it's a big day in the nation's capital. two big stories developing at this hour. first up what you're seeing are the crowds gathering right now for a march to capitol hill to protest police violence. it is called the justice for all march. it's being organized by the national action network headed by the reverend al sharpton who also hosts a program right here on msnbc. also, the senate set to convene a rare saturday session. there's a lot on that agenda today and a potentially early sunday morning vote to move forward on the funding bill for the 2015 fiscal year. we have msnbc's kacie hunt and trymaine lee with us. trymaine, describe the scene there. >> reporter: there are already thousands of people gathered here in freedom plaza preparing to march about 12 blocks southeast towards the capitol. there are people with signs, some of what we've seen in ferguson that black lives matter. others have posted pictures of

loved ones who have been killed by police. that's an energy that's already kind of building, not so much anger but this kind of -- this swell of energy is pretty surprising. just moments ago, we had the parents of tamir rice, the 12-year-old shot and killed by police in cleveland recently. she spoke and said that police, please don't shoot, our children want to grow up. esau garner, the widow of eric garner, killed by a chokehold by a police officer in new york, she says she's marching not only for her husband but all the sons and husbands. there are thousands here gather gathered. >> trymaine, you've been in ferguson and in different places, the eric garner case, staten island, reporting for us. i'm curious. do you get a sense that all of these tragedies are converging together and it is becoming an official movement now, not just individual protests from many places across this country but an actual movement? >> reporter: oh, yeah. every indication points that

people in communities and cities all across the country p those who love victims of police violence, et cetera, are all starting to connect the dots and are feeding on each other. everyone's supporting everyone else. these are planned all across the country. the issue to call it a movement is there are still groups that are very disjointed. what's happening in phoenix may be different than the climate in cleveland. while there is so much energy across the country and we're seeing this kind of groundswell and flow all in one similar direction, it's hard to know at this point whether it be sustainable. not for lack of energy or intent. >> trymaine, thanks for covering things for us from the heart of washington, d.c. from there now just up the road to capitol hill, that's where the senate is just starting a rare saturday session. on that agenda, several procedural votes on nominations and the 2015 fiscal year spending bill that's already been passed by the house. now it hits the senate.

kacie hunt is at the white house for it. what's first on the agenda for the senators? >> reporter: it was all a little bit unexpected and forced in part by senator ted cruz. senator minority leader mitch mcconnell left the capitol telling reporters, see you monday, assuming he had an agreement with democrats to move forward on this in a little bit more of an orderly fashion. instead, cruz went to the floor, objected. now we're here with this saturday session. unless something changes, they'll vote late tonight. the government funding currently expires late on saturday, today. but the house has passed a measure that would allow them to extend that into early next week if the senate can't reach an agreement today and has to come back again for this weekend. >> okay. so everything that's going down today, these are procedural votes. there's cloture and all that. so the actual spending bill, that won't come up till monday? >> reporter: well, these procedural votes are related to the spending bill.

basically what they're trying to do is craft an agreement so they can say, we're going to go forward and pass this bill. the senate can basically do whatever it wants with the consent of all 100 senators. but they need that consent. right now, they're not getting it because of senator cruz. on the left, you also have elizabeth warren who wants to vote on an amendment that would strip from this bill the provisions in there that would help wall street, would relax some of the rules on derivative swaps included in that dodd/frank financial law. not sure whether she'll get a vote of that kind. but at this point, it's cruz that's sticking his finger into the wheels. >> thank you. a perfect set-up for what's coming now. joining me with more on the spending bill, democratic congressman adam schiff, member of the appropriations committee and intelligence committee. always good to see you, sir. let's talk about the vote. i understand you voted against the bill as that countdown clock was ticking away. from your perspective, would a

government shutdown have been worth it if the bill did not pass? >> no, but a government shutdown was really never in the cards. both parties have agreed that's not what we're going to do. in fact, the house passed a measure to keep the government open until next week. so there's plenty of time to remove those two offensive provisions from the bill that don't really belong there, the giveaway to wall street that would basically put taxpayers on the hook if we have another meltdown because wall street is engaging in very risky transactions. and this ten-time increase in campaign contributions to the political parties. so i hope that senator warren's measure will be taken up and those provisions can be stripped out and the senate can pass it and the house can come back and pass it as well. but i don't think anyone is talking about a shutdown at this point. >> and if i remember correctly, i read that a wealthy couple can contribute over $3 million now, is that true, to a campaign? >> that's right. we took limits that were in about the $30,000 to $40,000

range and we tripled those. then we tripled the number of categories that you could give those amounts to. so the effect was basically to increase tenfold the amount that wealthy contributors could give. some speculate that this is a way to open the door for those that are benefiting from the wall street provisions to come back and pay the party tenfold. i don't know whether that's exactly correct. but it will have that impact, not only that impact in terms of wall street benefactors. this is just a terrible legislative process. these provisions don't belong in a government funding bill. it says a lot that they have to be snuck in in the middle of the flight in this mega proposal. >> what are you hearing about the prospects for a senate vote? >> i'm sure they'll take it within the next day or two, i don't know if it will be today or linger into moond. my guess is it will ultimately pass. but i hope that elizabeth warren is given that opportunity, put

the members on record. are they for these special interest provisions or, do they belong in the bill or not? that, i hope, she will get a vote on. i don't know if she will. but i'd love to see those provisions stripped. at the end of the day, though, looks like the broader parameters of the bill which are good are likely to pass. it's just my hope it will pass without those special interest provisions. >> let's talk about the cia torture report. you and i have been talking terrorism and national security for a long time now. you've also been privy to a lot of classified information that your colleagues are not able to see. what was your reaction when you read this report and do you think anyone should be prosecuted for their role? >> well, i thought this was very brave of senator feinstein. i give the democrats on the senate intelligence committee for pushing forward against a lot of opposition to do the investigation to begin with and then for releasing this report. i think it's enormously important for the country to see it, to read it. there are still some people defending torture. there are still some people claiming these enhanced

interrogation techniques, the waterboarding, don't amount to torture. i think anyone who reads the graphic descriptions of what was done will acknowledge this was torture and it was wrong. we want to make sure it's never repeated again. i think it was essential the report be released. it's part of the health of our democracy to come clean even on some of the ugly chapters in our history. in terms of prosecutions, it's very hard -- speaking as a former prosecutor -- to prosecute people for those who rely on the justice department to say it was legal. but those who went outside that guidance -- and the cia director acknowledged that people went beyond what the justice department said was legal, i think the justice department needs to look again at the evidence in this report and decide whether there's new evidence that would warrant prosecuting people for ignoring the limits that were imposed by the justice department. >> on "morning joe" yesterday, they spoke with john rizzo, the former acting director general of the cia.

let's take a listen to this. >> so what was nancy pelosi briefed on? was she briefed on the waterboarding, an all the enhanced interrogation techniques at that time? >> yeah, chapter and verse, all of it in detail. the sleep deprivation, all of it. the point is, none of them expressed any concern, opposition. the sense from all of them in those early halcyon days was, is this all you're doing? is this all you need? >> members of congress like nancy pelosi, jay rockefeller, were members of the specific gang of 8 back in 2002, they were involved in all the top-level briefings. is this public reproaching from them -- is that just a flip-flop now because the national climate has changed since the immediate aftermath of 9/11? >> no. i honestly don't believe what we're just hearing from mr. rizzo. if you look at what a lot of the agency defenders are saying now, they're saying things like, well, the member of congress

said, do what it takes to find out those who were responsible. and claiming that that was a knowing green lighting of torture. that is an extraordinarily, i think, tortured reading of those kind of comments. and if they're going to say that that's the kind of guidance that they were given or those were the kind of ambiguous comments they made to members of congress and are going to hold those up to justify that they fully informed congress, if you look at this report, you see that a lot of these representations about what they were doing were incorrect, how they were doing it were incorrect. and so i think -- i understand why mr. rizzo who is very much a part of this and justifying this would say what he does, i think as you can see from the report itself as well as some of the defenders, these acknowledgments of what was going on were far less than candid with members of congress. >> california democrat representative adam schiff, thank you so much. let's go to other news now. police used pepper spray to break up a disturbance on the campus of western illinois university. it happened after a large fight

erupted after a peaceful march. the fights that break out were not related to the march. police have a suspect under arrest in a shooting outside a high school in portland, oregon. the shooting appears to be gang related. three people were sent to the hospital. another student treated at the scene after a bullet grazed her foot. all were either students or in related job training programs. the spirit of santa claus is alive and well in omaha, nebraska. a woman dropped money. the money was for a bank deposit for rent and bills. another woman found the cash and returned it instead of keeping it. her story made headlines a decade ago. why the first female kicker at the university of colorado and a campus sexual assault victim has to say about the recent uproar on college campuses around this country. and later, a rare sight in los angeles and the people who lived to tell about it. made.

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at a quarter past the hour, two big stories from washington, d.c. that we're watching for you. on the left, you're seeing the justice for all march. that is going from freedom plaza right up to capitol hill being led by the reverend al sharpton of the national action network and msnbc. then to the right, you see a rare saturday session for the senate. that's where they are trying to get through the funding bill and avoid a government shutdown. that vote maybe not happening till monday. a lot of procedural votes. we'll be following for you here on msnbc. hey! oh, [ bleep ]. >> you know where that is? southern california. people are trying to recover from a rare tornado that pounded that region and ripped parts of rooftops off of buildings.

>> i just said, oh, lord, watch me. and then, boom! i got drenched. she's screaming, get in, get in, get in! it was really scary. >> the storm system that brought that tornado is on the move and the weather channel's reynolds wolf has more on that plus the nation's forecast. hi, reynolds. >> alex, we're going to keep a sharp focus on what's happening back out towards the west because california, as you know very well, you've had the rain, the sleet, the snow, the flooding, the mud slides, rock slides. it's been crazy. now we're going to see some of this rough weather drift towards the east. as it moves eastward, it's going to combine with a few other things. cold air will surge in from the north, that big trough in the jet stream. but at the same time, out ahead of it, we'll see a resurgence of moist air coming in from the gulf of mexico. it's going to be that low, the jet stream and it's also going to be the moisture that's going to give you the 1, 2, 3 combination. that's where we'll have snow into the rockies. but the central plains, mainly a rainfall event.

the rainfall event, could see flooding in some places the. but there's also a chance we might be dealing with strong storms, especially midday into the afternoon hours as things become increasingly unstable. please will careful for dallas, places like oklahoma city, it's going to be kind of rough at times. but out towards the west, if you're a skier for parts of the central northern rockies, good times. many of you could see up to a foot of snow at the highest peaks. certainly what a lot of skiers and snowboarders want to deal with. travelers, not so much. back to you. >> thank you, reynolds wolf. a new report by the justice department shows just how hard it is for sexual assault victims to report their attacks. this comes on the heels of the university of virginia "rolling stone" controversial. the justice department report found about 20% of campus sexual assault victims go to police. many victims say they did not report because they feared reprisal and did not believe the police could do anything to help. my gegs understanext guest unde very well. in 2000, katie hnida was the

first kicker at the university of colorado and says she was raped by a teammate. she came forward four years later. joining me now, katie hnida, a campus sexual assault survivor and a speaker. katie, thank you so much for coming forward and sharing your story. i want you to take me back ten years when instead of support, you received quite the opposite treatment when you said you'd been raped. >> well, i have to be honest, alex, it was like nothing i actually ever thought could happen. the entire experience of being raped really was, i think that i thought initially, of course i would go straight to the police if i was raped. and i always thought that rape was going to be something where it was a stranger coming after you with a knife in an alleyway. i never dreamed that it would be an acquaintance rape which is what is far most common on college campuses. part of the reason why it's so hard to report. >> yeah.

>> and after you do decide to report, just the pushback that you get is absolutely unbelievable. there are so many people -- i'm sorry? >> i just wanted to say, you report but then there's no criminal charges that resulted from your alleged assault. but you still go public. in fact, you recently told "the washington post," i didn't expect such disregard for my life, i was a virgin when this happened and incredibly naive. i thought coming forward would force the university to acknowledge it had problems and make changes, instead, it exploded. how did you get through that? >> i have to be honest. it was hard. i was really that i had an amazing support system down in albuquerque, including the community, the fans, my teammates, coaches, my family, who was up in denver. but it was -- there were days when i could not leave my apartment. in the initial days after i spoke out, i couldn't go

anywhere without having reporters follow me. there were tons of different rumors being spread around me to try to discredit me. when i talk about the disregard for my life, i am stunned that there were people who were from the university of colorado who didn't care what it took to try to take down my character, to try to make it look like i was lying. it just didn't matter to them. >> it's not even past tense. you say you're still called a liar today. >> absolutely. absolutely. it's a really unfortunate thing. but there certainly is a group of people who say because i didn't do x, y, z, because i didn't immediately go to the police -- i did go to the police just not immediately after my rape. because i chose not to prosecute that i'm automatically lying about the assault. >> in terms of the lying, katie, a study finds that the number of false allegations runs anywhere

from just 2% to 10% of all reported cases. and a cdc study found nearly one in five women in america report they were raped. why do you think the narrative about women lying about rape persists? >> well, i think there are a couple of reasons for this. the first one is that we tend to remember the media attention that the false accusations get. right now, i've seen a lot of people with the uva situation pointing back to duke lacrosse. well, i think duke lacrosse was 2008 maybe. and in between 2008 and where we are now, there literally have been hundreds of thousands of rapes. we just haven't heard about that. so i think the false accusations, because they're rare and they get the media attention, they stick in our minds. >> and the problem in general about rape on college campuses, as we said earlier, 20% of campus rapes are reported. that means a lot more are going unreported. do you think universities and

leaders in administration are taking this issue seriously enough? do you think enough is being done? >> well, i think that they are starting to. what has been wonderful, the one bright spot to come out of all this negativity that has been happening is that we are really starting to have a national dialogue about rape and particularly rape on our college campuses. i think we see a lot of schools who are making new policies, trying out new things, making sure that they have the prevention, the education, the support for victims and also a just system for both the accused and the survivor to make sure that everybody is getting a fair process. >> katie, i know you work as a violence prevention trainer. what's the most important message you try to give women on college campuses? >> the most important message that i give when i go out and speak is to say, you're not alone. because i know that no matter what, i'm speaking to survivors.

and i think that that's something to keep in mind. anytime we're talking about this, anytime you're talking about this with your friends or co-workers or your family, there is likely a woman there who has been raped and she is paying attention to what you're saying, what you're saying about bill cosby, about uva. she's hearing that and taking that inside of her. >> katie hnida, great to talk with you. thank you so much for talking with me. i appreciate it. >> thanks, alex. a march in washington is getting under way right now to protest the recent spate of police-involved deaths. just ahead, i'll speak with my colleague, melissa harris-perry, on what we can expect to come out of the demonstrations. and later, all dogs go to heaven, don't they? a story that delighted the pet lover in all of us.

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you may have diabetes and not know it. a new study estimates nearly one third of american adults have diabetes but have not been diagnosed with the disease. even though 67% had seen a doctor within the last year. let's go now to today's number ones. we begin with an eye on politics and money. those who might wind up running for the white house in 2016, a new cnbc survey asks millionaires who they want. the top choice, hillary clinton with 31%. jeb bush comes in second at 18%. new jersey governor chris christie is third with 14%. and then justin bieber's fortune is topping a new "forbes" list. he leads the list of the highest earning celebrities under 30. it amounts to a cool $80 million. you're paying for it? oh, my god. >> you have to use this one and this one. >> oh, my god. i'm going to cry. we were just talking, this stuff never happens to me.

>> that's the reaction from a shopper who just had her layaway items paid for. a representative from a charity paid off the layaway bills for a number of surprise customers in witch wichita, kansas. and those are your number ones here. , $21. could something that small make an impact on something as big as your retirement? i don't think so. well if you start putting that towards your retirement every week and let it grow over time, for twenty to thirty years, that retirement challenge might not seem so big after all. ♪

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welcome back to "weekends with alex witt." the fbi's investigating the death of a high school student in north carolina. 17-year-old lennon lacy was found hanging from a dog leash, a belt he didn't own and shoes that didn't fit him. his death was ruled a suicide but his family says he was not despondent. officials say the investigation was thorough but welcome the investigation of the fbi. a computer failure caused widespread disruption at heathrow airport on friday. and check the kacalendar, os

12-13-14. a lot of people are getting married today because of that. developing now, crowds are in washington for a march to capitol hill to protest police violence. the justice for all march is being organized by the national action network headed by the reverend al sharpton who also hosts a program here on msnbc. demonstrations will also be held in a number of cities across this country. joining me here on the set, melissa harris-perry, the host of msnbc's "melissa harris-perry," if you were on our station 35 or 40 minutes ago you would have seen. let's talk about your hope for what you expect to come out of these rallies. >> well, this clearly seems to be part of an ongoing movement, a movement that i actually think goes back -- even precedes the death of michael brown but took a new turn first when michael brown died in ferguson and the movements that emerged immediately after that. but i think far more important

now, the grand jury decisions, both in moerferguson, missouri, in new york around the death of eric garner that have led so many people to feel, wait a minute, is our justice system working? not only the question of police interaction but more broadly the question of whether or not our justice system is working. i think particularly in the new york case because we could see the video, just the sense of, wait a minute, what is it that these grand juries are seeing that we're not seeing? so i guess what i hope is this becomes a part of a larger movement. >> and i love that you're using the word movement instead of just individual protests. there are incidents now in phoenix, cleveland, new york, ferguson. what is it that you think makes you confident this is a movement, though, and it will lead to something that will effect change. >> well, this is my reporter side versus any academic side. i don't think we actually know what anything ever is for at least ten years. it takes that much time to look back and say, oh, that's when this began. but there are some things that

make me think this is a real movement. part of it is the cohesiveness of the language about it. the fact that it's showing up in so many different cities. there are some intergenerational fights going on about established civil rights leaders and new youth leaders. it's indicative to me there's a contestation for trying to understand american power and how these communities can be a part of it. >> it's also what i've observed multiracial. and i think that is critical to it becoming a movement, right? that way it's not just isolated within one community in this country. >> not only multiracial but we've just heard a new report about lgbt americans pushing for a kind of civil rights bill that looks like the 1964 civil rights act that will protect on questions of housing and employment decision to the questions on major we've had. a multiracial movement, a cross-faith movement, christian ministers are joining together

with leaders from jewish and islamic communities, all happening at the same time we have lgbt questions, race, gender questions. and some issues around sexual assault, popular culture, all coming together in this moment at the holidays when people are showing up for political moment despite it being cold and the holiday season. >> how much do you think it factors in that you have celebrity stars? you have lebron james, derrick rose, others, kobe bryant, they are actually taking statements and getting out there. how much will that make a difference? even examples like lebron james wearing that "i can't breathe" t-shirt in front of the duke and duchess. they take that message across the pond, too. >> i'm almost certain that the fact that particularly athletes are engaged in this, take lebron james and some others, is indicative that it is a movement and therefore they sort of have to come along. in this case, they don't seem to be the leaders of it. that said, i do think once we write this long story, when we go back to the moment when

racial discourse emerged in the nba, when part of what happened was these young men looking up and saying, oh, wait a minute, there may be some racism going on with our owners in the case of don sterling and the l.a. clippers, that that provided a kind of radicalizing, politicizing moment for them so they could connect this to the larger movements. >> what do you see as being the best case scenario to come out of this? >> best case scenario is we really do enup with a different kind of policing, a move away from aggressive militarized policing that treats communities as though they are enemies in a combat zone and towards instead an identity and an understanding of policing that is really about communities being served so that if communities are dealing with issues of poverty, if they're dealing with issues of crime, that the police are actually engaging with them to fight those issues instead of fighting those individuals. we saw in ferguson some news saying they're going to go back to heavy ticketing as a way to

pay the municipal bills. that is sort of precisely the opposite. we want to move towards community policing. >> that's exactly what's been the problem, those kinds of things. >> it's at the core of what these protests are about. >> melissa harris-perry, so glad to have you on our set. >> thanks. 12 days until christmas. the senate is hard at work trying to push through a spending bill to stave off a government shutdown. how likely is that to happen? straight ahead. (vo) nourished. rescued. protected. given new hope. during the subaru "share the love" event, subaru owners feel it, too. because when you take home a new subaru, we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. we'll have given 50 million dollars over seven years. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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♪ losing feeling in my toes ♪ ♪ nothing beats that new car smell ♪ ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪ ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm a feel-good story that went viral in the past couple of days appears to be going to the dogs this week. pope francis reportedly told a little boy whose dog had died told him his dog would be in heaven because all pets go to paradise. nbc's reporter joins me from rome. claudio, hello to you. say this isn't so. all dogs don't go to heaven? >> reporter: well, i'm pretty

sure dogs go to heaven, alex, or at least mine, i'm sure it did. but the pope never really said that, i'm afraid. >> okay, what did pope francis say? >> reporter: alex, let me tell you what he actually said. he said, the holy scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this wonderful design also affects everything around us. now, that's open to interpretation. now, how did we go from this to puppies going to heaven? well, it all started november on 26th during a general audience. that's a traditional weekly meeting between the pope and the faithful in st. peters square. he was talking about creation and heaven and he said this very vague and generic phrase. that was picked up the day after by a newspaper here in italy, the biggest italian daily. now, that journalist in particular interpreted that as if the pope was referring particularly to animals because

he was saying that the pope is also writing a papal document in which he'll talk about the environment, the animal kingdom. so he just referred that phrase to the animal kingdom. he also mentioned a specific episode about previous popes, not pope francis. he said that it is believed that pope paul vi who died in 1978, it is believed that to console a young kid who was upset and tearful because his dog died, he said, don't worry, you're going to meet your dog again in heaven as we all meet our animals in heaven. now, this story was picked up by "the new york times" a few days later. "the new york times" was fairly accurate because it did quote the newspaper, paul vi and the journalist and the interpretation. the problem was the title. it said dogs in heaven, pope francis leaves pearly gates open.

that was open to misinterpretation. and that's when the whole thing went viral and, frankly, wrong. many media outlets picked it up and started mixing comments and saying it was pope francis who met the young tearful kids and said dogs go to heaven. no, he didn't. maybe it was a slow day or pope and puppies is a headline that is too good to resist, alex. >> tell you, that's too good. thank you very much. i appreciate it. 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 some practical governance and the willingness to compromise. >> that was president obama explaining why he supports the spending bill now before the senate which is meeting right now.

on the agenda, as many as 40 votes on nominations and a potential early sunday morning vote on whether to move forward on the funding bill for the 2015 fiscal year. let's bring in robert tranham as well as howard dean. with a welcome to you both, gentlemen. governor, begin with you. it strikes me few people have anything to lose in this fight, right? you have the president, he's not up for reelection. so he can lobby for a less-th - less-than-palatable people to many. elizabeth warren can lobby against it. and ted cruz can rail against it because of the president's immigration action and appeal to the gop base. who do you think has the most at stake here? what is the dynamic that's at play? >> i think the biggest loser if this thing passes is the american people. the idea that we ought to backtrack and allow the stuff that banks were doing in 2008 to be done again is a terrible mistake. the problem is these

institutions -- there's nothing wrong with banks getting rich and so forth and so on. the problem is these institutions are too big to fail. what happened during the bush administration and subsequently the obama administration is we had no choice but to bail them out. this bill is a set-up for causing that exact dilemma again for a future president of either party. it's an enormous mistake. this bill should not pass. they ought to go back and fix the banking provision. the rest of it, there's some stuff i don't like and some stuff i do like. i'm sure everybody can say that but this business about the derivatives rises far above politics. this is about what's good for the country and what could be really bad for the country. >> is there a prevailing wisdom on what the chances are that banks in accordance with this could need a bailout again like in '08? >> the problem is what this allows them to do is essentially play with the customers' money. about 85% of all these derivatives are just gambling, just making a bet on the future of interest rates or stocks or commodities.

15% of them are necessary. you have to have some ability to hedge your risk. but where they get in trouble is making bets on bets on bets and then people couldn't pay. and then the whole system just came very close to collapse. had it not been for both the bush and the obama administration working together over that transition, we would have seen something far worse than the great depression. this isn't something to play with. this kind of stuff should never be in an omnibus bill. >> robert, listen to ted cruz from last night. here's that. >> so when our leaders in both chambers say as a commitment we will fight and we will stop president obama's illegal amnesty, i take them at their word. but i am confident the american people will hold them to their word. >> robert, he's the one who created this stall on this bill because it contains funding for the president's executive action on immigration.

is your party going to have to pay with latino voters because of the likes of ted cruz or do you embrace this fight? >> i don't embrace the fight. the reason why is because i agree with governor dean. this is about the american people and it's about making sure that the government is funded. speaker boehner as well as mitch mcconnell, saying they have no interest in a government shutdown. ted cruz is a little bit of an island to himself. i don't believe he speaks for all republicans. certainly doesn't speak for me. so there's a little bit more nuance in that. the reality is that even mitch mcconnell is on record as saying, we have to work together, we have to run the senate a little bit differently here. but the reality is is that this is harry reid's senate until the end of the year. so there's a couple of more nuances there. i want to go back to what governor dean said a few moments ago. the reality is both members of the house and the senate but also republicans, democrats, really shouldn't have waited till the last minute to negotiate such a very, very complex bill as it relates to

derivatives and the banking situation. the reality is this is something that should have been debated months ago and never should be a part of the omnibus bill. but it is because both leaders in the house and the senate decided to lump this in after the election which most likely wasn't a good idea in hindsight. >> it was 139 of the democrats who voted against this cromnibus measure. let's take a listen to senator warren. >> this is a democracy and the american people didn't elect us to stand up for citigroup. they elected us to stand up for all the people. >> governor, senator warren seems to really be seen as carrying the mantel. is she what the democratic party really needs, your new article in "politico" endorsing hillary

clinton, notwithstanding? >> i do think elizabeth's voice is incredible valuable and understands this issue like others in the senate do not. it's complicated. the issue isn't whether wall street gets rich or not. it's an important institution in terms of allocating capital in a capitalist society. we can't have failure for these institutions. so we can't let them gamble. that's what this bill does. it's a very bad idea to put this in an omnibus bill. it's going to have a big effect on america. if i were a senator, i would vote no and send it back. >> the american people do not begrudge success. everyone wants to be successful. everyone wants to become wealthy. the question becomes whether or not wall street is being taken care of equally the same as main street. so many americans out there,

republicans and democrats, are saying, look, wall street is being taken care of, they're fine, what about main street? who's speaking up for me. what elizabeth warren is speaking to is the strain of the american people. government is not listening to me. the elected officials in washington, d.c. are not listening to me. so in many ways, you can really draw a comparison between a ted cruz and elizabeth warren for speaking for a minority, very, very vocal majority voice out there. >> robert, how staunch is the opposition from the gop to this? you have some strange bedfellows when you have david vitter and elizabeth warren agreeing. >> absolutely. but it's also ted cruz, john mccain, bernie sanders, elizabeth warren. it's very extreme left and extreme right and moderates also saying, this bill stinks. let's start all over again and think about wall street equally the same as main street. >> governor howard dean, robert tranham, good to see you both.

>> happy quintessential day. >> what? >> 12/13/14. >> oh, right! we continue to follow the justice for all march in washington, d.c. we've got a live report coming your way at the top of the hour. i had these very burning, needle-like sensations. i knew i needed to see a doctor. my doctor said, "let's try lyrica." lyrica has helped relieve my pain. it's known that diabetes damages nerves lyrica is fda-approved to treat diabetic nerve pain. lyrica is not for everyone. it may cause serious allergic reactions, or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, changes in eyesight including blurry vision, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or skin sores from diabetes. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica.

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plus enjoy special savings when you purchase any new verizon wireless smartphone or tablet from comcast. visit comcast.com/wireless to learn more. new details emerging from the cia torture report. paint a picture of a program not only pushing the law but also plagued by ineptness. today, "the new york times" writes about the 26 prisoners who senate investigators found to be wrongfully detained. 26 people imprisoned and tortured for months, even years, based on flawed evidence and mistaken identities. after their innocence were discovered, some still not released, languishing on for months more. joining me now is robert mcfadden. he has investigated terror cells after the 9/11 attacks, also a co-case agent for the "uss cole" investigation.

put simply, does torture work? >> no. no, it's ineffective and not within our values. for the report, i'd like to point out, though, if one's not inclined to read the entire summary or the report, the first 19 pages really capture the essence of the history. that's the finding sections. and there's information in there b that by any reasonable and objective read would put some of the debate to rest as to what happened, how things went off the rails. >> so it's almost like the cliffnotes version. >> exactly. >> can you bring us into the room? how did you approach an interrogation? what worked for you? >> having investigated, interrogated and run operations against al qaeda, members in the organization with colleagues from the fbi before 9/11 as well as after, the first and most important thing is information, knowing the enemy, the case file, the subjects as well as possible using all sorts of information.

and then going into the room for the interrogation process is all about training, experience an things like leveraging the latest research and negotiation theory, developing an accord with the subject and driving toward what motivates him to get to the information. >> did you have any interactions with the cia interrogators and the designers of this process? >> i did not. however, i have some colleagues that i worked with in the past who themselves had terrific careers in the military and intelligence but had not been in any way, shape or form interrogators, just like the two contracted psychologists you mentioned had no experience with the middle east interrogations, al qaeda, the culture. so that's really still inexplicable in a decision process, how they were able to establish a program like that where they had no background or basis for it. >> also if torture doesn't work, why would the cia -- and it

should be mentioned, countless other countries -- why would they use it? what's the logic? >> we have to be intellectually honest here that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the zeitgeist of the period, you could see where intuition perhaps or maybe even influence by popular culture that going rough on the subjects was the way to go. so i acknowledge that. the big however is that i and colleagues had already had success with hard-bitten al qaeda members. and the report points out that subject matter experts were shut out of the process and kept from having access to some of the high-value detainees. that's the essence of the problem. >> john brennan went on to say the cia was unprepared to conduct an interrogation and detention program after 9/11. do you agree with that? >> i take the director absolutely in good faith. and that's also detailed in the report. the cia at the national level was given the mission. when it comes to an

organization, it may not have the mission, but to take something on and do it well, doesn't get better than cia. but because there was no collaborative process very early on in the early part of 2002, the report clearly points out all the different factors of what caused it to go wrong. >> do you think the cia director was being disingenuous when he said there's no way we could have known how to get information -- >> that's a terrifically important point and far be it from me to contradict or go against what mr. brennan says. but i'll point out one point in the findings. you have the case of abu zubaydah in march 2002 who was the earliest highest-ranking society member of al qaeda. you had a period there where two very close friends and colleagues of mine for the fbi with a few cia officers who had experience with terrorism interrogation got the biggest amount of take in that period, weeks and months before a

progressive e.i.t. process started. so you can compare the take of that period of traditional report-based methods against the e.i.t.s. and overwhelmingly the most important intelligence came from that period. >> robert mcfadden, always good to talk to you. thanks so much. a march in washington to protest police violence has attracted a massive crowd. we'll bring you more from the demonstrations straight ahead. they're coming. what do i do? you need to catch the 4:10 huh? the equipment tracking system will get you to the loading dock. ♪ there should be a truck leaving now. i got it. now jump off the bridge. what? in 3...2...1... are you kidding me? go. right on time. right now, over 20,000 trains are running reliably. we call that predictable. thrillingly predictable. [ inhales deeply ] [ sighs ] [ inhales ]

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that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. great job. (mandarin) ♪ cut it out. >>see you tomorrow. ♪ developing news now in the nation's capital. thousands march for justice, demanding police change their ways. inside the capitol, it is a working saturday for the senate. lawmakers are trying to come to terms on a budget deal to prevent a government shutdown. hey! >> and that is one rare terrifying event. los angeles cleans up after a surprise tornado.

welcome to wrx wx. welcome to "weekends with alex witt." we have this developing story. thousands of people are marching towards capitol hill to protest police violence. the march is being organized by the national action network headed of course by the reverend al sharpton who also hosts a program here on msnbc. msnbc's trymaine lee is there in the middle of things for us. let's talk about the scene. there were people at the podium. it was pretty loud when we saw you last hour. what's going on now? >> reporter: certainly. my loosest ma-- loose estimatio would be that thousands marched. there's a sense of emotion running throughout crowd. i spoke with a mother who brought her 10-year-old son carrying a sign that said "black lives matter." she said, he has to be careful out there especially when dealing with police.

but the bottom line, his life matters. that's what you hear over and over again. all lives matter. but the call for reform not just in the police departments across the country but also here in washington, d.c. and in statehouses across the country. at the conclusion of the march, there's a rally. speakers behind me. 400 people came from ferguson, missouri, the birth of all these protests. >> that speaks volumes. how about police presence there? is it very great, any incidents to report or has it been peaceful marching down pennsylvania avenue? >> reporter: i'm sorry. i didn't hear you. >> i'm going to let you go. i know it's hard to hear. trymaine, thank you very much. let's get more now on the march and the rally and what it could mean for police and community relations. i'm joined by the professor of law at the cardoza school of

law, jason johnson from hiram college and the author of "rise of the warrior cop." >> one of the things we're happiest about is that the kind of heartbreak we've experienced after ferguson and after eric garner in two cases where a grand jury refused to indict that it hasn't precipitated with the news cycle. we hope it sends a message of urgency. >> in terms of police shootings, you recently wrote that officials with the justice department keep no comprehensive database nor record of police shootings, instead lallowing th agencies to self-report officer-involved shootings.

how difficult is it to get an accurate record of police-involved shootings? >> pretty much impossible. there are several private efforts going on right now using media reports and trying to track them that way. what we're finding out and what "the wall street journal" reported last week is that the fbi figures -- the fbi keeps records of what they call justifiable homicides committed by police, which means cases where the cop was actually cleared. but what "the wall street journal" found is even those numbers are way, way off, that the number may be two or three times higher than the 400 or 500 that the fbi reports every year. this is a problem. police, we give them the power to detain and to kill, and there's really no oversight and there's no way of keeping track just how often they use lethal force against citizens. >> jason, i understand that you just got in there to the studio. you were down at the march. talk about the mood, talk about what you saw there.

>> the mood is amazing. i cannot stress enough, these are diverse crowds. i was with two different groups. it's people of all colors, people of all types. there is a general sense amongst this crowd that this is a government problem, this is a human rights problem and not just a black and white issue. it's an issue about american citizens concerned about how much their government is responding and what kind of behavior is allowed from police. it's amazing. >> on the heels of what you're hearing and that these protests are going from one city to the next -- 400 protesters from ferguson are coming there to washington. at what point will this result into something tangible that creates change? >> i think we're starting to see an actual movement. and they're multifaceted. so you see the mayor and the governor of new york state

feeling a lot of political pressure to do something about the way their police force interacts with minority communities. it's certainly true in st. louis, missouri, the mayor and governors there. you're starting to see capitol hill and albany and on and on start to have to react to these things. so a movement in this way has to be many different actors, many different prongs, lawyers, protesters and on and on coalescing around a set of new ways forward. >> radley, based on the research of your book, do you think that police forces are too rigid to change? that they're going to see what's happening but based on how they're set up, it's going to be difficult for them to change? >> i think it's going to be difficult because you're changing an entire culture that's set in over the last generation or two. we've conditioned too many police officers to see themselves as people who are at war rather than peace officers

who are there to protect and serve. if you talk to people who do police training in lethal force, they'll tell you for the large part, there's been a de-emphasis on de-escalation and conflict resolution and more emphasis on training with guns and training with tasers. so if you're putting all of your training, lethal force training on how to use the weapons and very, very little, if any, on how to resolve situations without using force, we shouldn't be surprised at what we're seeing. but it starts with policy. the curriculum needs to change. i think we need better policies. we can rail against individual cops all day. but until you change the policies, you'll continue to get the same results. >> jason, how confident are you that we are going to see changes in law? >> i think we're probably going to see changes in law on the national level and then eventually it's going to seep down. it's not going to be quick. the first step, we'll probably see even more enforcement, more money, more resources, more policy behind barack obama, so the ferguson policy.

i expect that will happen during the state of the union. and increasingly people at the local level will talk about these issues. what's important also is a lot of this is not just about bad cops but about local governments who support bad cops and their behavior. it's about county prosecutors and mayors and district attorneys who don't say, hey, this police officer needs to be punished but instead circle the wagons and support bad behavior. that's a long cultural process that needs to change. >> we'll talk a little bit later in the hour. jason, i know you have to take off because of your schedule, not because we want you to leave. jason, good to see you. let's go to the other big developing story from the nation's capital. right now, the senate is within session. harry reid opened this rare saturday session putting blame on some republicans for holding up the vote on the massive $1.1 trillion spending bill. >> senate republicans are

forcing completely unnecessary procedure votes just to waste time and slow us down from funding the government. it doesn't have to be this way, mr. president. we can still come to agreement and take care of funding for our great country right now. >> and our msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt is at the white house standing by for us. you have senator reid blaming republicans. what happened? >> reporter: well, alex, this all sort of fell apart late last night on the floor. senator mcconnell, the republican leader, had left the building saying, we'll see you on monday, thinking they had an agreement. senators ted cruz and mike lee had other ideas, holding it up because they want a vote on an amendment to strip funding for the president's executive order on immigration. in the meantime, senator reid is taking advantage of this, putting the senate through all of these nominations through the course of the afternoon. some of them are a little bit controversial, things that the republicans might have wanted to hold up. and what's going to happen next

is that we're going to see at this point a vote on cloture at 1:00 a.m. on sunday. now, that vote is already set by the procedures of the senate. what they could do is if all 100 senators agree, they could move forward earlier than that. now, another question is what elizabeth warren will do. senator elizabeth warren, she's been asking for a vote on an amendment to change the bill and remove some of these provisions that would strip dodd/frank legislation out, make some derivative changes rules. she talked about that yesterday, calling this the citigroup shutdown. take a listen. >> 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. >> reporter: should have broken you into pieces, tough words there from senator warren. citigroup has taken a little bit the fall on this. and now you also have some republicans accusing warren of being the ted cruz of the left. >> interesting. kasie hunt, thank you very much from the white house. a clean-up effort is under way this weekend after a powerful storm slammed into the west coast. several homes near los angeles are buried under rock and mud. the storm drenched southern california which has been desperate for water. nbc's miguel almaguer is in camarillo, california, with a situation that we saw earlier as being such a mess. still is. hey to you. >> reporter: good morning. there's at least ten homes that have red tagged. many more destroyed. the damage here will be in the tens of millions of dollars when you figure the clean-up for this community. the rain started coming down friday morning around 2:00 a.m. the fire department came through

with voluntary evacuations. then a short time after 1:00 a.m., we had even heavier rains. they became mandatory evacuations and then this mud slide triggered. we have video of an incredibly rare sight in los angeles, a tornado not far from downtown touched down late yesterday afternoon. with it, some striking images, stuff we rarely ever see here in los angeles. no injuries there. but certainly they are still cleaning up there today. it's going to be a good day for clean-up. the weather has shifted a bit. we have sunny skies though we are expecting more rain later in the week. >> miguel almaguer, dramatic pictures. thanks so much from camarillo. angelina jolie had big plans to promote her new movie including a big premiere in los angeles. that's all changed due to illness. we'll bring you the latest on that. who's the congressman who thinks the budget bill could have a disastrous impact on the country? we'll talk to him next. and we'll take you back to

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we have reverend sharpton who is going to be speaking at this rally. when he does, we'll bring you his remarks live here on "weekends with alex witt." the senate is meeting for a rare weekend session right now. in just 12 hours will hold a procedural vote on the contentious $1.1 trillion spending bill. the vote might have come a lot sooner but senate conservatives scuttled a bill last night. joining me now, democratic congressman john sarbane. i want to take you up with your vote which was against the spending bill. your principal objections being

the cuts to dodd/frank and the tenfold increase in campaign donations limits. are those issues, though, worth the risk of a government shutdown? >> well, alex, i don't think there would have been a government shutdown. we would have brought a better bill back to the house of the representatives that we could have voted on. i don't think the republicans want to shut the government down. it's just about the leverage that you exercise over the process. these two provisions are so jarring to the american people's sense of fairness. you have one provision that basically allows for more risky activity on the part of wall street with potentially the american taxpayer picking up the tab if things go wrong, which is exactly what happened back in 2009. why would we want to start down that road again? and then on the other hand, you have a provision that allows the super rich to buy more influence on capitol hill. so both of those things go directly against what the

american people have in terms of expectations of the way we should behave in washington, in new york, in terms of looking out for them. it sends the wrong message to the public. >> i'm curious, though, with regard to the cutdowns in the dodd/frank bill, what do you really think the effect of that will be? was nothing learned from 2008? do you really think the banks are going to put everybody in this economy on the precipice again? >> why would you want to increase risky activity? doesn't mean tomorrow you'd be in a position potentially to jeopardize the economy. but you start to encourage risky behavior because you remove the moral hazard. now these folks on wall street know that the taxpayers will bail them out if they engage in risky activity, so they get closer and closer to the edge. and that begins a whole new era. we saw what that did to us back in 2009. why put that burden potentially on the economy? doesn't make any sense. it certainly doesn't make sense to hold up a $1.1 trillion

budget bill, funding bill just to preserve that kind of a sweetheart deal for wall street. >> so what are you hearing from your colleagues in the senate on how this vote could go? >> well, i don't think there's going to be a shutdown. but there's obviously a lot of procedural sort of back-and-forth going on right now. there are a number of issues in the mix. immigration is in the mix. executive nominations, the issues we were just talking about with dodd/frank, they'll get sorted out through this wrangling. but we ought to stand firm, democrats in particular ought to send a message to the public that we're on your side and not on the side of wall street. look, most people these days are completely tuned out of washington. they look at congress and washington and think that the system is rigged against them. and that we don't care about them. and this kind of provision for wall street and then opening up

the door on how much money can pour into the political process from wealthy donors, that confirms their worst suspicions about the way washington operates. we need to send them a different message. we need to send a message that says, we're going to try to empower you to have influence in washington to take your government back instead of giving that influence to the special interests. >> can you explain the president's perspective? he is reportedly for this bill. >> well, i was disappointed that the president did not want to kind of side against this dodd/frank provision that kind of waters down the regulations. but i think the president heard certainly from the house of representatives, from a lot of democrats in the house, that we feel very strongly, that it's time to start fashioning both policy and a political message out there to the broad public that says we stand on your side. and i think that's a message

that democrats for sure can organize themselves around as we go forward. i think the president and the white house can be part of that message. so we'll see how it goes from here. >> democratic congressman john sarbanes, thanks so much for your time. >> thank you, alex. one of the biggest names in show business is homebound with a childhood disease. what's happened to angelina jolie? and a revelation from that sony hacking saga that might really tick off jennifer lawrence. why should she care? meantime, we'll take you live and we're going to show you washington -- there he is, reverend al sharpton. let's take a listen to what he has to say from washington, d.c. -- >> no justice, no peace, hands up, hands up, hands up! all right. we are here today because we

must have this nation deal with the fact that just like 50 years a ago, the states had taken a position to rob the human rights and civil rights of citizens with state's rights projected laws that disempowered federal law. we've seen in ferguson, missouri, we've seen in staten island where state grand juries have suspended the right of due process. and we come to washington to call on this congress and national government to do what

was done before. we need national legislation and intervention to save us from state grand juries that say it's all right to choke people even on tape and you won't bring them to court. it's all right to have prosecutors have private queries and if we question them, we are starting trouble. we didn't shoot anybody. we didn't choke anybody. we don't come to washington as shooters and chokers. we come as the shot and the choked asking you to help deal with american citizens who can't breathe in their own communities. oh, reverend al, y'all are

dividers. look at these thousands of people. they're black, they're white, they're young, they're old. this is what america looks like. i stood in this city and was inspired when i saw a black man put his hand on the bible and become president. but i've also been inspired today when i see young white kids holding up signs saying "black lives matter." i know the media won't show that. i know they'll say we only had 500 rather than the thousands. but i don't care how much you try to distort it, truth shall rise again.

the people united will never be defeated. you can castigate the leaders, you can try to divide us by generation. but you didn't understand my youngest daughter, ashley, gave me a slogan the other day. it says, you may bury us but you didn't know you were burying seeds. when you bury us, we sprout up and start blocking traffic. our seeds grow into civil disobedience. our seeds grow into nonviolence. but we'll go stronger and last longer. this congress, we're here for three things. one, we need a law on judicial

threshold. why is the threshold so high for you to protect citizens in police matters? we're not saying all police are bad. we're not even saying most are bad. we're not anti-police. but we're anti-brutality. and the federal government must have a threshold to protect that. second, the justice department must have a division funded to deal with this. thirdly, we must have the power of special prosecutors, not the local prosecutors. we cannot trust those that work together every day and depend on each other to do their work to have a nonconflicted inquiry of each other.

this march today was led by the victims, first time. they say, oh, y'all don't speak for nobody yet. when we call marches, thousands come. they get other people to denounce us. but this is about the victims. we don't all agree with each other. we don't all have the same tactics. but we have the same goal. and that is equal protection under the law. and that's not black against white. it's right against wrong. that's why whites and blacks are here together to show the world today, this is not a black march or white march. this is an american march for the rights of american people.

let me say, there are those that want to act as though what we say are unreasonable. what is unreasonable about asking for a court case? what's unreasonable about asking for due process? what is unreasonable about asking for the constitution to work for everybody? what is unreasonable about saying that michael brown and tamir rice and eric garner had rights, too. what a lot of people don't understand is that just like policemen have the right to get unions and others to defend them, victims have the right to get civil rights and human rights organizations to stand behind them.

you thought it would be kept quiet. you thought you'd sweep it under the rug. you thought there would be no limelight. but we're going to keep the light on michael brown, on eric garner, on tamir rice, on all of these victims because the only way you make roaches run is you've got to cut the light on. so i don't have, i don't have the words that others may have. i don't have the polish that civil rights leaders before me had. i don't have the understanding of law that some of my brothers and sisters have and some of you

may be like me. you come up the rough side of the mountain. and when you come up the rough side, sometimes your legs get scarred and you might get a little mud on your clothes. but i come to washington anyhow because god gave me a little light and i'm going to let it shine. i'm going to shine on michael brown. i'm going to shine on eric garner. god gave me my light. let it shine. let it shine. let it shine. i want to bring to the stage before we bring our closing speakers -- i know it's cold. but god bless you for being here in the cold. some of you rode all night long.

some of you got a long ride home. but we understand together, let me bring to the platform first the mother and father and family of michael brown jr., ferguson, missouri, michael brown sr. come on, attorney gray. where is my partner? the mother of michael brown jr., lesley mcspadden. the mother of eric garner, ms. gwen carr.

the wife of eric garner, esau garner and her children, emerald, eric jr. the mother of tamir rice, a 12-year-old young boy shot down in cleveland, ohio, his mother, samarra is here. ms. rice's sister, robin and daughter is here. we're standing with them. the family of john crawford, also shot with a toy gun in ohio. mother, teresa, is here. father, john crawford, is here. family is here.

kerry ball -- brother kerry ball. where is the family of gurney in brooklyn, new york? pink houses. this is his partner and mother of his child, both of them came to stand up for him. bring her on up front. they'll write in the new york tabloids she wasn't here. she's here. and we are joined by the mother who has shown suffering parents

all over this country -- the mother of trayvon martin, silvia fulton, sabrina fulton, the mother of amadu dialo. now, i want -- we're going to bring my partners to the stage, our partners in this. the national president of the national urban league, martin morial. the president of the naacp, cornell brooks, head of national black civic participation, melanie campbell. i want the families to thank you, brief word. then we're going to move and let the other speakers speak.

this is not a revival. we're not going to be here all night. but we wanted to bring our message. so i want as the families speak to move on because this stage ain't going to hold all this -- i lost a lot of weight. but y'all bring a lot up here. if i was my old weight, we'd already been down. i want to thank all of you that said you ain't got to call my name but you're here, glad to see my homeboy who's putting this around the world, the legendary filmmaker spike lee in the house. he brought his daughter to march. do the right thing.

do the right thing. i want to thank george gresham, seiu, randy winegartner. i want to thank all of our partners that made this possible. but most of all, i want congress to know we are serious. we organized these thousands in eight days. wednesday before last the grand jury came back. don't let us go home and organize three weeks on you because we will be back over and over again. members of congress, beware, we're serious about the three

things we raise, when you get a ring-ding on christmas, it might not be santa. it may be reverend al coming to your house. let us hear first michael brown and lesley mcspadden. >> there you see the reverend al sharpton, of course, the head of the national action network and a host of "politics nation" here on msnbc. he has a very packed stage. that is a very profound image that we see there. those are people that have been directly affected by lost loved ones due to police and overuse of force there. of course, thousands in the crowd, among them msnbc's trymaine lee who's been following this march today for us. trymaine, talk about the sentiments there in the crowd as they listen to the reverend al. >> reporter: what was interesting is it was pretty silent as the reverend al sharpton introduced family member after family member of young black men killed by police violence.

when it got to trayvon martin's mother, the crowd roared. and then the young man shot 41 times in new york, his mother. they're here in support of all these families and young unarmed black men killed by police every year. it's kind of a crescendo as these families stand on stage. impressive sight. >> right now in the headlines, tamir rice, eric garner, michael brown certainly. but when the reverend al brings back these former victims, that makes a very powerful statement. we're looking at people on the side of the screen there from that stage. they're applauding and holding up their hands there in protest. trymaine, how long is this expected to go on today? >> reporter: the reverend al sharpton said they're going to try to wrap it up pretty quickly. one thing i wanted to point out, reverend al sharpton and other speakers said they want to send a message to congress.

it's not just reforming local police departments but some sort of federal law. he called for federal legislation that would change the judicial thresholds and eliminate -- enforce putting special prosecutors in place when there's a fatal police shooting. so beyond just empathizing and the crowd gathering around these families, it's about real reform and real change. >> trymaine, the mood there along the march -- i know you made your way down from the beginning of freedom plaza to where they are near capitol hill, what was that like? >> it was interesting. i was expecting kind of this excitement. there wasn't necessity anger or a fervor. but there was a low-humming excitement. people came from all across the country to support the families but you had members of teachers federations, different unions here. as it culminated in this moment here where it had been bubbling under the surface and erupted a bit when these families came on stage. >> msnbc's trymaine lee, thank you very much for that report

right in the middle of things there along pennsylvania avenue. let's bring back in eco yanka, the professor of law at cardoza school of law and also radley balco with "the washington post." eco, what's going to be the long-term effect of a protest like this and all the rallies we're seeing currently across the united states? >> what i really hope is that we're seeing a moment where not just any individual laws change but we start to change the norms around policing. it's worth noting that the fourth amendment and miranda, when those were passed were equally controversial. but what they did was not just change what constituted bad policing but what constituted are good policing. what radley was speaking about earlier this hour, part of what we have to change is the very image of the way police interact with citizens as though they

were at war rather than that they were peace officers who were there truly to protect and serve. hopefully we're seeing the birth of a change not just of law but of spirit. >> and you hear the talk of the retraining of the police. how do training policies affect what we see out on the street? how do they change those beat cops that may be out there? and in the case of eric garner, apply way too much pressure on this man when he's already down for the count? >> well, i think there's bad training which is one problem. there's also lack of training, which is another problem. and then there's culture, which i think is a third problem. they all kind of go together. but there's the problem of what i mentioned earlier in the hour about the absence of training or the diminishing value of training, of de-escalation and of conflict resolution. this idea that -- i interviewed a lot of older police officers and former police chiefs for my book. one thing they said when they started, that they would always

emphasize with their officers is if you have to use force, you should consider it sort of a failure in your lack of ability to resolve the conflict without resorting to force. and that concept, i think, is gone. i think there are a lot of reasons for it. i think the presence of these sort of less lethal weapons like tasers make officers more willing to use force more often as opposed to using persuasion or the tone of their voice to control the situation. so there are a lot of different factors at play. but i think the absence of de-escalation and conflict resolution and lethal force training, i think that's a culture that's taken over police departments that's partly the rhetoric of politicians that constantly tells them they're fighting a war, whether it's a war on crime or war on drugs or war an terror. and when you put all those things together, you get police officers that you create a culture of force, a culture that looks to force more often than they look to sort of nonviolent, more peaceful resolutions.

>> what is ultimately going to be the incentive for lawmakers to act to make this system for equitable? >> i think the process we're seeing are one major part of that. but when i think of what happened in new york with the ending of the stop-and-frisk policy, it was people protesting in the street. it was a long, well thought out litigation strategy. and it was voting in a new mayor to send the political message. it's pushing against the political system and refusing to not be heard that makes a long-term difference. i just wanted to speak quickly about what bradley said. we shouldn't forget our roles as citizens in the long term. crime has been dropping for over two decades. and it's time for the citizens to think really deeply about whether or not criminalizing every behavior is the right method of social control.

the more expensive criminal law is, the more moments of friction and tension, the more you'll get moments where police officers kill someone for selling a loosey, intentional or not. >> gentlemen, thank you very much for your insights and for staying with us through the hour to get through this march. we'll keep covering the march for you that is under way right now in washington, d.c. let's go to this, fallout from the cia torture report deepens this weekend. a bit earlier today, i asked a former ncis special agent who interrogated al qaeda suspects why if it's so ineffective, the u.s. still uses torture at the nation's most critical hour? in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the zeitgeist of the period, you could see where intuition perhaps or maybe even influence by popular culture that going rough on the subjects was the way to go.

so i acknowledge that. the big however is that i and colleagues had already had success with hard-bitten al qaeda members. and the report points out that subject matter experts were shut out of the process and kept from having access to some of the high-value detainees. >> joining me now is christopher dickey, foreign editor of "the daily beast" and longtime middle east correspondent. very good friend to us here on the broadcast. christopher, the u.s. has always seen itself as the moral superiority in the world. was that still the case late tuesday once all the ugly details were revealed? >> i think mcfadden was raising a really interesting point. why were the people who were involved with this people who knew nothing about the middle east, people who didn't know exactly the kinds of questions to ask? i think the question that needs to be asked is what kind of role did revenge play in this? what kind of role did vendetta

and vengeance play in this? is that what the bush administration was really doing. and i think there's some evidence that it was. i know cia officers who were talking to people back then and saying, let's not go down this path. and the response that they were getting from very senior officials was, you know what, these people killed 3,000 americans, to hell with them. >> kristophchristopher, you've from places where torture is commonplace. were you surprised by what you saw in the report? >> i was surprised that americans were doing it and that they were so oblivious to the fact f of how ineffective it was. going back to the clinton administration, the united states had been involved in rendition of programs that essentially took people and gave them to the torturers of egypt and even syria in order to extract information. but the difference with those programs is that at least the torturers in those programs came

from the same culture, spoke the same language, understood what buttons to push not just the buttons of pain, but the psychological buttons and knew the information to use. the interrogators we're talking about in this cia report are people who didn't know what they were doing. they were taking techniques that were used to teach resistance, in fact, to american soldiers and they were trying to apply those in order to extract information. it was a completely screwed-up program. and the bush administration is wholly responsible for it. >> christopher, i have to ask you to answer this in 20 seconds. our window is going to close. are you concerned from your contacts overseas about reprisals? >> oddly not. i think that in fact the people who hate america, this doesn't surprise them. if there had been an attack on the koran on the faith, tlahat would be different. but torture, brutality, i'm

afraid the enemies of america are convinced we already do that. >> christopher dickey, thank you very much from paris. i appreciate it. the senate is up against the clock trying to work on a new budget. that's next. a new budget. that's next. i have a problem. i need to speak with your fraud resolution department. ugh, we don't have that. what should i tell him? just make that super annoying modem noise... (shuuuuuuuh....zzzzzzzz...de ee...dong...shuuuhh...) hello? not all credit report sites are equal. classic. experian.com members get personalized help plus fraud resolution support. join now at experian.com. with enrollment in experian credit tracker. alright, so this tylenol arthritis lasts 8 hours, but aleve can last 12 hours... and aleve is proven to work better on pain than tylenol arthritis. so why am i still thinking about this? how aryou? aleve, proven better on pain. (prof. burke) the more you learn the more gaps you may find. like how you thought you were covered for this...

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to proceed to legislative session. the president pro tempore: the question is on the let's go back to capitol hill. the senate is voting on several know nati nominations right now. kel kelly o'donnell is joining me now. we heard from senator reid earlier. what has been happening so far? >> this is one of the unusual saturday sessions, and adding to it, the senate actually thought there would be no weekend work. what's going on here? senator cruz and some of his allies in the senate are objecting to how things are unfolding and the issue at hand is the president's action on immigrati immigration.

cruise want crus wants a vote on that, and reid is bucking that. there is an on going debate on how the government will be funded. it runs out at midnight tonight. guess what? the senate hasn't agreed to an extend in time. we are in a countdown to shut down. can they avert it? yes. are they doing it yet? >> no. there has been a backlog of nominations. reid's power to end the floor ends with this congress and he's trying to push through as many of the president's nominations for consideration as he possibly can. republicans don't want to go along with that, as always, so there's a classic fight using the rules of the senate to try to get to different objectives. everyone says we don't want a shutdown.

cruz and some of his allies say they want to take this on with immigration, even though the house has gone. they've gone home. this is one of those times where we're seeing some arm wrestling happening on the senate floor. we don't know the outcome yet, alex. >> okay. thank you very much for everything that's happening on the senate floor. joining me now, jimmy and a republican strategist. quick apology in that we have the reverend al starpton there on hill. i have a minute with you. jimmy, give me your predictions on what you think will happen. >> i don't think anyone would be surprised that the senators are doing what they're doing. didn't they do this exactly one year ago or two years ago? let's have that conversation about it. here we are again. they want to bring the place to a dead still, if you will.

kelly is right, if they don't give unanimous consent, one senator can object, by the way, and if they don't get uc to do funding past minute, the government will shut down. guess whose hands it'll be on? ted cruz. >> can you give a perspective of what's happening from them? >> good luck. >> i have 30 seconds. based on what senator cruz wants to do, he wants to make sure every senator goes on record to talk about what the president has done. the fact, whether it's constitutional or not. there has become a hot issue. the unilateral issue on immigration the president has taken and the american people don't support it. senator cruz has made it very clear that he wants to take up this fight. the question is, is this the right time to do it? no.

let's get done with the lame duck session, get senator reid out of being majority leader, and let's move forward to the new congress. >> you're both rock stars. we have four seconds to wrap it up. see you back here tomorrow at noon. the equipment tracking system will get you to the loading dock. ♪ there should be a truck leaving now. i got it. now jump off the bridge. what? in 3...2...1... are you kidding me? go. right on time. right now, over 20,000 trains are running reliably. we call that predictable. thrillingly predictable.

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