clever. and to your point, ari, what it did was it caught nato on the back foot. a battle fatigued nato. a nato whose military planners have had a mindset within the

middle east of an asymmetric warfare. more importantly, it caught nato on the back foot of the procurements that have been directed a counter insurgency, troops on the ground. there's been this budget warfare going on within not just the u.k. and the u.s. but all over europe and on the war versus a war. the war being you've got to win what's going on in afghanistan and iraq versus a war, which is any other conventional war like the cold war with putin that could have taken place. that's taken a backseat in terms of priorities and budgets. >> lieutenant michael kay. don't go far. you're going to be back in a few minutes talking to us about a cool project you're in the middle of, recognizing american heroes. keep it here. more "cycle" is ahead.

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congress, replace everybody and start from scratch. that's probably impossible. but evidence of the palpable frustration that voters are feeling is everywhere. there is a new way to let electeds know how you feel, specifically, before resorting to a complete throw-the-bums-out strategy. it's a new app that boils down the pros and cons and lets you tell your congressman or woman how to vote. it's called countable. you can push yes or no and an e-mail will go to your representative. once the vote is cast, you can see how they voted so you can actually track some accountability, keeping you informed on bills that are important to you. bart myers is the founder and ceo of countable, joining us from san francisco. how are you? >> doing great. how are you? >> i'm good. let me start with an idea here. maybe this is a really good thing. but why should anyone believe it will work when our viewers know that this house, especially under john boehner, barely ever does any work?

>> well, there are a lot of ways that it works. the core premise is how do you evaluate that your representative represents you? so our vision is to give you a way to see if they're representing you or not through giving you very simple, succinct, easy-to-read understanding of key legislation, letting you vote on it, and then seeing what they do with that information and you get to make that choice. whether or not the bill that you voted on passes or not is a much bigger challenge. and it's certainly one we want to -- >> you can't solve that with your app? >> right. >> that's going to be a bigger conversation. we just did a segment yesterday on millennials and their voting habits. one thing we were talking about is that they're very squeamish to be directly identified as one party or the other. there tends to be a sort of overwhelming frustration with our political system. is this app a good way to get millennials more directly engaged in the political

workings of our country? >> absolutely, yes. for sure. in fact, it really goes beyond, i think, the political titles and party names by giving you a way to have a personal way to evaluate your representative and do it on your phone, which is essentially how they do everything, right? and you can do it quickly and easily. then we take care of the hard work behind the scenes. we give you a reported and a breakdown to be able to see how they're doing, if they're representing you or not. you can do it in moments. >> bart, what's been the response from the lawmakers? do they feel like this will potentially be a good thing, that it will motivate lawmakers to vote on every single bill, which unfortunately doesn't happen? or are they nervous that now it's so out in the open, it's so public, and everyone sees which way they vote, they're going to have to be that much more careful if they think about re-election or running for higher office? it might not be such a good thing for them. >> it's a great question. the response we've gotten

directly from lawmakers and staffers have been overwhelmingly positive. they like to have greater touch points with their constituents. they like to know what their constituents are thinking. they want to get that in a way they can easily evaluate and tabulate what they're thinking. we provide that. that, i think, is pretty powerful. what's been really exciting has been the response we've been getting is not just at the federal level. we've gotten excitement from state and local levels. we're now in conversations with the city of new york about bringing countable to new york city politics. >> yeah, i love what you're trying to do. i hope it works. when i worked in a congressional office, a lot of the form messages, e-mails, whatever were often put to the side. maybe this in its specificity does something different. thanks for telling us about it. up next, michael kay will return to tell us about something really important. a new project that gives back to those men and women in uniform who give all of us so much. >> when you woke up after the

accident in april 2012, just sort of talk to me a little bit about the first things that went through your mind. check it out. i just saved 15% on car insurance in 15 minutes, so i took a selfie to show everyone how happy i am. really? because esurance saved me money in half that time. can i...? oh you can be in it! no need to photo-bomb me. hashbrown. selfie. yeah... that's not how it works. 15 minutes for a quote isn't how it works anymore. start with a quote from esurance and you could save money on car insurance in half the time. welcome to the modern world. esurance. backed by allstate. click or call. when folks think about wthey think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work.

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more? a new show called "saving heroes" premieres tomorrow morning and aims to do just that. take a look. >> heroes surround us yet expect nothing in return. well, that's going to change. we're going to make sure of that. we'll be traveling deep into the homeland to really get to know our heros had. we will help reunite families. we will help fulfill their hopes and their dreams. >> let's go for a ride. >> it's our turn to give back and to give back big. this isn't political. it's personal. and it's the right thing to do. >> so we welcome back to the set the host of the series, retired lieutenant colonel michael kay. we just showed a preview of the show, but i want to show another clip of a soldier that was hit by an ied and came home and had to pick up the pieces. let's take a look. >> he's had his hardships, sure, but it's thanks to the love he has for his daughter that truly shows how big his paheart and

spirit are. >> are you going to make that into a wand? >> when you woke up after the accident in april 2012, just sort of talk to me a little bit about the first things that went through your mind. >> first started coming to and really being able to remember is when i wanted my daughter back up with me. she's basically been with me ever since up at the hospital through my rehabilitation. >> michael, this is tv i wish we saw so much more of. unfortunately, we don't. i love that you guys are doing this. it just reminds us of how heroic and how selfless people can be. >> they are. and abby, it's a complete honor and privilege to have been able to get involved in this project. i've got 20 years in the military. i've seen the consequences of what happens on the battlefield, which isn't great. the second thing is i'm the host. i have two wonderful co-hosts, a retired marine.

he lost the lower half of his legs. and a professional athlete. both of those two have been invaluable in finding and searching and getting the stories out there. i think the important message for this is it's not political. it's personal. i know there's stuff going on with the va. i know there's all sorts of political backdrop behind veterans at the moment, but we're not going there. what we want to do is exactly as your intro said. we want to give more than a thank you. that means uncovering the plights of these truly courageous heroes. the gentleman you saw there was thomas mccray who was an explosive ordinance disposal man. he was hit by an ied. he had both his legs taken off above the knee. he had his arm taken off. and he had shrapnel that pushed his eye and brain in the back of one side of his head. how anyone can survive that in itself is a truly remarkable feat, but he's come back. he's got the most wonderful daughter. and he's a single parent.

he's come back and he's just basically tackled -- you know, do. he's done it with such grace and all of the focus is getting better and giving his young daughter a wonderful life. we want to tell her story. >> in spending time with so many of these heroes, what do you find is most important not only in their physical recovery but in their ability to reintegrate into regular life and feel they can be whole again in some sense? >> great question. i think the support element is absolutely key. what we're trying to do, not just emphasizing the plights of veterans but first responders and fireman and those who did heroic acts, we trying to cover the organizations supporting these veterans, building for

america's bravest and plethora of them that deserve that recognition because of what they are actually doing to help these individuals. i think the support network is absolutely key and families play such a pivotal role but get no respite pa respite. >> part of what you're doing is saying thank you to some of these people. >> he's been dispatched on a call when really he's getting a reward for services in a way he would have never imagined. >> fire doesn't put itself out. about five minutes ago because -- ♪ >> this gentleman you may recognize -- >> hey. >> please meet mike wallace. >> how are you doing? >> i'm doing great. >> it's a firefighter who gets to do a nascar trip. you are getting to do what we all want to do, say thank you to these folks who make the

sacrifice. >> and para dox, the last thing they want is a thank you. they have the big 6'6" brit trying to pounce on them to say thank you, i'm trying to cover on with my own life. he went and saved a young boy that jumped off a skim board and paralyzed himself by hitting the deck. robby recognized what was going on and went in and conducted all of the immediate response procedures. and that boy today is walking and most people would be paralyzed or in a wheelchair. what we're trying to do for robby, mischievously get him on a call to come to the dirt track. mike wallace was going to be there waiting for him. the way it all played out, the fire engine went to a different entrance and that was the entrance where mike wallace is waiting in the car. it played out really well. bottom line, he got in the car with mike wallace and had a

fantastic time. it's just a great project to be involved in. >> thank you for hosting the show because these are stories that everyone needs to hear. thank you so much -- you want to say one more thing? >> american heroes channel, 9:00 a.m. in the morning and six episodes. >> tune in, your life will be better because of it. up next, as the president meets with central american leaders at the white house, tour'e looks to history for perspective on the pressing border crisis. re's oce to help replenish key eye nutrients. ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. ocuvite. help protect your eye health. ocuvite. [guy] i know what you're you're thinking beneful. [announcer]beneful has wholesome grains,real beef,even accents of spinach,carrots and peas. [guy] you love it so much. yes you do. but it's good for you, too. [announcer] healthful. flavorful. beneful. from purina.

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newlywed discount. new college graduate and retiree discounts. you could even get a discount when you add a car. call liberty mutual for a free quote today at see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. a political bombshell may be on the horizon, executive action that could rock the political

world. ron brownstein of the national journal is saying the president is moving to a executive order probably before the mitd terms and that would rock the world, both immigration reform and o bam ma's executive orders rally the base and put them together and -- if john boehner is already suing the president over executive actions related to a segment of obamacare, you know a ground breaking executive action on immigration would probably lead to enough billable hours to build a new beach house. brownstein says every 2016 gop nominee would feel compelled to repeal and turn hispanic americans more firmly against the gop and the outlook is not good for them when they have to win with a pausety of voters of color. truman, eisenhower and kennedy

used them to help thousands of european refugees displaced by world war ii and nixon arranged for thousands of czechs to stay as a way to get back at russia. millions of central americans who don't come with the moral stamp of approval are a separate issue but we cannot have 11 million people living here as undocumented second class citizens, it lacks compassion and impractical and un-american to say nothing of how legalizing these folks will lead to them making more money and thus paying more taxes and being better consumers. republicans should get behind this, not just because business wants it but because they believe they can win hispanic voters and they know demonizing them is a pathway to national irrelevance. calls for building a fence are like calls for building a fence between them and the white house. when they talk immigration, they always begin and end with border security?

according to border patrol, the number of illegal border crossings is close to a 40 year low. it's impossible to know how many people are secretly and successfully crossing the bortder many look to border patrol apprehensions as an indicator of how many are trying. they are far fewer than they were in the 80s and 90s, each year they caught 1 to 1.5 million people, in 2012 they apprehended 350,000. this while the number of border patrol agents quinn tuple from 4,093 to 21,000 in 2012. during bush's presidency, the number of undocumented immigrants grew by 3 million. during obama's presidency the number has not grown. fewer people are trying to come. more are trying or being apprehended and more people are dying in the desert because of places you can cross are treacherous and more people are moving back to mexico because of the weak economy. the time is ripe for major

change, not because of political implications but human implications if republicans fight this there will be massive political implications they should get behind this and not seed the fastest growing group to the democrats and i'm not sure they will. "now" starts now. >> as violence spreads in the middle east, new reports say israel rejected parts of secretary of state john kerry's latest ceasefire proposal. it's friday, july 25th and this is "now." >> new reports say israel rejects certain elements of the proposal for a cease fire in gaza. speaking from kir row, secretary kerry said of the plan, we still have terminology in the context of the framework to work through but we are confident it will ultimately work. according to reports, israel want