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 be air strikes.

>> there have been a lot of concern that the iraqi air force is not up to it. >> this could be a trigger that draws us back deeply into a conflict in the middle east that we have largely extracted ourselves from. >> military action would not include combat boots on the ground. >> to go in and think we'll provide a tilting point opportunity is exactly how a slippery slope works. ♪ ♪ >> right now in the northern iraqi town of sinjar there are tens of thousands refugees as much as 40,000 known as yaziti trapped on a mountaintop, they are without food and without water. 40 children have already died. the the reason they are stranded on this mountain, because waiting at the bottom of it are fighters from the islamic state of iraq and syria, isis who have vowed to kill them or force them to denounce their religion. these tens of thousands of men, women and children have been trapped for several days.

just hours ago, officials said president obama is, quote, seriously considering air strikes or air drops of food and medicine to address the humanitarian crisis, but considering is the key operative. this afternoon when pressed by reporters, white house press secretary josh ernest spent the majority of his press conference avoiding any decisive statement on what, exactly, the administration will do. >> i'm not in a position to discuss those kinds of tactical options from the podium on live television. >> why? >> well, the president will make the kinds of decisions as necessary to protect core -- >> is he -- can can you tell us if he's at least considering what to do because the conversations we're having is that this is not just a potentially dire humanitarian crisis. it's an hour-by-hour situation. it will need some kind of resolution or some kind of decision very, very soon. so if you can at least tell us if the president has been briefed on these specific options and if he's weighing them now.

>> i'm not in a position to provide a great deal of insight into any sort of decisions the president may or may not be contemplating. >> as the rest of iraq continues a rapid and bloody descent into chaos. hours ago, a suicide bomb in baghdad killed 17 people. in the past two days alone, car bombs have killed 80 in iraq's capital city. these attacks come as isis militants have captured iraq's largest dam in the city of mosul. it is something the new york times calls a potentially catastrophic development for iraq's civilian population. and it is not just resources that isis is accumulating. this week isis has seized several towns and settlements from the can kurds and is making advancements toward the kurdish city of erbil. in addition, to those traps, nearly 150,000 iraqi christians have fled their homes. if the u.s. does intervene directly to provide aid to the

yazitis, it would provide the first aerial assistance since the war ended in 2011. washington bureau chief for "time" and for national security policy in the middle east and south asia, brian catulis. michael, let's start first with the white house. josh earnest giving a highly inconclusive press conference, to be fair. from your reporting and the general mood at the white house, do you think this is more of a question of when, but not if. >> this is what we know about president obama's foreign policy. he's anti-interventionist and doesn't like getting involved in conflicts and there's always been an exception with the humanitarian crisis and this was the rationale that started the bombing in libya that ended up toppling gadhafi. >> key word there. >> after assad used chemical weapons. i think the attitude of the white house is they cannot sit

by especially after these leaks have come out in press conferences like that and watch on television as a genocide takes place. the question is what can they do given that they have ruled out boots on the ground. they've ruled out an actual war. this would be in any measure, a limited engagement and they're weighing the internal politics of iraq which they've been trying to massage over the last several months. they've been withholding support right now as a way of pressuring the maliki government there. this is another front in that conflict. this could not only inflame isis and turn them against u.s. interests in the region and complicate their efforts to pressure maliki and iraq. >> they're approaching it from the humanitarian position and with the air drops and then the question of air strikes. do you think it is that air strikes are inevitable at this point if there are air drops? >> if you're a military planner and if the u.s. tries to do this you will need to clear out some

area to make it safe for our air force to do this. i think what the obama administration is doing and michael is right. its template is to see if others can pull their weight. there was a report today that the turkish foreign minister said look, we're involved ina irdrops and humanitarian air drops for these citizens. whether that's tru or not, i bet what the obama administration is doing, given its template for libya and other places is we have to get other countries to pull their weight and turkey has a pretty strong military. whether or not they're thinking about u.s. direct action itself, i'm quite certain they're trying to figure out who can actually help in this dire situation. >> i mean, there are a lot of different angles. the question of the political solution which earnest reiterated multiple times today is an obama administration line of argument. it seems unfeasible at this point given maliki's resistance

about vacating office. >> you have kurdistan on the north who is threat renned. the minority is threatened now and isis is threatening the whole region. maliki will not solve the kurdish front for the white house. >> and brian, the kurdish piece of this is a huge deal because the kurds were seen as sort of the bull work or at least, you know, one of the main fighting forces against isis. the fact that the kurds are saying we cannot do this alone. we need help from the americans would seem to represent a dramatic shift in terms of the dynamics. >> the kurdish are the most r y reliable and capable that we have inside of iraq and if they're afraid their capital should be overswept in erbil. >> we've had a whole wake-up calls and they've taken over parts of eastern lebanon and there needs to be a proactive

approach and president obama has the the right instinct here and what can our friends do rather than insert us back into this, but ultimately the u.s. will be asked to do something itself. >> to brian's point, michael. the mention of the word iraq and american military engagement is radioactive in a lot of ways for this white house, right? just the two in the same sentence. you see how josh earnest was trying to thread that needle and it is almost an ilpossible situation they find find themselves in with regard to this country. >> every day of theeer, you kno going off in a different part of the world and the white house has long maintained that they want their legacy to be barack obama is the guy who got us out of the wars, got us out of afghanistan and got us out of iraq and it's a message they'll try to bring into the midterm elections and the american people do not want to be involved in these foreign conflicts and at the same time barack obama has a legacy he wants to uphold and that the

president of the united states will sit by while genocides take place and while these humanitarian disasters take place. >> let me ask you, an expert on the region, say we do get involved in iraq rather through air strikes or air drops, what are the implications for syria where 200,000 people have died? and that's the situation exacerbated by the presence of isis some. >> and the difference between iraq and syria is we know more of what's going on on the ground inside iraq and any type of operation and if they do something is reliant on good intelligence on the ground and good cob tacts and reliable partners. inside of syria, it's much murkier. we don't have the ability and the legal authorities. if you look at what our lawyers have to say. we can take action if requested by the iraqi government and it's been requested. in syria, not so much. >> you can extrapolate where we have legal authority or not,

where we've had targeted drone strikes and setting that aside. >> do we know who we're hitting in a place like syria if you don't have spotters on the ground and if you don't have reliable intelligence. in iraq, we're likely to have much more reliable intelligence simply because we've been there for years. in syria, we're trying to figure out who the the heck is this opposition and things like that. so that's what i think is quite different. >> michael, to the -- to what is on the president's plate and something you alluded to is supposed to leave from his vacation and at some point, is he going to call for air strikes from martha's vineyard which is one of the most inckinkong are youous visions one can paint. how much of his presidency is sure to be dominated by events out of of his control. >> he's said he's going to cut his vacation somewhat short and i wouldn't be surprised if something like this doesn't go or come back right away and leave his family on the island.

just reflect on the fact that assad who we were opposing in the syrian struggle is now on the same side as us as we are fighting against isis on the other side of syria. i mean, the situation here is so incredibly complicated and there are so many levels and so many vulnerabilities for the united states and our allies and our strategic interests in the region that the president's old slogan, the one his people have been leaking, don't do anything stupid. >> yeah. >> it's a sign of modesty, but also a sign that the deck right now is not stacked in our favor. >> and that's a hugely important point. >> it's hard to not do something stupid in a region that's in complete shift. >> it's like this rubik's cube where the sides are being peeled off itself and it's falling apart and if we intervene and turn it one way you don't know what will happen next and i think that caution when anybody comes and the armchair generals say we should do missile strikes and something like this. this had is a president that is

very judicious and cautious and he's a look before you leap kind of guy and that's why josh earnest couldn't give a clear answer. >> that's why josh earnest has one of the difficult jobs in washington today. thank you both for your time and thoughts. coming up this afternoon, president obama signed a $16 billion bipartisan plan to begin to fix the problems at the va. details on that coming up next. honey, look i got one to land. uh-huh (announcer) there's good more... honey, look at all these smart rewards points verizon just gave me. ooh, you got a buddy. i'm like a statue. i just signed up and, boom, all these points. ...and there's not-so-good more. you're a big guy... huh. oh no. get the good more with verizon smart rewards and rack up points to use towards the things you really want. now get 50% off

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us. let's get rid of it. >> i want more. >> that was president obama earlier today in fort bellvoir, virginia, signing the access choice and accountability act. it is a $16.3 billion measure which allows the veterans affairs department to hire thousands of dollars, nurses and other medical staff and open 37 new clinics across the country and revises employment rules to make it it easier to fire those who fall short. easier access to care after an internal oddity of all 731 va facilities found more than 120,000 veterans were waiting for care or never the go the care they needed and an investigation of the a phoenix va facility identified 18 veterans who had died while waiting for care. tomorrow newly appointed va secretary bob mcdonald will visit that phoenix facility

where he will host a town hall style meeting to get feedback from veterans and va employees. after the break, the do-nothing congress tries out a working vacation and speaker john boehner is on a bus. the question is who's driving it? eugene robinson and howard feinman join me next. i'm the proud dad of three beautiful, awesome, messy kids. they get stains like you wouldn't believe. this new tide ultra stain release and zap! cap helps me get out pretty much any stain. can i help? aww. just kidding. [ female announcer ] new tide ultra stain release helps remove 99% of everyday stains. been all fun and games, here at the harrison household.se 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

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bus tour, john boehner is going on a 14-state bus tour this month, telling a crowd in bolingbrook, illinois, quote, when you hear all this stuff about the congress, understand there are two bodies in the congress. one is working our rear ends off. fueled by cheese puffs and a belly full of resentment that the house won't repeal the affordable air act, baner is not only taking his case on the road he's hitting the airwaves with a new ad. >> republicans continue to make the american people's priorities our priorities and jobs in the economy clearly are the american people's highest priorities. >> while awkwardly walking the factory floor and safety goggles goes great with boehner's jobs, jobs, jobs, mantra, the speaker is strangely silent these days on the big headline-grabbing bill that the house actually managed to pass this summer, the one authorizing a lawsuit against the president and if boehner has called the idea of

eventual impeachment a scam, not everybody in his party sees it that way. absolutely said former presidential candidate mike huckabee this week. there is no doubt he's done plenty of things worth of impeachment. buzzfeed reported senator rand paul is criss-crossing iowa, stopping short of the i-word, and declaring the president more like a king who threatens constitutional crisis. the senator can sound so forceful, he really can when he's not running away from a couple of teenage dreamer, but on the topic of immigration, it is fox's charles kraut hammer who puts this into annor gamy masterpiece on executive orders. >> i think this is impeachment bait. they really know it will be a violation of the separation of powers, and i think obama is cynical enough to plunge us into a constitutional crisis to gin up the vote, to bait the republicans into impeachment as

a way to save his party in the midterm elections. >> wait, who is the cynic here? joining me here is washington post columnist and the great howard feinman. you're both great. >> not as great as you. >> let's have a greatfest. >> let's start with charles kro krouthammer. that the president is baiting the republican party into impeachment by easing deportation rules and trying to reform our immigration system single-handedly. what do you make of that? >> well, i don't think the president is doing those things for that reason, however, i do think that there are some democrats who do agree with him and say, yeah, bring it on because that's a way for us to get our base out. that's a way for us to raise money so go ahead and make our day. i don't think that's why the president is -- >> trying to reform -- >> trying to actually get some things done. i love the bus trip.

they have to avoid places where they haven't voted for infrastructure to fix the roads he's going on. krauthammer in his own way has a point. >> the house would actually have to vote impeachment, right? it's not like this would automatically happen if president obama took executive action. in fact, they would have to voluntarily do it and therefore it's free will. >> bait. >> and actually down the road, whatever boehner says they don't listen to what boehner says anyway. so they would do it. >> i want to talk about the bus tour because i find all bus tours and especially republican bus tours interesting and worthy of analysis, eugene. politico has an interesting sort of suggestion in their coverage of boehner's bus tour and it is that it is a form of an insurance policy for boehner which is to say he shows up with these fund raisers, low dollar, high dollar and posey for photos and gives a speech and in return, boehner gets another one

of his troops willing to watch his back because if you are john boehner you do not have a lot of people watching your back in this house. >> no, you don't. >> is this effective outreach if you can call it that? >> you know, i'm not sure. given what has transpired the last few years i'm not sure that this is a valid insurance policy and, sure, he gets a lot of temporary friends who will say nice things about him, but when they say i need you to vote for this bill, will they vote for it and the answer historically is no. how many times has he had to pull a big bill at the the last minute because he can't get it through. the impetus for this is sort of the do-nothing congress line the democrats are asking. >> one house of congress is working their rear end off.

>> not the lower chamber. >> the classic american answer. if you can't do anything, get moving. so he said, look, we're driving around. everybody knows that john boehner would much rather be at the firestone country club than -- >> be pounding cheese puffs on the road in ohio. >> than a 14-state bus tour. >> the other part of this, eugene is his right hand manneric cantor is no longer part of the picture and if you are -- what's amazing about this bus tour is boehner has been asked what would republicans do if they got control of the senate and boehner's response has been basically, we're not there yet. i'm not sure. we haven't talked about it. he's just focused on getting as much money in for the house race as he possibly can. >> yeah. yeah, he is. again, he's just got to focus on his uess to the extent that he can, but the question as we said earlier is whether this translates to his being able to actually do anything and just objectively it

seems he cannot. >> i guess the other point there, howard is he's trying to make the case that one side of congress is working its rear end off. i can't stop saying that, but there's nothing to really show for, you know, the session of congress and also the notion that they have no idea if they took the senate is a representative of the republican party in crisis and they can't agree on what they would do. >> there's no overall agenda other than attacking barack obama. they were in kentucky for four days and all of the republicans care about is taking barack obama's name in vain if they can do it. that's their only strategy. boehner doesn't dare predict what the senate republicans can do because they don't talk about it. >> right. >> also what the house has turned into under boehner is basically a tv studio in which to record sound bites for your advertising. >> yeah. >> if they were really serious, that's all it is is a tv studio. if they were serious about legislating they would real willy try to make deals with

democrats and they would figure out a way to do it. they're not interested in that. they're just interested in making statements and that happens some on the other side, as well and just driving around on a bus does not mean you're doing anything. it just doesn't. >> eugene, what is the -- if you are in the white house, and you are looking at contested senate races and you were also thinking i'm president, i do not want a torturous last two years with the republicanses in the upper chamber, do you announce executive action on immigration before november. >> you have a lot of things to weigh and one of the things you think about politically is okay, is this going to drive my base out to the polls to a greater extent than it drives republicans? either republicans are out to the polls or vice versa. >> right. >> and you try to make that calculation in addition to looking at the practical implications. >> do you think positive impetus works? i know negative does, right?

do you think the base would be emboldened and happy enough to go --? negative works better than positive. >> you know i'm always talking about kentucky because i used to work there. >> because you're a kentucky colonel. >> i am not a kentucky colonel. >> i am. >> kentucky and georgia which are two crucial states democrats need to pick up one of those to make sure they can hole the senate. i think an executive order by the president giving the possibility of work permits to millions of hispanics is going play right into the republican hysterical narrative about them versus us, about a president run amok and it will help the president in 2016, but in those states that are close races, my sense of it is that michelle nunn and allison grimes would not be particularly happy if he were to do this. >> i think that's right. >> lamaral exandriner is facing

off against joe karr in the primary. lamar alexander is almost the poster child for how the republican party has had to swing itself further and further and further to the right. he has been criticized by members of his own party bipartisan immigration reform bill and now he's paying for it and the question of whether the tea party has been vanquish asked evident right here. it hasn't. it has been absorbed into the establishment. >> the tea party's views are now mainstream republican views. >> and unless you adopt those views or espouse those views you don't make it past the primary. that's just the way it is. >> i covered lamar alexander when he ran for president and it was lamar exclamation point. you're too young to remember that. that was the bumper sticker. lamar, exclamation point and it's now lamar, question mark. >> thank you both for your time. >> he's the colonel. just ahead, the biggest

settlement in u.s. history six years in the making. bank of america is set to finalize a multibillion-dollar mea culpa for its role in the financial crisis. that's coming up next. so factorn negatively impact good bacteria? even if you're healthy and active. phillips digestive health support is a duo-probiotic that helps supplement good bacteria found in two parts of your digestive tract. i'm doubly impressed! phillips' digestive health. a daily probiotic. but you may not know we're a family. 12 brands. more hotels than anyone else in the world. like days inn, where you can do everything under the sun. for a chance to win one million dollars, visit wyndhamrewards.com

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the deal is not yet inked, but the justice department and bank of america appear on the cusp of agreeing to a 16-$17 billion settlement in the run-up to the financial crisis. >> the settlement, the largest ever between the government and a single government would reportedly include a $9 billion cash page to the federal government and roughly $7 billion in consumer relief, for the justice department which has been criticized for not doing enough to hold banks accountable for their role in the financial crisis it represents the latest victory. >> last month, attorney general eric holder reached a $7 billion

settlement and one that came on the heels of last november's $13 billion agreement with j.p. morgan chase. critics note that once again, the case against the bank is civil and not criminal, continuing a pattern in which no financial executives have been jailed despite the fact that the crisis has wiped out $16 trillion in the net worth or 23% in three years. while the settlement is good for the doj's record. bill cowan says it is a bad deal for the american people. >> j.p. morgan settled for $13 billion last november. we also, of course, don't know the details behind what the emails or documents say the individuals at these banks did wrong. we'll never know what happened and that's one of the down sides of these settlements. these things are interesting because they're supposedly good for the government and a huge influx of cash and supposedly

good for the companies and i think it's bad for the american people because we never find out what really happened. >> announcing the citigroup deal last month, attorney general eric holer hit back at critics and defended the settlements as a deterrent. >> these investigations are not only about holding those who violate the public trust to account, they're also intended to deter banks from engaging in this type of conduct in the future. if in the future for whatever reason and it boggles my mind that this could not have a significant deterrent impact, but if it does not we will hold people accountable yet again. >> joining me now is editor in chief of vox.com ezra klein. good to see you. >> i find this to be the ultimate on the one hand, on the other hand story. on the one hand, $17 billion is a lot of money, a historically large amount of money and on the other hand, does it really deter banks? a i huge amount of the settlement will be shouldered by

shareholders and insurers and if we're talking about money, inflicting pain on banks and it is not inflicting as much pain on banks. >> it will not be a serious deterrent. i don't think that is a plausible argument. this is a pretty weird case, right? this is bank of america paying up for mostly things merrill lynch did and the the government persuaded bank of america to buy merrill lynch hoping to avoid another bailout, and so ts is sort of a strange thing here in addition to it, it creates odd questions about whether it's also a deterrent in the future the government wants to swallow another bank, but if you really want to talk about deterrents, was there a decisions made early on here that the important thing was making sure the credit markets came back as quickly as possible and not holding bankers to account and thugs the decision made in the obama administration and that is where you get the call not to really go after jailing people. at this point, you will not get

to see that retribution happen. >> this moves the ball forward then in any way, and do you think in so far as it closes the loop, if you will on the financial crisis which a lot of americans will argue it doesn't, but at least per fufrnthorally, it could point to citibank and bank of america and say weave got billions and billions of dollars to the american taxpayer and all of that may not go to the people who did it, emotionally closing the loop then absolutely not. this does not feel like emotional justice and there's nobody going to jail and also nobody becoming poor. they lost their job and lost their home. no executives in bank of america are losing their home. it is a lot of money, right? they did get a lot of money here. on the other hand, it is a lot of money that pales in comparison to what was taken. in the end, i don't think you can do all of that much here

through the courts unless you really want to go to criminal levels. >> right. you have to do a lot of it through regulation and the question of deterrents is this bad stuff happens at times when regulators and courts alike because of the bubble mentalities and don't want to be enforced a lot and the banks don't want to be thinking about the stuff that happened before this time will totally be different because we invented these cool, new things. >> and that seems to be a huge part of this, right? we had mr. cowen on with a little bit of sound. there's not a lot of transparency or information that we gleaned about what exactly happened, who did it and who will be held accountable for that? >> in terms of the actual mechanisms and defining, having a bright line that says this kind of behavior is legal and this kind of behavior is not legal. >> there will be, within the banks and if i go back to this deterrent question and the banks know what behavior got judged.

i don't really buy the idea that there's not enough information for the lawyers to make future determinations about what they can or can't do. there is a public transparence toe help regulators and others to help determinations going forward and this gets to the bigger problem than the financial system where we leave a lot of power up to regulators and the problem is regulators are least likely to regulate that you power when they're most needed to exercise it because they get into the bubble psychologies. >> do you think we've made progress in the last eight years? >> i think dodd-frank has been more effective than people realize. bob cook wrote an excellent column, just this week, actually. my colleague has been pounding the same drum. i think there is a lot of reason to believe there have been big strides in our ability to see inside of them on to exchanges. i think dodd frank is in many ways underrated, but i do not believe we're at a place where we can say this will not happen again. >> editor in chief of vox.com

ezra klein, thank you as always for your time, my friend. >> thank you. >> coming up the mcdonnell courtroom drama is not stopping any time soon. the former chief of staff describes her as a nut bag. that a had head. and a choice. take 4 advil in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. peanuts! peanuts! crowd cheers!

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illely redrew it first. they'll discuss the unrig the votes in the sunshine states and first, hampton pearson has the cnbc market wrap. hi, hampton. >> let's look at how stocks are doing going into tomorrow. the dow falling 75 points and the s&p down by 10. the nasdaq losing 20 points. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. (announcer) there's good more... honey, look at all these smart rewards points verizon just gave me. ooh, you got a buddy. i'm like a statue. i just signed up and, boom, all these points. ...and there's not-so-good more. you're a big guy... huh. oh no. get the good more with verizon smart rewards and rack up points to use towards the things you really want. now get 50% off all new smartphones. ugh. heartburn. did someone say burn? try alka seltzer reliefchews. they work just as fast and taste better than tums smoothies assorted fruit. mmm. amazing.

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florida lawmakers are meeting in a special session today to fix a crisis of their own making or more specifically, a crisis of a florida republican making. last month the florida judge terry lewis ruled that the back in 2012 republicans illegally redrew two of the state's congressional districts to benefit, surprise, conservative candidates. it was a violation of the 2010 amendment to the state's constitution, one that was passed by voters requiring that all districts be fair and as equal in population as feasible.

specifically, judge lewis pointed to florida's 5th congressional district held by a democrat from orlando to jacksonville and florida's 10th district held by a republican in the i-4 corridor. both districts made a mockery of the state's constitution. judge lewis has given lawmakers until august 15th to draw up a new map. joining me now is host of the read report, our inhouse florida expert, the wonderful joy reid. it's always good to see you, my friend. >> always great to see you, too, alex. >> i consider this a great day. republicans, anyone, in stat legislature redrawing them to make them more fair to the population and yet there is pushback. republicans do not want this to take effect in this year's elections. how do you see this playing out? >> it was a bit of a mess. the one thing that was very clear is that the people of florida voted in very strong

numberses and they were fought tooth and nail by the republican party and corinne brown, the congresswoman of the sneaky district you showed. because there is a bargain that takes place for historical reasons why african-american members of congress will get a district and all of the back people and in exchange, republicans get everything else and they get more republican seats. florida which has a majority of democrats will send an overwhelming majority of the state legislature of republicans into congress. when you undo that bargain there are winners and loses. the republican party feels like a loser, but you do have some african-american members who went to court and fought this hard who also say that black voters will will lose because they won't have a sure-fire seat and i don't think that will happen. her seat will be majority

african-american. >> i think there's also to the casual observer here it's, like, why would republicans district it in such a way that a democrat had no contest? it's precisely of what you say, get all of the black voters in one area and we'll take everything else. >> right. >> to speak to the two districts that are most effective here, the original lawsuit contends that all of the districts in florida are badly drawn and the judge singled out these two. do you think we are any more lickly to see the voters of florida say wait a second, the rest of the map needs to be re-examined as well. >> if you go back and look at the story of the way this was done. the judge called it a mockery. they had consultants going in and writing talking points saying, say, guys if anyone asks you if you're drawing these for political reasons and they completely, blatantly violated these constitutional amendments that this judge was a no

brainer. when fair districts proposed this and projected forward what this map would look like, it's supposed to be much more representative of the population meaning your neighbors in the district as opposed to the other county. >> if you look at the rest of the country where gerrymandering is the flavor of the decade or the century, the voters are contesting the way the districts have been drawn, too, once again, black voters have been packed into certain districts and not fair and representative of the population. that case may go to the supreme court and that, joy, is both a wonderful and terrifying prospect when you think about this court and what they've done in terms of making votes freer and fairer it's not exactly a great record. >> no, it isn't. and the thing is that a lot of african-americans have when it comes to this in all seriousness is that black candidates may have a hard time winning in more diluted, more mixed districts and the incredible racial polarization that still exists in a lot of places not just in

the south will work against black representation. the flipside of that is that you have fewer and fewer african-american candidates that can run like obama did and cory booker and you almost have to do it in order to step up and be able to win statewide. so i think as long as it's drawn geographically you will get more fairness even if there is a slight reduction in the sure-fire nature of a black democratic seat. and i would say given where the republican party has gone, i mean, black voters elected thad cochran. that's a very large place to be and it's increasingly not where republican candidates are. >> indeed. the bottom line is that the majority of people, they spoke very clearly that they want these districts to be geographically drawn and not politically drawn and that bargain as we both have said is we'll give you all of the black people in exchange for all of the seats and all of the power and that has never been a good

bargain for anybody of any race. >> indeed, it has not. host of the reid report, my friend and colleague joy reid, thank you as always for your time. >> thank you. >> you can always catch "the reid report" as i do at 2:00 p.m. on msnbc. after the break, maureen mcdonnell's former chief of staff testifies at the trial and to say she was an interesting witness would be a gross understatement. the nutbag saga is coming up next. so factors like diet can negatively impact good bacteria? even if you're healthy and active. phillips digestive health support is a duo-probiotic that helps supplement good bacteria found in two parts of your digestive tract. i'm doubly impressed! phillips' digestive health. a daily probiotic.

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liberty mutual insurance. that's keeping you from the healthcare you deserve.. at humana, we believe the gap will close when healthcare changes. when frustration and paperwork decrease. when healthcare becomes simpler. so let's do it. let's simplify healthcare. let's close the gap between people and care. one thing is for sure, in a public corruption trial involving a high-profile governor, all of the dirty laundry will be hung out to dry. the trial of former virginia governor bob mcdonnell and his wife maureen entered the ninth day today. the two potentially face decades in prison on charges of

accepting lavish gifts and loans in exchange for political influence. entering court, bob mcdonnell appeared cheerful. >> every day i think it's a little bit better, the more the truth comes out the better we do. >> so what are some of the latest so-called truths? on wednesday mary shea sutherla sutherland, the former chief of staff for mcdonnell's wife said working for maureen was intolerable and admitted to describing her boss as a quote, nutbag. sutherland also said about maureen, i remember getting a text message during the holidays having to do with the chef serving her bad shrimp and he was doing it intentionally to ruin her holidays and perhaps the most significant revelation by sutherland was that bob and maureen mcdonnell appeared to have a solid marriage. as proof sutherland read a love poem bob had written to his wife. that piece of evidence counters the picture drawn by the defense lawyers who claim their marriage was on the verge of collapse.

as a result, maureen mcdonnell developed a crush on businessman john johnny williams and allowed him to lavish gifts on the family. >> bob mcdonnell is expected to take the stand in what promises to be totally awkward testimony. mcdonnell will need to quote, his wife's unseeming infatuation to another man in order to demonstrate they could haven't conspired to commit any crimes because they barely spoke at all. that is a very fall fall for a man who the on the gop short lists for the vice presidency. then again, there is always the power of positive thinking. >> every day i think it's better. the more the truth comes out, the better we do. >> indeed. that's all for now. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. "the ed show" is coming up next. good evening, americans. welcome to "the ed show" live

from detroit lakes minnesota. let's get to work! ♪ ♪ >> the science just simply doesn't back up the issue of global warming. >> hawaii is bracing for powerful dual storms. >> it is the worst storm to hit the island in more than a decade. >> there isn't even one study that could be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas. >> the most comprehensive crime -- >> climate change is something a lot of people don't put as a top priority. >> the science is not settled. >> how do you change that? >> there are real costs not out in the distant future. >> you can expect fewer normal weather days. >> what's being called a super storm. >> because carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas. >> climate change has been