many ways more up close and in greater detail than we do with other laws that are made. and i think in a way, i think that's part of what people got upset about thattive gs these comments from gruber such currency. >> we're out of time. i for one prefer the gruber when he thinks he's offcamera than when he's on camera. thanks for joining us. chris hayes is up next. "hardball" starts right now. nasty business. let's play "hardball." ♪ ♪ good evening i'm chris matthews in washington. tonight the big debate here, should america torture? a new report from the u.s. senate intelligence committee states this country engaged in harsh interrogation techniques including waterboarding, threats of death, stress positions, and long-term sleep deprivation.

they were employed beginning in the year 2002 following the attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon. the debate centers on three key questions. one, is it moral to torture? two, does it work? will we get vital information we can't get another way? three, should we be publicizing the fact that we tortured suspected terrorist? should we be putting out there what we're doing. richard engel, evan coleman and david ignatius join us. what do you make of this whole report? what do you make of this report today? is it good for america to have this out there? >> i have mixed feelings about it, frankly. i've been reading the report over the last several hours, disgusted by many of the details in it.

the torture, and i think you can only describe some of these techniques as torture. people leaving people in ice baths, dragging them outside of cells, cutting their clothes off, beating them up, putting them back into their cells, leaving them standing for days at a time. sometimes on broken legs. and then continuing to do it for months and months and months. well after the period where they would probably have any kind of valid intelligence. so in a certain sense, i think it's good that it's out there, that people don't -- they appreciate and are disgusted by what happened in this country after 9/11. and hopefully never do it again. but on the other side, this is why i say i have mixed feelings, the cia felt it had authorize to do this. it felt it was asked to do this. it felt the president knew what was going on, the president and certainly his national security staff were getting regular reports of the information,

certainly senior leaders were going to the cia and telling them, you guys are doing great work to keep america safe. and now we have a change of administration. and they're being punished for it. so i can feel a sense of betrayal on their behalf as well, that they did something that they were asked to do, that was brutal and that you wouldn't want to air in public, and now they're being scrutinized for it. >> did we get any information through these torture techniques, enhanced interrogation? did he get information we needed to get fast and we got it that way? >> we got information. the question, what did that information lead us to do? there are certainly claims that some of the information led us to capture and kill bin laden. and that's great. but the problem is, that's only half the story, even if it's true. let's not forget, that we got information under torture from another al qaeda detainee who told us that iraq and al qaeda

were incahoots, and that was used as justification for us to invade iraq. not only did that information turn out to be completely wrong, the sheikh told us afterwards that that was completely false. i made it up, because you were torturing me. >> is that what the neo cons wanted to hear? is that why he said it? why would he say something that wasn't true? >> because of the fact when you have water poured in your mouth and up your nose and you feel like you're about to drown. the immediate inclination is to say anything possible to get these people to stop. >> why did he know that that was the very statement that the neo cons pushing for the war in iraq wanted somebody to say? >> as far as we understand it, the questions that were being asked were such that the questions were, what are the links between iraq and al qaeda? >> i got you. >> so he fed them whatever they wanted to hear.

>> as they say in courtroom dramas, you're leading the witness. >> correct. >> feinstein summarized the report on the floor today. >> the committee found that the cia's coercive interrogation techniques were not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining detainee cooperation. we took 20 examples that the cia itself claimed to show the success of these interrogations. our staff reviewed every one of the 20 cases. and not a single case holds up. actionable intelligence that was, quote, otherwise unavailable. otherwise unavailable. was not obtained using these coercive interrogation techniques. >> well, according to senator feinstein, in most cases, the

intelligence was available by other sources. or the intelligence they gave up played no role in stopping a plot. former cia officials have said that's untrue. in the "wall street journal" today they said the program helped. quote, it led to the capture of senior al qaeda operatives, removing them from the battlefield. it led to the destruction of terrorist plots and prevented mass casualty attacks, saving american and allied lives. it added enormously to what we knew about al qaeda as an organization. therefore informed our approaches on how best to attack, thwart, and degrade it. so there's two very different assessments. what's yours? >> this is the area where it's hardest for an outsider to know. certainly cia officers who have read all 6,000 pages of this report think this part of it is the most contentious.

senator feinstein talked about what the analysts did, go back and look where else might you have gotten the information if you scoured the other sources and could you have found it some other way, and if you could have, then they're saying the harsh interrogation wasn't necessary. to that, the cia officials respond that's reading history backwards. >> isn't that would have, could have, should have? they had the asset right there to get it from. >> my own feeling is that the wisest position to take to this is to be agnostic. we just don't know -- >> but if you were a policy maker, would you do it? >> if i was a policy maker, in light of what we've learned from this torture report, in light of what we've lived the last ten years, i would have a rule against doing it. you know, in the situation where there's a ticking bomb, and 10 million lives are at risk, nobody can say what they'd do,

but i think the idea that we should ban torture and say thou shalt not is correct. and we've learned that it's correct from the world's reaction to the exposure of what happened over the last ten years. >> richard, you know the scene better than anybody i know. do you know where we've been practicing this kind of nasty business, this torture, enhanced interrogations? and which of our allies are doing it? do we know that pretty much? >> well, torture is unfortunately very widespread in the world. before this enhanced interrogation program, a common practice was for the u.s. to send detainees to egypt or jordan or some other third country and let the third country torture them. now for this period after 9/11, the cia started doing it itself. but these were taking place in thailand, poland, iraq, in a couple different locations. the sites at this stage have become fairly known. >> what are they thinking of us,

king abdullah in jordan, who is westernized in many ways, although he's a man of the middle east. he hears we're putting this out, feinstein is putting out this report, what is he thinking, what good is coming of that? >> there's two reactions so far. you're going to get the reaction from dictators who will be making hay out of this, putting this in their own newspaper to show, the united states, which claims to be such a defender of human rights and is always giving us a hard time, look what it had been doing to muslims. that's one side. then you'll have the other reaction among moderate reactions which probably won't be public, which will be something of disbelief. why are you doing this? why are you exposing all of your dirty laundry, which is just going to give radicals more ammunition? it's really an american issue. it's about soul-searching in the united states.

about trying to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. at least that's the way it's presented today. but i think some of our allies in the middle east will say, they would have kept it to themselves and our adversaries will use it to make themselves look better. >> and the fall-out, our dirty laundry is out there. countries can decide what they think about torture, the stress positions for the body, isolation, and waterboarding and the rest -- >> we call these same things torture in other countries. i think the fall-out is going to be, we'll see. there's already a lot of anger out there toward the united states because of droning, because of policies with israel, palestine, gaza. this could be another excuse to go out and throw some molotov cocktails at the u.s. embassy. hopefully it's not. but i don't think it's going to change people's opinions.

>> as awful as it is, that is not abu ghraib. you don't have that signature image of the guy with the hood over his head standing out like that. you don't have that bloody flag that someone can send around on the internet and this communicates that message so clearly. it's a nuance to report. you're going to have to speak english fluently to read it. will it end up in al qaeda propaganda? no doubt. will there be people criticizing the united states on this basis? no doubt. will this have the same impact as abu ghraib or the koran-burning incidents in afghanistan? i strongly doubt that. it just doesn't have that impact. >> it's going to have a lot of influence on american thinking. we credit a lot john mccain. let's hear what he had to say about this, because he's been tortured. >> i know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. i know that victims of torture will offer intentionally

misleading information, if they think their captors will believe it. most of all, i know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies. our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights. >> john mccain, the expert. >> well, he's a living witness of the horrors of torture. he endured them in that awful vietnamese prison. so when john mccain says, thou shalt not, this is not american, and he supports the release of this report, the world's going to listen to him. this is going to cause problems. we have a middle east that's on fire, as it is. and any new thing that destabilizes the situation, that calls the u.s. into question, is a problem. just the idea of suppressing this report and the facts that are in it just strikes me as

wrong. >> suppressing or releasing it? >> the idea of not releasing it, of saying indefinitely because the world is so screwed up, we're not going to put this report out, i just don't think it's defensible. i think the only way you get past something like this, is by saying, here it is, what we've done -- all countries. >> america's a pretty good country even when we do tough stuff. thank you all. coming up right now, the big debate, the torture report and whether we should be doing it. does it work? is it morally justified? and why is this thing going out publicly? this is "hardball," the place for politics.

president obama's interview this evening by our own jose diaz-balart for telemundo. here's what the president said

about the torture report. >> one of the things that sets us apart from other countries is when we make mistakes, we admit them. and i think as i said in my written statement, there are a lot of folks who worked very hard after 9/11 to keep us safe during a very hazardous situation, when people were unsure of what was taking place. what was also true, we took some steps that were contrary to who we are, contrary to our values. as some of the tactics that were written about in the report, were brutal. and as i've said before, constituted torture in my mind and that's not who we are. >> back with more after this.

welcome back to "hardball." today's torture report asks three main questions, the answers depend on your political

leanings. number one, does torture work? number two, is it moral, ever? and number three, should the torture report ever been made public? joining me now former rnc chair michael steele and joan walsh, both are msnbc political analysts. i'm going to let michael start, i want to hear your positions and then you'll have to defend them. first of all, a good moral question. torturing. a means to an end? does the end, even if it works, justify the means of torture? even if it gets us information. >> i think it does. if it's the weighing against the loss of greater potential life, potential loss of greater life, more life, the opportunity that brings harm to other people, yeah, you've got to weigh this in the balance, to make sure that, you know, you're not

torturing just for the sake of torturing. but that there is a purpose and an end to it. yes, sometimes you do get the information you need. it's the same question about war. as catholics we grappled with that question. >> where do you draw the line? mafia style, but a guy's head in a vise and start squeezing it? >> that gets into the methods that are used. >> where are you? how far do you go? >> that's something that you -- >> somebody's ear? >> waterboarding is more psychological than physical. >> no, it's not. >> okay, joan, you're on. morality, even if it justifies the end. preventing a 9/11, preventing something really bad from happening, where are you on that? >> i think it's immoral. and it's also illegal. it violates the geneva convention. it's a war crime. it's that simple. what we've seen today is the cia basically quarrelling with the

release of the report, saying it works, but not taking issue at all with the amazing revelations in this report, some of which have to do with the cia itself, within the cia debating this, people saying they were moved to tears by what they saw, and they didn't want to do it anymore. and the cia bringing in outside contractors to do these things that some cia officials would not sign on to. so there was a big debate within the cia. there was a debate within the bush administration. i find it astonishing. if i had to point to one thing, president bush was not briefed on this until april of 2006 after they had already tortured 38 of 39 detainees. how can we say -- >> who gave the go-ahead? cheney? >> maybe. i don't know. certainly within the cia there's been a lot of buck-passing. there's been a lot of -- >> where are you on minimal efforts? would you be against sleep deprivation?

>> yeah, it's torture. >> do you believe it's torture? >> the seven days of sleep deprivation, absolutely. i'm not here to say how much torture works. i'm happy to live by the geneva convention and so is senator john mccain. i think it's pretty clear. when you have this report and read this report and you read about rectal feeding. do you want to debate rectal feeding? i mean, the things that this report -- >> you brought it up. >> i was going to say, you brought it up. >> i didn't bring it up. you just did. >> i'm sorry. it's disgusting. >> let me ask you about the conflict. i have conflicts all over the place. if it does work, like in school yard fighting, you hold a kid's arm back until he said uncle. you say, if you're not good, you can't stay up and watch that movie. we're always using pleasure-pain principles to get things done. >> yes, we use discipline, we do as parents.

>> so the question is, you don't really think it works, if you say to a guy, i'm going to do this to you, or else i'm going to leave you alone and let you sit in the cell, you don't think that gets information? >> i can't say it better than evan coleman. torture led to this connection between iraq and al qaeda that didn't exist. he gave the best information before he was tortured. and people were tortured long after they could provide information because they were out of the field. there was no ticking time bomb the 183rd time khalid sheikh mohammed was tortured. so it makes no sense, it's immoral and it's illegal. >> respond to this any time you want. in the field, we watched the terrible pictures in vietnam, putting a water hose in somebody's mouth. in other words, instant information they wanted in the

field against the enemy. behind that hill, where are they buried? obviously it's going to work. they were always doing it. >> well, yeah, and that's the trick of the balance. we're sitting here reading a 6,000-page report -- >> 500. >> -- in the context -- >> that's the short version. >> right. >> -- of this. we're not in those circumstances. we're not out there trying to gather that information. a lot of this, chris, goes back to the 1970s where we eviscerated our ability to gather human intelligence the right way, putting people in the communities -- >> we all agree on that. we want to know what's going on. >> so the response to that was this torture. >> here's the cia point of view. six former cia directors and deputy directors disparaged the report today. quote, the majority left out something critical to understanding the program. context. the detention and interrogation

program was formulated in the aftermath of the murders of close to 3,000 people on 9/11. it felt like the classic ticking time bomb scenario every single day. senator feinstein rejected that issue as he presented the report on the floor today. here she is. >> at no time did the cia's coercive interrogation techniques lead to the collection of intelligence on an imminent threat that many believe was the justification for the use of these techniques. the committee never found an example of this hypothetical ticking time bomb scenario. >> that's interesting, guys. >> yeah, it is interesting. and i happen to trust senator feinstein. let's be clear here. in the context of the democratic party and the context of liberalism. she is perceived as a hawk. she has been on the side of the intelligence community. she's recently been fighting president obama's office to some

extent, to get this report released. she is somebody that i consider trustworthy. i don't always agree with her. i think she's gone too far to protect the intelligence community. but when she stands up and says, this is wrong, i listen to her, i find her credible. >> i find her credible too. but it's a little bit of cya with the democrats on this issue -- >> how does this cover them? >> now they're finding religion on this issue. this has been out there. they are responsible for the oversight of this agency last time i checked. >> they have been fighting to have oversight, fighting to release this report -- >> joan, i understand, let me finish my point and then you can chat. so the reality of is, i understand where a lot of this is coming from at this point. we don't like it as americans. we're put off by it. but our congress has a role here. presumably they were playing that role out during the bush administration as well. they were all a part of those

intelligence briefings. the cia was coming in, now people are saying, they lied to us. >> they did. >> you don't know that. that's a member of congress telling you they did. so at the end of the day, this thing becomes a farce. i think it harms us overall. >> let me ask you a question. do you trust dick cheney to make the call when we torture and how we do it? >> if he's authorized by the president or authorized within the system, yeah. why wouldn't you? >> because i think some people are more eager to torture than others. i honestly think that. >> that's a personal judgment. >> it is. >> that's why we make it illegal. so it's not whether i like dick cheney or barack obama or a like george bush or feinstein. that's why we signed on to the geneva convention, that's why it's a war crime, and why we shouldn't do it. >> do you really think that's not happening right now despite this report? do you really believe that because barack obama, or our government said, or feinstein says, we don't do this anymore -- >> i'm so much in the middle of

this one. i like the values of joan. but if anybody thinks us not torturing people is going to stop al qaeda from torturing people, you're living in a crazy world. >> look, we tortured and we still have al qaeda. we tortured and we have isis. we tortured and we didn't stop the resurgence of this form of fanatic and violent islam. so torture didn't work either. it didn't work on many levels. >> it's your point and a good one. but we'll move on. >> thank you. >> don't agree with me, it gets me in trouble. when we come back, the attorney for terror suspect zubaydah who is at guantanamo right now and was waterboarded more than 80 times. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ shutter clicks ] hi there!

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>> welcome back to "hardball." the intelligence committee report put out today contained details about a man once called a senior lieutenant to osama bin laden. zubaydah was captured after 9/11 and subjected to extreme interrogation techniques at a cia site in thailand. he was one of the first to be waterboarded. joining me now the attorney who represents abu zubaydah. thank you for joining us.

what is your view of torture and what it achieves or doesn't? >> before i go to that, i have to correct something. you identified my client as a member of al qaeda, this report, this is the most comprehensive examination of all the material that's been collected since the program was created, makes clear that he was not. buried away on page 410 of the report -- >> just to make sure, you have to correct what i said if you're going to correct it. was he ever called a senior lieutenant? >> absolutely. the cia now agrees -- >> well, then don't correct me. >> i don't want to quibble. if you and i are in agreement that he's not the person they represented him to be, we'll move on.

>> if you want to respond to what i said, okay. >> now you're asking me what i view about torture. i agree with joan, it's a bad idea, we shouldn't do it. it's wrong. >> do you think it achieves answers that are useful? >> the evidence in this case, it did not. what it uncovered is either false or could have been gotten from other means. we don't ask whether chemical weapons work. we just say it's wrong, we're not going to do it. we should take that position with torture as well. if you're going to ask the question, the answer is no. >> you're really answering in a pure way, i appreciate that. joan walsh did the same. it's like the question, do you believe in capital punishment? >> no, i don't believe in capital punishment either. >> do you think it's immoral? >> i have a slightly different view. i think that the state should not be empowered to kill people. in the same way, i don't think the state should be empowered to torture people.

it's more of a concern about, i have concern about giving the state that kind of power. i have too much mistrust of the state. >> i appreciate that. and i do too. maybe not as much as you, but i share that passion. throughout history torture has been used to punish. you go to georgia and see how they torture their own soldiers. on a monument, a ship, the torture room, you see it in old pictures of vietnam. why was torture used? why it was it a part of battle and adversarial relationships in life? what was its role if not to get information? >> oh, unfortunately the sad truth of torture, it's ostensible justification is to get information. it's actual use is to brutalize, to dehumanize, to demonstrate your superiority, to demean the other. that's a much more potent use through time.

and if you look at what was done in this case, we have rectal examinations with excessive force. i mean, this is not an interrogation technique. this is a brutalization technique. this isn't about getting information. this is about demonstrating your actually visceral superiority over these people and treating them like animals. that's the real danger. >> do you think, is it sadism? >> no, i don't want to say what's sadism. it was a horrible moment in american history. and i am opposed to prosecutions. let me just make that clear. i think we should just have complete transparency. bring all the information out and let the country discuss it. if dick cheney wants to come back and say, no, no, no, you have it all wrong, this is a partisan hatchet job. bring him back, put him under oath, give him immunity and say, what do you have for us?

in the long run, the disclosure is good. thanks for coming on the show. up next, fireworks on capitol hill as jonathan gruber testified and said it was the stupidity of the voters was critical in getting the president's health care reform past in the first place. plus, progressives are trying to lure elizabeth warren to run for president. that's been a slow-burner that's picking up heat. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. here's some news you may find surprising.

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back to "hardball." ♪ >> this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure cbo did not score the mandate. lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. and basically, call it the stupidity of the american voter or whatever, but basically that was really critical to get this to pass. >> welcome back to "hardball." a gaffe for the ages. that was white house health care adviser jonathan gruber talking about what he called the stupidity of the american voter when it came to passing the affordable care act.

those comments from last october have now gone viral and they set off explosions on capitol hill today. gruber was called before the republican-controlled oversight committee for the old-fashioned drubbing he knew it was coming and here it was. >> i sincerely apologize for conjecturing with the tone of expertise and for doing so in such a disparaging fashion. it's never appropriate to make oneself seem more important or smarter by demeaning others. i knew better, i know better, i'm embarrassed and i'm sorry. >> it was congressman elijah cummings of maryland who fired one of the first shots at him. >> let me be clear. i'm extremely frustrated with dr. gruber's statement. they were irresponsible, incredibly disrespectful, and did not reflect reality. and they were indeed insulting. they were especially harmful because they gave the opponents of the aca a pr gift.

man, you did a great job, you wrapped it up with a bow. >> so well said. then came the thrashing from republicans. >> lies on top of lies, this is what you have done. you have been a co-conspirator in defrauding the american people and you admitted it in two videos and comments that i saw on tv. >> do you see a trend developing here, professor gruber? >> i don't understand the question. >> it's a lot of stupid quotes you've made. that's the trend. >> night before last i was at the kennedy center honors where they honored tom hanks. famously, "forrest gump," the ultimate in successful stupid man. are you stupid? >> i don't think so, no. >> did m.i.t. employ stupid people? >> not to my knowledge. >> the roundtable tonight is

here. thank you all. here's what i think. i think elijah cummings is one of the smarter people in congress. has a wonderful manner. and issa, one of the dumbest. he should embrace the guy and say, thank you, you undermined obamacare, you're the best witness we've got. then he slams the guy who has just given him what cummings said was a pr gift all wrapped up. why is he so stupid? >> you got four different things going on here, four different players. gruber doing a goober, pretty much, rolling back on his statements. >> where's the derivation of that? >> gomer pile? >> and darrell issa wants to go out strong. and then you got democrats doing this midterm mea culpa.

just go ahead and own it. >> the fact is, everybody knows a gaffe is when you say what you think and you think it's the truth. and obviously gruber was very eloquent in saying what was wrong with obamacare. >> many times. >> i think he should be a big hit at the republican convention. scoop him up there. >> it was the perfect christmas gift for the republicans, because we know it will be very difficult for republicans to appeal obamacare. here we have dr. gruber making these incredibly, ridiculous, stupid statements -- >> stupid why, because they're truthful? he said they were. >> and he's coming back and the only response he's giving in the hearing is that he's sorry. >> why is he so small now and he looked rather grand in the earlier tapes? >> the thing that's going to matter, he's speaking to the legal point upon which obamacare is currently most threatened. he said in this these speeches that there is no legal wording

that allows the states to get subsidies -- i'm sorry, the feds to get subsidies, anybody who signed up through the federal exchange. >> and without subsidies, it doesn't work. the supreme court could topple the whole law if they rule that the tax subsidies for billions of people in the federal exchanges are illegal. the white house says the law was written to give tax subsidies to everyone, not just state exchanges. but here's gruber in 2012 making the opposite from the white house case. >> i think what's important to remember politically about this, is if you're on the exchange, that means your citizens don't get the tax credit. but they still pay the taxes that support that bill. you're going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country. i hope that's a blatant enough reality states will get their act together and realize there's billions of dollars at stakes here. but once again the politics can get ugly around this. >> he's like mr. peabody talking to sherman.

he has complete authority. then comes back and says i'm dumb, i made a mistake. the republicans, this guy has given them all they need. >> they're validating the republicans' point. the deals were made in the dark hours of the night in congress and we're -- >> who is a good liberal here? [ laughter ] >> we need a progressive voice here. who is going to carry the fight for aca, for obamacare, through the next five, six years, after the president's gone? >> well, i think elizabeth warren will be one of the voices. >> is hillary going to carry this high when she goes into the debate with whoever the republican is? >> she's the original -- >> so if you were her, would you carry it? >> she carried it in the mid 90s, so she might as well. >> would you? >> in general election politics, if we continue to see enrollment numbers going up, if we start seeing health care costs going down, she could argue that obama care may be working.

with that being said, if we still see premiums rising and people incredibly disapproving of obamacare, she might want to step away from it. >> this was her issue, one she fought for. i would stick with this until the last dog dies. >> she'll also say there have been mistakes in implementation. >> and try to improve the process. >> the roundtable is staying with us. i have my cough drops here. the progressive group move on.org is considering whether to draft senator elizabeth warren to run for president against hillary clinton. warren says she's not running, but the left is looking for a challenger on the left to hillary clinton and they want her. this is "hardball," the place helps you be ready anytime the moment is right. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently.

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vice president biden still talking about he might run for president next time. listen to what he said today at a politico lunch. >> i honest to god haven't made up my mind, and i will do that, i don't see any sense of urgency in making that decision quite frankly. there's a lot of unfinished business. but i don't think that precludes me from running. i'm confident i would be in a position to be able to be competitive, to run a race, to be funded, et cetera. but that's a decision that i'll make at the end of this spring, early summer.

>> biden said he would run if he thought he could make a difference and that he and his family hadn't discussed his potential candidacy as of yet. we'll be right back.

we are back. it turns out, not all democrats are ready for hillary. the left wing group moveon.org plans to spend $1 million on a push to send massachusetts stat senator elizabeth warren to move on. we want to dem strat to senator warren that there's a ground swell of groups nationally and to key states to demonstrate that there's a path to her. a warren spokes woman actually throw e threw cold waterer on the same time that senator warren has said in e many times

she's not backed for president. paul, is there a ground swell for warren to get in this thing? >> no, there is a small group of liberals on the left democratic party that very much wants somebody more progressive. they want the bernie sanders wing, they want the elizabeth warren wing, these are the people that, once upon a time, would have wanted the campaign. they're vocal and they're energetic. at the moment, hillary clinton has the ball. >> i e that's a very non-dennis kucinich thing about elizabeth warren. she comes across as somewhat authentic. it's like real person, real people. people don't want to see a jeb bush, the kind of, like,

dynasties. it's to e too form laic. they want to see rand paul is looking for it in 2016. i think that we tend to underestimate it. >> i think bush is authentic. i think bush is challenging one of the main constituencies in the american public. he's one to take on the anti-immigration crowd. >> quiet frankly, they want to have an alternative. >> it's boredom. they want the new car smell. >> you know, agitation is a good thing in politics. i think the older blogger who is in politics for sheer act vichl, they want to be active. >> we said the same thing in 2008, right? >> it worked. >> we underestimated senator

barack obama. >> i didn't. >> a lot of us did. >> is it going to be an issue that i get excited about me, chris matthews, is i e it going to be about thinking anti-war is too wall street? >> if elizabeth warren gets in, the reason she gets in is because -- >> does elizabeth warren -- >> it's talk about taxing the rich. >> does she have a foreign policy? >> it's all domestic. >> charles, philadelphia tribune, 300,000 in circulation in print. thank you for coming back. and you can be, too. when we return, let me finish with my best thinking about hillary clinton. wait until you catch this. you 'watching hard e "hardball" the place for politics. here's some news you may find surprising.

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we're for creating more innovation and competition. we're for net neutrality protection. now, here's some news you may find even more surprising. we're comcast. the only isp legally bound by full net neutrality rules. let me finish tonight with my best thinking about hillary clinton. it comes down to three factors that an expert once told me are key to the success of any candidate. motive, passion, spontaneity. if hillary clinton wants to be president, she must ask herself why. what is the reason. how would the country and the world be different if she was to lead.

senator, why do you want to be president? second, does hillary clinton have the passion for it? does she love the campaigning? does she look forward to matching wits with the media. with the republicans, does she love debating, love the 24/7 news environment. does she love the edgy days and nights when things were popping. does she like the life of the top level politician. is she not afraid to show to laugh, to cry, to relish it? third, and this is the hard one, does secretary clinton have the spontaneity to be a presidential candidate. it's one thing when you would say to question a rorter last week could she be ready for the question to come next week? does she believe she's got the stuff to stand for tough questioning. can she make a decision for conflict among her various constituencies. can she, when the moment arises, make the call.

moments, passions spont nayty. it takes all three. if you don't have all three, one moment for the top can be one harrowing quest, indeed. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on "all in." >> you also have to work the dark side, if you will, spend time in the shadows and the intelligence world. >> the senate report on bush era torture has been released and we now know just how dark the dark side was. not only was there more torture, but their campaign was to keep awe e all of it in the shadows. >> this program was morally, legally and add min stratively misguided. >> what did president bush go? >> tonight, my exclusive interview with colonel lawrence