unequivocally deny that i received at any time a copy of the video. and i had not watched it until it was made public. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. my personal eric holder moment. not a personal moment i had with eric holder. he was not there but it was about eric holder and it was personal and clarifying. it was 2010. i was in alaska. we were up there to cover the joe miller/lisa murkowski u.s. senate race and up until the last minute of that trip it looked like i had gone there to talk to lisa murkowski and that's it. looked like i wouldn't get an interview with the other guy, joe miller. at one point i did find myself on the streets of anchorage in the middle of the next best thing to joe miller. i found myself in the middle of

a crowd of joe miller's tea party supporters and they agreed to talk to me and this is how that went. >> good luck to you guys. >> thanks very much. >> eric holder, we disagree with that. >> she what? >> to confirm eric holder. >> why are you against that. >> we are anti-gun attorney general of this country -- >> what's he done against gun. >> what hasn't he got against guns? what his voting record before hand. >> eric holder was an elected official. >> i know, but just all i'm asking look at what his record with obama has been. look -- >> what's he done on gun that you're upset about? >> i honestly -- i don't know enough about that to answer that truthfully. >> he's anti-gun. >> what's he done that is anti-gun. >> i don't have all the facts. >> there's no specific -- >> look at his press releases,

look where he's coming from. >> i will but what press release. >> anything -- just type into google eric holder and second amendment or eric holder and firearms and you'll find plenty of ammo. >> that was a perfect man on the street encapsulation of what eric holder brought out in american conservatives as attorney general. he made them so angry and so upset, he was the number one issue for them in alaska senate primary. he was enemy number one, even worse than president obama himself. even if they could never quite put their finger on exactly what it was about -- why do we hate him so much? 82 different people have had the job of attorney general over the course of the history of the united states. and 80 out of the 82 of them have been white men. the one african-american man we have ever had as attorney general of the united states is eric holder. the one woman we have ever this is janet reno and both of them

were so viscerally hated and so vilified by the right that it occasionally lost logical coherence, it was pure emotion to the point where it became almost a pathological visceral thing. i mean the tenor of the vitriol against janet reno is perhaps best represented by a joke made by senator john mccain in 1998. i will not read out loud senator mccain's joke but -- there we go. but i will point out that chelsea clinton, the daughter of the president and first lady of the united states was a teenager at the time that john mccain made this joke about her. this was john mccain at his classiest but fairly representative in terms of the way conservatives and republicans talked about and felt about janet reno. the right hated janet reno so badly they couldn't see straight. the only woman who has ever been attorney general of the united

states. the only african-american to be attorney general of the united states today announced his retirement from the job. his tenure in office during his tenure in office he got republicans so upset, so overexcited and overwhelmed with their emotional hate tread with him that things with eric holder like with reno they sometimes didn't just get over the top, they sometimes got weird and hard to follow. >> you don't have access to the fbi files. you don't know what the fbi did. you don't know what the fbi's interaction was with the russians. i know what the fbi did. you cannot know what i know. that's all. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman. and that is simply the reason -- i did not assert what they did or did not do. i asserted what -- i cannot have -- >> order. >> challenge my character. >> mr. chairman, regular order.

>> gentlemen. >> when you attack somebody's integrity and say they made statements that were not true, then, of course, that is -- raises a point of personal privilege but the attorney general failed to answer my question -- >> the general will suspend -- >> regular order, mr. chairman. >> aspersions on my asparagus. >> what was that at the end there? that was may of last year, texas congressman louis gohmert so flustered by how upset he is that he accused the attorney general of just the end part there. >> questions about what was -- >> regular order. >> cast aspersions on my asparagus. >> aspersions on my asparagus, silence. that was last year in may. almost a year later, they met again in the same room in

congress. and the follow-up exchange between aspersions on my asparagus guy and attorney general of the united states, the follow-up exchange between the two of them produced undoubtedly the greatest sound bite yet from any member of the obama cabinet for the duration of the obama presidency nobody in his cabinet has ever had a piece of tape as good as this. this is as good as it gets. >> that's obviously a matter that is under consideration by the courts and we have taken a position on that. i wouldn't want to get into something that as i said a pending matter. >> well, it is your opinion that matters on whether you tell attorney general -- attorneys general how to act in the states or how you approach businesses or individuals that have this biblical view that the president had when he was a senator in 2008 so i thought it was rather important. well, let me ask you -- >> the time of the gentleman has expired. >> unfortunately.

>> chair recognizes the -- >> good luck with your asparagus. >> good luck with your asparagus. >> eric holder throughout his tenure as attorney general has made republicans see red. he has driven them to distraction. i mean they accused him of casting aspersions on their asparagus. they held him in contempt of congress. the first time that's been done to a cabinet officer but interestingly the contempt vote was kind of an interesting historical anomaly other than that it had never happened the count itself was a weird number. you know how there are 400 something members of congress so close votes in congress are usually 200 something to 200 something. in this case the vote was 255-67? which means it did pass but that's a weird number of people to be voting on something inside the house of representatives. that's because the vast majority of the democratic members of congress were so disgusted by that contempt vote against eric holder they didn't bother to

vote no but walked out of congress in a giant group in protest and refused to have any part in the whole spectacle. so, yes, when the history of our nation's first black attorney general is written a lot of it will have to be about how republicans and conservatives hated him with such unharnessed raw vitriol that the stuff they threw at him was more flammable than the typical stuff they throw at the nation's first black president. but even so, even as the absorber of all that approprium or lightning rod or heat shield for the president, even with all that this attorney general will have to go down in history as one of the more consequential attorney generals of the model era. he called the restrictive voter i.d. law a poll tax. he sued texas and south carolina to stop their discriminatory voter i.d. laws in 2012. the same year he successly sued

florida to stop them from getting rid of their early voting after the conservative majority on the supreme court effectively killed the voting rights act, eric holder sued texas again and also north carolina and he also had the justice department join lawsuits against ohio and wisconsin to put the justice department squarely on the side of voting rights as it became mainstream republican politics to attack them. finally rolling back the sentencing disparities and the sentencing hysteria that turned our nation's war on drugs into the largest prison population on earth, that was attorney general eric holder letting two states legalize pot even though it's still illegal as a federal matter was attorney general eric holder. refusing to -- getting the fbi to start taping their interrogations ever in the first time ever in that opaque agency that is attorney general eric holder. unprecedented federal investigation and oversight of

local police departments to get them to stop discriminatory policing that was attorney general eric holder. oh, and rebuilding a department of justice that was a smoking hulk when he got there, that too is attorney general eric holder. buried deep in the coverage today about eric holder submitting his resignation interesting detail about the first thing he's going to do now that's announced his resignation, a lame duck period he announced he's retiring the but under standing he'll stay around until his replacement is made. the very first thing on his schedule after making his retirement announcement today, the next thing he's going to do is that he's going to scranton tomorrow. scranton, pennsylvania, scranton, pennsylvania, is not having a justice crisis of national importance. there isn't like civil unrest in the streets of scranton that he

has to calm. no, the reason he's going to scranton tomorrow is because of the 93 u.s. attorneys in the country, the one in scranton is the only one that eric holder hasn't visited yet. and so he is completing his goal tomorrow of permanently visiting every one of the 93 attorneys offices during his tenure as a sign of support for those federal prosecutors and encouragement to try to give them all a boost to have the highest ranking law enforcement officer in the nation see their office and visit personally in their district. it's a totally fitting reminder that when eric holder arrived in washington as attorney general in the first place, that pair of words, u.s. attorney was almost always followed by the word scandal. because the previous administration had used the department of justice not so much as an ideological laboratory, but more like an ideological burn pit. instead of professional federal

prosecutors the u.s. attorney job undergeorge w. bush became something you handed out to campaign donors like as if it's an ambassadorship to an unimportant country. career prosecutors, career justice personnel, apolitical competent lifelong civil service employees were pushed out in order to make the department of justice more like a branch of the bush/cheney campaign team and saved the worst for the civil rights division and decimated that critical part of the department and so part of what eric hold her to do as a new attorney general wag start to rebuild the justice department in many ways from the ground up because that's what the bush administration did to it. they ground it up. since he's been ag republicans have imagined themselves into a lot of feverish scandals concerning attorney general eric holder. honestly the one that came the closest to being a real scandal, the thing that led to the contempt vote and all the rest

of it was the fast and furious program which republicans got so upset about during his tenure even that was something that had been created during the george w. bush administration. i know, i can hear them screaming from across the street. this is going to make people very uncomfortable but the scandalous fast and furious program, the scandal of eric holder's tenure, fast and furious was created in the george w. bush administration. eric holder's actually the one who ended it and that's the biggest knock they've got against him. at least the biggest knock against him that even came close to being something about policy and not just spitting and swearing in his general direction. the fact that attorney general eric holder made conservatives so inexplicably angry, it is an important fact of his tenure as ag. it does not always mean that he made liberals happy, liberals fault him for not prosecuting more wrongdoing against the banks and financial institutions that caused the economy to melt down. wiretaps of ap reporters and editors way too broad and never explained.

he chose not to prosecutor tur by cia officer, the fbi is still allowed to exonerate itself of all wrongdoing whenever it shoots somebody. there's definitely a critique of the eric holder tenure from the left and more things to say from that direction, as well. the ridiculous political fact he was forced to reverse a decision to try alleged 9/11 perpetrators in term court, that's still hanging out there too and will be forever and as his tenure goes down in history that will be a big part of it.

international spectacle of how we don't know what we want to do with them but attorney general eric holder's list of accomplishments is a long list. on civil rights it will be remembered for not what the department of justice did under his leadership but speak bluntly and personally on hard truths about civil rights and race. >> the news of travyon martin's death and the discussions that have taken place since then reminded me of my father's words so many years ago and brought me back to a number of experiences that i had as a young man when i was pulled over twice in my car searched on the new jersey turnpike when i'm sure i wasn't speeding or when i was stopped by a police officer while simply running to catch a movie at night in georgetown in washington, d.c. i was at the time of that last incident a federal prosecutor.

trayvon's death last spring caused me to sit down to have a conversation with my own 15-year-old son like my dad did with me. this was a father/son tradition i hoped would not need to be handed down. but as a father who loves his son and who is more knowing in the ways of the world hi to do this to protect my boy. i am his father and it is my responsibility not to burden him with the baggage of eras long gone but to make him aware of the world that he must still confront. this -- >> that was eric holder speaking last year. this year when 18-year-old michael brown was shot and killed by a white police officer in ferguson, missouri and his body left in the street for hours afterwards and that city erupted night after night for weeks, it was a personal visit

from eric holder, the attorney general who seemed to be the only one who could calm ferguson down after those weeks of eruptions. well, today as he announced his retirement he was introduced by president obama and he received an extended, extended, extended ovation and when he was spoke he was very emotional. he as you saw he is a man who is willing to speak in personal terms about hard things, but i'm not sure we have ever seen him as emotional and personal in public as he was today. >> whatever my accomplishments they could not have been achieved without the love, support and guidance of two people who are not here with me today, my parents, eric and miriam holder nurtured me in my accomplished brother william and made us believe in the value of individual effort and the greatness of this nation. my time in public service which now comes to an end would not have been possible without the

sacrifices too often unfair made by the best three kids a father could ask for. thank you, maia, thank you, brooke and thank you, buddy. and finally, i want to thank the woman who sacrificed the most and allowed me to follow my dreams. she's the foundation of all that our family is and the basis of all that i have become. my wife sharon is the unsung hero and she is my life partner. thank you for all that you have done, i love you. >> after the attorney general finished that speech today president obama gave him a hug and said to him off camera as everybody else stood up to give him that standing ovation you could hear him say, good job. you got through it. eric holder stepping down today from a very, very consequential tenure as our nation's first african-american attorney general and only one who served during the obama administration. there are two years left. how will they replace him?

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years ago some of these same issues drove my father to sit down with me to have a conversation which is no doubt familiar to many of you about how as a young black man i should interact with the police, what to say and how to conduct myself if i was ever stopped or confronted in a way that i

thought was unwarranted. now, i'm sure my father felt certain at that time that my parents' generation would be the last that had to worry about such things for their children. >> u.s. attorney general eric holder talking last year before the naacp, attorney general eric holder announced his retirement. when first nominated he was confirmed pretty easily for the post in 2009 but then quickly became a lightning rod for if we're honest occasionally unhinged criticism over these past 5 1/2 years. there is no bigger bogeyman on the right than attorney general eric holder and i'm including

president obama himself in that assessment. what shoes do this attorney general leave to fill and how difficult will republicans be able to make it to confirm anybody who president obama might want to choose for the job after him? joining us now is sherrilyn ifill, legal and education defense found. thanks for being here. a real pleasure having you. >> thanks for having me. >> what do you think eric holder's most enduring legacy will be? obviously we know as the nation's first african-american attorney general that will always be the first line said about him in the history books but what else is going to make history about him too? >> well, i think he has been so courageous and so bold in two areas that i think are too often not focused on what people think about the attorney general of the united states. the first one is the civil rights area that you've talked about, what the attorney general has done in the area of voting rights and speaking powerfully about civil rights. many people may know that the attorney general's sister-in-law was vivian malone, the young woman who was the first student to desegregate the university of alabama. it was governor wallace standing in the courthouse door against

her so he feels this deeply in his personal self and he was willing to speak powerfully about civil rights. you talked about the voting rights cases that he's worked on. we've litigated shoulder to shoulder with the justice department under the attorney general's leadership, the texas voter i.d. case both in 2012 and this year. that trial just ended on monday and the day of the shelby county decision he had the civil rights legal teams into his office to say we're going to make sure that we protect the voting rights of racial minorities. he already had a plan for how he was going to redeploy lures within the department to ensure that those protections remained in place so he's ever mindful of civil rights and made it front and center and the second thing which is more remarkable the work he's done around criminal justice. the attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of the united states. he's himself a former u.s. attorney, a prosecutor. and yet he was willing with all of his law enforcement bona fides to expend some of that capital to speak the truth about

overincarceration in this country about overly long drug sentences and then to put his money where his mouth is and actually change real policy. going to his u.s. attorneys and instructing them to stop overcharging in drug cases involving nonviolent drug offenders. that is huge, no attorney general has done that in the past. i can't imagine one who would do that in the future, reorganizing the clemency level to ensure those who are in jail for overly long terms for nonviolent drug offenses have the opportunity to u the clemency process. this sex extraordinary. he could do it because he actually does have real law enforcement bona fides but he could only also do it because he was willing to be courageous and willing to set a tone and set a portfolio for attorney general that we've never seen. >> a super important point in terms of him having served at so many different levels of law enforcement, not only was that interesting in terms of what he

came to believe needed to be done but he then had the wherewithal and know-hows, the nuts and bolts know-how how to get it done. excellent point. i want to ask you about his tone a little bit. we left up as the title of this segment that quote from him to louis gohmert about good luck with your asparagus. in part because i feel like it's a sort of underappreciated and interesting thing about him that he was so pugnacious with his critics that he would, you know, he said to congressman gohmert, don't go there, buddy. you know, he was willing to wave his finger at people and willing to go toe-to-toe with people and respect for the office. do you feel like as a matter of sort of his public presentation that that was a hard thing to calibrate given how upset the right always was with him? >> well, it was hard, i think, for him to calibrate but what i think many people appreciated about it is that it was so honest. he was just who he is and he was not willing to allow people to cross a certain line with him and i have to tell you as an

african-american for many of us it was very important for us to see this attorney general do that as an african-american man when he was being attacked in ways that we found so disrespectful, you know, attacks on whether or not he was intelligent, attacks on his integrity and we all know that the president has had to walk a fine line, he's a politician, he's the president of the united states and so in some ways many of us have been very relieved to have the attorney general be able to forcefully stand up for himself. many of us felt in some ways that he was defending our collective dignity because we don't believe that he would have been attacked in the ways that he was attacked in the disrespectful ways that he was attacked some of which you showed in the earlier sequences if he were not african-american and he himself was willing to say that. so that tone the public neches tone was important because it

also held off, i think, some of the criticism that came against him because he showed his willingness to fight it out but it was also important for those of us watching him for our own sense of integrity and dignity and his willingness to stand up to those who came against him and to say i'll only allow you to go so far even as the attorney general of the united states. >> that's right. he leaves that office having not let anybody shrink it an inch by the way they attacked him in that role because of the way he fought on that. thank you for that point. that's excellent. sherrilyn ifill, thank you. >> thanks. >> lots more ahead including a best new thing in the world that after a lot of back and forth has finally been approved for family viewing. but it was a hard row to hoe. stay with us. that's ahead. >> one cannot truly understand america without understanding the historical experience of black people in this nation. simply put, to get to the heart

of this country, one must examine its racial soul. though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot in things racial we have always been and we i believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards.

so i know it. you know it. let's just admit it.

we do not talk enough on this show about polish politics. headlines have been dominated recently by events in the middle east, in iraq and syria, the ongoing war between russia and ukraine, the near breakup of the united kingdom and yet even with foreign politics dominating our show somehow poland, nothing. well, that shameful failure ends tonight because it must. best new thing in the world is coming up right at the end of the show tonight straight from poland, it is one of the best things we've done in this program in a very long time. i almost can't wait. so why treat your half mouth any differently? complete the job with listerine®.

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so they are coming back to vote. i thought it would never happen but they are coming back to vote. more than a month after the air strikes started in iraq, apparently that wasn't enough to get them to come back and vote on authorizing this thing but now that it's not just an air war in iraq, but also an air war in a second country, sr., as well, they have finally decided to end their vacation to come home interest their legislative districts and they're going to vote and, yes, it is a surprise. tomorrow, though, they are going to vote. it's finally going to happen.

amazing. i speak, of course, about the british parliament, they have called off their recess and coming back to vote in their parliament on whether or not to authorize a british military campaign against isis. their prime minister david cameron supports that campaign but british military forces have not been participating in it thus far because parliament hasn't authorized the british military to do that. that's why they're coming back for a vote and british newspapers say if the vote is yes british warplanes will be ready to take off immediately after the vote is taken. here not so much. our congress has not nearly as much interest in this matter. although it felt like they might for a second today when we got this headline from "the new york times." look, boehner says new congress should debate military action. hey, then if you read that fast you might think, wow, okay, the speaker of the house is changing his mind, congress is going to

debate authorizing the war and the word "new" is doing a lot of work in that headline. he means he doesn't want this existing congress to debate this military action but the new one, the next congress as in the one that isn't elected yet. speaker boehner telling "the times" doing this with a whole group of members who are on their way out the door, i don't think that's the right way to handle this. of course, it wasn't the right way to handle it before they went home for their vacation in order to stand for re -- up until this point we had been operating under the assumption that our congress basically had two options, now that the war has started in iraq and syria and say it's going to be a years' long effort we figure they had two option, congress could come back from the two-month vacation they just gave themselves and vote on authorizing the war like the brits are doing or if they

really want the to wuss out they could stay on vacation until the electionness november and come back after the elections in the lame duck session and vote on authorizing the war then. today john boehner opened up door number three when he suggested, no, no, how about next year instead? so no vote on the war before it started. no vote once it started and they were still in session. no vote once the war expanded into a second country. no vote before the election, now he says no vote after the election either. it's kind of feeling like maybe they don't want to vote on this thing at all which is amazing in its own right given the constitution. what's more amazing, though, that while the leadership in congress says isis, this fight against isis is not their thing, it's not their problem, they don't want to vote on it, they don't want to debate it or do anything about it, stay home and campaign instead, while that is happening with this congress, this is how republicans are campaigning for house seats right now across the country. watch this. >> we all know the growing threat we face today. >> are they coming for us?

>> they are actively working to come for us. >> i think there's it's no longer a fringe terrorist group. >> these fighters could be a significant threat to our homeland. >> that is an ad just released in multiple congressional jurisdictions by the national republican campaign committee. do you feel afraid of isis? are they coming for us? well, then vote for us. we promise to go home and run ads like this to scare you instead of meeting even the barest minimum responsibility to at least talk about this threat. we are afraid to even talk about it. so if you feel afraid, vote for us. astonishing. if you can clear a table without lifting a finger...

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can you referee a game while also playing in that game? it seems like an obvious question with an obvious answer but it's been a central and unanswered question in the race for control of the united states senate this year. in the great state of kansas the tremendous senate election unfolding there right now kris kobach describes himself as the referee. he is the secretary of state and top elections official, a republican and as the self-described referee in that senate race kris kobach has made a serious of calls that all happened to favor his own side in that senate race. trying to force the democrat who

had been losing this that race and who quit the race to try to tay in the race. and then trying to order state democrats to put a new democrat on the ballot when the supreme court said that the other guy had to be let go. and kris kobach wants the race to be a three-way race with the incumbent republican senator facing split opposition from both a democrat candidate and independent candidate. kris kobach wants to force it to be a three-way race in kansas and that would greatly help the chances for the incumbent republican pat roberts. but in this race, republican kris kobach is not only from the same party as senator pat roberts he's also a member of pat roberts' campaign committee and so kris kobach describes himself as the referee for the election rues but this terms of the robs campaign he is a player in the game. well, this week msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt went to kansas and got an interview with kris kobach and asked him about his dual roles in this race. watch. >> you're comfortable holding a position essentially with

senator roberts' campaign and being secretary of state and deciding this case? >> well, i would put position in quotation marks. i'm one of air cast of thousands on a committee where roberts people call the offices, all the elected republicans and say would you be on our honorary committee so it's a meaningless position and, of course, if we had any inkling there would be any controversy surrounding a senate race where people were, you know, potentially violating our election laws then of course i would have said no but just to be courteous didn't want to tell the senator no. >> and don't want to remove yourself. >> it would be a purely symbolic gesture at this point. if people are into symbolism it would be important. i have to enforce the law as it is written not as some people want it to be. >> but you're going to stay as an honorary member? >> sure. >> that is the kris kobach part of this race. the other new big factor here is that national republicans have begun jetting into kansas in an

effort to prop up the campaign of pat roberts which looks like it's in real trouble. at an appearance on behalf of senator roberts kansas legend bob dole, he vocally went after some other republicans, specifically he blamed senator ted cruz for shutting down the government and costing republicans crucial votes then this morning at a pancake breakfast sarah pal inchampioned pat roberts for standing with ted cruz on the way to that same government shutdown over obamacare. watch. >> he, one of the few senators fulfilling campaign promises, doing what the american people asked him to do, standing there on the floor with senator ted cruz to do what they could to get rid of obamacare, fulfilling his promise. [ cheers and applause ] >> so which way does pat roberts want to play this? does he want to be a goat with ted cruz or want to be a folk

here low with ted cruz? the hard working kasie hunt put that question to pat roberts today. watch what he said. >> senator roberts, you campaigned in the last week with bob dole and sarah palin. bob dole criticized ted cruz. sarah pal inpraised you. whose side are you on? >> both. how about that? >> asked to choose between two seemingly irreconcilable ends for the shutdown or against the shutdown, pat roberts picks both. how about that, kansas? joining us now from overland park, kansas, is kasie hunt, who seems to be having a really good time out there. thank you for joining us. >> we've been having agent wonderful time. thanks for having me, rachel. >> from your reporting on the ground in kansas watching all this happening how does it seem like things are going for pat roberts? >> well, being on the ground here i would say it became abundantly clear quickly how

difficult this race is going to be for pat roberts. we were out in western kansas with bob dole, conservative part of the state, the area where pat roberts used to represent in the house and if the voters there respect excited about him it's going to be hard for him to get the attraction they needs to win and the voters i talked to most had come to see bob dole and a number of republicans said they were still trying to decide. so at this point it's for roberts becoming a race against time so they did send in national operatives here to kansas to try to redo his campaign, once it became clear that orman was going to be a real threat but the campaign they're mounting now is one that, you know, under normal circumstances they would have mounted six months ago. it's their trying to paint orman as a liberal democrat and try to turn this back into a traditional partisan fight. >> how is orman holding up against the criticism, as you say it's sort of being mounted against him later than it would in a typical campaign but how does he look as a candidate and

how is he dealing with this new wave of criticism now that they brought in all these national republican big wigs? >> so i spoke to orman on this trip and he is somebody who comes across as a pretty polished candidate for someone who is new to the arena. he's comfortable in a retail setting. he's funny. he tells jokes, you know, he's still getting his footing under him in some ways. there are some areas where he wasn't 100% sure-footed in his answers but i think that what's really going to be the test for him is how he continues to handle how the roberts campaign deals with their opposition research. they're starting to unload all of their negative attacks, you know, again, a little bit late in the game. they're criticizing him for his business ties primarily. he is a millionaire investor. he'll be one of the richest in the national if elected and roberts' campaign is looking at insiding training and the orman campaign went underground as that surfaced.

his team has been focused on trying to push back against those so we'll see if they continue to be able to weather those attacks successfully or whether roberts starts to get traction and push orman's numbers back down to earth. roberts himself is really unpopular so at this point it's kind of become potentially becoming a race to the bottom. >> msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt live in kansas. great to have you here. >> thanks very much, rachel. nice he see you. > this is one of those races where it's like, you know, okay, the whole senate, the control of the senate did on the line and so you might be covering every boring senate race around the country because every one could be the one that trees the senate. it wouldn't matter if nothing else is on the line this, is so off the hook it's unbelievable that it's happening in kansas. all right, as promised next the best new thing in the pure, the epic pure joy of the best new thing in the world is worth staying for. stay with us.

okay, i've been looking forward to this. this is one of those stories that seems like it might be going somewhere terrible. i swear it has a happy ending. it really is the best new thing in the world today. also a story that seems like it may be could be just an elaborate metaphor for something political or something. might be. you could make it that. but you know what, it is purely excellent on its own terms. i urge you to just take it as the pure joy that it is. okay, it starts in poland in poznan in western poland where the town's pride and joy is its zoo. lions and tigers and bears and he will fafrntss and giraffes and have a whole section for farm animals. in that section you will find these two love birds who have lived in the farm animal section of that western poland zoo for the past decade. the donkey on the left is named napoleon. his lady friend on the right is antosia.

and the zoo loves these donkeys. the zoo calls napoleon and antosia their pair of lovable donkeys. they market them. they love them. they've been together for ten years. has to be said that napoleon and antosia are very loving as a couple. throughout their decade-long relationship they have produced six offspring thus far, the youngest just two months old, ten years on the magic is still there clearly. the problem is that napoleon and antosia while loving each other very much and very frequently they live in a zoo and apparently some of the visitors of the zoo have taken offense to the point where they have complained at what they are seeing between these two donkeys. they have complained to this woman, a local politician with the conservative law and justice party in poland. after she got the donkeys are making too much love complaint, she said that she too was horrified by the donkeys in love

showing their love for each other at the zoo and as a politician because she was so grossed out by these donkeys doing this thing, she prevailed upon the zoo's director that the zoo should separate them. put them in separate pens, basically so they could not do the deed and look at them. pining for one another from across the chain link fence. after ten years of never being apart. are you feeling outrage? i'm feeling outrage. and a significant chunk of the polish public got outraged as well. these are some of the facebook fan pages created in honor of napoleon and antosia in poland pleading with the zoo to end the forced separation. thousands of polish citizens signed on to a petition to reunite them even though the local surplus politician was so offended by them doing it and poland's 24 hour news network caught up with the depressed donkeys and turned out to be such bad press for the zoo that this morning just one week after the separation was imposed, the zoo announced that they had a

change of heart. i've got their actual statement here. this was their statement. they said it was, quote, never our intention for any and malls to feel uncomfortable because of their natural behaviors. and so tah-dah, look. best new thing in the world. this morning, napoleon and antosia were reunited along with their young et foal. they're all together again as a family this. is the photo caption from radio public news, napoleon the donkey with legs in the air is clearly delighted to have his antosia back in the pen. of course, how do they know? maybe he just needed to scratch an itch. i think i should tell you i think that's her and not him with her legs in the air like she just don't care. because you know what, it doesn't matter. either way, ten years on, for this couple, the magic is obviously still there. these donkeys are honeymooners for life and now everybody can let them live, eat, sleep, raise their donkey baby and be in their donkey baby and be in love.

"first look" is up next. good friday morning, everybody. thanks for joining us on "first look." baseball's biggest star goes out with a bang. >> base hit to right field. here comes richardson. the throw. richardson is safe! derek jeter ends his final game with a walk-off single. >> it could not have been scripted any better. plus the fbi knows exactly which americans are interested in fighting with isis. eric holder resigns as attorney general. so who is in line to replace him. and a frightening woman escapes an intruder by hiding on her roof. good morning, rn