law aimed at protecting v.a. hospitals. right now the director of the cdc is testifying at a house hearing on ebola as another person has died from that outbreak. we have the world and crisis covered on "the cycle" for this august 7th. i'm abby huntsman. world problems seem to be coming up everywhere. first, the world health organization could soon declare the ebola outbreak an international public emergency. fear is still growing in west africa. this man was left helpless in the streets for nearly five ours. it's improving with the help of the experimental drug cocktail but two patients suspected of having ebola have now died in

saudi arabia. and the sanctions in the war continue to grow hotter. putin is banning food imports which the white house says only hurts the russian people. there's also more fighting between ukrainian troops and pro-russian rebels. and now nato is demanding that putin pull his 20,000 troops back from the ukraine border and step back from the brink. and tualks are under way in egypt. so far, the cease-fire is holding. in switzerland, the u.s. and iranians are at negotiations for the next phase of nuclear talks. today's session was considered constructive. as if that's not enough at the

white house is msnbc kristen welker. we just heard from the white house on iraq. where do things stand now in. >> according to senior administration officials, there's humanitarian assistance provided to the minorities trapped on that mountain in northern iraq. they could be even considering air drops so food and water. there are also reports as the militant group in iraq has been making major gains, particularly in the northern part of the country, including taking over one of the largest christian towns there. now, white house press secretary josh earnest has just fish nished his briefing. he would not confirm or deny those allegations, instead saying that president obama met with his national security team earlier today and began to weigh potential options but didn't

want to get ahead of the president. however, earnest made it very clear that this administration views this as a humanitarian crisis. when asked about the you are general see, though, to get something done, it wasn't clear what type of timeline we're looking at as far as a decision or potential aid that might be given. for broader context, abby, the administration has consistently said that the way to solve the problem in iraq is through a political resolution, calling on nouri al maliki to provide a government. we pressed earnest on that, saying that creating an inclusive government might work in the long term but what about the short term? what is going to help these people who are suffering right now? so far, it's reported that as many as 40 children may have due died and there are 20,000 people

trapped without access to food. this is certainly a crisis that the administration is talking about behind closed doors. i wouldn't be surprised if we learned more about the thinking of the white house by the end of the day. >> kristen welker at the white house, thank you. meichael crowley is joining us. i want to pick up with what kristen was saying. the administration contemplating what they could potentially do. if we were to go in with some sort of air drops or potentially air strikes and air drops of aid, could this be a one-off operation or would this get us involved more broadly in iraq in a bigger way? >> well, i think potentially verbatim the question you just asked me is probably the first question president obama has

asked his national security team because i think he does not want to start going down a slippery slope. however, if you look at the conditions he set out around his intervention in libya in 2011, you know, to the extent there there was an obama doctrine in there, it was narrowly defined, can we -- is there an i am nebt threat to people? is their a humanitarian crisis? can we solve it in the short term and quickly? does it need to be done quickly? can we do it quickly and without getting dragged into a larger engagement and do we have support among the regional players? it seems like a lot of those conditions do apply here. you would like to think that you could do this by just dropping supplies in and not using force. the problem is, when you're talking about isis, these people are sociopaths. they are fanatics.

they think if they have this population cornered, they are going to stay there. as a first step, we would try to send supplies over but the president has to be asking, do we need to use force to save these people? you're kind of now engaged and on the hook morally. so it could be a first step towards those strikes and that's where you start getting into a slippery slope. these are the questions that the president is dealing with but it reminds me of benghazi which is the president's original justification for going into libya. >> right, michael. you lay out the humanitarian concerns there and it was a multilateral air campaign that achieved certain strategic objectives. we've already fought two wars in iraq and when you look at isis and its treatment of women and in the areas of where it's practicing a time of sharia law, there will always be a

humanitarian problem where isis is victorious. >> yeah. >> that's right. so where do you draw the line? i think when you have people who are isolated, surrounded on a mountaintop, they've been driven out of their homes, there are children dying now, something like 40 children have died in the last couple of days, they are starving. they are dehydrated. that seems like a particularly acute wh acute humanitarian emergency and something that you can relieve. you can get them supplies and potentially militarily get them maybe a way out. you know, use air strikes and then give them a safe passage out of there. i don't know enough of the specific details to show you how it would work but it's different than trying to drive isis out of an urban area. it can be a slippery slope in

terms of the line of where you draw a line of where you step in. but it sounds like the white house feels like this is an isolated and an acute enough situation that a little bit of help may go a long way towards saving a lot of lives. >> i'm sure that's the question the white house is asking themselves, where do you draw the line here. michael, a lot is going around the world today. in switzerland, the negotiations are happening between the united states and iran and we know what we are wanting out of these negotiations. but where is iran coming from? are they just trying to buy time? is it your sense that they are coming to the table in good faith? >> well, it's not necessarily that they are coming in bad faith, although they may be. the problem might be that they are coming in pretty good faith but they just don't have -- they are not willing to go as far as we need them to go. in other words, if you think about it as a ven diagram and where those circles overlap, the circles don't touch each other.

iran wants to keep enough of a nuclear infrastructure under the terms of any deal that they want to keep more than we're willing to let them have, that we would be comfortable with, that america and its allies in these talks would feel that it would be enough -- that iran wants so much that we wouldn't feel confident that they couldn't break out and quickly build a nuclear weapon. in other words, the problem is not -- it may be that they are acting in bad faith but their stated negotiate position, as articulated by the supreme leader, is they want more of a nuclear complex than we're willing to let them have. and people i talk to are not that optimistic right now that we're going to be able to get a deal. >> michael, in the middle east, the cease-fire seems to be holding and i wonder if you think this is a victory for

israel israel and globally people are questioning people's actions like never before. and some are wondering if all of this will spark a third into fatah down the road. does this appear to be a victory for israel? >> i think that remains to be seen. it's a cost to israel in terms of its international standing. you've seen a flare-up of anti-semitism around the world. a lot of upset and now was it worth it? i think that question is still to be determined. we have a cease-fire now. it's not clear what this cease-fire will lead to or even if it will hold. it is possible now that israel working in conjunction with

egypt. it's possible that israel, egypt, some other actors will be able to impose terms on hamas that would be pretty good for israel and may make israel feel like it's worth the price we paid and they can get a deal that will, for instance, and it's not clear that hamas is going to hold. and they are starting to fight again. i cannot be too optimistic that this thing is going to hold and then if it does, you've got to see what the terms are and only

then judge, was it worth the cost of the war, if you want to call it? >>. >> you still have vladimir putin out there. is he benefiting from all of these other foreign policy priorities and what can the president do building on those recent sanctions to try to create some consequences for putin's actions here over the past several months, which shouldn't be forgotten. >> no, absolutely not. we saw the stories -- we've seen these new stories about how russia is starting to retaliate a little bit and banning the import, for instance, of al cultural products, perhaps restricting use of russian air space. and i just have to shake my head because i don't know about you guys, but on the day that mh-17 went down, if you told me three weeks later putin would be escalating and we would be

talking about russia maybe even crossing the border with its military and going in at a time when he may have been stepping back a little bit, i wouldn't believe you. i would think that that is a catastrophe for putin. it hasn't happened. what can the president do? we can continue to gradually escalate these sanctions, we've done more than the europeans than a lot of people have predicted at this point. i don't know how much more will there is at this point to go any farther but it doesn't seem to be making putin back down. i think that we could be in a vicious cycle here where the more the west escalates, the more putin feels like he has to stick out his chest and be a tough guy and stand up and not back down and that's the big concern. >> that's -- well, that's what it is looking like. michael crowley, you're the perfect person to break it down. >> thank you, guys. up next, the unusual political victory speech that has a lot of people talking,

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talking about. >> so brian, how was -- you owe my family and this community an apology. for the disgusting, despicable smear campaign. you have the audacity to try to call me today after running a campaign that was called the nastiest in the country. i ran for office to stop people like you. >> he was responding to personal attacks from that opponent who called him an arab-american and called him, quote, al qaeda's best friend in congress. his speech is sparking all kinds of reactions. "the washington post" called it absolutely amazing. and today vanity fair asked the

question, was it the best or worse victory speech of all kind of let's spin. >> somewhere in the middle? >> could be. >> let's find some middle ground. >> i'm not going to label it. i don't think there is a middle ground. after that victory speech, he added to this disgusting campaign. anyone's that's been through a campaign, a family member or a candidate themselves, you understand how nasty it can get and how terrible it feels when you get personally attacked unnecessarily so, which obviously happened in this campaign. but this is a guy that won by 14 points, right? it wasn't leak it was a close race. so after he wins he had a real opportunity to i can ta the high road, to actually move on from this guy. it makes me really think about where politics is going because you heard the crowd cheering. imagine if everyone in this world responded the way that amash did. what if somebody attacks you for

something personal and then you hit back at them. what would that world be like? i don't know how you can defend his victory speech and say, he has every reason to defend himself because what he said about -- i'll read you what he said about the congressman-turned lobbyist. he said you're a disgrace and i'm glad we could hand you one more laugh before you fade into obscurity and irrelevance. i just don't think that was necessary. >> i couldn't disagree with you more. and i think the context for this was, an anti arab mccarthyism on the right. he happens to be arab-american. they tried to tar him with that. it was not an outside ad, it was an ad from the opponent. we'll play a short part of it now. >> you were called al qaeda's best friend in congress and for good reason. >> i think everybody agrees that was disgusting. >> when you look at that, you

say, yes, you have to call it out and, yes, sometimes more than can't we all just get along is actually standing up to it and saying, this is wrong, you're a disgrace. that's how we drive this out of politics. >> but you stand up to it during the campaign which he did. success the best revenge. he won. the victory speaks for itself. and by using that moment to call him out, he stoops, in a way -- he lowers himself. i'm not going to say he stoops to that level but that's not true but he makes himself small. as a parent of young children, right, how do you teach them to view the world and approach problems, i would want my daughter to take a situation from that, be the bigger person, right, they've made their own bed, it's clear to everyone watching what kind of person they are. let that speak for itself and you move on. i would be embarrassed if that were my dad, to be honest.

i would be embarrassed. >> everyone feels unfairly attacked in politics. >> i am incredibly sensitive to this sort of racist attack against amash but there's a time and place for everything and the victory speech is not the time or the place for that sort of pushback. that's a moment to celebrate your campaign workers. it's a moment to say, we as a group did something bigger than me and he's laying out a personal grievance, something that bothered him personally. to take that moment, which should be, thank you, guys, for knocking on doors and doing this stuff for me, it's classless. it shows that he's not actually ready for leadership. it's the coercion of civility and it shows that the tea party ultimately wants to destroy government. >> we didn't cover this race a lot because it was a small primary. he used this spotlight to call this out. it's a step forward and it's good that there is more and more diversity. >> the fact that the voters looked at that and said we don't want any part of that. >> right. but you also have to put a period on it.

i'm glad that he took this moment and called it out. >> that makes it go even on further. >> i think you're wrong about that. >> do you think i'm wrong, too? >> i do. >> all right. we'll do your victory speech later. >> but i still love you. up next, it's been 40 years since president nixon resigned changing his party and politics. noted historian is going to be here. the impact of late night on politicians and that is no joke. (vo) friday night has always been all fun and games, here at the harrison household. but one dark, stormy evening... she needed a good meal and a good family. so we gave her purina cat chow complete. it's great because it has the four cornerstones of nutrition. everything a cat needs for the first step to a healthy, happy life. purina cat chow complete. share your rescue story and join us in building better lives.

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who were then being held at gitmo. 60 years ago, nixon resigned. an optimist from california saw america in the way that vietnam and watergate as still the greatest nation in the world. that love of country and challenging those who questioned america remained central to the modern political discourse. in this fantastic new book, rick pearlstein writes, we live in the darkest part of our history but somehow a cult of official optimism, the greatest nation in the history of the earth saturates the land. how did it happen? i've been dying to know. it's a honor to have rick at the table. when he was running for president as governor of california, in 1966, how did

reagan convince people that this was still the greatest country in the nation? >> he basically became a radio personality and did five-minute radio talks that i call homolies and he delivered a literary of absolution. he said, we're still the greatest nation and one of the broadcasts was absolutely astonishing. after saigon fell, 55,000 lives lost in vain and our ally is basically collapsing. americans can barely get out with the shirt on their back. and the refugees are not being welcomed in america. people are talking about disease, people are saying they are going to take our jobs. it's really ugly. so what does ronald reagan do? he tells an uplifting story, the story of the lobes and fishes

according to the gospels of the reader's digest. old ladies and children are being rescued, soldiers being given shirts of a their backs, a child is cured of pneumonia. you would think that the whole purpose in southeast asia in the '60s was to rescue children. >> and you talk about that governoring style from the nixon era. you write that nixon's aides were surprised to learn when they came in to the oval office that he was obsessed with protesters, you write, any protester, even the lone man who stretched out a ten had the foot banner across from the white house and how that led to illegal activities to wiretapping senator. kennedy. all of these things beginning with the paranoia of one man, the most powerful man in the country. >> yes. and the remarkable thing is,

they used to say after watergate the system worked. right? i'm not a big fan of the fetish for bipartisanship. but it really did work. it's quite extra ordinary. the watergate hearings held in the '70s, 1973, that summer, were on television but there were very little grants and americans watched it had incredible ratings as the most serious constitution in great detail. the next year the house judiciary committee has an investigation and they throw away the charges and there's a consensus to get rid of this guy. it really was remarkable. and to me, we think of the '70s as a dark time and they really were. there were 83 terrorist bombings on american soil in 1975. but to me, there's nostalgia

during that time. one of the problems with reagan that we need to recon with is he gave us absolution. so i talk about samantha power, a great scholar and human rights activist. she wrote an article once talking about the things america had done around the world that weren't so great and said we need to recon with this and at a confirmation hearing, senator rubio looks at her in the eye and says what are these crimes that you feed to talk about, apologizing for america and she responds, as she was probably coached to do, america is the greatest country in the world and we have nothing to apologize for. how can we solve global warming with attitudes like that. >> the damage that bass done by nixon to the american's faith in government and then reagan resolved them of -- we're in a moment that seems like another dark moment for obviously very different reasons. 76%, in our latest msnbc wall

street journal poll, show that they are not confident that life is going to be better for the children's generation. >> right. and unfortunately, to bring it back to reagan, a lot of that, to my mind, as to do with the fact that reagan worked really hard to reintroduce income upwards. he had to introduce hikes but the tax hikes were for those who were paying social security. when he was head of the screen actors guild, he lobbied to have actors average their income because it went up and down. i said that's fair. what happened to that? eventually they did pass it but when reagan became president, he got rid of it. >> wow. >> rick perlstein, "the invisible bridge" is stellar. thank you. don't miss those two great books. one thing that has changed since the time of nixon is gay

marriage. the strange marriage of comedy and politics. remember this? >> nbc, beautiful downtown bur bchl ank. hello mr. rockefeller. >> sock it to me?

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the natural beauty underneath and one former add executive and father of an 8-year-old girl is on a crusade for limiting the use of photoshop in advertising. his story is featured in the national journal magazine. the article is the great photoshop crusade with the advertising industry. joining us now is the author of that piece. marin cogan. i really loved this piece. i know krystal did as well and it's about having two girls -- was it one or two? >> a girl and a boy. >> it changed the way he looked at life. you write one year a nanny gave his little girl a barbie doll for breakfast and he was having a mini meltdown saying you just gave your child a loaded weapon. are you kidding me? he used to work on barbie dolls in his job and said, this really needs to change and i'm actually a person that can make that change. >> yeah, that was really a sort

of turning point for him. when you saw the nanny giving his daughter a barbie, it was time to turn away from traditional advertising and that's when he tried to take on this large cultural issue through photoshop. >> i wish it was that simple. i weish you could just get rid f photoshop and that would solve the problem. i spent about an hour in hair and makeup, put on a dress that i thought would be flattering and very interested in how i look. at what point do you go to a normal, acceptable concern over your appearance into a dangerous place that is actually damaging? >> yeah. this is a huge part of this debate. seth is trying to curve out a small piece of this, which is deceptive photoshopping. not all photoshopping is necessarily bad but it's when you have a model whose waist is smaller than her head.

they would like to come up with a best practices for changing this sort of thing. >> yeah. and that's the question, right? here's a bad thing. how do we deal with it? and the problem for them, of course, is that there's a lot of bad speech. there's a lot of art and imagery that people would object to very seriously. the concern here, and i say this as someone who practiced first amendment law, i don't really want or trust the government or the obama administration or the rick perry administration or whoever is in charge to go in and startling artists and creators and visionaries and magazine producers and journalists that while this needs to be labeled and this is where we draw the line and this is what we're going to punish. it's true that the ftc can do deceptive stuff and the commercial speech has less protection than other types of speech. but i think the problem for them, i'd like you to speak to since you've spent time reporting on this, the problem is, are they really just trying to label it or, as your article

intimates, are they trying to punish and bully people away from using these images? >> i think -- this is the initial thought i had. wouldn't this be an infringement on free speech? seth would argue that commercial speech is not the same as individual speech. it's subject to more regulation than individual free speech. i think this would be the absolute biggest barrier to them getting anything done in congress because it's going to start an effort to curtail free speech. >> eating disorders, 30 million folks, 20 million women have eating disorders and there's a direct relationship between eating disorders and these idealized issues. >> there's a huge body of scientific data that suggests there's a big link between these images and disordered eating, dissatisfaction with one's body and eating disorder. so i think his focus is on if we can make this a very narrow and small bill just asking the ftc to study it, maybe we can focus

on each side. right now it's a bipartisan bill but this is going to be sort of the thing that they need to do to convince people to sign onto it. >> i have seen a lot more on social media calling out where this is not acceptable and you are seeing people saying, i don't want to be photoshopped. i think that's encouraging. >> especially the big names that i mentioned at the top, lady gaga, beyonce. >> marin cogan, thank you. back here was excruciating. when i went to the doctor his first question was "did you have chickenpox?" i thought it was something that, you know, old people got.

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i think we've all heard about the so-called beer test in politics. which candidate would you rather have a beer with? or what about the laugh test. who is funnier? they found 62% of young voters like it when politicians have a sense of humor and nearly 40% also get their election news from late-night talk shows. late night, for their part, of course, is happy to give it to them. >> the united states has traded an american p.o.w. for five taliban prisoners. the deal originally included biden and the taliban said -- >> obama wrestling with the health care debacle urged americans not to be put off by

the obamacare website and offered alternative ways to enroll. >> jeb bush for the republican presidential nomination while jeb bush said it would be fun just to watch chris christie run. >> of course, it's not just shareholders about politics. comedians portraying politicians has also become a standard punch line. this is a al gores, sarah palins, hillary clinton, but as a new book, "politics is a joke" shows, politicians are taking their queues from those making fun of them. makes me wonder how a comedian might play me. robert is an author of this new book. i want to start with the guys who up until recently had the biggest reach and that would be leno and letterman and i was

particularly reminded of when letterman really swered john mccain during the time of the financial crash and mccain decided to suspend his campaign and then he went on with katie couric. let's take a look. >> when you call up and you call up at the last minute and you cancel a show, ladies and gentlemen, that's starting to smell. i mean, this is not the john mccain i know, by god. >> it's not the same guy. >> it makes me believe something is going haywire with the campaign. >> what do you think it could be? >> i don't know. let letterman off. he's a lightweight. >> blow him off. >> he continued to go after him and after him. it was good for a laugh but also has a real impact. >> john mccain announced his candidacy on letterman. that was the year letterman said the road of the white house goes

through me and mccain eventually came back on the show and apologized objectly. i remember saying, this is a presidential candidate who doesn't want to offend him. this tells you something about where the power now lies. >> jon stewart also has a lot of power in this equation. >> jon stewart is most popular among younger people, younger voters. he's doing satire beyond just one-liners so he gets into deeper criticism. often it's a fake news show as well as politics and he was chosen in the survey as the fourth most trusted journalist in the country. >> wow. >> so jon stewart gets a lot of credit from critics for doing more sophisticated humor and i think that humor is going to

resonate in future years because he's got such a hold on a young audience. >> right. and when those punch lines land, you don't have to shared reactin or premise. in your view, how do these comedians especially those appealing to such a broad audience find avenues of humor that aren't just partisan in their punchline? ? well, they try to take stereo typical attributes of somebody and just beat it home. george w. bush was stupid and couldn't speak the english language. al gore was a bore and maybe had trouble exaggerating things. bill clinton didn't have problems just with sex, but initially there were a lot of fat jokes about him. what you do is you create a comic stereotype and then every time the politician does something in real life that can be used to reinforce it, there you go. you have a whole new monologue full of jokes. so it's really a selective echo chamber that i think reenforces

the effects of the news. the the news media can knock a candidate off his feet, but the comedians kick him while he's down. >> i always love it when presidents and nominees get on the shows because you find they have a sense of humor on their own. we often think the only funny people are these late-night comedians and we're surrounded by them and even in dayside cable news. >> what? >> it will be hard to see the november elections unifying on one different thing other than america is so fed up. >> reminds me of the old sign, what do we want? time travel. when do we want it? it doesn't matter. >> i have to say, bob. that's really funny anyway. he cracks himself up every day. what do you think of this guy? do you think he has a career in late-night comedy? >> well, he's got a nice kind of indirect hit there. you have to think about it for a second and then it's funny.

>> or sometimes you don't really know whether he's joking or not. >> that's what they called me in high school, bob, was indirect hit. >> what? what? what? >> what does that mean? >> i don't know what that means. >> the segment's all ruined. >> he screwed it up. ? bob, you do hear sometimes from conservatives that they feel there is a bias here. did you find that in your research? >> actually and unexpectedly, we did find looking at the last six presidential elections, every single election there were more jokes about the republican ticket than the democratic ticket. so there is something there. if i were a conservative i would be worried that there's something going on. mitt romney refused to go on these show because he expected to get a hostile reception and that's the next fight over media bias is a political humor biased. >> indeed. i would say we also didn't

nominate sarah palin which got a lot of material and a lot of jokes. up income, as courts weigh gay marriage, abby will make it clear on where she stands on the issue and why fellow republicans should join her. staying active can ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, this can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain, and improve daily physical function so moving is easier. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain. and it's not a narcotic you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen and meloxicam have the same cardiovascular warning. they all may increase the chance of heart attack or stroke, which can lead to death. this chance increases if you have heart disease or risk factors such as high blood pressure or when nsaids are taken for long periods. nsaids, like celebrex, increase the chance of serious skin or allergic reactions, or stomach and intestine problems, such as bleeding and ulcers,

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see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. those people, gay people are just as much children of god and just as much a part of his creation as everyone else. god created me. god loves me. i'm a beloved child of god. >> the guy you just saw there in that video is matthew vines. he's a 21-year-old evangelical christian pouring his heart out

about being openly gay and a child of god. that video that has gone viral with nearly 800,000 views was part of an hour-long lecture and the bible does not, in pafact, condemn all same-sec relationships. he has raised $100,000 for what he calls the reformation project, a net awork of pro-gay evangelicals for ending the church's -- just to hear vine speak. and like many evangelicals today she struggled to see how homophobia can accord with an all-loving christian god. when she watched vine's video on youtube, she said i remember sitting in my kitchen and crying. i knew it in my heart, but i had never been told that from the pulpit. for evangelicals like amy, is p support has doubled in the past

decade, today a majority of americans support same-sex marriage and as it stands now, gay marriage is legal in 19 states plus d.c. and counting. politically, yes. democrats a whole have been quicker to move on this. republicans are not that far behind. when asked about the gop's opposition to gay marriage. governor scott walker said look, i don't think the republican party is fighting it. not exactly a full endorsement and certainly a different tone than we've heard in the past and at least a step in the right direction. chris christie has gone further, clearing the way for gay marriage. portman supports gay marriage and said it would benefit him if he decides to run in 2016. just think where we were ten years ago when massachusetts was the only state to support gay marriage where they had to be escorted by police to get marriage. they're upholding decisions to overturn same-sex marriage bans.

a federal appeals court judge wrote this for the majority. we recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people depply uncomfortable. however, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate basis for denying same-sex process and equal protection of laws. civil marriage is one of the cornerstones of our way of life. imagine where we'll be ten years from now. same-sex marriage will be the law of the land and we will tell our kids and grandkids about the america that used to be, just like when blacks and whites couldn't marry or eat in the same restaurants. we are living history right now. let's celebrate the progress that we've made and the progress that continues to be made. this is not about the left versus the right or whether people have evolved soon enough or for the rate reasons. why does it matter if it leads to equality for all americans and thank you, matthew vines and so many others for having the courage to stand up and speak out. voices like yours are changing this country and changing it for the better. that does it for "the cycle."

>> "now" with alex wagner starts right now. potential genocide in iraq. what happens mix? it is thursday, august 7th and this is "now" live in d.c.. >> the president is considering air drops or air strikes against the isis militants. ♪ ♪ president obama met with his national security team earlier today. the white house claiming a response for the religious minority. >> the cold and calculated manner they've targeted solely because of their religious identity. >> something is afoot. president obama is considering some kind of air strikes and humanitarian air drops. >> josh wouldn't confirm or deny those reports. >> i am not in a position to rule things on the table. >> there will