ed to making that happen. >> the press conference in ferguson continues. chris matthews will have continuing coverage on "hardball." >> and so you know, for right now, what we're seeing going forward to keep the police department. >> many who protested outside of the police department liked him on a personal level. >> absolutely. >> can you talk about the job he did and as a police chief after you read that scathing report about how he ran the police department? >> again, we talked about where the breakdown was. again, the chief being an honorable man decided we need to talk about the way moving forward was with someone else so we left. that is not to say that that's an indication of anything at this point. again, we want to go and we have

been going through that report and identifying the breakdown and that breakdown can be at all different levels and the important part is about how we can address that. what are the safeguards we can put into place, what changes do we need to do to put into place and those are the things we're focused on. >> is it fair to say that the final decision was made after the doj report or did you already know this was going to have to happen before the report came out? >> i think it's safe to say that all along we've said what is the best for the city. if you're asking was the chief planning on resigning before that report you'd have to ask the chief. obviously the decision was made after. but, again, this has been in conversation with many community leaders. others in the profession and i think it's important that we recognize that the chief made this decision because he wanted

to do this and in part because he thought it was the best for the city and for the police department and i think the chief will probably be willing to talk about it more in the coming weeks about what his thought process was. oef over the past several weeks. >> when were you made aware of his stepping down? >> it was over the weekend that he and i had a conversation in which that conclusion was come to. >> he said last night that his question was not be being questioned. >> i did not -- >> his job was not in question at this point. so i'm just curious if everyone knew this last night already. >> well there were things still being negotiated out. so as far as giving you any indication you know was he gone or anything again, you asked the question at the wrong time. let's put it that way. you asked the question before a

decision was totally made. as far as the chief and his thought process, that was something we talked about over the weekend. but that's different from the city coming to the agreement. because that was not done when i answered the question. so -- >> last week or so your city manager has resigned -- >> the court clerk. not the city's clerk. >> that's correct. >> that's not what you said. >> i wish i got that. i wish people would let be put what i meant not what i said. >> fair enough. so a lot of major employees of the city have stepped down in the last week. what is that going to mean for the city going forward that you have this vacuum of major -- >> i think that's why chief is -- one of the reasons why the chief is staying around is because we think it's important that we have an orderly transition. we cannot have everybody just up and leave. the city has to function. the police department has to

function. we are very committed to making sure all of those function properly. so part of that is the -- you know, the chief having a resignation in the future which will allow him to talk to his men, help plan for what that transition is and that is going to have to be done at several levels as we move forward. so it's a fair question. that's absolutely a fair question but that's why we're not just removing the chief -- the chief is not leaving, you know immediately and anybody else that may or may not leave in the future we are -- we have been focused on engaging other professionals to come in and help us on an interim basis. that's something that we're cognizant of and there's people to help us not at just at the police department level but at another level. >> do you know what his plans are after leaving ferguson? >> no. i mean no not yet.

>> is john shaw also getting a year severance? >> yes. >> what do you say to people who say that you should go, too? >> didn't i tell you this last night? no, a no, i apologize. it was somebody else. somebody is going to have to be here to run the ship. and, you know i've been committed, the city council has been committed to making those reforms. i realize that there's some people that still want a head or my head or other heads and i can understand that they are going to say that. but, again we're focused on how we can move this community forward. >> is that an admission that something was wrong going on here, that some of the things talked about in in report were valid? >> again, those resignations are

mutual decisions both by the chief and the city manager and i think that their comments and resignation, you know do say that they admit no wrongdoing. >> thank you very much. >> how to deal with the officers to improve relations with the community? >> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington and you're watching "hardball." that was, of course, mayor james knowles of ferguson who announced this evening that chief jackson is resigning his post effective next week. this follows a devastating justice department report of systemic discrimination cared out by the police force in that city. that investigation began after the fatal shooting of michael brown last summer. in a statement to nbc news earlier today, outgoing chief jackson said, "i'm confident the city will pull through these trying times. the people are committed to ferguson." joined by try maine lee, this is

almost calm and bureaucratic. it's a strange way to end or a punctuation point on this long saga, if you will. >> it certainly is especially after the ripples of last week's release of the doj report continues to shake up the city. the city manager gone police chief gone still have protesters and activeists asking for mayor knowles to step down. it's a time where we'll see much change and folks, this is just the tip of the iceberg. they expecting? with the consent decree from the justice department and exposed to some degree be run on this racially bias machine grinding up black folks as they come. >> so the racially biassed machine, is that your view or

what is in the report? >> when you see the report, it's clear that police officers -- they were told -- it was a contest between police officers to see how many tickets they can give and when you look at the deep disparity, who was being stopped and who was being bit by the dogs it's clear that the doj has at least found and investigators found a deep pattern and practice which validates what folks on the ground have been saying. i don't have to say much. when you open up that report it's clear that the black folks were bearing the brunt of the policing. >> we have three resignations in a matter of hours now really. >> right. chris, there's a lot of ways that this can be handled. i wish the mayor would consider asking the justice department to use the interstate compact agreement. it's been used before where a federal commander or law enforcement commander is brought in to run the department. the justice department did that

at the jersey state police when racial profiling was a problem and brought in an fbi special agent in charge to run the police for a period of time. i think that would be a good thing for ferguson. the citizens are what matter the most. that's number one. certainly the officers and the personnel, of course number two. but the first thing is the citizens. and they have to trust the chief. i'm sure lieutenant colonel is a good man. i understand that. but he's from the county. chief jackson was from the county. is that going to give the citizens the level of trust that they need? i'd rather see a different take on this to get the citizens more behind if the chief is going to be with us. >> thank you trymaine lee and jim cavanaugh. when we return hillary clinton's e-mails. republicans in congress want more answers than she's willing to give them. "hardball" returns after this.

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believe her about only protecting her private mail. not anything related to her service as secretary of state. well, like everything else regarding secretary clinton, the issue is fraught with baggage, history and attitude of course. everyone figures they know something about her, some insight into who she is they think they see something of their own challenges in life a woman of a high-spirited marriage and top office of the land. if it's a challenge to be hillary, it's even a greater challenge to be her enemy. the republicans were right to let the media ask the questions in the e-mail debate. the debate and drama shift to the belief that the bloodhounds have left the field and are nosing around in the house and in fact up in the clinton bedroom. when it does you can expect safely predicted, hillary clinton will be the one getting most of the public support. this does after all, have the aspect of a soap opera and in

soap operas the public tends to take sides. ann is a reporter with "the washington post," kelly ann conway and robert gibbs, white house press secretary under president obama. how far are republicans willing to pursue this? they are asking for hillary clinton to testify under oath at least twice under e-mails and meanwhile the a.p. is saying they will sue. and saying that congress may have an option to forcibly seize the e-mail server. >> let me get to the heart of the matter moving forward. are you going to be taking steps to compel her to hand over the server? >> well our committee doesn't have the power under our rules. we don't have the power to seize a personal property like that.

the house as a whole is frank leanne open constitutional question whether or not the house as a whole has that legal authority. the house as a whole may have the authority to seize personal property. my committee does not. >> and later today, the house oversight committee prepared to subpoena clinton for electronic access to her e-mails when asked if that includes access to her deleted echltd mails, a spokesperson told "hardball," we want the content on pt server. robert gibbs, what do you make of the way that the clintons are handling this hillary clinton in particular and her people? she seems to be good at answering the questions from last week but not this week. she doesn't make herself available for the surprise question. >> waiting eight days to say what they said yesterday was startling to democrats. i doubt there was anything said yesterday that couldn't have been said last wednesday or thursday or friday and put a little bit of this story to bed a lot earlier. i think not having the apparatus

of a campaign, even though everybody on the planet knows she's a candidate for president i think hurt her in this instance and i think they also didn't understand who the stakeholders were in this and that is the media. the media was vested rightly, i think, in asking serious questions and they had surrogates on tv actually making it seem as if it was republicans pushing these questions and i think in many ways that emboldeneds the media. >> and then there was a conflict. i mean i'm not going to knit pick this but there was a conflict. last week she tweeted that the state department released the e-mails and now we learn that she destroyed 30,000 of them. how could they release 30,000 e-mails that she destroyed. rolling disclosure is not even minded. >> that was a huge disclosure and she made it herself, that half of the stuff would have been available to her or to anyone else to look through is

gone. >> why would she say that if it was already gone? >> she meant the part that she herself determined was work related and that's going to be i think, the largest question dogging her going forward, is should she have been the arbitror or her lawyers or whoever she dep puttized to do it, she owned the server therefore, she owned the work product on it. they made that decision before the state department or anybody, any outside lawyer had a chance to take a look at it. >> kelly, i know your hat is to the right but i want to ask you one bit of advice if you were hillary. i think she's in a real problem here. >> yes. >> hobson's choice. if she doesn't leave the server out, this will die in a couple of weeks, maybe be completely dead. the server is mine maybe get rid of it bury it somewhere.

the other question is if she does release it with the 30,000 e-mails and i don't believe they are about her and her husband talking about funerals because she's only had two e-mails from her husband according to him. but there's probably in quite fairness, a legitimate thing, she's running potentially a candidacy for presidency and while she's secretary of state, i assume she was keeping up with her people all around the country, just keeping up how is that kid doing at stanford? can i help you with this when we get to l.a. this weekend? just regular keeping up fence-mending stuff. does she want that out? >> no she doesn't want that out? >> or is it better to stone wall saying you're not getting near my server. >> as a republican and a conservative at that i don't want the first lady embarrassed. i don't want secretary clinton embarrassed as any of us would be if you disclosed personal e-mails but i think yesterday she didn't do herself much good in that regard and i don't know if it would go away if she put

the server out there because a lot of my democratic frebds were shocked to see how unprepared she was and uninspiring and they are worried about the political implications here, reading from a binder and even then flubbing her lines. i believe jim web is ford -- >> she's 86%. i've never seen at 86%. >> because nobody would dare go up against her. but there's a lot -- as you see now in these reports, there's a lot of chatter and her whole claim, vast conspiracy they are

not part of the conspiracy and i think a lot of soul-searching democrats, like robert gibbs, finds this highly unusual and what she did yesterday could have been done eight days ago, i think there are a lot of democrats soul searching saying is this all we've got? >> we're not impressed with yesterday's performance, the front page headline reads "hillary out of practice in the media's glare" and "go to hell" and that was her to us i guess. and "clinton alt delete" and "deleter of the free world." actually, it's clever but i don't think it's that harmful. basically, hillary clinton, like bill clinton, stays mentally healthy by realizing there's 30% of the country that don't like

them. there's no sense worrying about them. they'll get up in the morning hating the clintons. nothing she does is going to change their view. work the 70% that is either for her or open-minded and they are not going to go to bed thinking i can't believe hillary won't let me see her e-mail. >> it was quite the scene there. >> it looked like the academy awards red carpet. >> but it probably did not change the minds of that 30% and it shouldn't change the minds of the -- i don't know what it is 30% who are absolutely die-hard hillary supporters on the other side and almost no matter what she says or is said about her would make any difference. she's really hitting for a middle section of america that we don't yet know how -- >> yes, we do. we do know what they think. >> the reference to the funeral and the daughter the wedding and the reference to yoga was that an attempt to connect with

people and their lives? >> probably. it could have been an attempt to humanize the part of the story that she wants -- she wanted to make the point that you know i'm a person i'm a normal person who has a yoga routine and i don't really want that out and you had wouldn't either. >> kelly, does that make sense to you? >> i think it does. it's what everybody else has on their personal e-mail. the 30 to 70% thing, i think what -- i think there's a decision that was made to the convenience of carrying only one device. the flip side of that is the inconvenience of at some point dealing with these questions and they decided the convenience greatly exceeded the inconvenience of having to deal with these questions. they've made the bet that this isn't going to be a voting issue. they've made the bet that -- >> that they can keep their privacy, in other words? >> yes. and that there weren't be enough that accumulates that makes the conspiracy and nontransparency something that she ultimately

has to deal with. >> kelly, i was hearing some unpleasant unpleasant unpleasant groanings from you. >> look here's the implication from yesterday. she's trying to connect with real people and uses the yoga and funeral and wedding references, as you suggested, as a way to connect. goodness, she's been in the public eye for at least 25 years and she's trying to show herself as authentic and likable now. i think that's problematic for the front-runner and the would-be nominee for the democratic party. it was on full display yesterday that she lacks her husband's political gifts and lacks the on the michl and forward looking hope and change that senator obama was able to convert into a two-term presidency. i can't believe that smart people in the party like robert gibbs are going to allow the transformational legacy of switching the democratic party to -- back to the future is a great movie.

it's a terrible governing philosophy. >> remember when obama was in trouble, people said i really like hillary better. and now the republicans are saying now that hillary is up there, i like bill a lot more than hillary. it's always the one not at bat. >> the one thing that unified democrats around the president is hillary and the one thing that will unify democrats around hillary is the president. >> you have to deal with your managing editors and assistant managing he hadder tos and all of that, is there going to be a story here in the next couple of weeks on the e-mails or do you see it continuing? >> definitely continuing. there will be in addition to the question that i raised earlier, should she have been the arbiter and there will be questions about the mechanics of this. i mean were those e-mails all

actually deleted? who did all of that? did she actually -- >> are the departments still going up against the main street press? >> yeah we can take it. >> this is not new. anyway, thank you. if you have a dog, you have to bark. thank you. anne gearan kelly anne conway, robert robert gibbs. president obama's nuclear talks are not just getting blasted by the left. conservatives are criticizing it, too and they should be criticizing it. john kerry says the president already has the authority he needs. he wants a unified front from the congress. will this congress give it to him? and first republican peter king trashes ted cruz saying they both make lousy presidents. why i love peter sometimes. and early battle among 2016

front runners, jeb bush and scott walker have the knives out for each other. isn't that interesting? i guess that the bushes know that walker is riding high in the polls. finally, the lucky number that republicans have gotten their hands on. 47. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

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environmental impact. and natural gas is a big part of that commitment. welcome back to "hardball." well, those 47 republican senators who sent a letter to the leaders of iran trying to derail a nuclear deal are continuing to face push back. and this afternoon, hillary clinton tweeted, gop letter to iranian clerics undermining american leadership. no one considering running for commander in chief should be signing on. well said. here's john kerry. >> my reaction to the letter was utter disbelief. during my 29 years here in the

senate i never heard of nor even heard of it being proposed anything comparable to this. when it says that congress could actually modify the terms of an agreement at any time that's flat wrong. they don't have the right to modify. an agreement reached executive to executive between leaders of the country. >> well secretary kerry's comments were criticized by a number of republicans including the chairman of the foreign affairs committee corker. >> mr. secretary, i know this is a well-written speech -- >> not a speech. this is not a speech. >> i will say that i didn't sign the letter. i'm very disappointed though that you've gone back on your statement that any agreement must pass muster with congress. >> to say that we should not or be communicating is nonsense. members of congress every

single day, communicate with members of other countries. >> i am not particularly happy with being lectured to by the administration about the constitution. this is an administration who i believe has trampled the constitution at many turns. i signed the letter to iran. but you know what the message i was sending was to you. the message was to president obama that we want you to obey the law. we want you to understand the separation of powers. >> he must have sent the letter to the wrong address, huh? senator chris murphy was at the hearing and asked secretary kerry about iran. we have kathleen parker who wrote today that 47 senators were acting like children at a school fair whose single purpose was to dunk the principal. did you buy that statement by rand paul the senator from kentucky, that this letter was actually addressed to the administration? >> i think a lot of these senators really do want to derail these negotiations.

i think people like tom cotton see foreign policy only through a military lens and the only way you're going to divorce iran from nuclear ambitions is to bomb them. a lot of us are very worried about that path. but this is just a fundamental mystery to the constitution. the united states senate has the power to approve treaties. we do not have the power nor the responsibility to approve executive agreements and there are thousands of agreements that have been signed by this president and previous presidents that have gone into effect without congress weighing in. so this is just about a fundamental misunderstanding of the constitution. yeah, a lot of this is just about politics. a lot of this is just about republicans trying to continually blow up whatever the president is trying to do internationally. >> well, they set the explosion which concerns me. i can understand they want to vote on something afterwards. i'm always pushing for that on war issues. why do they want to blow it up before there is a deal? >> so this is a key point here and where i think kerry got a

little bit off kilter today. congress does have the ability to weigh in on this deal because what's going to have to happen is the president is going to need to waive sanctions before congress appeals them. congress does have the power to take away the ability of the president to temporarily waive these sanctions. congress reserves the ability in order to do something about it. >> sure. >> but it's beyond me as to why they are trying to stop this deal from getting to congress in the first place. >> it's beyond you? is it really beyond you? you're being rhetorical. you do have a guess as to why they would do this. could it be that they are afraid the deal will look good that the country will be satisfied and say this is the best we could get with the terrible circumstances or elsewhere could they fear it is culmination if they think it's going to be unpleasant and sununacceptable to

the american people? >> that's why i'm saying this is political. it's about trying to frustrate anything good that the president is trying to do. i do also think it's an outgrowth of a neoconservative orthodoxy within the republican party. it's a group of them that believe that diplomacy is weakness and that the only way that you exert american influence in the world is to drop bombs on people. that hasn't gone very well for the united states in the last ten years and iraq is a country -- iran is a country three times the size of iraq. we better be pretty comfortable about the consequences of negotiations failing. >> who is scarier? ted cruz or tom cotton? >> i'm getting to know senator cotton. listen, both of them seem to be much more interested in advancing their own political agendas than really making the senate work and unfortunately there are too few people like senator corker who are willing to be a little more ju desh shous about these kinds of big ticket national issues. >> do you want joe mccarthy to

come back or the bates motel. thank you very much for joining us. >> thanks. >> secretary kerry clashed with marco rubio. let's watch. >> i believe that much of our strategy with regard to isis is being driven by a desire not to upset iran so they don't walk away from the deal that you are working on. >> our deal is negotiated to make sure they can not get a nuclear weapon and it's really almost insulting that the presumption here is that we're going to negotiate something that allows them to get a nuclear weapon. >> i haven't discussed about the nuclear weapon. and i'm not saying there's a grand bargain. what i'm saying is i believe our military strategy towards isis is influenced by our desire not to cross red lines that the iranians have about the u.s. military presence in the region. >> absolutely not in the least. there's no consideration whatsoever as to how they or

anybody else -- >> getting a little complicated there. rubio -- everybody is out there sporting that. they are trying to find a way to plant their flag. what's your view of this? 47 by the way, is an unlucky number for the republicans because in the last campaign it was the 47% -- >> i thought of that chris. >> did you? it's the same number again. >> absolutely. i would disagree with the senator that the only option to the republicans is to bomb. but i do think my reaction to this was, first of all, i always ask the question what good does it do because we should always be doing things that are good for our goals and for our country and i feel like this made us look silly. i'm embarrassed for the 47 who signed it and extremely sorry for those seeking higher office would put their name to something like this. it undermines the president and it's basically saying -- you're writing a letter to the ayatollah? come on. you know you're probably on the

wrong team. you know, if indeed they wanted to get that message to senator -- to secretary kerry and the president as rand paul said, well then by all means, write the letter to them. take out a full page in "the washington post" or "new york times." >> why do you think rand paul was unusually chicken? because usually he's a gutsy guy. he said i signed it but i was really sending that letter to president obama. no he wasn't. he was sending the letter to another country. >> i can't speak for why he did this. i suspect that that comment that he was really speaking to to our leaders, was to back it up just a tad. >> i think you're right. push back. i don't like that new word push kbak. >> we have to come up with another one. >> chicken out? >> thank you, kathleen parker for your very sublime note here. up next, another hostage being killed this time at the hands of a child.

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breaking news the white house says it's aware of an alleged incident involving two secret service agent who is drove a government car into security barricades at the white house after a night of a party. this incident has been turned over to the department of homeland security. joseph clancy says if misconduct is identified the appropriate action will be taken. this happened last week and involved a member of the president's protective detail. now back to "hardball." i find it really

hypocritical that people come before you and say i stand with the firefighters, we have to be with you and then don't vote for the department of the homeland security. no one should ever deny you the funding that you need to do your job. >> and the best of irish luck to you, senator. congressman, i should say. that was republican congressman peter king speaking at a forum at the association of firefighters yesterday. when it comes to issue of national security congressman king has been an outspoken critic of his own party. he didn't just slam republicans for attempting to defund the department of homeland security. here's what king had to say about senator rand paul of kentucky. >> i mentioned rand paul. now, he's concerned about drones. he's afraid the cia might use drones to attack americans drinking coffee in starbucks. now, and he gave a filibuster on the senate floor talking about

this. now, if you are head of isis and you are going to plan something against the united states and you want to do a background check on who the president was and you found out that he thought that the real threat was the cia attacking americans at starbucks, would you really be afraid to attack the united states? >> congressman also had choice words for senator ted cruz of texas as well. >> then we have ted cruz who believe that if the government should be shut down a year and a half ago. he went on the senate floor and red dr. seuss. again, do you really want a commander in chief who thinks the way to run the government is to read dr. seuss and shut down the united states government? no. we need to be responsible adults. >> joined by dana milbank and former united states senator from arkansas blanche. i love it when he brings out the tommy gun and mows down these

guys. cruz demogogary is not a good career move and government surveillance is the big problem in their life someone going into my e-mail is more important than fighting these wars. your thoughts sth. >> welcome to the primary season. anybody running in the primary or whether it's those trying to assist in some way, it's all going to be about sensationalism. he was thinking of good things to say to those firefighters to get them excited and that's exactly what he was doing. >> jim, what happened to the 11th commandment, speak no evil of a fellow republican? i think he was. i liked it. >> i mean i think the people he was attacking are the people that made that commandment. >> well said. explain that. because people don't -- he went around looking for incumbents to

knock off. >> right. it's to get more conservative republicans elected and if that environment, the gloves are off. peter king is like if you come at me i will come at you. >> the republican party historically ever since the cold war, they've been the hawk party. can they get credit for protecting people in this country if they shut down homeland security with impunity and they do it for sport to make points? >> that's exactly what peter king is talking about, a long island native i'm proud of him. >> can you give us some accents? >> i could do it a little bit after the show. but peter king is what republicans used to be. he's hawkish, he's law and order, no nonsense you fund things in government that you need to do. you fight terrorists. you don't play games with drones. >> that's right. you explain the dichotomy. why do republicans feel that

defending the country involves more than ever defending here? >> ted cruz wants to starve the beast. he doesn't care what the ramifications are and rand paul is so concerned about his libertarian base he's not seeing the bigger picture here. peter king is a blast from the past. he did it with hurricane sandy too. >> when netanyahu was all of the buzz here, morally he shouldn't have been invited but politically he went up to the edge and probably did okay. at the probably made the republicans happy. i don't think they are glad that they did the 47 senators. i think they went past their smarts with that one. >> i've seen no one, among regular people people on my facebook, people i talk to -- >> where do you go to find them? >> people i talk to from where i grew up i see no one who is happy about this. >> the 47 in the letter?

>> yes. it's a violation, something that you don't do. >> how about the logan act? it does specifically violate it. specifically violate. anyway, let me ask you about this other weird thing. not all republicans are crazy and not all democrats are consistent blanche lincoln. he wants to -- he's a hawk beyond hawk about iran. no deal is -- i'm not going to let anything go by and yet he wants to put all kinds of restrictions on fighting isis. the american people want to fight isis in some way. they don't want more restrictions. what they want with restrictions is we are not going to war with iran. is this politics? could it be? is it okay to fund iran because it's healthy in terms of fundraising and things like that it makes you popular among people who are hawks. >> well i mean -- >> big fund-raisers are not for the war with isis but they are

for iran. >> i think it's pretty dangerous to play with any of this through a political effort. and i think a lot of what happened in that letter was just that. and i think it's also the same -- >> who do you think wrote it? is that too nasty to think that cotton didn't write it? he's a freshman. two weeks in the senate. three weeks, right? and he's writing -- he's knocking out letters and 47 guys are signing them. that's pretty fast moving. >> he's no blanche lincoln but the guy went to harvard and can put a letter together. >> he also went to war in iraq and afghanistan. and, you know he deserves the credit for serving. there are many who have -- >> co-sponsorship 47? >> it is. but i also think that it was, again, is sense significance nal type of situation where a lot of people who signed that letter know that they have a responsibility to advise and consent and their time will come. there will be a right time. but these negotiators are

working towards peace and i hope that they will look and see -- >> you know what would look good, the republicans who didn't sign it. >> seven of them. >> we need seven. we need seven that can change the universe. the round table is staying with us. up next here's a fight. jeb bush is feeling the heat. scott walker is coming on. he's becoming the front-runner. they don't like it. the bush people are attacking him. big surprise. both camps are going at it. that's ahead. this is "hardball," the place for politics. it's a significant improvement over the infiniti we had... we went around the country talking to people who made the switch to ford. the brand more people buy. and buy again. oh i love it... we test-drove the escape... we both said, "i think that's the one"... and i really enjoy the pep in its step... that's the ecoboost... when the four of us go out we don't take their car... we always take our car. this was like a huge upgrade. it's awesome!

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the u.s. senate is expected to take up the nomination of loretta lynch for attorney general, finally. mitch mcconnell expects to bring up the vote next week. he's been under pressure from democrats saying it's taking too long to bring the nomination to the floor for a vote. she claimed the judiciary committee with all of the democrats and republican senators nearly two weeks ago. we'll be right back.

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between former florida governor jeb bush and wisconsin governor scott walker. according to the latest poll bush leads walker among republicans by a single digit. 19-18. that's a big improvement for walker, who was polling way down in the low single digits in december. as the "washington post" reports today, the knives are already out between the two rival campaigns. kas walker is a flip-flopper tweeting, did you know scott walker was for path to citizenship, now not. did you know he was against the ethanol subsidy. now he is for. do you really know him? and in an e-mail to the post another bush supporter, took up the same line of attack saying running for president requires have the mettle to keep your boots on not changing into flip-flops when it starts getting hot. i think the flip-flop label hasn't yet stuck to walker. unlike romney until now he's had a low profile nationally. we're here back with our round

table. this fighting is below the level. it's really petty, right? why are they already out attacking each other? it's now -- what's the month? it's march. >> we're already like six months into this campaign. of course, this is what they're doing now. it's following the same old script. you have the front-runner jeb bush who is sort of everybody's second choice. you can see they're going to go through the flirtation with every one of these guys. eventually they all say -- >> herman cain was up there for a while. >> and they'll say, all right, i think we've got to go with this guy. >> you think they'll give up and go with the established -- >> they've done it every time. >> why is that? why do they always go with a guy they don't like? like the democrats used to for years never gave the nomination to the guy who gave the best speech. what is this? >> you know jeb, they do this

because the people who they always go to they don't like tend to be at least minimally acceptable to everyone in the party. mitt romney wasn't glamorous, he wasn't great. but he didn't anger anyone especially. you can be okay with that. where i disagree with dana a bit here is walker fits that profile a bit, too. >> explain it. what are his specifications? >> foreign policy aside, he is an evangelical christian who became a conservative superstar -- >> switched from catholic to baptist. >> it could happen. he's not very well known. >> he's e-- >> he's young. >> he's not young. >> you're younger than him. he's young.

>> he's in a blue state who's never had to compromise. i think that's the kind of -- >> i think the tax cutting thing is good for him. he said i protected the taxpayer. i think that works with the tea party. >> i think it does. he's breaking the -- >> your theory he's the player of the month. >> he may be different, but what are we finding out, there's billions of dollars in deficits there are going to be huge cuts coming up. the republican electorate doesn't know scott walker. >> i think it's going to be jeb. >> by the way, jeb is young. >> i agree. >> now we're getting somewhere. >> i agree completely. thank you all. when we come back let me finish with that lucky number the republicans got their hands on.

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let me finish tonight with the lucky number the republicans have gotten their hands on, 47. that's the percentage of your fellow americans the great mitt romney said were free loaders in this country. now the same number of gop senators have signed a letter to the iranian mullahs telling them not to trust a deal with president obama because any deal will be written in disappearing ink. 47 this time means the number of republican senators who refused to let obama negotiate. they want a deal killed before it is a deal. they want the united states to

fail an agreement with iran because it would guarantee iran's nuclear arms program which means they could continue making a weapon. any american president would ultimately have to attack. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right noi. tonight on "all in." >> we can't get the drug cocktail, when we fall back to the firing squad. >> with execution drugs running out across the country, one state votes to bring back the firing squad. the death penalty crisis in america. breaking news in ferguson where there is finally a shakeup at the ferguson police. >> the chief's resignation is effective march 19th, 2015. plus, a former clinton cabinet official calls for elizabeth warren to get into the race. robert risch joins me live. why the right is freaking out about google's n