now. in five days the gop could find itself faced with an excruciating choice, to govern or not to govern? it's thursday, october 30th and this is "now". >> candidates are making their closing arguments. ♪ ♪ >> with five days to go before election day. >> democrats tightening up for republican leading races. >> minority voices could prove pivotal. >> democratic leading races. >> for republicans it's about trying to broaden the appeal of the party. >> the republican party writes off african-americans. >> writes off hispanics and i'm very proud of our party and i'm very proud of what we've been doing. >> under chairman prince reeb us. >> we might not know which party has the majority until after election. >> they're preparing for recount scenarios. >> there might not be some we know about until january. >> this is a very favorable

field for the republicans. >> it's possible that several republican rep governors could go down in defeat. it's almost all over, but the voting. ♪ >> we are five days out from the midterms and despite the fact that almost $4 billion have been spent in over 2 million campaign ads have flooded the zone, nobody is entirely sure what's going to happen, which is kind of amazing considering that this was the year that democrats were supposed to be definitively reschlacked in the midterms. no ifs, ands or buts about it and that was before ebola. republicans may be gaining in arkansas and louisiana, but democrats have had the momentum in north carolina and georgia, all of which has put the white house putting on a brave face. >> the data i've seen in these races show the democrats are strengthening their position in the last few days and i feel good about where we're going and politics are driven by fundamentals and it will come down to turnout and we'll get

the voters out and we'll win to keep the senate. >> if republicans do take the upper chamber, their work would be over. according to land paul, the gop brand sucks. at a stop in detroit yesterday the senator said, quote, remember domino's pizza? they admitted, hey, our pizza crust sucks. the republican party brand sucks and so people don't want to be a republican. with republicans like these who needs democrats? but it is not just branding problems that face the gop. there is the very real question of substance, namely whether to have any of it. the party has said it will push for tax reform and passage of the keystone pipeline, but what else to focus on for the next two years? obamacare repeal? really? for two years? well, actually, maybe, yeah. >> obviously, he's not going to sign a full repeal, but there are pieces of it that are extremely unpopular with the

american public that the senate ought to have a chance to vote on. >> i would like to put the senate democrats in the position of voting on the most unpopular parts of this law and see if we can put it on the president's desk and make him take real ownership of this highly destructive obamacare. >> faced with the very real pros pekts of actually governing, the question for mcconnell and his company is what does it mean to actually govern? very zen question. joining me now is new york times magazine chief national correspondent mark leibovitz and washington bureau chief for "time," michael scherer. no two better gentlemen to bat around the zen political questions of the day with. mark, let me ask you first, you have an excellent, hilarious and at times depressing story about the bump kinification of midterm politics. jefferson smith, mr. smith goes to washington, who has become

sort of the mra tonic ideal for this awe shucks brand of politicians and you write an important caveat to him and his character. smith'santics are geared toward pending legislation and in real life, people like ted cruz and rand paul have no background in legislating and have shown no interest in it in part because it might taint them as washington, quote, unquote professionals in places like iowa. >> mark, if the gop does control the upper chamber after tuesday next week. do you expect anything to happen in the way of legislation? >> well, certainly, as far as legislation goes, you mentioned rand paul and ted cruz. they're following a model in this day and age where their goal is not to pass legislation and their goal is not to win the press onlying of their colleagues and their goal is not to get committee chairmanships and their goal is to get on tv and go to iowa and do well on the presidential race in 2016, it certainly looks like, but now, rand paul said, okay, so the republican brand sucks.

did they really say that about domino's pizza? >> yes. that is a quote. >> the distinction is people do like pizza. theest r of the political pie these days is not very delicious to people, but yeah, look, there's not a single sort of identifiable idea that is associated with this election except for a bunch of negative ads and a lot of just sort of media money thrown into the same old paradigm and it has not created i think a very edifying governing environment. >> michael, to that end, mark is right in terms of the campaign and the rhetoric, but there are some people, i think in the right wing that are expecting certain things to happen. the hill today as a headline that says, quote, civil war looms for gop, which is the umpteenth time a civil war has been looming for the gop, but one conservative gop aide speaking anonymous, of course, is people want to see a bold vision and tax reform that take,

quote, a blowtorch to the tax code. they want to see real entitlement reform and not empty talk. your thoughts on the practicalities of all of that. >> we know there won't be peace, and we know it will be much more difficult in the senate and in the house than 2014 was both because of the electoral change and different people voting, but also because the map is going to change. there will be more democratic seats and more obama states electing senators in 2016. what does that mean for mitch mcconnell if he does get majority? it means he has to come up with a storyline that we were able to govern and we were able to do something and he has to do that in a way that doesn't highlight just the divisions within his party which are still severe and it's a very tricky balance to make. if you talk to the strategists of the 2016 candidates and they're not that enthusiastic

about a republican senate because they're going to have to carry with them on the campaign trail the frustrations of governing in congress and they won't just be able to blame them on democrats as they have the last couple of years and it's a tricky wicket, as they say. >> mark, in terms of cynicism which i know you are no scholar of at all. gail collins has a fairly cynical, but perhaps true assessment of change and action would be possible no matter who controls the senate. she writes, the energy committee for instance might be run by lisa murkowski of alaska if republicans take the senate. a moderate who is in the pocket of oil and gas lobbies and this would be a dramatic change from the current situation in which the energy committee is run by mary landrieu of louisiana, a moderate who is in the pocket of oil and gas lobby, full stop. is that overly cynical even for the legs of us, mark? >> no. i don't apologize for the fact that cynicism is totally

appropriate in, you know, certainly the media and the electorate and what have you, but i also think that cynicism is idealism turned inside out and there have been recent elections that have shown that idealism and a sense of hope and a sense of wanting to do better could be a very, very effective message. you could argue that the tea party could do that in 2010. you can certainly argue that president obama did that in 2008. we don't even talk about hope anymore, and that's not even there and there is a sense that the die is sort of cast and these interests would have a hiej say over whether it's senator landrieu or senator murkowski or the next presidential cycle and cynicism in this case is extremely appropriate. >> let me ask, and i don't know if this is a rejoinder to cynicism as the operating ideology here, michael, but in so far as government is sort of functioning, the judicial system is actually making great change whether it is striking down the

voter -- well, whether it is allowing passage of a raft of voter suppression laws and whether it is issues that are on the burner including marriage equality and the supreme court if there is a vacancy on the court that will have an effect on the american landscape as will the nominations process for this white house. there are still roles that congress plays that are very important and could very much set the table for 2016, if not in terms of just legislation. >> i think you could be cynical about the whole city and the whole process, where we are as a nation and still acknowledge that it matters if there is a senate republican control, and even on energy. if republicans control the senate you will have a huge push to open public lands to drilling that obama has so far resisted and that will be politically difficult for obama to continue to resist and you will end up with some compromise that opens public lands and you don't want to drill on public lands.

>> mary landrieu will support that bill and josh will be able to push it forward in the senate, and i think we don't know if we'll have a supreme court vacancy and we do have a number of appellate court judges that will be voted and it will matter if they will nominate more moderate ones or they just don't get confirmed. >> congressional control, vis-a-vis the white house. one school of thought is it is better to have republicans in control of both chambers because it clarifies who the enemy is in terms of intransigence and nothing getting done. another school of thought is it will be two years of misery for this president. he will have to make compromises in places where he does not want to compromise or get out his veto pen every week. where do you land on that? >> it's not like this's this great record over the last six years of compromise and the last two years have been pretty miserable certainly in the legislative perpetration for the

white house, but look, through history the last two years of the second term of a positive has not been a very fertile point for work to get done, for bills to get passed and having said that, mitch mcconnell if he's reelected he would have been freshly reelected and it is unclear where speaker boehner will be, vis-a-vis, the tea party and he's shown some signs last year of putting his hands up and saying we're going to do this and we're not going to worry as much about the tea party and maybe that will be an environment for something to get done, although again, i think the rank and file, particularly the republican party is not in any mood to cut deals with this president right now and certainly won't be with two years left. >> i think i saw the silver lining of potential optimism in the dark cloud of pessimism that just came over the tv screen. >> wow! >> can you put that on a bumper sticker. i'll put it on my car. >> guys, thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> thanks, alex.

>> hours after a small plane crashed into a building at the wichita airport in kansas, leaving four people dead, we are still finding out more about the condition of those who were injured. as of right now, one patient is in serious condition. another is in fair condition and the other three are listed in good condition. four have been reported missing. we will continue to bring details as we get them. when we come back after the break, southern democrats are invoking michael brown and trayvon mart to inturn out african-americans voters. will the strategy work? plus, does chris christie need anger management classes? that is not a rhetorical question. and later, do you remember the congressman who threatened to throw one new york one reporter and former "now" producer off of a bal cony? that congressman is back. i will tell you what michael grimm said this time just ahead on "now." really... it's not worth it. no worries. i got this.

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georgia families are losing their coverage yet none would keep obamacare and none even initially refused a travel ban to help stop ebola. michelle nunn would be obama's senator, not georgia's. >> by now it is abundantly clear that republicans and their allies this election cycle will tie anything and everyone to the man currently occupying the oval office, but for democrats, particularly in the south their iciness toward president obama has put them in a strange thought with the base, and specifically the african-american base. as a result, democrats hoping to get minority voters to the polls have instead focused on race and racial bias. in north carolina harry reid's senate majority pack ran this radio spot attacking gop radio candidate tom tillis.

>> tillis won't fight for us. instead he made it harder for communities of color to vote, by restricting early voting and voter regition raising. tillis even led the effort to pass the type of stand your ground laws that caused the shooting death of trayvon martin. democrats privented a flyer that the way to prevent another ferguson is to vote. arkansas residents meanwhile, received a mailer. if we want to end senseless killings like michael brown in ferguson, missouri, we need to vote. then there was last night's louisiana senate debate. >> my opponent has voted four times to raise the social security age to 70. >> i want to remind you, congressman cassidy that the life expectancy of a person, an african-american in madison parish is 70 years old so you expect them to work their whole life, the african-american community has been kept out,

kept down and kept back and that is what we all try to do to bring that community forward, the hispanic community and others. >> racial disenfranchisement may be a political driver for 2014, but it also happens to be real upon. in ferguson, missouri, more than 70% of the population is african-american and it still remains true, only 6% of black voters cast a ballot in the 2013 municipal elections and the result of that, five of six city council members are white and just 6% of the city's police officers are black. as joshua dubois writes in "the daily beast," michael brown may have beenfeld by a bullet in august, but the context around his death was felt at the ballot box the year before. joining me is associate professor, i can go back to school, of political science and public affairs and a fellow at

the jefferson institute, and nia malika henderson. dorian, let me start with you first. just the big picture here. what do you make of these ads that invoke the legacy of the death of trayvon martin and the shooting of michael brown. >> two things, first, they're effective ads in the one sense because they're talking about the role of public policy and in this case, life and death public policies that affect the african-american community and it makes it an issue for voters. on the other hand it's really frustrating because southern democrats in particular run from race, they run from president obama and when they're in trouble all of a sudden they're trying to motivate the african-american community to come out and vote. it's not like the ads are from the naacp. they're from the democratic party itself and they're not hiding where the mono so coming from these ads and we don't want to deal with the race issues until we're in trouble and we need you at the ballot box. >> until we use it as a motivator for voting. >> nia, you've written about

this in the strange and difficult position that southern democrats find themselves in, at once courting conservative democratic voter distancing themselves from the first black president with the african-american communities and in the late stage of the game also trying to get the black vote out and can they have it both ways? can they? >> in some ways the real thing that these democrats need to focus more so than after can american voters are white southern voters who have started to flee the democrat dechlic party and this is a trend that's gone on for the last several years, the last several presidential cycles and if you look at what they're trying to do, on the one hand they are trying to quietly court african-americans and trying to swell that vote to historic numbers given that in midterms all sorts of voters drop off, but it's also true among african-americans, too. so they have this difficult balancing act and if you look at

maryla landrieu, for instance. in 2008 she was able to get 33% of the white vote and now she's polling in the 20s. it's very hard to see her be able to put together a multi-racial coalition that might very well include african-american voters and historic level of african-american voters, but can she get to 30%, 35%? she might even get somewhere near 40% of the white vote to actually avoid a runoff and so far it doesn't look like she's going to be able to do that. >> you think, dorian, part of the issue here is how genuine is your concern for african-american communities and their disenfranchisement after they come out and vote for you, right? that seems to be the issue. you can talk about the importance of having a diverse cabinet and you can talk about the importance of having a diverse police force and it's about executing on those things after you've been elected and in some of the reason, i think, the stakes are different for invoking ferguson and trayvon

because no republican will say, oh, yes, they're not going to defend ferguson. they're not going to say there should be another michael brown killing, but when you get to the policy arne preventing those deaths, there is much more of a debate and it is not as much as a layup for them. >> we have a term for this in political science called captured voters. democrats know black voters will not defect to the republican party precisely for the reasons you just stated. republicans can't stuff race issues and they're on the defensive, race issues. on the other hand, democrats take black voters for granted, generally. they don't advance the policies that are about racial justice, but then around election time when they're in trouble, as we see in many of these races, then it's these appeals to black voters and the question i think you're raising is what happens after election day? what policies are you going to pursue? are you going to protect -- exactly. the systemic change that needs to happen to ensure there is not

another ferguson or another michael brown. >> i wonder, you talk about mary landrieu needing white, southern, democratic votes and that sort of being the main issue in terms of winning numbers wise and ben had a study for the center of american progress in june and concluded that registering 60% of black, hispanic and asian-american voters would upset the balance of power in eight southern states and it makes you wonder given what dorian said the inroads that it has with minority voters and the broad coalition and why not? this is a sort of a time machine question and why not focus your efforts earlier on getting out the vote and registering people and not worry about courting conservative democrats and focus on voters of color and stay true to the message throughout the election cycle? >> that's a good question, and you have seen some of that and this is under the radar on the ground work that's been going on. i talked to cass imreid, the mayor of atlanta and he talked

about the process of registering voters that they've been doing down there for months and months and months. the problem with that is it's a slow process. you might register, he said, 100,000 voters and only 30% will actually show up at the polls on voting day and it's a whole process of wooing these new voters and it's not just about registering and getting them to show up. so i think that is going on and i think more broadly that's probably going to be the takeaway for democrats and should they lose as most polls are showing that they will. should they lose this go round, there is more for the democrats among the demographic changes especially in a state like texas, as well and states where you will have african-americans on the ballot, and that's sort of good news for democrats. these democrats have changes, but it will ache a lot of effort

and consistent outrange and not taking those demographic -- and i never think it's a bad idea for getting people out to exercise their right to vote. they hold four times the political, and rebalancing the scales of our participatory democracy is a fundamental thing that needs to happen. >> a fundamental thing that needs to happen and surprisingly or not so surprisingly, we see the voter is up pregd efforts might backfire precisely for this reason because it reminds black voters of the long, historic struggle for the right to vote. it's not an accident that sunday we saw early voters in georgia and north carolina, and 53% of them are black voters. huge turnout in those two states. >> and an important -- it is important to say it shouldn't have to be the threat of undermining civil rights legacy to get people to vote, but if it does, so much stronger the matter is for it.

>> dorian and nia-malika, thank you both. >> thank you. coming up, a nurse without borders. kaci hickox defies maine's quarantine's guidelines and sets stage for battle. that's next. this is called non-24, a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70 percent of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 844-824-2424. or visit your24info.com. don't let non-24 get in the way of your pursuit of happiness. do you have the coverage? you need? open enrollment ends december 7th. don't put it off 'til later. now's the time to get on a path that could be right for you... with unitedhealthcare medicare solutions. call today to learn about the kinds of coverage we offer,

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>> i'm just asking her to be reasonable, let's get to november 10th and then you can do whatever you would like. >> the white house said today it is up to maine to decide its quarantine policies, but they should be based on science. just ahead, chris christie unleashes his inner chris christie. the video that might throw a wrench on his presidential ambitions coming up next on "now." really? new alka-seltzer plus day powder rushes relief to your worst cold symptoms plus chest congestion. oh, what a relief it is. here we go! an unprecedented program arting busithat partners businesses with universities across the state. for better access to talent, cutting edge research,

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eye state and none at all because iowa is the first presidential test in the nation. new jerseyians are not being deprived of their governor's characteristic charisma. quite the contrary. yesterday a local activist confronted christie at a sandy anniversary event urging the governor to finish the sandy recovery and thus he ignited a christie. >> somebody like you doesn't know a damn thing what you're talking about except to stand up and show off when the cameras are here. >> okay. five-alarm christie fire on mute. just moments ago governor christie tweeted out a video from earlier today with the response to the dust-up with that protester. >> i don't look forward to doing that stuff, but i don't shrink away either. it's just another day at the ranch of christie and we'll just keep doing our job. >> joining me now is communications director, jess

macintosh and from the brookings intoot e.j. deion. oh, jess, nothing like the one-sound clip that the segment based around not playing the volume. >> i thought he was facially evocative. i got what he was saying. i didn't have to hear it. >> he said at one point, i would be more than happen to have a debate with you, any time you like, guy, because someone like you doesn't know a damn thing about what you're talking aboutend and to stand up and show off when the cameras are here and i've been here when the cameras aren't here, buddy and done the work and it goes on and on. >> thank you, e.j. is it fair to say that maybe new jerseyians and chris christie need a little time off? what do you think of all of this? >> i'm a new yorker, but i've spent a lot of time living in the midwest, and watching this, i'm just trying to picture how does that play when he's yelling at iowans?

i lived in iowa and there are nice people in new jersey, too. >> they're okay with more bombastic than the midwest is. triumph the insult comic dog is not funny in iowa or minnesota and i don't think that those folks are going to want chris christie as their president, either. i think his insult america tour is not going to be a successful one. >> yeah. e.j., and it's not just going to iowa, and it's what if chris christie was engaged in a heated dialogue with vladimir putin as leader of the country, how does that play out? i guess i wonder cable news has a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills, but on this particular issue, temper and temperament, the way the man comforts himself on the national stage and deals with hecklers which is something the current president deals with a lot, it is a serious issue for chris christie. >> i understand he's once said something like this that putin wouldn't have invaded crimea if he had been president presumably because he would have told him

to sit down and shut up, but you know, first of all, i totally agree with jess in the spinning the stereotype in the midwest, the midwest likes nice, on the hall and so i think christie may feel that he's ideologically a little too moderate for some conservatives, but if he shows he's really tough they'll like him, but i don't think that works, and i think it does show someone out of control, but the other thing about this story is that heckler was going at him on his handling of sandy relief. >> yes. >> and i think that his anger and how angry he was may reflect the fact that he knows he may be vulnerable to this that all of money has aren't gone out to those folks and he may have made the mistake of calling attention to that problem by creating this little episode. the next day's story is about what was the heckler going at him for for the first place. >> and that is exactly the second talking point on my card is about, e.j., of the earmarked

$1.1 million in federal funds for the largest housing rebuild grant for the largest housing rebuilt plan program after sandy, $530 million has been awarded. $220 million has been distributed. less than 20 of those recovery funds has been disbursed. this is san issue of christie's stewardship of the state. >> this is a legitimate point. i have seen them stand up and argue non sequiturs and they had nothing to do with whatever their gripe of the day was. this wasn't that. this was a very legitimate complaint happening at an event about the thing he was talking about and this is the kind of things that presidents and leaders have to do all of the time and it speaks directly to christie's stewardship of the state. there's no way that he could lead the country if his reaction to be if question on substantive matters is to throw a temper tantrum. it's just not going to work and it's not going to inspire confidence and today when, you

know, everybody's opinion of congress is as low as it is, somebody who is completely incapable of putting aside blufter and getting things done and answering tough questions, that's just not the person. >> and to that point, e.j., i mean, the early -- let's call it the b.c. christie or the b.b., before bridgegate christie, there is this tacit understanding, based maybe not in reality that christie was the guy that would shake hands with president obama and got things done and then you actually look deeper into his record as a steward of the state of new jersey which has a huge crater in the budget, where job creation has not been great and where 58% of residents impacted by sandy still need money to rebuild or raise their home, that is a terrible record of not getting things done. >> voters forgive all kinds of sins of politicians including having a bad temper. if they're really happy with the way things are going in their city, state, town or country, and so, i think that at this

point the christie record doesn't look like the record he would like to sell voters on in the primaries and that may make him huffy, as well. >> the one thing, jess, christie wields many sectors of power, but in particular money, as chair of the rga he's had a larger role on the stage than he would, perhaps f he was just the governor of new jersey. the rga announced today that $102 million had been raised during christie's tenure as the rga chair. i wonder how much that carries him in a 2016 bid. >> i think one of the reasons why he was a successful fund-raiser is because he was a personality. he was a draw, but that has to be backed up by something substantive. if you are just a personality you are somebody who flames out very, very quickly. that personality gets old and if that personality is based on insulting americans. he doesn't tell truth to power.

he will whys at school teachers. so yeah, it might make him raise money, but i don't see how that translates to actual leadership especially when appealing across party lines. the rga is about as partisan an organization you can have. when he's trying to convince moderates and independents that he's on their side, he's clearly not. >> yeah. >> he also has great ties -- he also has great ties to wall street where probably some of this money comes from, and i rather doubt he yells very much at wall street guys. >> yes, i think it's selective bullying. jess macintosh and e.j. deion, always good to see you both. >> good to be with you. coming up, good news, really good news about the american economy. that's next. nineteen years ago, we thought, "wow, how is there no way to tell the good from the bad?" so we gave people the power of the review. and now angie's list is revolutionizing local service again. you can easily buy and schedule services from top-rated providers.

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as we learned that the u.s. economy saw its strongest six-month expansion in over a decade. according to the commerce department figures, between july and september, america's gdp grew by 3.5%, following last quarter's growth of 4.6%, this is back-to-back growths that the u.s. has not seen since the year 2003. >> coming up, the fbi does not work for the associated press so why did the fbi write a story with the a.p.'s mast head on it? that's next, but first, sue herrera has the cnbc market wrap. hi, sue. >> hi, alex. here's a look at how the market stands going into tomorrow's trading session? will it be a trick or a treat? the dow jones industrial average closed up dl221 points and the nasdaq composite was up almost 17. that's it from cnbc. we are first in business worldwide. back in a minute.

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every so often when you are working in the news industry you come across an insane story about american law enforcement, one that reminds you of a plot, twist and episode of the wire or something kerry matheson might have orchestrated on "homeland," this week out of seattle we found one of those stories. according to electronics from the electronic frontier foundation and christopher segoyan. the fbi actually faked a press story in order to catch a bomb suspect. they impersonateded a legitimate newspaper in order to lure in their target. here's what happened. in june of 2007 timberline high school in lacy, washington, started receiving a series of bomb threats and it was forced to evacuate its students nearly every day for two weeks. as the bomb threats continued student movement was restricted and police controlled the campus of the school and they could aren't nail down a suspect. that was until the fbi decided to get a search warrant to send a communication to a myspace account associated with the bomb

threats. that communication was actually a link to a fake news article, one that appeared under false associated press headline on the suspect's myspace page. when the suspect clicked on the fake a.p. story the fbi secretly planted software on his computer, was able to track his location and later arrested the suspect who was a 15-year-old student. the associated press did not know that any of this was happening. they are now understandably furious and they assert that the fbi's ploy violated the a.p.'s name and undermined the a.p.'s credibility. at present the fbi stands by its investigation. in a statement the agency said every effort we made in the investigation had the goal of preventing a tragic event. use of that type of technique happens in very rare circumstances and only when there is sufficient reason to believe it could be successful in resolving a threat. joining me now is the man who discovered that fakery, principal technologiologist with

the aclu. thanks for joining me. let's start with the real basic kind of question that a lot of folks have is how is this instance different than the fbi impersonating, say, a drug dealer? >> well, people don't really need to trust drug dealers, i guess in many ways drug dealers are inherently untrustworthy, but people need to trust the press. that's how they do their jobs and if whistle blowers don't feel comfortable going to journalists they won't tell them the information journalists very much need to break their stories. >> the fbi maintains it has the authority to do this. do you agree with that? is there a legal basis with the oversight or is this completely unlawful in your mind? >> we know fbi has been using malicious software or viruses to break into people's computers since 2001. they've never once sought any legislative authority from congress and there are only a handful of court orders that have come to light. this is a routine tool that

they're using and it is not one that they've discussed and not one that has been subject to public debate or appropriate democratic oversight. >> i thought that was telling in their statement that they say use of this type of technique happens in very rare circumstances. where else do we know about the fbi using this particular technique? we know the dea created a phony facebook account in a new york woman's name to identify other suspects in a drug ring. do we have another sense of where the fbi has impersonate the news sites or used fakery digitally to bust potentially criminal activity? >> this impersonation aspect is new, but we have known for some time that law enforcement agencies have been hacking into people's computers. obviously, there are significant concerns with the fbi impersonating the press, but there are also parallels between what happened here and the dri's impersonation or rather establishment of a fake polio immunization program in pakistan in their efforts to catch osama bin laden.

that, of course, led to the taliban kicking out doctors and aide workers and a surge in polio -- a polio outbreak in pakistan. there are positions of trust whether they're clerics, priests, psychiatrists, doctors, those kinds of positions in society, people need to trust them and they shouldn't have to fear that the person they're speaking to is actually an fbi agent tricking them into talking. >> yeah. i think the institutional, when we talk about institutional failure and pillars of society that have been around forever whether that is the fourthes kate or government itself this would seem to be a serious problem and they trust the bylines and the mastheads and do you expect that the a.p. would take legal action here and the a.p. seems to be mad. it is my understanding that several other news organizations are upset, fearing that similar things have happened to them. as you noted, the fbi's statement seems to suggest that this was not the first time that they've done this or the last time that they've done it.

i would fully expect to see some kind of reaction from the journalism community to this in the days and coming weeks. >> thank you so much for your time and for your sleuthing and the time. >> thank you so much. >> we have an update on the kansas plane crash we told you earlier. the death toll remains at four and at present, all missing people have been accounted for. when we come back after the break, last night in new york, two candidates on national office were stumped on a question most fifth graders could answer. that's next. callahan's? ehh, i mean get away, like, away away. road trip? double wings, extra ranch. feels good to mix it up. the all-new, fuel-efficient volkswagen golf tdi clean diesel. up to 594 miles of adventure in every tank.

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i have a cold. i took nyquil but i'm still stuffed up. nyquil cold and flu liquid gels don't unstuff your nose. really? alka-seltzer plus night rushes relief to eight symptoms of a full blown cold including your stuffy nose. (breath of relief) oh, what a relief it is. thanks. anytime. of all american city, new york city has perhaps the richest literary history. you heard me, san francisco. j.d. salinger, e.e. cummings, truman capote and these are just a handful of famous writers who have called the big apple home which was kind of surprising when on tuesday night at the debate for new york's 11th district seat in congress this happened. >> mr. grimm, what's the last book that you read?

>> wow, it's been a while. i haven't had time to read. um, i think it was a tom clancy book. i don't remember the name. >> these are not supposed to be stumpers. >> i'm sorry to stump you guys. >> you don't get a lot of time to read books. >> we're on the campaign trail. we're out talking to the people. >> neither candidate could name one book they'd read. not one, nor did they even have the wherewithal to fake it. couldn't they have said gone girl? it's in theaters. new york is not the only literary locust this week dealing with cultural faux pas. france, where i believe people get wednesday off just to read book, france is up in arms because on sndz night the french minister of culture said in a public interview said that she had not read a book over the past two years. it was a statement deemed barbaric by french critics some of whom in typical french

understatement, are calling for her resignation. the anti-government krued a saders would no doubt cut immediately upon taking office. >> when it comes to establishing your world view, i was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand -- >> i've read most of them, again, with a great appreciation for the press, for the media. >> but what, specifically, i'm curious. >> all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years. >> can you name a few? >> i have a vast variety of sources where we get our news. >> that is all for now. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern. "the ed show" is coming up next. good evening, americans and welcome to "the ed show," live from new york. let's get to work!

♪ ♪ ♪ >> people are blinded by all this partisan rhetoric. >> my opponent, along with the public sector unions have been staying in line. >> right to work is an issue that's a very divisive issue. >> the legislation regarding the right to work. >> divide congress. >> ideological, wacko attacks that our friends and the other party are doing. i'm telling you, we have to get the show on the road in this country. >> when you pick a governor, you have to think about that. ♪ >> good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. that's a very profound point that former president clinton just made. do you think the radical agenda is going to stop that they're all done with the way they've operated? you know, we're just five day away from an election. republican governor, the polls say they're on the ropes. it's been four years since they de