that's the truth about culture, restaurants. that's all in for this evening. rachel starts now. thank you for joining with us this hour. and now may i present the newest player in high-end american presidential politics. behold. ♪ ♪ >> in case it's not working on you the way it is working on me. it's supposed to make you want to buy high end outfits for when you your friends, your sexiest friends get together and play polo, i looked it up, it is like hockey but on horses.

some, obviously, maybe looks for fancy clothes after the match. i'm not sure clothing you wear while you're playing polo. this ad is for a real store. they're located in west palm beach, florida. that is their accent on the name of the store. not mine. it's not elegant polo. which is what i thought it was for a long time today. it's elegante polo. it specializes in luxury polo apparel. as of today, we know the good folks behind the store have just filed paperwork to set up a brand new super pac to support their favorite potential presidential hopeful for 2016. one guess as to which presidential candidate elegante polo decided to throw behind.

one guess. yes, the washington post reporting today that a new super pac was set up last week to support donald trump's potential run for president. because if he needs something, it's other people's money. the official name of the super pac supporting donald trump for president -- it's kind of sounds like the rest of them. citizens for something good usa. the e-mail address of the guy who filed the paperwork to register the pro donald trump is the guy's name equestrians for trump.com. there it is on the filing. equestriansfortrump.com. these are the equestrians. the guys who started the equestrians for donald trump super pac owns the elegante polo store. he personally districted this music video.

he's a busy guy. that's one quite remarkable bit of presidential hopeful super pac news in the last 24 hours. the last day of reporting, right. the other big piece of presidential contending news today is about jeb bush. jeb bush officially hasn't declared his candidacy for president, but he obviously is seriously campaigning for the nomination and has been for months. jeb bush is reportedly -- reportedly going to outsource a lot of duties of a traditional presidential campaign to the super pac that is supporting him. the official jeb bush campaign, once officially declared, will, of course, have limits how much money they can raise from donors. they'll be forced to disclose publicly who the donors are. that's the campaign. the super pac, however, they can raise as much money as they want. literally no limits. and the donors to the super pac have the advantage of being largely secret. so that's obviously a very enticing way of shifting the responsibilities.

the more the super pac does, the less the campaign does, the more you can run without constant. by technically, according to the laws of the united states, jeb bush is not supposed to coordinate any kind of campaigning activity at all with his super pac, but according to new reporting today, the bush campaign is apparently going to trust the super pac with running his campaign. really running almost all of it. the ap reports today that jeb bush's super pac, which already raised tens of millions of undisclosed dollars, it will be the super pac that runs the tv advertising, the direct mail advertising for the campaign, the data gathering for the campaign, the phone banking, even the get out the vote effort on election day for a potential jeb bush for candidate presidential campaign. so that's all apparently going to be done by the super pac. all apparently done without any direct coordination whatsoever between the official bush campaign and the bush super pac, which will do all that stuff.

any coordination, of course, would be against the law. so i'm sure they won't. the other bit of news involving millions or potentially billions of dollars and our presidential nominating process is the reporting over the last 24 hours that the two most watched guys whose endorsements are perhaps the most coveted thing in republican politics, those two guys may have started to express a preference in the nominating process for a certain governor from wisconsin named scott walker. the coach brothers appear to have a favorite. more from the new york times -- when the primaries are over and scott walker gets the nomination, mr. koch told the crowd, the donors laughed and applauded.

so the republican primary campaign for president of the united states, it has been underway for months already. we have many months to go. but we are getting a better and better look more and more acute look at what the primary process will be like on the republican side. for the republican would be candidates, there is so far -- the guy who runs the polo apparel store and the unlimited money super pac taking over the jeb bush campaign, which puts the campaign in the position of being basically a rump organization. the billionaire koch brothers giving a nod to scott walker at a donor party. that's the tenor of the republican presidential nominating race. that's what it's like on the republican side. a public unapologetic race not just toward money but unlimited money in the most prominent billionaires picking their candidate and running. on the democratic side, the tone

and the public face of the frontrunner candidate for president hillary clinton couldn't be more different right now. that's not to say that hillary clinton doesn't also have lots of wealthy donors behind her or that she's not wealthy herself, but the message her campaign is trying to send -- the steps they have taken so far with her as a candidate are not signaling she's trying to support the luxury polo brands of america. she's positioning her campaign in an opposite way. take, for example, the news of her hiring a well-known former financial regulator. a well known thorn in the side of wall street. a guy named gary gensler to be the chief financial officer for her campaign. gary gensler and elizabeth warren were two key players in picking the laws that wall street hates.

in is someone you might expect a elizabeth warren campaign to hire. it's hillary clinton who is making news for having just hired him at the highest levels of her campaign. also, time magazine recently decided to name elizabeth warren as one of the most influential person in the country. more interesting than picking her is the person they got to write about elizabeth warren and what a progressive champion she is hillary clinton. hillary clinton wrote a testament to elizabeth warren calling her a champion of working families and a scourge of special interests. as a side note, sort of proves the point, i think, the person time magazine got to write about how create the koch brothers are in the same issue of the same magazine? writing about elizabeth warren is hillary clinton. writing about the koch brothers is rand paul.

in presidential politics, the two parties right now are running as fast as they can in opposite directions. the republican party right now is all about openly courting the billionaires. the democrats, specifically the person most likely to become the democratic nominee for president. democrats are doing everything they can to send an anti-big money anti-wall street message to appeal to middle class voters. to be more like the hypothetical elizabeth warren presidential campaign that doesn't seem like it's happening. democrats in the absence of elizabeth warren actually running for president, are trying to sate that need among a democratic electorate by making themselves into the elizabeth warren party right now. and that is why it was so striking to see president obama say this today about senator elizabeth warren. >> i love elizabeth. we're allies on a whole host of issues but she's wrong on this. >> president obama today at a

round table discussion moderated by chris matthews, the president there making the case that elizabeth warren specifically along with other democrats who have been criticizing the big trade deal that the white house has been negotiating for months. president obama making the case today elizabeth warren and the democrats who criticized the deal, are, in his words, wrong. the white house is facing stiff opposition from the progressive wing of the democratic party on the issue. the trade deal further damage the manufacturing sector in the u.s., it will definitely hurt union and the working classes more broadly want white house has been aggressively mounting a full court press against the criticisms trying to get the democratic decenters on their side on this issue. labor secretary tom perez, who is widely thought of one of the more, if not the most progressive members of president obama's cabinet, he has come out very vocally in support of the trade deal and the white house. they've rolled out secretary of defense ash carter on this. secretary of defense handles war

and stuff. he has come out publicly to say the trade deal, they call the tpp, the trade deal is a top priority for him at the defense department. >> the tpp makes strong strategic sense, and it's probably one of the most important parts of the rebalance. that's why it is won such bipartisan support. in fact, you may not expect to hear this from the secretary of defense, but in terms of rebalancing its broadest sense, tpp is as important to me as another aircraft carrier. >> right. i wouldn't expect you to say that. secretary of defense coming out to say this trade deal is as important to him as another aircraft carrier. that's a striking thing to say. i mean, he's the defense secretary, and right now specifically he is getting a ton of use out of his aircraft carriers. this is the uss karl vincent.

a u.s. navy super carrier. until last week it was deployed in the persian gulf in support of the military operation against isis. it's heading back to the united states. it was to be relieved by this guy, the uss theodore roosevelt which was deployed to join the fight against isis but as of this week it is being rerouted, pulled out of that fight, effectively, instead taking the 6,000 sailors and the 60 something war planes and heading toward yemen. we talked about this on the show last night. there it is right now a huge contingent of u.s. military power being dispatched to the body of water surrounding yemen. in that part of the world, there are currently two u.s. mine sweepers, three amphibious ships with more than 2,000 u.s. marines on them, two destroyers, and now a guided missile cruiser is being added to the fleet as well as the aircraft carrier,

the uss theodore roosevelt. more than 9,000 american military personnel stacked up off the coast of yemen. why? according to lots of unnamed sources and lots of media reports, all of those ships and the huge number of american personnel are there because iran. because iran may be planning to ship weapons into yemen to the rebels in yemen that iran is supporting. the u.s. and saudi arabia don't want the iranian weapons shipments to go through. that's what we know unofficially. that's how they explain unofficially why there has been a huge u.s. military build up off the coast of that country that is in the middle of a bloody civil war. that's the unofficial explanation. if you ask american officials on the record, though, why that huge contingent of the u.s. military power is there now, they have a much different and much more complicated explanation. >> the principle purpose of this

military deployment is to protect the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce. there's a u.s. military presence in the gulf to ensure the frequent navigation and the free flow of commerce. >> what is it the freedom of commerce in the red sea? >> i wouldn't go beyond you know what we've said about the need to protect the freedom of navigation. >> we're not there for anything you might have heard about trying to stop the iranian ships full of weapons. we're not there for any war-related purposes whatsoever. those 9,000 plus u.s. troops and the two destroyers and the two mine sweepers and the amphibious ships full of marines and the guided missile cruiser and the aircraft carrier, they're there to protect the free flow of commerce and navigation. nothing having -- i don't know what you're talking about with the iran stuff -- i don't know.

navigation and commerce. the defense department declined to speculate today on what would happen if during the course of assuring the free flow of navigation and commerce u.s. personnel ended up intercepting iranian weapons on board the iranian ships steaming for them. would u.s. personnel on board any of the nine u.s. warships, would they board the iranian vessels if they thought they were iranian weapons on board and they wanted to stop the iranian weapons from getting to yemen. would u.s. troops board the ships? what if it starts a shooting war between the u.s. and iran? my colleague chris matthews in his interview with president obama today got the president to weigh in specifically on that, and on his current fight with his own party. it was great. that's next. stay with us. zor that swirls and swerves... ... as every blade adjusts to your curves. new venus swirl. with contour blades that have six times more flexibility.

plus a flexiball. flawless shaving bones, bends, and all. new venus swirl. doug, we have the results, but first, we have a very special guest. come on out, flo! [house band playing] you have anything to say to flo? nah, i'll just let the results do the talking. [crowd booing] well, he can do that. we show our progressive direct rate and the rates of our competitors even if progressive isn't the lowest. it looks like progressive is not the lowest! ohhhh! when we return we'll find out whether doug is the father. wait, what?

y today with president obama.

chris started by asking the president what is going on with this fast, big new deployment of u.s. troops and ships to yemen. are u.s. forces about to get into some kind of confrontation with ships from iran off the coast of yemen? watch. >> mr. president, we're all watching what is going on with the iranian navy. how do we avoid -- it seems like the old cuban missile crisis where we try to send signals back and forth map signal are you sending to iranians? we've been straightforward to them. right now their ships are in international waters. there's a reason why we keep some of our ships in persian gulf region. that is to make sure we maintain freedom of navigation. and what we've said is that if there are weapons delivered to factions within yemen the navigation that's a problem. and we're not sending on secure messages.

we send direct messages about it. my hope is generally we can settle down the situation in yemen. that's always been a factious country with at lot of problems. it's very poor, and right now there are a lot of people inside of yemen suffering. what we need to do is bring the parties together and find a political arrangement. it is not solved by having another proxy war fought inside of yemen and, you know, we've indicated to the iranians they need to be part of the solution. >> how do you keep a coordination with the egyptians and saudi navies. they also are in the area. they might engage with the iranians. how do you avoid a confrontation? >> when it comes to the seas, we're obviously the dominant force, and we're coordinating closely with all of our allies in the region. sending a message that rather than another conflict in the region, we need to settle this now. >> what about the iranians and the russians.

they are going to buy the s 300. they need surface to air missiles. doesn't that put us and the israelis in a situation where if they weaponized their nuclear program, they'll is a fantastic defense system against any attack on their nuclear facilities. >> this is a sale pending for six years. the russians stopped it at my request as we were putting together the sanctions that ultimately brought the iranians to the table. it's of concern we object to it. particularly because right now we're negotiating to make sure they don't get a nuclear weapon, but as i said before, chris, we have to keep this in perspective. our defense budgets just a little under $600 billion. theirs is a little over $17 billion. even if they have air defense systems, you know, if we had to, we could penetrate them. now my goal is not to resolve conflicts and tensions in the region through more war.

my goal is to make sure that, you know, we are able to negotiate a deal that we can verify that ensures that israel is safe and ensures that our neighbors like saudi arabia and the gulf countries are safe and there's not a nuclear arms race in the region. ultimately it will be up to the iranians to make sure that they come to the table prepared to memorialize what has already been agreed to. there are details that have to be worked out. they could walk away over the next three months. if, in fact, we get a deal that world community can verify and trust, then that's the best path forward. it will not eliminate the other conflicts that we have, including what we're seeing with respect to yemen or what is happening in sir -- syria, but it creates a climate and atmosphere to lessen the tensions. >> another area i know you care about is africa. watching the refugees just

trying to find a life, and then also a country we care about pro western getting terrorized. the college kids the hope of their families getting killed because their christians. are you going to go to kenya? >> i am going to kenya. it's a heartbreaking situation. there's a lot of chaos around the world right now, and part of our goal as the world's leading super power is to work with partnered countries to try to resolve conflicts to be ruthless in going after terrorism, but we're not going to do it by ourselves. we're not going to do it just by deploying more marines in every country that has the problems. we build up their capacity in these areas so that they're not recruiting centers and safe havens for terrorist activity. we're seeing some success. in other areas we're still having problems. somalia is actually improving from where it was 20 years ago,

it's still not where it needs to be. it still has these hot beds of terrorist activity that spill over into kenya. when it comes to the refugee problem from libya, again, that results from the fact that you have tribal conflicts and in some cases factions or religious differences inside of libya that are creating chaos, but libya, actually, has a lot of oil and gas for a relatively small population. they could be a successful country. what we're seeing in a lot of these areas is failures of government. governments that have no civil society. they're not creating the kinds of economic policies that work for people, and our solutions are going to be ones that we have to shape with the world community, with the region, and some is going take time. but i always tell people we have to maintain some perspective on this. the middle east and north africa are going through changes we haven't seen in our generation.

i think the islamic world is going through a process where they have to isolate and push out the kind of extremism that we've seen expressed by isil. that's a generational project. what our job is, in the meantime, is to make sure that we're protecting americans, we're protecting our interests and maintaining the biggest navigation of freedom. we're partnering with the best elements of the communities in order to be successful. it's going to take some time, but i remind people that, you know, there actually is probably less war and less violence around the world today than there might have been 30 or 40 years ago. it doesn't make it any less painful, but things can get better. we just have to be vigilant and have strong partners. >> it's about freedom of navigation off the coast of yemen. chris matthews today in the interview with president obama.

it was at the same event today where president obama also specifically addressed a big fight coming up in congress over an international trade deal, it turns out politically to be a big fight between the president and his own party. >> i love elizabeth. we're allies on a host of issues, but she's wrong on this. now understandably, folks in labor and some progressives are suspicious generally because of the experiences they saw in the past, but my point is, don't fight the last war. wait and see what we actually have in this deal before you make those judgments. i would not be doing this trade deal if i did not think it was good for the middle class, and when you hear folks make a lot of suggestions about how bad this trade deal is, and when you dig into the facts, they are wrong. i am happy to debate this and i'm sure jerry and others are based on the actual facts.

this is the most progressive framework for trade we have ever had. >> great interview round table today hosted by chris matthews today with president obama. on that trade bill tomorrow, the house is going to vote on that bill that has put the president at odds with the progressive wing. the elizabeth warren wing of the democratic party. the expectations is that bill will pass the house unless something unexpected happens. it will likely pass the senate as well. it not okay the trade deal but allow the administration go ahead negotiating it. it will be interesting policy fight as it keeps unfolding tomorrow and beyond. it is a policy fight. it is also a political fight within the democratic party. and the democrats are a party that isn't really used to having internal fights anymore. nobody knows if democrats are any good at internal fights anymore. we're about to see it on the trade deal and more. democratic presidential primary or not. lots more to come tonight. please stay with us.

nbc news made an announcement about something that will benefit you directly. particularly during the news week due to happen next week. we have that announcement, that news ahead. which we're excited about in the building. plus, we have our exclusive report ahead tonight on a new policy that has been invented in oklahoma. it's something poised to spread across the country. it is truly out of nowhere. it is truly brand new and has never been done before. it is a fascinating story. it's exclusive to us and that's ahead. stay with us. g radiant skin. a good night's sleep... and aveeno®. [ female announcer

] only aveeno® positively radiant has an active naturals® total soy formula. it helps reduce the look of brown spots in just four weeks. aveeno®. naturally beautiful results™.

you know, what's a bad day at work? it's when you are attorney general of the united states, and you have to send out a memo like this one because it's necessary. this is an actual doj memo. i want to reiterate to all department personnel, incoming attorneys and law enforcement officers they are prohibited from soliciting, procuring, or accepting commercial sex. so just in case it was unclear, justice department personnel, no hookers. no hookers for you.

despite how you might have been comporting yourself in the past. yes! that reminder was necessary especially at a justice department agency called the d.e.a. the drug enforcement administration. since 2001 we know, and the doj now admits dea agents had been engaging in what the inspector general artfully termed sex parties. according to an inspector general report released late last month dea agents made a habit of attending sex parties that were arranged for them at their u.s. government leased properties. the nice thing the prostitutes didn't cost them a thing. the prostitutes were paid for by local drug cartels. usually. in one instance the dea official allegedly solicited prostitutes for the goodbye party. he paid for them. he paid them with u.s. government money because come on! it was the guy's goodbye party. the report also found that three

dea supervisors accepted drug money from cartel members. during the sex parties they issued laptops and blackberries were left lying around in the open. none of these things with, not the prostitutes nor the friendliness with the cartel bosses, nor the gifts, or the security risk none were reported up the chain to dea supervisors in d.c. after the sex party ig came out last month, the head was hauled before congress and asked to explain. one thing that proved hard to explain was the fact that even after the facts were known about what the agents had been doing, none of the agents involved in the sex parties thing had received anything worse than a 10-day suspension. director michelle leonhart said there was nothing she could do.

they called for her to step down. today they got their wish. she has been at the high ranking position since 2004, as best as we can tell. now she's gone. or she's at least going. the justice department said that michelle leonhart will retire in mid may. that means one of eric holder's last jobs as attorney general of the united states, in addition to sending out memos reminding people not to solicit prostitutes. one of the last jobs is suggesting somebody to lead the the the agency that made the no hookers memo a necessary thing. happy trails. wish your skin could bounce back like it used to? new neutrogena hydro boost water gel. with hyaluronic acid it plumps skin cells with intense hydration and locks it in. for supple, hydrated skin. hydro boost. from neutrogena.

it started from my experience scuba diving. i just remember that is a way of -- >> accidental death is what he says there. turns out there's an un dotted line between scuba diving and a state trying something so unsettling, it ought to be front page news everywhere. it might end up being front page news as soon as next week for the whole country. it's a very strange story out of one specific state. that story is next. please stay right there.

we have breaking news in the fox news channel. the individual mandate has been ruled unconstitutional.

>> he said the individual mandate cannot be sustained under congress's power to regulation commerce. that means the mandate is gone. >> that was a fun day. that was the day when cnn and the fox news channel both reported that the supreme court had struck down obamacare. obamacare is dead. they were wrong. the supreme court had done no such thing. which made for exciting, confusing, awkward tv over the course of that morning. >> all right, shannon, we're looking at this and trying -- we talked about the law to our viewers at home. be patient as we work through this. you're seeing something now. >> we're getting conflicting information. we're getting conflicting information. if you follow the high court blog, they say despite what shannon read, that the individual mandate is surviving. >> oh. good times. that was the day the blog.com

saved fox news's bacon. when they read what the blog was reporting about the supreme court decision, instead of listening to their own incorrect on-air reports. that was june 2012. now three years later, we're about to get another couple of block buster cases at the supreme court next week. it is, therefore, exciting for us in this building that in addition to the excellent no one's better justice reporting from nbc's chief justice correspondent pete williams. nbc signed on tom goldstein as nbc's supreme court analyst. that's exciting to have that kind of reporting fire power focus right here in this building as the supreme court heads toward two more huge cases that have the potential to hugely change some controversial policy matters in the country. next week on tuesday, the court will hear the big national case on same-sex marriage, which

potentially could legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. or dot opposite. then the day after that, the court will hear the lethal injection case. they're ruling in that case has the potential to change the death penalty nationwide. but the specific case they have taken up on the death penalty is one from oklahoma. oklahoma made itself famous in the past year for a badly screwed up execution in which the prisoner they were trying to kill regained consciousness in the middle of the execution. he personally ended up trying to help the execution team get into his veins. it went on for so long that oklahoma called off the execution in the middle of it and considered trying to revive the guy. they pulled the curtain so the witnesses wouldn't see it. ultimately after 3/4 of an hour, the man finally died of a heart attack. that screwed up case in oklahoma has lead to lethal injection being put on trial next week at the united states supreme court. even without that case, lethal injection has been on

hard time because states can't get the drugs they want to use for the injections. the drug companies won't sell to prisons anymore. states were having compounding pharmacies make the drugs by hand. but now they won't do that either. last night we reported in mississippi, mississippi appears to have stockpiled not injectable drugs, but rather the raw ingredients to try to make them. they have stockpiled these ingredients at the prison where they kill their prisoners. thus raising the disturbing prospect that mississippi prison officials may be trying to cook this up themselves. like they're making their own liquor in a prison toilet or something. home brew injectable pharmaceuticals made by corrections officers. what could possibly go wrong? so that's mississippi. in oklahoma, the state attorney general actually urged the state legislature last year to consider creating its own pharmacy. a pharmacy run by the state government specifically so the

state itself with government employees could cook up execution drugs to kill oklahoma prisoners. the legislature decided they didn't want to run their own pharmacy. they came up with something else. something new. oklahoma has a track record of invention when it comes to killing people. in 1977, it was an oklahoma state senator named bill wiseman who asked the state medical examiner to come up with a new way to kill prisoners that would be more human than the firing squad. bill said he regretted ever being involved in the process. but he did ask the state medical examiner and the medical examiner came up with a three-drug protocol for injected pharmaceuticals which became the national template for lethal injections. they called it chatman's protocol because dr. chat man was asked by time magazine if he wishes he hadn't come up with the protocol given it became the model for the country. he said, quote, well, i can't undo history.

would i do it differently if i had to do it over again? i don't know. i had no concept at the time. i was very young. i was not educated in the ways of legislators at the time when i suggested it, i had no idea would i ever thought it would have mushroomed into what it did. he also says now he probably would have been smarter to make the protocol just one single drug rather than a combination of three drugs. at the time he did suggest a combination of three drugs. basically by happenstance, because this guy in oklahoma decided to go that way, that became america's national means of killing people coast to coast. dr. chapman said, quote, the states blindly followed it. that was 1977 they were the last state to come up with a new way of killing people. now oklahoma is doing it again. they have just invented a whole another new way for the state government to kill people. it has never been done before.

but they have already signed on to it. in our exclusive report on what they signed on to and how they decided to do it is just ahead. stay with us. are you so congested... it feels like that brick's on your face? try zyrtec®-d to powerfully clear your blocked nose and relieve your other allergy symptoms. so you can breathe easier all day. zyrtec®-d. find it at the pharmacy counter. my advice for healthy looking radiant skin. a good night's sleep... and aveeno®. [ female announcer ] only aveeno® positively radiant has an active naturals® total soy formula. it helps reduce the look of brown spots in just four weeks. aveeno®. naturally beautiful results™.

and scuba diving, i've learned that you can accidentally die if you're using a rebreather and never even know it because of the way rebreathers work. and it's kind of complicated, but if your oxygen supply gets

stuck, they scrub out your carbon dioxide, you'll start breathing a continuous loop of nitrogen. and it doesn't take long, you just pass out and die. you don't even know it's com on. nitrogen is inexpensive, it's all around you. you don't need a doctor. >> you don't need a dr. doctor. that is professor michael copeland. he is a criminal justice professor at east central university in ada, oklahoma. he'd had a lot of other jobs. long career in law and criminal justice including one stint at assistant attorney general. the nation's newest legal form of execution, professor michael copeland was a high school friend of state representative mike christian. mike christian, his high school friend, is a pro death penalty state legislature. he once filed articles of impeachment for oklahoma judges who issued stay of executions when the clayton locket

execution went off the rails, rethinking the whole approach to how he kills people. >> the excuse was carried out, the discussion became problematic. there were some issues with that. we got potential after that. off to a good friend of mine that i have known for years, that i grew up with. very intelligent college professor said, can you help me find a solution to a problem that exists not only in oklahoma but across the country and that's where we come up with the concept. >> nitrogen hypoxia. what these two high school friends came up with that they're calling nitrogen hypoxia is a way, basically, to go back to killing prisoners with gas. but instead of killing prisoner wes cyanide gas, until arizona did the last one in 1999, instead of cyanide gas, they now

want to use nitrogen gas. kates osbourn, our producer, went to oklahoma to ask how this would work exactly. >> so the process from here would be that the department of correction would have to figure out facilities. they would need to acquire nitrogen and create a chamber? what -- >> they would be able to use the same place we're using now, it wouldn't away chamber. it would be a simple mask. this is not a gas chamber. it's an inert gas. it's 70% of what we breathe. you could actually use helium. >> that idea that killing somebody with nitrogen is akin to people breathing in helium, that became key to the way they sold the oklahoma legislature on this idea of how to kill people. there has never been an execution carried by helium anywhere in the world. but he demonstrated to the oklahoma legislature just how

painless and easy this process would be to use for execution in part by showing oklahoma legislators the youtube videos that he found of people breathing in too much helium when they were trying to be funny. >> i think the legislature actually want to see that. so this is a teenager that is breathing helium to make their voice sound funny. but they're not really thinking of it, when they're breathing helium, they're not breathing oxygen. so she's trying to get as big a breath as she can. she becomes hypoxic. [ indiscernible ]. so then they get back up and they're giggling and laughing. >> it shows the youtube videos

of kids passing out by breathing too much helium, but it all working out okay. they showed the state legislature's evidence of pilots passing out when pilots sdechtly didn't get enough oxygen as part of flying. it was all part of a way to show this is going to be a brand new easy, simple, painless way to kill people. >> did you feel confident that this is humane? >> i do. definitely. >> have you ever -- >> how confident are you? >> i'm a hundred percent positive it will work. i'm 100% positive that if aut protocols are done properly, it will work. >> i'm wondering, have you ever been to an execution? >> never have and i don't wish to. >> why is that? >> it's not my -- it's something i probably should, but i have no desire to witness one. >> and so thanks to

representative christian's bill and professor copeland's research and governor mary stalins signing that bill last week, oklahoma has officially legally invented the nation's newest form of execution, nitrogen. representative copeland told us just like the rest of the country followed oklahoma when oklahoma started eatingal injections in the '60s, he knows of 19 others states looking to follow oklahoma again with oklahoma's big idea. no doctors or scientists were involved in coming up with plan and no doctors of scientists testified about it in front of the legislature. but based on the videos, based on people choosing voluntarily to breathe too much nitrogen as a way of trying to kill themselves, oklahoma is confident that this will work. one political science professor involved in researching the matter for the legislature raised one issue that did not seem to give them any pause when they voted on this thing.

the state senate vote for nitrogen as a new form of execution was a unanimous vote. she raised some worries to us about whether we have any idea what it would mean to kill people against their will with this method of execution that has never been tried before. >> the anecdotal data we have shows what happened when someone is ex exposed to nitrogen, but none of the cases are people who are fighting for their life. do they gasp? do they struggle? is it different? is it painful in that instance? people being led to the death chamber, they're fought going to lay there and breathe nicely through a mask. they're going to struggle b they're going to be moving around a lot. yeah, i have a lot of questions about that. absolutely nothing that we have has to do with something struggling for their life. we talked about that in our

committee, is the delivery system a mask, is it a suit, a chamber, a tent, what is it? if smnl is thrashing around, it might be hard to keep that mask on their face. it could be a long-time struggle. we'll see. >> it's law now in oklahoma. if their lethal injection protocol is struck down next week, this is what they're going for instead, somehow. and maybe there are lethal injection protocols might not work now anyway because they can't get the drugs. in which case, oklahoma law now says this nitrogen thing is what they'll do instead. firing squads, hanging, electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, now this is the new one. if they can sort out how to keep the prisoner from ripping off the gas mask, it will probably work out fine. it might work. we'll see. who is going to be first to try it?

you forgot the milk! that's lactaid®. right. 100% real milk just without the lactose. so, no discomfort? exactly. try some... mmm, it is real milk. lactaid®. 100% real milk. no discomfort. i bring the gift of the name your price tool to help you find a price that fits your budget. uh-oh. the name your price tool. she's not to be trusted. kill her. flo: it will save you money! the name your price tool isn't witchcraft! and i didn't turn your daughter into a rooster. she just looks like that. burn the witch! the name your price tool a dangerously progressive idea.

good wednesday morning, everybody. right now on "first look," a city on edge. six officers baltimore residents want answers and the justice department is now involved. at this moment warships are stalking an iranian convoy off the coast of yemen. but it's the ship's cargo that has our interest. actress ben affleck is speaking out about his slave-owning ancestors. plus, one of the coolest concepts ever. a dicey night on the coast of maine and much more. good morning everybody. thanks for joining us on this earth day. outrage continues to grow in baltimore