>> thank you, gentlemen. that is all in for this evening. >> good evening, chris. >> chuck todd, also, tonight, there's more news about the republican congressman who say they have secret knowledge that isis fighters have been captured inside the united states and are now in u.s. custody, but only they know about it. so there's lots to know tonight. we start with sad and adorable confusion. dan coats is the senator from indiana. dan coats served in the senate from 11989 to 1999. then he retired. 12 years after he retired, he came back. so dan coates has been around for a long time. there was one day when dan coates got lost.

and then everybody, i have to say, was very nice about it. >> i'm not here to get a specific answer from you. but to better understand what is happening and how it -- i think there's probably a trial plan that's going to be put in place that rings a bell. what is it you're trying to accomplish. and what are some of the consequences of that going to be? >> i just wanted to -- >> i just got a note saying i'm at the wrong hearing. >> oh, okay. >> this is -- i've got the right room number, but the wrong hearing. >> that would explain why i

didn't know anything about this letter. >> that's the first time that's ever happened to me. >> i'll let you off the hook on this one. >> thank you, senator. i hope you're able to respond as quickly as the other secretaries of the army were. i'll go try to find out where i'm supposed to be. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator. >> i don't know what the under-secretary of the army had to do with that. senator dan coates got lost at work, an honest mistake, right? it got a bunch of headlines, as you might expected. he had stuff to say at the hearing. they just cut to the title of the chase.

their story is oops. but cbs and their coverage, also pointed out, i think accurately, that the one other really famous thing like that that has happened in the united states senate in terms of a senator getting lost at work involves a guy named larry presler. the senator got up and picked a door at random through which he wanted to leave. but it was not a door that went into a hallway or into some other room or to any other exit from where he was. the door he chose was the door to a closet. "instead of rectifying his mistake, larry presler remained inside the closet for minutes hoping the prying eyes outside

would disperse. when he finally reemerged after standing in the dark for 15 minutes, he tried to act as if nothing had gone wrong. he looked back in the empty space in the closet, waved and then closed the door. then he located the real exit and proceeded to leave as the audience laughed at him." it suddenly started to seem like it might be a competitive race. the idea that there might be a real fight on for south dakota. it sort of seems nuts. but the democratic pacs all of the sudden throwing money in this case.

they started to believe that they could win it. their intriguing three-way dynamics splitting the vote in all sort of ways has turned out not to be doing very well in the polls. south dakota had suddenly become a really fascinating place. for all the new national interest in south dakota, there has not been all that much attention to the fact that the intriguing independent is larry presler, the same guy who walked into the closet and hid in there for 15 minutes and couldn't figure out how. in addition to the time he walked into the closet and then wave at the closet as he left as if it had been a room, larry

presler was reported to have missed a committee meeting once because he fell asleep in a different closet. we don't know why he was in that one in the first place. senator ted kennedy asked a former colleague, "has he had a labotomy?" larry presler was a three-term u.s. senator from south dakota as a republican. when he lost his senate seat, he was the only incumbent republican who lost. in 1998, he announced he was seriously thinking about running for mayor of washington, d.c. really?

washington, d.c.? mostly black and probably the most democratic polity in the nation. why would they elect a former white republican senator from south dakota? it was never explained as part of the rationale for his candidacy, but it was explained that he was pretty sure he could win the candidacy because he said, quote, i have a lot of african american friends. despite the strength of that case, he was not elected mayor of washington, d.c. but, hey, maybe this year he's about to be elected senator from south dakota again. the recent poll is a survey u.s. poll. the latest survey which just came out does show the republican who's supposed to be

a shoo-in for this race with a grand total of 35% of the vote. larry presler comes within 32%. and unlike georgia, louisiana, in south dakota, there's no runoff. so whoever wins this senate race may well win with 35% of the vote. the same thing is likely going to happen in south dakota. somebody is going to likely be a senator without cracking 40%. whatever else it means, it means

that this seat is not a shoo-in for the republican party. i mean, with basically no money, no organized outside support, with name recognition that, who knows, maybe mostly comes from the walking into the closet thing. larry presler is polling very close to the top. and then there's the democrat. who has not had establishment support. now, rick weiland was seen as progressive. he had early support from the howard dean group. they've since upped their support him as chances looked better and better and better. he's just gotten an infusion of anti-citizen's united from a campaign finance reform that's being run by a stanford professor of the campaign finance group. they pitched in a million

dollars. the official senate campaign arm, they, too, are going to pitch in a million dollars. their million is going to be used to go after the republican would-be front runner who's not doing so hot. all of that makes for an incredibly complex and sort of volatile mix of dynamics in a state that, at least recently, is not used to tons of national attention, let alone tons of national money. in a race with the guy with the most name recognition is forced into a closet. in a state that's really easy to run ads. population-wise, it is small.

one of the consequences of that is the way you run your campaign. retail politicking, the way you meet people and the way you put yourself out there to make sure you meet people, can make a difference. so, in south dakota right now, this is what the campaigns kind of look like so far. just watch this. >> okay, i'm kind of ticked that mike rous decided to miss two months of debates. i'm rick weiland and i approved this message. >> so that's the democrat who, for 48 hours ago, was being ignored by the national democratic party. there's something, like, i think 311 towns in south dakota all in his light-blue minivan. that guitar thing at the end has

been part of the way he's campaigning. he's playing guitar and singing cover versions of johnny cash videos. he changes the lyrics to make them about the campaign. that was just a grassroots guy running against the big-money guys. he's all for south dakota and he's been to every single town. you know, every year in every national election, there are races that get disproportion for national attention because they could have a national impact. this year, 3 1/2 weeks out from the election, if that race is going to be south dakota this year, i've got to tell you, at least south dakota, they've

earned it. at least this race is interesting enough. joining me now, chuck todd. chuck, nice to see you. thanks for being here on this. >> rachel, that was a very amusing intro. you left out one big factor. he ran for president in 1980. a rhode scholar, by the way. >> when he ran for president, he was 37 years old. he ran for president, tried to make a big splash, dropped out before the primaries. i feel like he's worthy of the attention he's about to get. what can you tell what's going to happen in this case? >> that's what this is really about. this is about the former

republican governor. these government programs that allow foreigners to essentially buy a green card, if they invest in a local business. other states have done it. and, it basically got a bit -- the best you can spin it for rounds is somebody in his administration, basically, profited all of this, used it as a way to make money. the guy, by the way, ended up committing suicide before he was indicted. it's really sort of a messy scandal that touches rounds. it's more about the rounds administration happened on his watch. and this is what has created this environment that he has not

been able to put this away. so the democrats have made if decision. they figure we have two chances at winning. weiland wins and he does. the reason weiland has not gotten a lot of help, tom dacshel wanted the former democratic congresswoman from south dakota. they couldn't agree and it's became a feud. now, here we are at the end of

the day and we're still on state senate majority leader. >> i understand the democrats beating up on this, but don't they have to decide whether they want the beneficiary to win in order for either one of them to benefit? >> i think they do. >> in this case, his name would stay on the ballot. the democrat dropped out in time to keep his name off the ballot which is helping out the independent there. that's one part of this. i think the democratic party has

been away a week or two, see what this money does. see if it moves the needle. see which way the needle moves. i think at this point, it's these days, a million dollars is easy to find. they have it. they're throwing it in there to create more hurdles. >> let's at least make this messy.

>> all of the sudden, races are coming back into play. this is an odd year, a weird year. for me, it's going to be a fun october. >> old-pro medicine show fans are going to be a factor here. i think the democratic party ought to offer the mayor of washington, d.c. and that makes everybody happen. chuck todd, nbc political news moderator, chuck, appreciate it. we've got some breaking news from the united states supreme court ahead. and we've got one of the great rebuttals of all time from mr. lewis black. stay with us. (receptionist) gunderman group. gunderman group is growing. getting in a groove.

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in the midterm elections, the president's party does poorly. it's an axiom of american politics. clinton era did okay in the area of newt gingrich and his anti-impeachment crusade. but, in general, whoever is in the white house, president's party loses seats in the midterm elections. nobody knows if that's going to be the case, but that was

definitely the case in president obama's first midterms in 2010. here's the thing. the reason that was such a huge deal, they used that momentum in the house and senate and swept across the country. they picked 20 state legislative chambers from blue to red. in six states, they flipped both chambers in the state legislature from blue to red. they picked up more seats in that election than any party had since is 1920s. that being the most important thing about the first interims of the obama era. in washington, yes, they took

the house. and that is what the beltway took the most. but honestly, that pales in come parson to the importance of what happens in the states. they decided to use that power on not just economic issues or power, they decided to use that power in the state states to tilt the playing field for all of the rest of our elections that have happened in our country since 2010. most honestly, there's no chance of the democratic party taking back the house of representatives any time in the foreseeable future. it's structurally impossible. redraw the maps to get permanent control of one house of congress.

but the other thing that republicans did is they embarked on a nationwide binge to change voting rules. we've reported on e on this a lot on this show. it's not just a series of unconnected anecdotes and news stories, right? since the big takeover in the states in 2010, 18 republican-controlled states have changed the rules to make it harder to vote. if you're in north carolina and register to vote on the same day, you don't get to do that anymore. now, in north carolina, you've got just one more day to get yourself registered and then it's all over for you this year. in wisconsin, republicans made it much harder there to pass a vote in that state. just in the last few minutes, just blocked the state of wisconsin from implementing its new law forcing voters to

present id in order to vote. id that they never had to show before. there's been a ton of confusion in wisconsin as to what it would take to vote in that state this year. but, again, the united states supreme court has just moments ago weighed in and stopped the republican wisconsin voter id law from going into effect. but while all of this wrangling happens and what they're going to get away with in time for the election this year, something else has just happened on this front that has nevada happen before. the government accountability office, five u.s. senators wrote

to the gio and asked them to please study what if effect would be of what these states were doing. specifically, asked them to study what these new voter id laws were having in states that implemented them in the last few years. you never used to have to show specific forms of id in order to be allowed to vote. not every voter has the kind of id that's required to vote. if you make having new, specific forms of id a new requirement for voting, what happens? voter turnout goes down. surprise. it works just like it's suppose to. gio look at these six states to see what happened to voting in those states as republicans rolled back voting rights. now, from 2008, all voter

turnout dropped. comparing though states, voter turned out more in kansas and tennessee than it dropped in all of those other states. kansas and tennessee. they also implemented stricter id requirements. so who voted less once these states got strict voter id requirements? we can be sure about that.

turns out that voter turnout was specifically down among young voters and black voters. and now we have the empirical proof that what voter id laws do in practice is that they take those voters disproportionately out of the mix. it's not because the young people and the black people were all committing voter fraud and now they've been stopped from doing that. that drop in turnout is specifically among eligible voters and registered voters. who are nevertheless excluded by these new laws. you're not somebody who should be weeded out of voting. this is meant to be a republican tilted system of voting. honestly, if we were less polite, we would call it what it is. cheating. it's using political power to change the rules to make it harder for specific people to vote so republicans have a better chance of staying in

power. we've been watching them do it since the last midterm elections when democrats didn't turn out in big-term numbers. we have been watching them do it. and they have done it. and now we can see the effects. and if you care about small d democracy and the right to vote and everything that went in to securing it, it is enough to make you swear, right? it's enough to make lewis black swear. basically to let people know that this is going on. it's a short little video that lewis black did with the aclu. it's really, really good. and there's an important thing to know, but i will tell you right after we show it. here it is, the punch line at the very, very end is really good. watch. >> just give me a minute. i'm going to get the camera set up. >> thanks a lot for agreeing to

be our celebrity ambassador. we're going to try to make this photoshoot as painless as possible. >> who is denying people the right to vote? >> you'd be surprised. north carolina, they slashed a week of early voting. that's going to affect two million people. >> why stop people from voting early? >> early voting makes it easier to vote. and that can decide an election. here, this is a picture that i carry around with me everywhere i go in case i get a chance to talk about early voting. look at that line. >> what is that? is it black friday? you think that the people of florida would want their voters to, like, you know, vote. what's next? a poll tax? >> voter id costs money. it essentially is a poll tax. look at what they made them do just to get one of these id

cards. this is an actual document from the state of wisconsin which is supposed to show how easy it is to get an id. >> this looks like a chart for a sperm to find a fertilized egg. elected officials shouldn't get to choose who gets to choose elected officials. look, people marched and fought and died for the right to vote. and they want to legislate away that sacrifice to stay in power? not on my watch, baby. take the picture. >> lewis black, the new aclu ambassador on voting rights. take the picture. >> the republican party really has used the power that they got in the states to tilt the playing field in their favor for these midterm elections by making voting harder.

i just said that in, like, 11 minutes, right? the way to say that more succinctly is -- >> elected officials shouldn't get to choose who's going to vote to choose elected officials. >> thank you. tonight. on msnbc, on the last word with lawrence o'donnell, tonight, lawrence has on his show live the folks who just did that video. again, the last word with lawrence o'donnell. also, you must vote. i know it's the midterms, but, seriously, you must vote.

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okay, we just reported the breaking news of wisconsin's voter id law. it could have disenfranchised anywhere from 150,000 to 350,000 people from voting. the wisconsin supreme court has just blocked this this hour. we have learned more breaking news about voting rights. this time, in texas. a federal judge in texas has just blocked that state's voter id law, as well. this has just happened. it's the super-strict texas voter id law that was passed by the republican legislature signed by governor rick perry. the judge in this texas case wrote tonight that lawmakers in

texas tended to have that law in a disproportionate effect. they have been motivated, at very least in part because of the detrimental effects on the african-american and hispanic electorate. wow. that federal judge has now ruled that the texas voter id law is unconstitutional and he has blocked it. both of these decisions happening within minutes of each other. for a crowd this big, your everyday dishes will only go so far. literally. you had to go deep into the cupboard.

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be a runoff after the november elections. which means we could not know who controls the senate until christmas this year or actually january. new polling this week shows david winning by a point. democrats are thrilled to be this close in this race. and the poll watchers say that democrat michelle nunn may be doing better than she looks on paper. polls may be undercounting black voters. there are 800,000 african americans, latinos and asian americans in georgia who are

eligible to vote but are not yet signed up. georgia set a goal of registering 120,000 of those people to vote this year. as of monday, they were saying they met that goal. democrats are working hard. if they can do that, that i can win these elections in november. after saying that, then, in his capacity as the state's top elections official, the same guy launched an investigation into the democrat's voter registration project. he issued a subpoena ordering them the turn over any and all documents. hand us over all of your work.

out of the 85,000 applications submitted by the new georgia project specifically, 50 of them were founded to be fraudulent. that's not 50,000, that's 50 out of how many thousand? they say their investigation is on going. they say people who have registered still don't appear on the voter rolls and they don't know why. we asked the secretary of state's office about that, as well. they say they are not aware of any counties currently having a backlog or any trouble going through the applications.

we asked whether there had been a backlog of thousands of voter applications this year. they told us, "all applications received by the deadline will be processed by the counties. it is the law and it will be adhered to". from the outside, it seems like there's not just contested grounds, but contested ground in terms of whether or not you are going to be allowed to register people. do you feel like that's the fight that you're in right now? whether or not you're allowed to register votes? that was the fight prior to monday. these are completed applications that have been duly processed. the problem is they've gone into a black hole. >> do you think that they're in

a black hole at the county level or at the state level? what do you suspect has happened here? >> the point is not where they are but whose responsibility it is to find them. it is his job to make sure that every registered voter makes it to the rolls. if it means verifying that the systems that are now in place, these new systems to match to prove citizenship, making sure those systems are working properly. whatever he should do, the secretary of the state must do to guarantee these voters make it to the rolls. pining the blame on the county is irrelevant. it's his job to make it happen. >> how many have done the paper work properly and still -- >> we believe that the number is

more than 40,000. we get updated information. here's the reason we're most concerned. of that number, at least 44% were between the ages of 18 and 25. another to 20% were between the ages of 25 and 35. you're talking 60% under the age of 35. if we have a chilling effect on their very first time to vote, they may never come back to the polls. what happens next in your effort to get the secretary of state to figure this out? >> we invited them to meet with us.

we asked them a couple of days ago to meet with us. they refused to acknowledge that there's a problem. there's a range of possibility from legal action to civic action. really converting these folks to engaged voters. if you go to our web site, one thing that we've done is put information, a great video, both in english and spanish, that explains how to vote. we want this to be a process that everyone can be part of. >> georgia state representative stacey abrams, thanks for helping us understand this. 40,000 voter registration forms gone missing ought to be a big deal. good luck. keep us posted. >> much more ahead. stay with us. (receptionist) gunderman group.

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to the president of the united states. it's where james madison lived after the british burned down the white house in 1814. the bigger structure here, the one doing the eating in this architectural metaphor, that big building is the mexican embassy in washington, d.c. it sort of envelops its older, more torn down neighbor. there are many diplomatic issues between the u.s. and mexico. the foreign secretary receives dreamers visiting mexico. they sign an agreement with the equal employment opportunity commission. in the middle of all that weighty sort of diplomatic stuff comes this item. look, all caps, statement by the embassy of mexico in the united states on congressman duncan hunter's comments on fox news. mexican embassy has felt the need to go out of its way to shoot down a thing said by a republican congressman on fox

news. this is the story we first brought you last night. it has since turned into a much bigger, much stupider thing than it was even this time last night. but we've got more on that next, emphasis on the more on. i'll be right back. ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm here we go, here we go, here we go. ♪ fifty omaha set hut ♪ losing feeling in my toes ♪ ♪ nothing beats that new car smell ♪ ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪ ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm

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it's more of an accountability free zone, so you end up with stuff like this. >> i know that at least 10 isis fighters have been caught coming across the mexican border in texas. >> how do you know that? >> because i've asked the border patrol, greta. >> and the border patrol, they just let isis members come across the border? >> no, they caught them at the border. therefore, we don't know isis is coming across the border. if they catch five or ten of them, you know there will be dozens more that did not get caught. >> oh, my god. at least 10 isis fighters are in u.s. custody because they were arrested in the united states. 10 isis fighters in custody. it's like, oh, my god, bin laden is in the refrigerator. 10 isis -- no, not 10, more than 10 are in custody. this is huge news. if you believe it. as we reported last night,

homeland security says congressman duncan hunter's claim is categorically false. but in the absence of any real debate among his peers in congress, duncan hunter is now defending his claim, sort of. he's insisting he has a high-level source that told him this. his office said it's not so much 10 isis fighters, it's people who have isis affiliations, more like. now this nonsense is spreading. jason chafitz of utah says it's not at least 10 isis fighters that have been caught in the united states and taken into custody, he said it's four. four of them were caught last month. really, four isis fighters picked up in the u.s. and they're in custody now. where are they? you would think that would be a really big deal if the government were debating what to do about isis, and there are more than 10 isis fighters on u.s. soil and we had them in custody. that would be a huge deal. actually, there is no debate. the noise around the war and the noise around isis is vacationing members of congress filling their time with nonsense. nonsense with an exclamation point. that does it for us tonight.

we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> it's pretty nice here right now because none of the congressmen are getting in the good evening, lawrence. >> announcer: last word >> it's pretty nice here right now because none of the congressmen are getting in the way here. >> fresh air. >> that's right. as most of you know by now, there was a big brawl on bill maher's show on friday night, and none of them were even drinking yet. the man who got it all started is my first guest tonight. >> after ben affleck, tv shows bill maher and actor sam harris held an active debate. should we be able to criticize iran? >> they are the motherlode of bad ideas. >> i think it's racist. >> it's gross, it's racist. >> we need to get beyond this shallow debate.