network.net. everyone should stand up, of all races. the only way that wrong can persist, to paraphrase dr. king is when good men and women sit and do nothing. thanks for waiting and thanks for watching and thanks for being vigilant. thanks for watching the show tonight. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. power and torture. let's play "hardball." ♪ ♪ good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. power and torture are the big questions tonight. who is calling the shots in washington? and has the united states sworn off the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in the future? on the power front, the emerging power of senator elizabeth

warren tells us which way the wind is blowing in the democratic party. people want to get on the winning side, with the winning team. with the party smaller after the election, it's also more progressive. with the party out of power on capitol hill, it's more drink by anti-wall street fervor than by the need to strike deals with the republicans or the white house. president obama still has to lead. the majority of democrats seem more taken with their new role of all-out opposition. the senate will try to pass the huge spending bill to keep the government working with warren opposes with all her zeal and passion from the democratic left. how far can this insurgency go and how far will it bring to the democratic party that looked last night to be in tatters. >> the american people didn't elect us to stand up for citigroup. they elected us to stand up for all the people. >> we took some steps that were

contrary to who we are, contrary to our values. >> this report says it was not successful. >> the report is full of crap. excuse me. i said hooy yesterday, and let me use the real word. >> protesting before the game were nba stars like lebron james and darren williams who wore, "i can't breathe" t-shirts. >> he knows i want him to run. if i need to reiterate it, i will p run jeb. >> running for the presidency is not an iq test. >> are you stupid? >> i don't think so. >> does m.i.t. employ stupid people? >> not to my knowledge. >> the roundtable tonight ready to talk, joe madison, malika henderson, and bloomberg white house correspondent phil mattingly. i'm going down the line here about where we are tonight right now. it looks to me like the people in the democratic party who think about the future, a lot of black caucus members are thinking, it's time to go left. time not to be making deals.

>> yeah, but the black caucus members are in safe districts. every last single one of them are in safe districts -- >> ergo? >> i'm sorry? >> in other words they can do what? >> oh, they can go as far left as they want. they're going to get re-elected. >> and they've always been in that place. >> and their only fear is somebody younger and to their left. [ laughter ] >> that's exactly right. so that's exactly -- >> what about the pelosi crowd, from the bay area, new york, the liberal whites, moderates -- not moderates, liberals. they're going with them. >> once again, here's what's going to happen. this is going to push the hillary clinton group a little more to the left. she has this reputation, as you know, of being a centrist. >> what is she? >> she's a centrist. [ laughter ] >> i just like to ask for clarification. what does she do when she sees the torrential winds where everybody wants to get on the team with liz weth warren?

>> her rhetoric changes. >> and we've seen some of that already. we've seen her on stage with her when they were campaigning. -- >> saying how businesses don't create jobs. all right, so the wind is blowing. >> walk it back and then finesse is going forward. but i think that's what we're going to see. that's what this elizabeth warren wing wants to see. folks like move on.org. >> nancy pelosi is the toughest leader. tougher than tip ever was. very tough and people like her. she has that magic machiavellian thing, not to be hated, just feared. which is where you want to be. >> yes. >> okay, why is she moving away from the president as we speak? >> she's moving away from the president partly because, and remember, she was a big foot soldier for obama. his agenda couldn't have passed without her. but she's also sensing that she's been cut out by this president, but also she senses

where the winds are going too. >> and the president made a big mistake. and that was, he showed his cards too early. >> that's right. yeah. >> too early. >> explain. >> when he said, i will sign this bill -- >> they sort of gave away the store before they got to the table. >> so it had this give me written by citigroup, which rolls back the tough stuff in dodd-frank to stop the crap that happened -- i hate to use cheney's word -- the stuff that happened after 2008. >> right. so the largest banks, the derivatives, this is a small piece in a very complex part of the bill that banks have been pushing hard to get rid of. >> they wrote it? >> they wrote the vast majority of this bill. but democrats have supported this provision over the last four years. co-sponsored bills. house republicans put it on the floor, 70 democrats voted for it before. you want to watch the power of warren, and pelosi when she grabs on to the message that

elizabeth warren is pitching. no one was willing to go against pelosi at least on the first vote. the anti-wall street and the democrats' willingness to grab on to and run is a fascinating dynamic to watch. >> we'll have some fun tonight. in addition to talk about what's happening right now in the u.s. senate, women. look at the golden gloves. strong women are the leaders of the pack. today democratic leadership is striking back at senator warren. going at her. a senior democratic aide went after senator warren today, telling "hardball," she's the ted cruz of the democratic party. that's a tough shot from a democrat. the purist who may stand on principle, but refusing to be part of the governing majority. >> and president obama fired this shot at his critics. >> this guy definition was a compromise bill. this is what is produced when you have the divided government that the american people voted for. had i been able to draft my own legislation and get it passed without any republican votes, i suspect it would be slightly

different. that is not the circumstance we find ourselves in and i think what the american people very much are looking for is practical governance and the willingness to compromise and that's what this bill reflects. >> so there you have the president using a spray with all the reporters, that he's there trying to make the government work, get us through the christmas season, cut deals on both sides. something for ebola for him, something for the blanks for the other side. you know, the good old meat stew that often works. and along comes elizabeth warren, the crudader, who comes on and just says, no, we don't do that. >> and she's sort of standing up for the democratic wing of the democratic party. and that's certainly the asce ascendant wing as well. democrats aren't going to be in control. they have to compromise. so her role was complicated by that. >> you mean republicans are

going to be in control. >> right. republicans are going to be in control. the question is, how far is elizabeth warren willing to go? ted cruz is not in leadership. elizabeth warren is in leadership. >> what happens if we have a country dominated by two forces, a president who wants to negotiate because he wants to get things done for his record, his legacy, with a party led by people who don't want to do any of that. go ahead. >> look, i don't understand -- >> they want to fight. >> you're absolutely right. i hear him saying, this is what you get. you compromise. it's like making sausage. everyone in washington knows that's how bills are passed. but we all know, that the first vote that's going to be taken in congress is going to be to repeal obamacare. these people do not want to compromise or give this president anything. >> let's be clear.

they're doing it for home consumption. how does that matter? >> it matters because he's not going to get anything done. >> how are those votes going to matter? can't they do good things while they're doing that nonsense? pass those bills, he vetoes them. how does that hurt obama's attempt to govern the country? they did it 40 something times, it doesn't affect anything. he's got the vetoes. >> what they're doing is taking things off the table for nine months to govern. are there going to be issues where republicans pass bills that the president will veto? absolutely. are there going to be things the president does unilaterally that the republicans will go bananas over? absolutely. but are there things that they can get together and work on? i think they'll give it a shot. and there's frustration that

senator warren might undercut whatever goodwill exists. >> what those things are is unclear. >> i'm not go to give up on this president's last two years, joe. >> no, i'm not trying to give up. but what do we get? what do retirees get? they went after retirees' pensions. now it's ten times more. very wealthy people can now give $324,000. what does the average person get? what do we as working people -- >> all philadelphia congress people voted for this thing. do you think it might have something to do with getting the convention? just asking. >> it also has to do with parties wanting to be relevant. you have had the super pacs dominating and the parties making the decisions and the calls. so in some ways, that will revive the parties. >> candidates' money is only a small portion of what they spend on tv. most of the money comes from the parties and the super pacs.

coming up, john mccain enhances the torture debate. he's taking the high moral ground against cheney and the rest of the torture crowd. plus a huge shift by african americans toward gun ownership. a majority say guns offer personal protection. it's doubled in two years. i'd like to know why. and fresh reporting on the 2016 presidential race. it's no longer a question of if for hillary clinton, but when and how. and if you've missed the golden globes nomination, it's politics and more than ever, women in power. this is "hardball," a place for politics. up to 30%? 45%? 60%? the answer is... up to 60% less. and that's a big reason why the u.s. is a world leader in reducing co2 emissions. take the energy quiz -- round 2. energy lives here.

markups, hearings and right now we're watching the senate debate that 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill. that's the bill that senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts has led the charge against because it rolls back a key part of the wall street reforms that were enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. no word yet on when the senate

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we're back with our roundtable. this week, we've been debating the legality and effectiveness on torture. on tuesday, democrats released a report finding the techniques used on several al qaeda detainees after 9/11 didn't work. former bush officials and members of the intelligence community disputed that claim. the issue was divided along party lines with the exception of senator john mccain who has spoken out against the bush-era policy. he did so again today in an interview with andrea mitchell on msnbc. >> we did not torture german or japanese prisoners who had attacked the united states and killed untold numbers of americanss in the course of that war. why didn't we do that? we're americans.

prisoners being held by them as well. and there's a geneva convention that doesn't apply just to declared wars or prisoners of war, but people who are held prisoner. and obviously these enhanced interrogation techniques were in violation of that as well. >> on the senate floor earlier this week, mccain made it clear his position is based on personal experience. he was a p.o.w. in vietnam for 5 1/2 years and was tortured by his captors. >> 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. >> this is where my heart goes with john mccain. i give him the credibility. he knows of what he speaks. >> people just stopped and listened to this floor speech. there's not a lot of time when people stop and listen to the speeches in the house, but in the senate as well. people stopped and listened. he's the moral authority on this. and i think what struck everybody as they listened to this, is how partisan it's been since the report was released, an issue that nobody wanted to be partisan in the first place. and john mccain comes out and rises above everything else. i think that added some clarity to an issue that's become divisive in a way that i don't think people wanted it to be. john mccain was the one who rose above. >> just to flip the coin to the other side, dick cheney has been speaking out about the senate report. here he is on fox, disputing its key findings. >> we're going to find out. we've got khalid sheikh

mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, who's killed 3,000 americans, and he is in our possession. we know he's the architect. and what are we supposed to do? kiss him on both cheeks and say, please, please, tell us what you know? of course not. we did exactly what needed to be done in order to catch those who are guilty on 9/11 and to prevent further attack, and we were successful on both parts. >> this report says it's not successful. >> the report is full of crap. i said hooey yesterday, let me use the real word. what needed to be done was done. we were perfectly justified in doing it and i'd do it again in a minute. >> he's be a great african dictator this guy. he just does what he wants to do. snarls before he does it, and just, as we know, well, as we know. >> you know, the reason people stopped and listened to mccain is because the one word that we should use, he's authentic.

he's the real thing. this man is not the real thing. this is a man who got deferment. instead of going to vietnam. he's got some nerve sitting up there, questioning a man who was tortured. then of course, here's the argument. it's just common sense. if i torture you to the point of pain, you're going to tell me anything. and i still have to check what you tell me because you may have told me just to stop the pain. it's absurd. >> let me give you the tougher argument. after i've checked and found that you were lying, i keep torturing you. >> thank you. >> any thoughts about this? >> it will be interesting how this will look ten years from now. there's a great bit of partisan division with mccain being the exception -- >> is that why the president's hesitant? i know he's issued a statement of principle. >> yeah. >> but he seems to avoid punching back and forth. >> and there have been people calmi

calling for prosecutions and litigate that. >> that's not going to happen. >> but he wanted this report out there. but who knows, ten years from now, is this still going to be informing our politics? what will 2016 candidates say about this? >> i think there's a recognition that he doesn't just represent people who are upset about what the cia did, he represents the cia as well. >> it's his cia now. >> the cia director is a close aide of his, who is a career cia guy, who he knew would come out and defend the agency. the reason he's walked such a careful like on this throughout the entire week, he knows he's not just representing the people who are very angry about this. this isn't a campaign. he oversees the intelligence community, relies on them tremendously and sees what they do every single day -- >> is he afraid they will back down, not that they won't do the sip wits interrogation room and get tough with the questions, but they'll be so afraid of doing anything, that they'll pull back completely from any aggressive interrogations? >> you know what concerns me, is

not ten years from now, what will be the politics. ten years from now, five years from now, if we are attacked again, will we go back to being inhumane? >> that's a good question. >> because when fear sits in with americans, we do crazy things. we did it in world war ii. look what we did to the japanese. when fear sits in, we just throw the law out the books. >> on the torture issue, i would side with us against them, the japanese, what they did to us. torturing those -- >> i'm talking about what we did to american citizens. >> i'm talking about the torture done on the other side. >> i'm talking about american citizens. >> if i had to be a p.o.w., like to be an italian guy in the south during world war ii, when you had three years to relax -- >> now, remember, a million germans died in prison camp. >> not here. >> in europe. >> but not here. you never want to go with the russians. >> what i'm referring to is what

we did to japanese american citizens, we threw the constitution out the window. >> the pivotal question in all of this, did these torture techniques work? did they produce useful intelligence? the answer is still strongly debated. let's watch. >> the committee found that the cia's coercive interrogation techniques were not an effective means of acquiring active intelligence. >> actionable intelligence that was otherwise unavailable was not obtained using these coercive interrogation techniques. >> we got an awful lot of information. look, we want to quibble, did we get this one here or that one there, but fundamentally, these interrogations of all detainees, gave us a home depot like storage on al qaeda on which we

relied -- we're still relying on it today. >> there was useful intelligence, valuable intelligence that was obtained from individuals who had been at some point subjected to the eits. whether that could have been obtained without the use of those eits is something that is unknowable. breaking news right now, we're watching that debate on the senate floor. senator elizabeth warren has taken the floor. let's listen to the senator. >> mr. president -- >> the senator from massachusetts. >> thank you, mr. president, and thank you for yielding the senior senator from maryland and vermont. you both show extraordinary leadership and we learn from you every day. mr. president, i'm back on the floor to talk about a dangerous provision that was slipped into a must-pass spending bill at the last minute, solely to benefit wall street. this provision would repeal a rule called -- and i'm going to

quote the title of the rule -- prohibition against federal government bailouts of swaps entities. on wednesday i came to the floor asking them to strip the provision out of the bill and protect taxpayers. on thursday i came to the floor to talk to republicans. republicans say they don't like bailouts either. so i asked them to vote the way they talk. if they don't like bailouts, then they could take out this provision that puts taxpayers right back on the hook for bailing out big banks. today i'm coming to the floor not to talk about democrats or republicans, but to talk about a third group that also wields tremendous power in washington. citigroup. mr. president, in recent years, many wall street institutions have exerted extraordinary influence in washington's corridors of power. but citigroup has risen above the others.

its grip over economic policy-making in the executive branch is unprecedented. consider just a few examples. three of the last four treasury secretaries under democratic presidents have had close citigroup ties. the fourth was offered the ceo position at citigroup but turned it down. the vice chair of the federal reserve system is a citigroup alum. the undersecretary for international affairs at treasury is a citigroup alum. the u.s. trade representative and the person nominated to be his deputy, who is currently an assistant secretary at treasury, are citigroup alums. a recent chairman of the national economic council at the white house was a citigroup alum. another recent chairman of the office of management and budget went to citigroup immediately after leaving the white house. and another recent chairman of the office of management and

budget is also a city alum. but i'm double counting here because he's now the secretary of the treasury. now, that's a lot of powerful people, all from one bank. but they aren't the only way that citigroup exercises power. over the years, the company has spent millions of dollars on lobbying congress and funding the political campaigns of its friends in the house and senate. citigroup has also spent millions trying to influence the political process in ways that are far more subtle. and hidden from public view. last year, i wrote citigroup and other big banks, asking them to disclose the amount of shareholder money that they have been diverting to think-tanks to influence public policy. citigroup's response to my letter, stonewalling. a year has gone by, and

citigroup didn't even acknowledge receiving my letter. citigroup has a lot of money. it spends a lot of money. and it uses that money to grow and consolidate power. and it pays off. consider a couple of facts. fact one, during the financial crisis, when all the support through tarp and from the fdic and the fed is added up, citi received nearly half a trillion dollars in bailouts. that's half a trillion with a t. that's almost $140 billion more than the next biggest bank got. fact two, during dodd-frank, there was an amendment introduced by my colleague, senator brown and senator kauffman, that would have broken up citigroup and the other largest banks. now, that amendment had bipartisan support and it might

have passed, but it ran into powerful opposition from an alliance between wall streeters on wall street and wall streeters who held powerful government jobs. they teamed up and they blocked the move to break up the banks. and now citi is larger than ever. the role that senior officials played from the treasury department, played in killing the amendment wasn't subtle. a senior treasury official acknowledged it at the time in a background interview with new york magazine, the official from treasury said and i'm going to quote here, if we had been for it, it probably would have happened. but we weren't, so it didn't. that's power. mr. president, democrats don't like wall street bailouts. republicans don't like wall street bailouts. the american people are disgusted by wall street

bailouts. and yet here we are five years after dodd-frank with congress on the verge of ramming through a provision that would do nothing for the middle class, do nothing for community banks, do nothing but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again. you know, there's a lot of talk lately about how dodd-frank isn't perfect. there's a lot of talk coming from citigroup about how dodd-frank isn't perfect. so let me say this to anyone who is listening at citi, i agree with you. dodd-frank isn't perfect. it should have broken you into pieces. if this congress is going to open up dodd-frank in the months ahead, then let's open it up to get tougher, not to create more bail-out opportunities. if we're going to open up

dodd-frank, let's open it up, so that once and for all, we end "too big to fail," and i mean really end it, not just say that we did. instead of passing laws that create new bail-out opportunities for "too big to fail" banks, let's pass braun kauffman, the bipartisan 21st century glass steegel act, a bill i've proposed with john mccain, angus cane and maria kant well, let's pass anything that would help break up these giant banks. a century ago, teddy roosevelt was america's trust-buster. he went after the giant trusts and monopolies in this country and a lot of people talk about how those trusts deserved to be broken up, because they had too much economic power. but teddy roosevelt said, we should break them up because they had too much political

power. teddy roosevelt said, break them up because all that concentrated power threatens the very foundations of our democratic system. and now we're watching as congress passes yet another provision that was written by lobbyists for the biggest recipient for bail-out money in the history of this country. and it's attached to a bill that needs to pass or else the entire federal government will grind to a halt. think about that kind of power. if a financial institution has become so big and so powerful that it can hold the entire country hostage, that alone is reason enough to break them up. enough is enough. enough is enough with wall

street insiders getting key position after key position, and the kind of cronyism that we have seen in the executive branch. enough is enough with citigroup passing 11th hour deregulatory provisions that nobody takes ownership over, but everybody will come to regret. enough is enough. washington already works really well for the billionaires and the big corporations and the lawyers and the lobbyists. but what about the families who lost their homes or their jobs or their retirement savings the last time citi bet big on derivatives and lost. what about the families who are living paycheck to paycheck and saw their tax dollars go to bail-out citi, just six years ago? we were sent here to fight for those families, and it is time,

it is past time for washington to start working for them. thank you, mr. president. i yield. >> senator elizabeth warren in massachusetts speaking on the senate floor against that $1.1 trillion spending bill. let's go to kelly o'donnell on the hill. i have never heard anything so well done on the floor of the senate as i just heard that. that was something. >> she made quite a legal argument. the former harvard law professor in a withering dissection of her assessment of how there's that crony yimp. the real question, will it carry the day? she's made a lot of impact over the last 48 hours or so. she and nancy pelosi and maxine waters leading the liberal charge to say that this particular provision should be taken out. but the sense we're getting right now is that elizabeth warren has not told us if she would use her power as a singular senator to hold this up. any senator has that authority to slow things down.

she spoke forcefully about wanting to have that provision taken out of the measure to keep the government running, about you we don't get a sense that she's going to do any steps that would personally bring about an obstruction that she would take on herself. so what is the hold-up that we're seeing? there is additional time on the clock because there was an extension granted by the house and approved by the senate, but why aren't they voting yet? from what we can understand from talking to aides, the two leaders, harry reid and mitch mcconnell, are trying to sort out the rest of the to-do list before the holiday break that goes beyond keeping the government funded. it deals with nominations and things like that. they've not yet been able to get that sorted out. debate continues tonight and we simply wait to find out when will they vote. they of course very mindful of the deadline. and chances are, there will be one of two things that play out. they could give it a little extra time, which would carry them through to wednesday, or

tell us a time they would actually vote. the expectation, there would be enough votes to get this through, but anything can happen in the senate and we don't have a conclusive answer yet. >> kelly o'donnell, thank you. we're back with the panel now. ryan, i think warren had a great moment there. doesn't matter how this vote will pass or not. she doesn't want to be the person who stopped the government. she wants to be the person who took the fight to wall street for the american people. >> this motion is going to get a vote, whether it's tonight, whether it's sunday or monday, it's done. but she's done something remarkably here. and anything could happen from this. this hasn't been done on the senate floor in a very long time. who knows what the public reaction is going to be. but wall street has been put on notice, if they'll try to continue to chip away at dodd-frank, this is the kind of pain they're going to have to suffer each time. so they're going to have to

weigh the costs and the benefits -- >> the pain being looking like you're in cahoots with the big banks. >> yes. >> especially citigroup, which everybody knows about. >> she put the administration on notice. she put them on notice. let me tell you, if i were advising her, i would tell her, keep doing it, hold it up, because the phones ought to be ringing off the hook in the senate. let me tell you something. you know, i have this old saying, my grandfather used to say, put it where the goats can get it. it's an old country saying because goats eat down to the root. every american listening to that got it. >> so well said. >> there's this perception that because the republicans will control congress, wall street is going to start being able to make deals. i hope they enjoyed getting this out of this krom nib us bill. because what they did in inciting elizabeth warren, drawing house democrats, drawing

pelosi into this, they made this an issue people are paying attention to. this was a victory for wall street to get this. this was a painful victory for them. this is going to carry over. democrats have seized on this. they now see what's working here. that speech -- >> that list of people that have histories working for citi corp, like they still are. this is powerful stuff. i've watched this a long time. this woman was annie oaky tonight, shooting directly at the heart of wall street. and the old rule of politics is always shoot up. shoot the bigger guy, then you look like the hero. >> and what does hillary clinton say? >> she's off tonight. [ laughter ] >> roundtable is coming back up next. next a stunning shift on guns in this country. a majority of african americans say gun ownership offers more personal protection. that number has doubled in nearly two years. and how much of that is because of what happened to trayvon

martin, to michael brown, to eric garner? you can put it together yourself. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. ur cashback for any amount, any time. that's great. yeah, you can use it for a statement credit or even get the cash. nice. i could use that extra cash for a last-minute gift... one less thing hanging over your head, right? tell me about it. (to guy.) gary, you got to go. who's gary? a mistake from last year coming back around again... too much egg nog! yes! laaaaa... at discover we treat you like you'd treat you. now redeem your cashback for any amount, any time. get it at discover.com. heyou can get greatds honey! discounts on 1-800-flowers.com...oh... roadside assistance from allstate, and avis, budget and budget truck. all in one place... aarpdiscounts.com. popcorn? find offers from regal cinemas, walgreens... and kellogg's...they're great! and on exciting entertainment! c'mon guys, the millers just got their cards, too! check out the possibilities. aarpdiscounts.com.

welcome back to "hardball." in the two years since the newtown massacres, support for gun ownership in this country has increased across the board as more americans say guns do more to protect than put people at risk. according to the results of a new poll. also capitol hill staffers protested the grand jury decisions in ferguson and in the eric garner cases by rallying yesterday on the steps of the capitol. that was really something. and also professional athletes around the country are also joining the fight for racial justice by wearing t-shirts remembering eric garner during warm-ups with "i can't breathe." it's hard to say this issue will be going away anytime soon. back now with the roundtable, let's talk about these pugh numbers. what do you make of this, this jump in the number of african americans who support the need for a gun as your self-protection? >> i'm going to have to put this on my show on monday to get a

sense -- of it. >> i was doing my crazy morning read of everything. there it was at the bottom of "the new york times," this very established poll. it's a real poll. >> like we were talking, for example in the south, my parents, grandparents are from the south, they've always had guns. now, in some tase cases, it was for hunting. >> that's rural versus city. >> that's right. when i was growing up in dayton, ohio, high grandfather owned a pistol and a shot gun. now why? i think because he was old school. >> when he heard a noise in the middle of the night, did he go get the gun? >> my grandfather was 6'8", and he just showed up. [ laughter ] >> you raise that issue, not to get -- everybody who thinks about getting a gun, they think it will make them safer and make their own decisions. you have to be willing to use it. that's the scary part. it's like a cowboy movie, you

don't pull the gun and say, put your hands up. that's not going to work. >> i'm going to make a confession here. there was danger, because i was a child. >> and you knew where the guns were. >> i picked it up, i cocked it. >> loaded? >> loaded. scared me to death. and i had sense enough to know how to cock it back. never touched it again. >> how old were you? >> 8 years old. >> i grew up in the south. there were guns in my home, there were guns in my neighbor's home. you'd shoot to celebrate new year's. >> you want to hear guns, go to to southeast washington, d.c. on new year's? >> don't the bullets come down? >> all the time. >> down south, that's what you do. >> here in washington, d.c. >> how does this fit with the racial "zeitgeist"? >> this does come against the backdrop of several high profile

killings of african americans. whether it's trayvon martin, ren eesha mcbride as well. >> give you some pushback in the black community. people are also very much against the stand your ground laws which really put the power in the hands of the one with the gun. isn't it interesting? >> unless you're a black guy that shoots a white guy. then all of a sudden -- >> okay, but the law, the way it's written, it says the one with the gun has the right too shoot out of fear. phil? >> first up, i'm flummoxed by the pole. i'm going to be completely honest. how you can have that large of a jump in two years, gun ownership nationwide has gone up. >> and support for it. >> support for it as well. but that something could jump that high, i think there are so many possible reasons why, and i'm sure it's not just one -- >> don't trust the police? >> i think there are so many elements here. to drill down and figure out what those are, that in is of itself -- >> it might be a technical one. maybe we're being asked for the

first time. >> it jumped, so the question was asked before. let me ask you, displays of racial brotherhood or pride or defiance. >> all the protests going on. >> the nba players showing up with the "i can't breathe" t-shirts. >> giancarlo is a good friend of mine, tommy smith, muhammad ali. >> bill russell. >> jim brown. and you know what, i'm proud of lebron james than i am of michael jordan. >> michael jordan didn't want to do this. >> didn't want to risk his career and his money. >> they know when they take off those jerseys, they could being michael brown. thigh know that. >> if you talk to the folks who organized that on the hill, they talked about that, they're in privileged positions, wearing suits to work everyday, but

there's a realization that they have a solidarity in terms of experience and perception, how they're perceived. >> what was the crowd reaction? anybody know? >> i know that geraldo made a fool of himself by suggesting that the problems in the black community are too complicated for us to even figure out how to solve them. i mean, we -- >> who is we? >> the black community. it's too complicated. and he would have rather he wore a t-shirt that said, take care of my child. one doesn't have anything to do with the other. >> these stars today, mostly african american, these athletic stars are really big stars. i don't think they were around 50 years ago. the guys like lebron and michael jordan, just like they're almost prom eethian. >> they're cultural heroes. >> kids have them on their walls at home. >> and jay-z is obviously in there, and he was part of organizing this as well, giving

the t-shirts to some of these folks. this is the hip-hop generation. and hip-hop had been a soundtrack in talking about police brutality -- >> isn't the same thing that john lewis, martin luther king, that that generation did when they said -- >> and they were yung too. >> when we come back, new reporting on hillary clinton, what she's up to. it's no longer a question of if she's going to run. it's how and when. the when question is getting close. we're almost to new year's now, a few weeks off and we're getting to the clock. i think we all know she's running, but when and how, and what's the timing between her and bauelizabeth warren. this is "hardball," the place for politics. kid: do you pay him? dad: of course. kid: how much? dad: i don't know exactly. kid: what if you're not happy? does he have to pay you back? dad: nope. kid: why not? dad: it doesn't work that way. kid: why not? vo: are you asking enough questions

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in stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and more, swanson® makes holiday dishes delicious! we just watched that strong speech on the senate floor by senator elizabeth warren. here was the response to that from senator lindsey graham of south carolina. >> let me respond to my good friend from massachusetts. you're tired, you're frustrated, you're upset about a provision in the bill you don't like, you think it takes the country down the wrong road. you have every right to be upset. you have every right to vote no and to argue to bring the bill down. you know what a lot of people on our side are tired of? the president changing the law whenever he would like. >> "hardball," back after this.

>> "hardball," back after this. thanks. ♪ [ male announcer ] fedex® has solutions to enable global commerce that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. great job. (mandarin) ♪ cut it out. >>see you tomorrow. ♪ a wake-up call. but it's not happening out there. it's happening in here. [ sirens wailing ] inside of you. even if you're treating your crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis,

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up to 60% less. and that's a big reason why the u.s. is a world leader in reducing co2 emissions. take the energy quiz -- round 2. energy lives here. welcome back to "hardball." another nugget in the news in the greszing of when hillary clinton will get into the presidentble race. a bit later than previous reports that ind kated that ill ri will be closer to the yoor. in fact, about a month. calculating the pluses and minuses of a spring anoingsment. we're back now with the round table. ryan and fill. first of all, ryan, thanks for joining us tonight. it seems to me, if you're hillary clinton, you're thinking all of the time. she's a thinker. and she's thinking i want to put

it on as close as possible. but then again, you've got this woman tonight. this potential, if not candidate alternative in people's eyes. >> right. so what are the advantages? in the meantime, you've got elizabeth warren on the floor here, you know, building a movie here. she's gathering energy. sell's gathering people mind her for a particular cause. citi group who wrote this piece of ledge slags and clammed it through in the middle of the night. i think you'll v more than a million people who will watch this speech that we just saw on youtube over the next couple days. she'll probably defer. warren has said, you know, when she was pushing for the cfpb, i'd rather have a good cfpb or i want blood and teeth on the senate floor. she just put blood and teeth on

the senate floor. >> it reminds me of the old days when you had gene mccarthy to fight for the democrats. he got out there. bobby didn't. >> elizabeth warren is in front right now. the spring start date might be a bubble that lasted all of 24-36 hours. the clintons have always been keeping a close eye on her. when they appeared with elizabeth warren, they lavished her and the type of candidate. >> we just saw that wonderful performance, that wonderful presentation. i'm telling you, i've been watching speeches for a long time and that's memorable. that's a clear cut arpgment against a recognized brand name. a bit e big shot. citi group. and she took them on. named all the people that came from that company and efb out there, watch this. i get it. they've got too much power. >> she won't do that. >> here's the one thing she can't do is take on a business

community like elizabeth warren just did. wed know that the grass roots, which love elizabeth warren, is in that place right now. >> what about her aattempt a fe weeks agr. squl that's not the candidate that she's set out to be. >> what's fascinating here is the backdrop. eechd party has its own nemesis. use e used to be big labor. we hate government. we hate bureaucracy. the democratic party, to a sliegtly lesser extent is a big entity. banks. >> right. and she can take on this enemy in a way that hillary clinton cant. and she can often get two wins out of it.

it was condescending. it was very precise. >> it was nothing. it was nothing at all affected by emotional. it was a very ar tick late statement of what's wrong with a system that allows a bank to stop and basically blackmail the united states government saying you will not continue functions unless we get what we want. that's power. >> six years and very few politicians have been able to tap in to a very real rage. the obama administration didn't. their main rationale being they had to maintain the system, the financial system, the banks, as it was, or else they would collapse. elizabeth warren doesn't have to worry about that right now. >> she doesn't have to govern the country yet. anyway, thank you ffr joining us. when we return, let me finish with torture, a subject with

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let me finish tonight with torture, a subject with which i've had no experience but know someone who has. john mccain. whatever you think of his politics or sometimes what he says, he's been capable of greatness. yes, he has. like when in the midst of his campaign for president, he

refused to accept a woman's asaults on the president's ethnicity. he had this moment to decide whether to let her slur pass. he corrected her respectfully, but powerfully. you don't get much of that in american politics these days. you just don't. and i wish so much that we did. everyone can surely tell i am a romantic about this bid of liezer ship. i want it to be real. and at that moment of greatness, john mccain came through. i can only assume that much of the damage that affects him now he keeps to himself. that is what fighting men do. what warriors do. when sacrifice or the wisdom came home with him. so let me be plain, when john mccain spent all of those years, especially our own, i know who to trust. whose word to honor.

whose wisdom deserves our greatest respect. that's hardball for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on "all in". all eyes on the senate where they will now decide the fate of the wall street give away. >> the american people didn't elect us to stand up for citi group. they elected us to stand up for all the people. >> tonight, the latest on the comnibus revolt. then, what conservatives get wrong about drones and torture. president obama simply kills them with drones. is that more humane than waterer boarding? >> plus, forcing police to count who they shoot. >> do you think you've ever