to see some change. i was among those that stood up for these boys. i watched one do 13 years and come out and work for us for three years. i'm glad to see them get compensated. but no one can give you 13 years back. no one can give them the time back. we must continue to do better. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton, "hardball" starts right now. devastating. let's play "hardball." ♪ ♪ good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. here in an elevator, we see a man beating a woman to unconsciousness. we see him drag her limp body across the elevator floor. for this he was fired today from his job. fired not because of the beating he gave this woman, but because you and i just got to see it. these are the facts of the

national football league today. beat up a woman and you get a two-game suspension. have the pictures get out and suddenly the league takes action. because of this, this is a fact brought brutally to light in this picture, it's our top story tonight. also, president obama will try this week to sell his diminishing number of supporters on war in iraq and syria. can he do it? can he get anti-war democrats to bring drones attacks, air strikes and special forces to destroy the islamic state? two other stories, a juror in the mcdonald verdict condemns all politicians and debra norville joins us on what it was like to speak at yesterday's funeral for joan rivers. back to the big news tonight. baltimore ravens running back ray price was fired today and suspended indefinitely by the national football league after this morning's release of this video punching his fiance, now his wife, and dragging her unconscious out of an atlantic

city elevator. the ravens announced the termination of his five-year, $35 million contract shortly after 2:00 p.m. today. that was this afternoon. rice was charged with felony assault back in march, but his wife refused to testify. this case became notorious when rice got a slap on the wrist, a two-game suspension from the baltimore ravens and the nfl. they cared more about rice playing on the field than they did about his violent behavior off it. it took getting this gruesome footage out there today to pressure a professional football team to take serious action against a serious crime. senator richard blumenthal is a democrat from connecticut who called for a tougher punishment before rice before what happened today. and michelle bernard is president of the center for women and public policy. center blumenthal, as a former attorney general of your state, give us your sense of what criminality looks like. this picture looks like a serious crime to me. >> looks like a serious crime.

it's an assault. domestic violence. and you're absolutely right that the punishment was in no way adequate. i protested and complained about it. and it took this gruesome footage to reach this result. shouldn't have been necessary. but it also shows how inadequate, how sadly deficient the nfl's new policy is. roger goodell has lacked the leadership to move directly to a lifetime suspension, if there is this kind of assault. if there had been even the new policy, probably a six-game suspension would have been all that would have been without this gruesome video. >> michelle, your thoughts? >> i'm stunned on watching the video over and over again. i keep wondering how anyone in the nfl could have watched that video and not known to throw him off of that team immediately. i have to believe they saw it before. we have a serious problem in the country in that people do not take domestic violence seriously. we have a congress that earlier in the year did not want to vote

on the violence against women act. there's this belief that it doesn't happen. we have evidence here when we look at this video that there are still people who pummel their wives and others who think that there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. >> well, the calibrations of domestic violence. that was a heavyweight knockout punch of your girlfriend, of your fiance, punching her like you're in a boxing match with everything you've got. and she's prone on the floor, unconscious there. senator, you know the law. what is that? it's worse than assault and battery? what would you call that in a regular criminal case? if somebody saw a stranger on an elevator and did that, what would that be? >> that's definitely aggravated assault. it could come close to an attempt at even more serious damage. but as pernicious and insidious as that assault is the fact that janay was then stage managed to

apologize for complaining. that is really the antithesis of what is required in these situations. blaming the victim, having her apologetic and then the ravens tweeted it as exonerating rice himself. so this kind of syndrome, the cycle of violence, blaming the victim, and as far as the law is concerned, that would have landed rice in prison in my view. i would have prosecuted as an aggravated assault. >> the ravens organization and head coach john harbaugh stood by their running back in may when rice held this press conference to apologize. >> i just want to first off apologize to, you know, steve barbady, ozzie newsome and coach harbaugh, and also want to apologize to my fans. i really treat my job as a very special job. and i failed miserably.

but i couldn't call myself a failure. because i'm working my way back up. >> i do deeply regret the role that i played in the incident that night. but i can say that i am happy that we continue to work through it together. >> jamal, what do you make of the two people there testifying? she's saying basically everything's fine. >> yeah, i mean, i think it speaks to the level of ignorance, how tone deaf the nfl, the baltimore ravens, how they were with this entire issue. anybody who i would like to think has just a cursory knowledge of the complicated dynamics of domestic violence, would understand the optics of having the woman who was victimized standing next to her batterer and apologizing for her role. i mean, what was her role, that her face hit his fist? that was her role in that and certainly that has been supported by the video. and so i think you had a collection of willful ignorance

by the ravens, by the nfl, that have led to this public relations blowup and nightmare. and that's why it's difficult for me today, to give the ravens any sort of credit for terminating ray rice's contract, when this was clearly a situation they didn't understand from the very beginning. >> michelle, do you think this was -- the use by this professional organization, the ravens, to take this syndrome we're somewhat familiar with, where the female spouse has been beaten up by the husband or boyfriend, and for whatever combination of psychological or economic reasons, decides to let it go, and they use that here and put her out there and basically apologizing for being part of that syndrome and she's a victim of it. >> by doing that, they're revictimizing her. october 1 begins domestic violence awareness month in this country. if we look at what happened to her, the fellow in south africa, the olympian who was accused of domestic violence and killing

his girlfriend, seen it with chris brown, even locally, there was a woman who went to a judge to get a temporary restraining order, the judge pooh poohed it and the husband throws oil on her and lights her up and almost burns her to death. it's a very serious issue. when you put women in the position of apologizing for something that allegedly led someone to batter them, you're revictimizing them. it's a horrible thing. it's very sad this video has become public, but on the other hand, maybe it will allow people to actually begin to start taking it seriously. he could have killed her. that's a lot more than assault and battery. if she had suffered a brain injury. if she had died, he would have been guilty of murder and what would the ravens have had on their hands? >> senator, what is the legal aspect? is there legislative action you can take in regard to this case and cases like it? >> i'm certainly considering what legislative action there should be. because what we need in this instance is not blaming the

victim and stage-managing and apology from her, but emphasizing the courage and strength that women who are victims of domestic violence, survivors of this brutal crime, need to come forward and break with their past. i've worked on this issue for a couple of decades now as a attorney general and now as a senator. and the skirge, the ep semic, the cycle of domestic violence which is repeated because young men see or experience it in their own lives, requires role models from these athletes that is exactly the opposite of what we saw with rice. and exactly the opposite of what we saw from the ravens and the nfl. so whether we can do it legislatively, whether we can seek more aggravated penalties at the state or federal level, my hope is that this incident will lead to changes in practices and much stronger penalties from the nfl. >> great to have you.

senator, thanks so much for coming. michelle bernard, i think you'll be back later in the show. and jamal hill, thank you for your reporting. and thanks to tmz for having us know about this stuff. sometimes without the tape, you don't believe it until you see it. coming up, we elected president obama to end wars. can he now sell anti-war americans on his battle plan against isis? can he take us to war with the anti-war crowd? and we'll meet a jury in the mcdonald corruption trial that delivered that verdict against the former governor and his wife. plus, if 80% of life is about showing up, look who showed up to say goodbye to joan rivers. debra norville is going to join us. she was inside, she spoke at the funeral. that's all coming late in the show. finally, let me finish with quid pro quo politics, getting something personally for what you give a politician. this is "hardball," a place for politics. [ male announcer ] ours was the first modern airliner,

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we have new nbc news. polling in three key senate races. check the scoreboard. first to arkansas, tom cotton leads mark pryor by five points among likely voters. it's cotton, 45, pryor, 40. in kentucky, mitch mcconnell is up 8 over democrat alison grimes. final to colorado, udal leads gardner by 6, 48-42. so arkansas and kentucky, both red states are favoring republicans. while colorado, trending blue is right now going for the democrat. people are going home politically. and we'll be right back.

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>> welcome back to "hardball." on wednesday night of this week, president obama will address the country about the threat from isis and how we're going to destroy it. yesterday on "meet the press"

the president spoke clearly about eliminating the threat posed by the radical terrorist group which has overtaken regions of iraq and syria and has publicly deheaded two americans. here's the president yesterday. >> keep in mind, this is something that we know how to do. we've been dealing with terrorist threats for quite some time. this is not going to be an announcement about u.s. ground troops. this is not the equivalent of the iraq war. what this is, is similar to the kinds of counterterrorism campaigns that we've been engaging in consistently over the last five, six, seven years. >> well, that counterterrorism campaign could involve the deployment of special forces, more drone strikes, more air strikes, or arming and straining the free syrian army. the question is, can the president sell this war? what will his supporters, his opponents, and the overall public do here? a new cnn orc pole out today should give the president a

sense of where the public stands. 45% see isis as a very serious threat to the u.s. 76% want more air strikes. 62% favor military aid to isis enemies. and 61% oppose u.s. clrds on the ground. the democrat from washington -- gentlemen, let me start with mr. mcdermott, would you support the use of special ops forces in the area of syria going after isis? >> i'd have to be convinced by the president. right now, you have senator kerry and senators hagel, negotiating with the saudis and with the jordanians. if we don't have support from some of our arrab allies going on the ground, i don't think we should get into it. if we say we're going to do it all from the air and drop a few special forces here and there,

it's not going to work. it's going to take more than that, and we have to have allies support us. i wouldn't support just americans alone in this event. >> do you think it's plausible that the saudis or jorr jordanians or the emirates would send fighting units into the field? do you think that's even plausible? >> if it isn't, then it's not possible to win this. because you cannot win it from the air and win it by dropping in a hundred or 200 or 300 or even 3 or 4,000 of our special forces. you're not going to win it that way. we should have learned that over the last 11 years. the president is faced with a pandora's box, that george bush took the lid off of and you're not going to get the lid back on with a few special forces and drone strikes. >> i agree with you completely. congressman, on that same question, the president says no boots on the ground. but special forces are boots on

the ground. they may not be marching in parade fashion like in a trench-warfare situation, or marching across europe to get hitler, but you put men on the ground there, special ops units, they could be captured. they will be killed. do you think we should be doing that? >> i think jim is basically right. you've got to have an overall coalition. that's why i think the president has taken his time. some were criticizing him, thinking that he should act in a knee-jerk way. no, he's not doing that. he's trying to make sure we have our allies on board. it's going to be a coalition of allies who also have things at stake, like those oot kurds and like those in -- in iraq and turkey and saudi arabia. they need to be all part of this. now, you do these things, i think, in a coordinated manner. so if there happens to be one or two leaders that we know how to get the way that he coolly and calmly got osama bin laden, then you may do that. but overall, you have to make

sure that the free syrian army maybe is the one, we got to know who we are arming and training, that we have those kinds of troops on the ground to do the ground work. but you coordinate it all, so that you can make sure you cut off the leadership as well as get the people on the ground, but do it with other sunni muslims and other allied states, countries. so that we can make sure there's a company hencive approach to geth this done. >> let me go back to you with the same question i put to mr. mcdermott. would you support a resolution to put special forces into syria to fight isis? would you do that? >> again, if the president lays out his case and talks about that we are having this overall coalition and that there's going to be roles that each of us play, you know, as he did even when we went into libya. he said what the specific role that the united states would play and he told the truth. and that's what's important. the president telling us the truth as to what his plans are

and why he's doing what he's doing. >> it makes me think it's going to be a fraternity frank and we're the only ones doing it. the president drawn on his opposition to the iraq war. he's been withdrawing troops and he's won the nobel peace prize. but now he's repositioning his presidency, after killing bin laden, wanting to strike syria, he will address the country about a prolonged conflict against isis. yesterday the president warned about the dangers facing america if nothing is done. let's listen. >> i want everybody to understand that we have not seen any immediate intelligence about threats to the homeland from isil. that's not what this is about. what it's about is an organization, that if allowed to control significant amounts of territory, to amass more resources, more arms, to attract more foreign fighters, including from areas like europe, who

have -- europeans who have visas and can travel to the united states unimpeded. that over time that can be a serious threat to the homeland. >> let me go to mr. mcdermott. i'm uncomfortable with the phrase homeland. it strikes me as totalitarian. it suggests something strange to me. like who else are we defending except america? why don't you just say america? as if we're facing some existential armageddon threat from these people. do you buy the phrase homeland? i never heard it growing up, never heard it in my adulthood. it's a new word. why are we using it? is there some other place we're defending? what are we talking about when we say homeland? it's the language of the ne-yo cons to get us further into wars. your thoughts, though, not mine. >> from my point of view, it's more of the war mongering that george bush used to get us in in

it the favorite place. we started out hearing about weapons of mass destruction. that was untrue. absolutely untrue. and he knew it. but he took us into this war and then was about getting osama bin laden, and after that, it was a democracy, and after that, it was the awakening of the people out in the anbar province and they have been shifting, but it's all about war mongering, trying to make people at home afraid. because they thiknow that if yo can make people afraid, you can make them do anything. they can to keep the american people afraid for him to carry on this kind of stuff. i don't like the term homeland because it's really war mongering. they're stuck trying to deal with iraq. they got dams and all kinds of things they're working with. they're not coming to the united states. >> we talked about the ideology involved in it. the president may be doing what he thinks he has to do, but he's buying into the lingo.

dempsey starts talking like it, then he starts talking like it. >> this is the challenge you have. go back to the bush years and they portrayed saddam hussein as a threat. you -- >> there's not going to be a u.s. anymore. >> right. exactly. it would be a mushroom cloud. the president has the challenge here of trying to talk about isis in a realistic way. it's not a direct threat to us now. it's a threat to the region. it could be a threat to us down the road, in a way that sort of still gets him political support to take step by step action. so what he wants to have is to have a somewhat nuanced conversation. when it comes to the ne-yo cons and the hawks, they don't like that. and his supporters on the left sometimes are uncomfortable if you talk in terms like homeland. so if he can come before the public and sort of talk honestly about why isis is a problem, without it being an existential dramatic problem, that's what he has to do. >> the people who pushed us into iraq are the same people pushing now. robert kagan, the ultimate ne-yo

con. a whole page in the wall street journal, about how this is like fighting hitler. they spoke about a global coalition to destroy isis. let's hear him. >> tomorrow, i will travel to the middle east to continue to build the broadest possible coalition of partners around the globe, to confront, degrade, and ultimately defeat isil. as we build this coalition, i want to underscore that almost every single country on earth has a role to play in eliminating the isil threat. we are clear that president obama and i and the entire team absolutely understand this is something we must achieve and we will be successful. >> congressman, last question to you. would you support the president if he said, we have to go in

there, americans have got to go in there and do it, just us? >> i think the president has said he's not going to do that. he's been very clear. it would have been easy for him to say something that would make people fearful. i agree with jim, that's what was done before. what he said here and the reason he used the term homeland is to distinguish from the immediate attack here in the united states as opposed to who is taking place in syria and iraq now. so that -- and he's been clear. he's saying, i think the ones that are wanting war, they're trying to make it seem like it's an imminent threat on the united states. he's saying it's not. he said it could be in the future if they're left unchecked. but by putting the coalition together and dealing not on the homeland, but doing what we have to do there, then we won't have to worry about the homeland, we'll keep the homeland safe in that regard. >> we grew up with the term america, it's good enough for me. it's america, it's not the freaking homeland. it's our country, stop talking internationally and weirdly about war in this armageddon

struggle that you're obsessed with. it's not world war ii either. thank you for coming in and congressman, and david core, my friend, thank you for joining us. up next, the bubba w. show. former presidents yuck it up together. isn't that cute? we'll take a look at the first debate in kansas between pat roberts and independent greg or man. >> the people of kansas elected me to go the to the u.s. senate. the u.s. senate is in washington. my home is dodge city and i'm damn proud of it. [ cheers and applause ] >> mr. or man, well, i suspect senator, i've been to dodge city more this year than you have. [ cheers and applause ] [ male announcer ] if you suffer from a dry mouth then you'll know how uncomfortable it can be. [ crickets chirping ] but did you know that the lack of saliva can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath? [ exhales deeply ] [ male announcer ] well there is biotene. specially formulated with moisturizers and lubricants,

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>> we were laughing about going to restaurants and having to spend our time about taking selfies with people. >> at least they're still asking, you know. >> that's right. [ laughter ] >> time now for the side show. that was former presidents bill clinton and george w. bush sharing the stage today to launch a program called presidential leadership scholars. but as you can see, their joint appearance was also an opportunity for some laughs. take a look at what happened when clinton took a curious phone call in the middle of their q & a. >> it's hard to make good decisions in complex environments. [ phone ringing ] [ laughter ] >> there's only one, only two people have this number, both related to me, i hope i'm not being told i'm about to become a premature grandfather. >> that's right. that would make national news.

>> and with rumors of a hill clinton or jeb bush candidacy in 2016, they were asking about whether we could expect about political announcements from either of their respective families. >> if either of you has any political announcements, endorsements or predictions you would like to make, now would be a really fun time. [ laughter ] >> it's like the time, remember the woman and i think in canada, asked us about, what about another clinton-bush match-up. and the answer was, the first one didn't turn out too good. [ laughter ] >> of course he's referring right there to the 1992 presidential election where his father lost to the guy sitting next to him there. anyway, next up, hbo funnyman is known to poke fun at the media. in june he went after he. but last night it was the

correspondence of 60 minutes in the spotlight in a montage depicting their curious interview style. watch this. >> and now, 60 minutes anchors prompting people to deliver the exact sound bite they need. >> you got to hand it to them. >> yes, you do. >> he was off and running. >> he was off and running. >> he is sort of the father of hot sauce. >> he's the father of hot sauce. >> does that surprise you? >> it does surprise me. >> and you're saying we shouldn't? >> i think we shouldn't. >> and there's no reason to prepare. >> no reason to prepare. >> and that's essentially a commercial for groopro. >> with the crowd there? >> with the people. >> that's quite an image. >> quite an image. it was almost a cakewalk actually? >> a cakewalk? >> yeah. >> to beat the system? >> yeah. >> to cheat? >> yeah. i think they call that leading the witness. up next, we'll talk to one of the jurors who delivered that

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let's go right now to baltimore to hear from the head coach of the baltimore ravens and some of his players. >> john, what was it like to see that video? >> you know, it's -- it's something we saw for the first time today, you know, all of us. and it changed things, of course. it made things a little bit different. >> john, did you mislead -- were you misled in any way, you stood up here and defend this guy and now you see the video and make this decision? >> you know, i don't want to get into all that. i don't think of it that way. you know, everything i said in terms of what i believe, i stand behind. i believe that still. and i'll always believe those things and will always stand and

support them as a couple. and that's not going to change. >> how come the team wasn't able to see the video until today? >> i have no answer for that. >> how do you feel as far as -- [ inaudible ] >> well, you know, we will have exactly what we've had so far. you know, we've got the guys that we have, and i'm excited about our offense. you know, i'm excited about some of the things we did yesterday in terms of yards and points and our opportunities to score points, we need to score more points and first downs and things like that, i know we can play a lot better than we did and i'm looking forward to it. >> you said it changed for you. how did it change? >> i don't think i want to get into all the details about it. i believe it's pretty obvious. it's pretty apparent. everybody's seen the video and we'll just leave it at that. >> coach, did the nfl see that video before today? >> i don't have any understanding or knowledge of

that. [ inaudible question ] >> well, not that i'm involved with. you know, i'm involved right now with the football team and getting ready for pittsburgh. >> you came into the league when ray came into the nfl as a head coach. you had a strong relationship with him. it has to be personally devastating to you. >> it's always -- when someone that you care about does wrong, you know, and is faced with the consequences of doing wrong and rightfully so, it is tough. it is hurtful. and my pain is for both of them as a couple, you know, in going forward. my hope is that they can make it work. and from everything that i understand, and in talking to ray, up until his suspension, talking to him a lot, you know, it seemed like they really were working hard and they were doing well, in the right direction, and i hope they can weather this part of it too. i'll be praying for that. if i can help in any way, my wife and i can help in any way,

we will. and that's where it's at. >> can you share any of ray's reaction to the news today? >> you know, i really would rather not. it's more personal. >> coach, are you satisfied with the level of diligence that the organization took to see what occurred on that video? >> absolutely. absolutely. sure. i'm not following where you're going with that. >> i'm just curious why the team wasn't able to see the video. >> i don't know why that would be a hard thing to understand. it wasn't made available. it wasn't there for us. >> from a legal standpoint? >> as far as i know, yeah. it wasn't something we ever saw. ever had access to. >> did you discuss it with the team as a whole today, and how was the tone of the -- >> we did. and you know, it was -- i think the team responds just the way everybody responds to these things. again, you're talking about somebody you know. so it's a little more challenging when you're talking about someone that's part of your family, so to speak.

and so our guys, you know, they felt it. and all the same emotions that everybody out there would feel, you know, we all felt. >> why did the video change the team's reaction so drastically? what did you think happened in the elevator before you saw the video? >> i don't want to get into all that. talking about feelings and that stuff, i think it's pretty easy for everybody to understand, you know, anybody that's got a heart can understand how that goes. >>. [ inaudible ] >> excuse me? [ inaudible question ] >> i'm sorry. say it again. [ inaudible question ] >> right, i'm not going to get into all that, aaron. those are personal conversations and that's really where that belongs. i want to respect that. [ inaudible question ] >> you know, the timing is the timing that it is. and we have a football game to play thursday night. we have no control over that. i don't have any feelings about that at all.

it will not impact us in any way. football wise. you can't allow that. this is professional football and we'll be ready to play thursday night. >> this affects your organization on so many different levels. for you, which is the most difficult? >> i wish i had an answer for that. that's a pretty deep question. i haven't given it that much thought to think of it on that many levels right now. >> what would be one that you can think of. >> i don't have those options, i don't have that list in front of me right now. [ inaudible question ] >> i don't know. the expectation is to move with our team going forward and be the best football team we can be. [ inaudible question ] >> certainly. you know, everything's discussed. like i said, it wasn't a long meeting, though. >> why wasn't it long?

>> is there anything else? [ inaudible ] >> right. we held marshall back. he's healthy. no injury there, but we sat marshall out today. all right? anything else? >> who is your starting running back thursday? >> bernard pierce, justin forcet, they'll both play a lot. and lorenzo will be a big part of it too. good. good question. thanks. all right, thanks a lot. >> thank you. >> that's baltimore ravens head coach john harbaugh on the termination today of star running back ray rice's contract. that was today after the release of that videotape we've been watching that showed him well decking basically his fiance. joining me now from redskins park, is diana raseeny and misnbc goldie taylor. and rob, i want to hold you after we hear from the two women.

first of all, diana, there's a good question posed by one of the reporters at that press conference. what did you need to see in that picture that you didn't already know? it wasn't about slapping somebody. that was a decking. it looked like a heavyweight boxing mau boxing match, he was limp as a rag doll, then he kicked her to get out of position because he might be interfering with the elevator. >> for five minutes there, john harbaugh seemed to avoid anything that required him to get into detail of what he knew. he claims he did not see that video at all. so you have to believe him. but i just kept thinking, if john harbaugh did not know, roger goodell needs to be the one standing up there right now, letting us know whether or not he saw that. i was looking on twitter just a few minutes ago and here in d.c., tmz did a interview with a local fox affiliate here and harvey levin said tomorrow

morning we're all going to wake up with some big news. apparently the nfl had a blind eye to this video. they apparently saw this. so there's still a lot more to this. but john harbaugh today really just trying to do his best. sounded like it didn't take them long to make that decision to cut ray rice. >> a picture is worth a thousand words. and you know about this issue of abuse, but this is a knockout punch. and you have to ask yourself, first of all, for it to exist once in history, it's unbelievable. you have to wonder what the pattern here before and after this behavior. and of course you will understand more about this, why did she cover for him when it came up to his contract and everything else before? >> sure. the power dynamics within domestic violence are absolutely something that's very complicated. you don't know why people stay or why they go. but you do know that both men and women happen to be abused. what i didn't see from harbaugh today was any detail to his answer. what i did hear from a lot of

top-tier nfl sports writers is that the nfl and the ravens were comfortable enough that they had seen that video and able to characterize it to them, contemporaneously when this happened. so for them to say today, they did not see the video, i think something doesn't jibe here. so i'm skeptical. what i'm more skeptical about is what the d.a. didn't do. what we see in this video, as you said is clearly an aggravated assault case. you don't need the victim to come forward in this. you have a videotape. so we want to know why he was eligible for a diversionary program. i believe in redemption. you know, i've been through domestic violence and i've had a spouse who needed recovery and therapy, so i understand the gamut of it. but this was not domestic violence. this was aggravated assault. that's a crime punishable by we the state, we the people. >> not only does he deck her and drag her limp body out of the

elevator, but then you see him kicking her to get her out of position. i mean, he's treating her like not even a life form. he kicks her at some point, because her legs are still into the elevator door. the behavior is just unbelievable. and i wonder, a good question, if anybody saw this before and said we're going to keep this guy's $35 million contract alive because what he does on the field is more important than this, if that's the case. your thoughts? >> obviously the video is horrific, no question about it. i think some of the questions were really good. i think your last guest makes a great point. we were focused very much here on the nfl and on the ravens and the decisions they made, but this all started with law enforcement and an investigation that law enforcement did take place, and they made the decision not to give ray rice any more serious punishment other than a diversionary program. the nfl has made it clear they, in some sense did take a cue from law enforcement in the way they handled it. so it's not just the nfl and the ravens that should be looked at

here. it's really in law enforcement and generally our society's treatment of incidents like this. >> well, let's go back to diana. as a woman and a sports expert, what is this about getting the woman here, the fiance at the time, later the wife, to get up there in public and apologize for what? being his target? i mean, it's incredible that she says to the world i'm somehow responsible for this guy decking me. >> that's the part of this conversation that i think is the most disturbing. i think today we all saw this video, we're all freaking out about it. it was a very disturbing video. but i think the conversation we need to start having is now, what's next for her? what decision is she going to make? she knew the whole time what really happened. we didn't know. we assumed he hit her. but apparently, sources inside the ravens' organization had told me that the players were told by ray rice that something completely different went down inside that elevator.

so i don't know what he said happened, what sort of scuffle they had, but from what they saw in that video, that did not even come close to the way he explained it happened. so she knew that he punched her across the face and she stood by him that whole time. and hearing john talk about how he's praying for the couple, showing support for the couple, i know he needs to do that as an nfl head coach. ray rice probably doesn't have too many people in his corner. but it still makes you wonder, like you guys were saying here, this is a domestic abuse case here and a lot of attention needs to be drawn. and really the woman in this case, she needs to make a stand here. because there are a lot of young women watching this right now. >> you're not kidding. and this is going to be a case everybody in america is going to know about, and they're going to watch the behavior of the owners, the behavior of the nfl, the behavior of the guy who did it, and how he handles it, but more importantly how she handles it. diana, thank you for joining us from redskins park.

goldie taylor and rob, thank you very much for coming on in this strangely very important evening for america, and we'll be right back. kid: hey dad, who was that man? dad: he's our broker. he helps looks after all our money. kid: do you pay him? dad: of course. kid: how much? dad: i don't know exactly. kid: what if you're not happy? does he have to pay you back? dad: nope. kid: why not? dad: it doesn't work that way. kid: why not? vo: are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed? wealth management at charles schwab then you don't know "aarp".e trip when you think aarp, get inspired with aarp travel.

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they're about 10 times softer and may have surface pores where bacteria can multiply. polident kills 99.99% of odor causing bacteria and helps dissolve stains. that's why i recommend polident. [ male announcer ] cleaner, fresher, brighter every day. welcome back to "hardball" with several thousand onlookers lining the streets, joan rivers died last week at the age of 81. rivers had joked about what she wanted her memorial to look like in her 2012 book. >> i want my funeral to be -- to be a huge showbiz affair with lights and camera and action. i want it to be hollywood all the way. don't give me some rabbi rambling on.

>> anyway, the funeral featured yesterday a parade of celebrities, everyone from barbara waterers to sarah jessica parker and hugh o'donnell. roger mcdon performed hey big spender and other tunes. bag pipe performers concluded the ceremony. by all accounts, it was, indeed, a huge showbiz affair. a friend of joan rivers spoke at the affair, deborah, it seemed to me that when we first discovered joan rivers as a young woman, she was absolutely -- nobody had ever been that good. she was up there with carson. that good. >> it's so unlikely that she and i were friends, too. when joan rivers first went on carson, i was going into first grade. so fast forward all these years later when i was actually on nbc

on the "today" show. she made just scathing jokes about me. and then a couple years later, i was on her talk show and i had the chance to say to her everybody made jokes about you and i made jokes about you and she leaned forward and said you're sorry, aren't you? i said yeah, i am. joan's comedy was never meant to be hurtful, but it was meant to be sering. she was big for so many years. but, then, when she left carson, she had her show on fox, the first woman to host a late night show. and they pulled the plug on the show when she refused to say to her husband, who was executive producing they don't want you here. she said if he goes, i go. so they said good-bye. and three monts later, he killed himself. that was the trap door of her life. basically fell out from under her. lost her husband, lost her job,

lost her finances. she basically went bankrupt. she didn't throw in the towel and say that's it. good night, gracie. she just kept on going. >> i was impressed by the crowds yesterday. wall street journal comment, which is my favorite, there was nobody like her. in fact, some people are knockoffs or imitations of other, stronger more vivid figures but there was never another joan rivers before her or while she lived. she was a seriously self-invented woman. was she different besides what you see? >> yeah, in person, she was every bit as funny. and she could make something as stupid -- i remember once we were sitting at a luncheon and she sits there and as this guy is putting down the plate, she said who would you rather sleep with. ? him or him? and it's this toothless waiter who basically -- she was so quick. the timing was brilliant.

and she was fall-off-your-chair funny. i rebel one time she had a dinner party. the elevator in her building was broken. so rather than, you know, ask her guest to walk up however many flights of stairs it was, she founded in the yellow pages, 1-800-strong-guy waiting at the base of the stairs. and they were paid to pick all of the ladies up and put them under their arm and just come up the stairs with the ladies. she made everything funny. and even -- i'm just so glad that she wasn't in her hospital bed and knew that she was in her hospital bed. she would have made that funny. and she would have loved that funeral. everybody who was anybody was there. it was invitation only. and i think the one thing that everybody in that temple would agree on, joan made you better. if you were going to be with joan rivers, and you probably ran into her over the years, if you were going to be with joan rivers, she made you smarter. she made you cleverer. she was just so sharp. and, you know, you just didn't

want to disappoint her. and i don't know anybody who has the impact on anybody the way she did. >> deborah nor ton, it's great having you on. and great insighted into what happened in that temple yesterday. what a great sendoff. thank you, deborah norville. we'll be right back after this. we know we're not the center of your life, but we'll do our best to help you connect to what is. their biggest customer is demanding refunds for defects. so i offered to help. at ge capital, we bring expertise from across ge. so i call in our access ge engineers, and together with columbia, we work backwards. from the cabinet factory, to the place they peel the logs. we find the source and help replace the machine.

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let me finish tonight with this question. what an elected politician should be allowed to do for someone who gives them money? should they be able to reward them? if not, how can we defend the practice of awarding em prized amount bas door ships to people who contribute money and raise money for their campaigns. what about showing up at a contributor's house to recognize the host and your perj regard for them? isn't this like governor mcdonald showing his personal support for a businessman? you're showing up lending your prestige to the person because they gave you money. can politicians do other favors like hosting them overnight at the white house? letting them sleep in the lincoln bedroom. what about writing letters of recommendation for their children at top-rated colleges. what about introducing legislation favorable to a contributor? don't politicians do this all of the time? isn't it the reason business people, labor unions and other pressure groups give money to political campaigns? where is the line? if a politician cannot return a

favor once in office, who will pay for them to win that office? who, indeed? well, thanks to last week's trial, we are on a very interesting course right now. that's "hardball" for now. all in with chris hayes starts right now. >> it's something we saw for the first time today, you know, all of us. >> renewed out rage as new video services nfl running back ray rice punching his then-fiance, the league goes into damage control. the ravens cut rice from the team, the nfl suspends him indefinitely but is it too little too late? then, the strategy. the country is going back on a war footing. tonight, we have new details about the president's game plan for isis. and the fallen. as president obama delays action on immigration until after the midterm elections.