michael you made also is the rules matter less than the power of who's winning. the rules are -- they're just the dressing we put on power. michael steele and sam seeder of the majority report the majority report. listen to it. it's a great podcast. rachel maddow show starts now. >> we're going to be talking about that same subject a little later on this hour. we've got the bobby jindal derived solution to the problem. >> you've come up with a decision procedure, the criterion that will separate the wheat from the chaff? >> well, no. but it will do something. na thanks appreciate it. thanks to you, as well at home for joining us this hour. we have two great guests tonight. frank rich here tonight in person and we've also got the one and only dan rather is going to be joining me in just a moment. very excited. 35 years ago today, it started as a magnitude 5.1 earthquake.

and a large earthquake is almost never a good thing but when it happens one mile beneath a huge active volcano it can be the start of something that feels a little bit like the end of the world. when that earthquake happened a mile beneath mt. st. helen's 35 years ago today thus started a huge volcanic eruption in the continental united states. it blew more than 1300 feet off the top of that mountain in washington state. the whole northside of that mountain collapsed and quickly that collapse was the largest landslide in recorded history. rock and searing hot gases shot sideways out of the collapsed mountain going hundreds of miles an hour trees came down as far as 12 miles away from the initial blast. the eruption started that morning at mount st. helens at 8:30 in the morning, it kept erupting all day long till it ended finally just after 5:00 p.m. in that day's work, that huge

volcanic eruption shot 500 million tons of volcanic ash into the air. that ash rose in a huge vertical column that went straight up for 15 miles. and then it started drifting. it started spreading around the globe. by lunchtime the ash from the eruption was raining down in significant quantity on the city of spokane which is 250 miles away from mt. st. helen's. within two weeks that ash cloud that rose that day had traveled all the way east across the united states all the way across the atlantic ocean all the way across europe all the way across asia and had started to come back around the other side of the world. that ash cloud had circled the globe within 15 days. and what happened in the air is so massive and so hard to get your head around. the ash and the way that it traveled has become sort of the indelible image of what that eruption was like 35 years ago today. but for the communities very

nearby to mt. st. helen's what was in the air eventually subsided. it was what happened on the ground that even 35 years later they are still having to cope with because the largest landslide in recorded history physically changed their world. i mean when the top of that mountain blew off and the whole northside collapsed, the debris from that in less than ten minutes filled an ajade gent river valley it is filled 25 square miles of that river valley to an average depth of 150 feet. in less than ten minutes. imagine taking this huge river valley and fi&ing it with debris that is the height of a 12-15 story building. 25 square miles and it all happens in less than ten minutes. one of the rivers that flows through that part of washington state is the mighty mighty columbia river. the mt. st. helen's eruption basically stopped the columbia river. it flung more than a billion cubic feet of sediment rock and

landslide stuff, mud into that river. to get the columbia river back open again to get the other smaller rivers that were just inundated and buried under all of this ash and sand and mud, the army corps of engineers started dredging that stuff out almost immediately. that dredging process went on for years after mt. st. helen's erupted in 19 0. the seattle times looks back today and says that the amount of stuff that they dredged out of the rivers after mt. empty st. helen's erupted was enough material to build a 12-lane highway from new york city to san francisco. 12 lanes. they dredged all that stuff to keep the rivers going. and they piled it up on banks next to the rivers. in the little town of castle rock washington the dredge piles were dozens and dozens of acres. it basically created this moon scape of this dredged up ash and

sand and sediment that nobody knew what to do with, but they had to do the dredging to try to save the town. just above castle rock is a lake called spirit lake and spirit lake took a brunt of this eruption. spirit lake had so many of sediment dumped into it by the mt. st. helen's eruption that the surface level of spirit lake rose by 210 feet. and that's up above castle rock. and so that nightmare, that potential nightmare right is looming over the town of castle rock. and it still is. they eventually built a tunnel to channel some outflow from that lake so it would loom quite so dangerously for the town. even now 35 years later, they are worried even now they may have to go and widen that tunnel because it is filling up even today with that sediment and threatening the town. mt. st. helen's killed 57 people. it changed the shape of the

earth. it moved rivers. it turned a mountain into a crater. 35 years later, it is still posing challenges. it the seattle times though today does have one -- it's remarkable article. and it notes one bright spot basically in the mt. st. helen's aftermath which is about that little town of castle rock. seattle times notes today that the little town has finally figured out something to do with some of that volcanic sand and ash that buried them 35 years ago. volcanic sand is useful for things like playing fields and sand traps on golf courses and for some construction projects at a small scale. now the city of castle rock is managing its sediment pile by selling its volcanic sand. the town is earning not a ton of money, thousands of dollars in some years tens it of thousands of dollars selling its dredge, selling its dredge sediment sand

for playgrounds and ball fields and in one case a mountain bike park. which is great. "fttátqq". you have to pull for them right? i wish them all best. what a challenge, #tiright? i mean it is hard but it is probably good to be able to look back at that one big disaster that really felt in a lot of ways like the end of the world. it is hard but good to be able to look back at something that consequence convention isly daft truss and find maybe the one nice thing there is to say about it. this is also what we are doinging in american presidential politics right now when it comes to finding some nice thing to say about the biggest disaster in american foreign policy at least since vietnam. >> knowing what we know now what would you have done, i would not have gone into iraq. that's not to say the that the world is safer because saddam hussein is gone. it is significantly safer. >> turns out you can be sell the

sand. there's that. was the iraq war a disaster? you know, saddam's gone. >> was it a mistake to go to war in iraq. >> i don't believe it was. the world is a better place because saddam hussein doesn't run iraq. >> was it a mistake to go to war with iraq. >> it was not a mistake given what the president knew at the time. >> she just said was it a mistake. >> the question i was asked is what you know now. based on what we know now. >> was it a mistake to go to war with iraq. >> i'm asking. >> you yeah, i understand. it's not the same question. >> that's the question i'm asking you. was it a mistake. >> it was not a mistake for the president to decide to go into iraq because at the time. >> i'm asking you. >> in hindsight. world is a better place because saddam hussein is not there. >> was it a mistake or not. >> i don't understand the question you're asking. whether we should have started -- but saddam's gone. that's good, right?

presidential candidates marco rubio and be soon to be presidential candidate jeb bush have been getting dinged on the campaign trail the last couple of weeks. they both suffered a slew of embarrassing headlines and are seen as having badly handled questions about whether or not the u.s. should have invaded iraq in 2003. jeb bush has gotten in trouble for seeming like he didn't know what to say on the matter. last week at various times he said he would have invaded iraq and that he would not have invaded iraq and it would be offensive for him to answer the question whether he would have invaded iraq. he also said he didn't understand the question. somebody close to him said maybe he misheard the question. marco rubio pled to not understanding the question. he has changed his statements whether or not the war was a mistake and had this awkward interview on fox news sunday yesterday when mr. chris wallace confronted marco rubio and his evolution on this issue. the problem though is not whether or not jeb bush or marco rubio are good at talking about

this. whether them have figured out how to make sure they sound consistent as they answer it in different contexts and talking to different people about it. the problem is not skill here right? the problem is not whether these guys are good at answering the question. the larger problem is what is seen as the correct answer to this question. because while jeb bush and marco rubio have been getting in trouble on style points right for not exactly knowing what to say and for supposedly flubbing this answer these are the guy who have been judged by the beltsway media to be acing this question. >> i think it was a failure in many cases in the intelligence that was given to the president and congress at the time. >> knowing then what wenow now, no wmd in iraq, et cetera was that the right decision to go to war? >> no, it wasn't. now, i think president bush made the best decision he could at the time given that his intelligence community was telling him there was wmd.

>> if you care about the worst foreign policy disaster in a generation and making sure that something like that does not happen again in our country, on the one hand it's kind of exciting to be talking iraq, right? it's kind of exciting to see everybody talking about george w. bush's decision to invade iraq and whether or not it was a good decision and what was right or wrong about that decision. it is in one way very exciting this is finally a matter of high level political discussion. it is also at the same time very disconcerting to see the republican party and the belt way press settling in on an explanation for what happened in iraq that is not what happened to start the war in iraq. the war in iraq did not start because of an intelligence failure. it was not a well intentioned understandable oops by an administration that had no idea the intelligence was so wrong. that's not what happened. when president george w. bush stood up at the state of the union and said saddam hussein was buying uranium in africa that was also a discredit ditted

claim. when dick cheney said iraq and al qaeda were working together when he said it was confirmed mohamed atta had been meeting with iraqi intelligence officials in prague he said that was pretty well confirmed. it was not well confirmed at all. not only did it never happen the intelligence community did not believe that it had happened. but vice president cheney said it anyway. said it was pretty well confirmed. who are we to question him. the bush administration made a decision that they wanted to go to war in iraq they built a public case that they thought would provide a good pretext for going to war in iraq. it was not the cia that cooked up, right? it was the political folks. i mean they told us the smoking gun was going to be a mushroom cloud, if we didn't invade iraq, there was the possibility of an atomic blast in the west. saddam had nuclear capability. when they wanted to sell that story about saddam buying aluminum tubes that he was supposedly using for his nuclear

program, that lie was leaked from vice president cheney's office. to a reporter at "the new york times" named judith miller. she wrote the article based on what his office told her. after his own office had given her that information, dick cheney went on "meet the press" and went it's been reported in the "new york times" saddam has these aluminum tubes in his nuclear program. but all of that history is known now. it's documented it's well understood history that the bush administration got us to go to war in iraq. it wasn't the cia. it was bush administration. the bush administration was not passively lied to. they weren't duped by the cia. they made the case that they thought would be most persuasive even when it wasn't true. they made that decision to go that way at a political level. and in many cases the case that they made was a made up case. they picked little true things here and there and cast them in

a way that made a best case because they wanted that war. and the people who did it don't want to admit that they did it because that would be a terrible thing to have to admit right? but you know what, people like judith miller got fired at "the new york times" and the country turned on bush and cheney with a vengeance and the country not only realizes that the iraq war and iraq invasion in 2003 was a mistake but that we went there for reasons that were not what we were told. and there is this is rump line of defense right, of people still trying to excuse the iraq war saying it was all an honest mistake even if it was a mistake, but that ought to be seen for what it is that ought to be seen as a self-serving response by the get partieser to the take responsibility because taking responsibility for something like that, whoo. usually that's how it feels when you ethem articulate that defense. you can tell that's what's going on. they don't want to help responsibility and have to cast themselves in the best possible light. this is just a couple weeks ago

jon stewart of the daily show hosting former "new york times" reporter judith miller. >> i believe that you helped the administration take us to like the most devastating mistake in foreign policy that we've made in like 100 years but you seem lovely. >> that's what the intelligence community believed. >> that's what they were feeding you. they created. >> no, that's what they believed, john. >> all right. well, obviously we're never$c@&h(lc% going to see eye to eye on it. i mean i appreciate you coming on the program. these discussions always make me incredibly sad because i feel like they point to institutional failure at the highest levels and no one will take responsibility for it. >> i think they point to. >> they pass the buck to every individual other than themselves. >> i think they point to intelligence failures that i still worry about every day because we're still relying on the same intelligence communities to give us

information about iran, north korea and the other countries we have to deal with. >> hopefully given the same effort we'll get to invade all of them soon. >> we won't. >> it is satisfying in an uncomplicated way to see jon stewart take judith miller apart as she continues to try to say it was a intelligence failure and deflect from her own portion of the responsibility for helping to start the iraq war under false pretenses. but at another level, right, yes, that's satisfying to see but we really are back in a situation again where great liberal heroes like jon stewart and the daily÷g show and paul krugman in the "new york times" and leading lefty bloggers like the great josh marshall and talking points and "the washington post" are all arguing passionately again about the fact that this wasn't an intelligence failure this is the bush administration lying us into war. but that's kind you have just account left. right? the republican political he

position and the mainstream media position on the iraq war in 2015 is now becoming something that's not that. when these republican presidential candidates flub the answer on iraq they get dinged for flubbing the answer or saying things inartfully. but when they come up with this answer that the iraq war was the right decision at the time, it was well meaning it was just that bad intelligence and by the way, it's nice saddam's gone by and large that's treated as the right answer. you know, on sunday morning that doesn't get followed up with questions rebutting that. that is seen as the cricket answer. if the hard questions we ask ourselves about the iraq war is whether or not there's a more stable or less stable anbar province with saddam gone if that's the hard question, then we are arguing about the relative merits of whereútf sell our volcanic ash and sand after it buried us in that disaster. the problem here is not you know, what to do with the side effect that you might feel good or bad about.

the problem of the iraq war is not how the did it work out. the problem here for us as a country which is an almost existential moral question for us as a country is how did we go to war on the basis of a deliberate lie. that's the question. and if that's not what we are debating, it doesn't matter what the answer is. joining us is dan rather host of the big interview on axs tv. thank you so much for being here. >> delighted to be with you. >> i love covering politics and i love election season because it gives us these crystalline moments to tell good stories who we are as a country and who we want to be and to have big fights about important things. i'm so excited we're fighting about iraq but i'm berest at the way we're fighting it. how do you see this issue. >> i see it as something the american people in the main and as a whole understand. they understand that going into iraq was a strategic blunder of historic proportions. >> yes.

>> with terrible consequences that are going to echo and resonate for a long time. they understand that this was the a colossal mistake. if i'm going to judge and frequently i'm not, they want to talk about what do we do now. we're paying the price for it now. listen, in iraq, several rillon dollars went more importantly, 4,500 or so of our best men and women, american men and women died in that battlefield. tens of thousands of iraqi died and for what. >> hundreds of thousands. >> hundreds of thousands. >> this was a result of this colossal mistake. i think the american people see this clearly for what it is. i think that they are surprised, stunned, i'm tempted to use the word sort of stup fied by the republican candidates who have responded thus far particularly former governor jeb bush and marco rubio that they seem to be unprepared for the question.

now, let's say it clearly. these are two intelligent men. and they do have a record of public service of their own. nonetheless, these are not dumb people. how and why they made these mistakes with former governor bush giving four different answers to the question as you pointed out, marco rubio give diagnose several answers i don't understand it. they're too intelligent to do this on the other hand, not only have they done it, they continue to do it and they leave the impression, erroneous impression that they would score in the high 90s on a dumb test because no one would give these kind of answers. fortunately for them it's still a long way to go in the campaign and can they recover from this, i think the answer is probably they he can, but it leaves unanswered two questions. number one how and why did this happen. they're too smart for this. they're too experienced for this and each of them by the way having very strong very smart

advisors. i know some of the advisors in each of these two camps. i'm misty nied how this can happen. the other question is are we going to ask ourselves the really tough questions. >> yes exactly. >> and are we going to seek answers on the really tough questions or plow around the base of the mountains where this bis of they miss spooek. those are the important things. >> do you have faith that the campaign either through the process of journalists covering the campaign and interviewing these candidates or the debates or the way they're going to go after each other, do you have faith that the campaign process can actually do that harvard work, not the gotcha stuff but the real hard work. >> i do not have faith. i do have hope. hope springs eternal to use the cliche but you don't have faith in it because it hasn't been the case in the past. and i think we have to remember in the background of this and i think one of the answers possibly to why did they do there, why did they bungle answers to the obvious question being asked is this will be a $5

billion plus presidential campaign and i think one of the reasons that the candidates are getting in trouble early on with answers is they are trying to give answers that will satisfy after he their biggest contributors, the kind of contributors who can give $100 million at a shot. it's the only explanation i can come up with why they're staggering around. >> and any strong statement about what was wrong and who was wrong and how it was done wrong potentially either offends somebody or closes off potential analysis or course of action that they may have to take at some point in the campaign. >> as far as the debates let's say very clearly. what we call ca debate in presidential campaigns are not debates. they're glorified press conferences, the case almost from the beginning of this so-called presidential debates. we shouldn't kid ourselves when we say will the debates deal with this. we're asking will the glorified press conferences deal with that. i don't have faith it will happen but i do have high hopes. >> this year i have particularly

high hopes about the debates which is what we'll be talking about later on in the show. the chaos on the debate stuff makes me hopeful that will ha real information could happen there. dan rather thank you. great to have you here. >> thank you. >> dan rather is the host "of the big interview on axis. stay with us. ime together. i do notice that sometimes i eat better than her. i get my healthy bowl of beneful, and she eats a cheese stick and a cracker. that's what she ate last night. cheese stick and a cracker. can you believe what some people put in their bodies? (vo) beneful original is a healthy blend... ...your dog will love. with whole grains real beef and accents of vegetables. beneful. healthy with a side of happy.

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that works! mmm mmm live the regular life. so here's one thing to consider about the deadly massive biker gang riot that happened yesterday in waco texas. there were at least five rival gangs involved nine people killed. 18 people wounded over 100 weapons recovered from the scene including knives and chains and brass knuckles and guns. police apparently had been worried that something was going to happen yesterday at this site. they knew where the gangs would be turning up. police had had s.w.a.t. teams members watching the restaurant where they thought the riot might happen. that was not enough to stop all those people from getting killed. once you've got nine people dead and 1 people sent to the hospital and not just 100 or 150 but more like 170 of these biker

gang members arrested, where do you put them? right? if they're killing each other in a 200-person pig pile that involves not just gunshots and stabbings, but blunt force trauma on an epic scale, can you put them somewhere together once you've arrested them? police at first detained suspects on site at the restaurant where the melee happened that led to these somewhat weird pictures of people involved in effect in a mass murder scene being treated up like they were just picked up at a college party that got too rowdy. after calmly detaining them on site for a very long time, waco police eventually decided to put them on to buts and then sent them to the waco convention center for processing. they stayed overnight all these rival gang members that tried to kill each other, they stayed overnight at the convention center last night and they booked them into the county jail today. so far 170 suspects have been

arrested, all are expected to face organized crime charges linked to capital murder. and now, in the wake of this nine dead massacre with all these guys in custody and processing through the system waco has got fun days ahead. for one the county jail now houses 170 more violent gang members than it did before and they're not all in the same gang. they're in rival gangs that want to kill each other and trying heartily to do that. right? they've also just been through a situation in which a number of members of multiple gangs were just killed in a gang battle. and than presumably means that some sort of terrifying revenge cycle among the gangs is about to start. and that is the prospect that looms over the ongoing investigation of this huge crime scene just as a physical place because not every member of these motorcycle gangs was arrested or injured or killed in this melee. who knows how the rest of them out in the world will respond to what has just happened in waco

but as police investigators were going through the crime scene, as they were picking up shell casings and collecting evidence at the crime scene yesterday and today, they were watched over by a team of police snipers who set up on the roof of the restaurant and on a nearby highway overpasses to try to keep the investigators safe. police say they have received multiple threats in retaliation for the arrests. there are reports of other gang members now flooding into wake koeg in response to the shoot-out. law enforcement say they have upped security all around waco in response. so nine killed and 1 wounded and 170 arrested already in waco. and now with that riot resolved consider what they've got on their hands in the jail consider what they've got on their hands in the town in the aftermath of this remarkable deadly scene. watch this space. rested. aleve pm. the only one to combine a sleep aid... plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. be a morning person again, with aleve pm.

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from the story we've got next is the 2016 campaign equivalent of this process. we will make them fit. the great frank rich is my guest next. squeeze, squeeze. when you're not confident you have

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graham will announce his decision on june 1st. that said, i'm not sure what more he could announce other than what he's saying already. there is absolutely no miss have i as to what his announcement will be. he has been announcing it for weeks now. >> i'm running because of what you see on television. i'm running because i think the world is falling apart. >> as you can see, he's not actively nonmetaphorically running. he's talking about running for president. that's being described as lindsey graham hinting that he might run for president which is true if by hinting you mean saying directly that he's running for president without any hinting about it at all. so he's in in. today we got the news louisiana governor bobby jindal is forming an exploratory commit which is a nice old fashioned idea he is contemplating throwing his hat in the ring for president. vetting is closed on what his explorations will lead him to decide. clearly he's running, too. this has been our running master tally of declared and likely

republican presidential candidates so far this year. we started with 222. so far we have only been able to winnow it down from 22 to 20. the only people we moved off the list are rick snyder and john bolton who both said they're not running. other than that they're a apparently still in it which creates this fascinating challenge for the republican party how they can hold debates with that many people in the running. well, interesting point here. last week, jonathan martin at "the new york times" reported on the republican party going through this process and going through these arguments how they're going to do the whole 20 plus candidates debate thing. he reported this intriguing news about what the bobby yindal camp is asking for, what the camp is reportedly pushing for is a whole new kind of debate idea that has never been done before. "one idea they have floated is back to back debates with seven or eight candidates in each chosen at random." so basically the jindal folks

are lobbing to have like a debate tournament. heats. back to back debates featuring random pools of candidates. now, if it's 21 candidates, that could mean like three debates with seven candidates each. randomly assigned. does raise other questions if the number goes up to 24, do you do six heats of four or two heats of 12 or three heats of eight. what if it's a prime number. it is three heats of seven, how does that work in the nitty gritty? do you run them all through in one night and do a seven candidate debate and a seven-candidate debate, seven candidate debate. does it go fire drill style where everybody changes podiums and they stay on the same set? once you get tired, you get to pull in another candidate to replace you. once you get picked to be in a certain debate, can you swap and arrange a trade with somebody in another heat. say you're scott walker and don't want to go up against the group with donald trump in it.

can you swap places with chris christie christie? will it maybe be like "survivor" do you get to vote to eliminate each other at the end? can the other candidates vote one candidate off the podium? rand paul, the tribe has spoken. will they use tiki torches for the elimination? if they do does the moderator get to put out the torch. why not do it march madness style. random matches. i'd like to see ben carson debate jeb bush. marco rubio versus carly fiorina. ted cruz versus donald trump. they knock each other out and they move onto the next early voting state. you get to make brackets, have an office pool, we get to bet on them. seriously who the republican field of candidates is, right, the candidates from whom the republican party will choose their nominee for president of the united states is a rip

roaringly important thing for our country. and for the world and for the future of mankind, frankly if you want to extrapolate from the power of the american presidency. it's a really important thing. but how them are going to pick is an absolutely hilarious mystery at this point had hold that thought, frank rich joins us next. [ male announcer ] take zzzquil and sleep like... the kids went to nana's house... for the whole weekend! [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] zzzquil, the non habit forming sleep aid that helps you sleep easily and wake refreshed. because sleep is a beautiful thing.

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seriously, is epa the one you were talking about. >> no, sir, we were talking about the agencies of government, epa needs to be rebuilt. no doubt about that. >> but you can't name the third one. >> the third agency of government i would do away with education, the commerce, and let's see. i can't. the third one i can't. sorry. oops. >> if you thought the last type out was fun, now imagine that happening except there's 20 different people on staining.

stage. what could possibly go wrong or right? joining us is frank rich from new york magazine. thanks for being here. >> great to be here. nice to see you. >> i will tell you i have great hope, i feel likenessity is the mother of invention. yi that the logistical chaos on the republican side borne of the fact they have this huge number of candidates and no way to easily exclude them makes for a chaotic process that will necessarily be better. if only because it will be less predictable and we'll see more what we should know about these guys. >> you're probably right. it could be incredibly entertaining even if it doesn't produce the civic result we want. you were saying before about survivor being a pot hole model they could use. why not the"the apprentice"? trump would love to license it to them. i assume with nbc's permission and the only problem is trump himself would be a candidate. they'd have to find someone else

to say you're fired. maybe they can hire bill o'reilly would be very good at it. >> you could prop a big mirror next to him. that might create another dynamic. >> exactly objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear. another idea was they could eliminate in the first debate on fox, have a lightning roundabout iraq. if you stutter more than twice, you're gone. and then have a second lightning roundabout rape and a third lightning roundabout same-sex marriage and see who's still standing doesn't have an oops moment. >> yeah. well, i mean i have to say i feel like i agree with republicans who have been trying to spin the giant field as a plus. they don't have -- they don't have anybody who is inheriting the nomination. jeb bush has all the money but he don't poll well, not particularly beloved by the base. won't be easy for him or anybody. it makes their process all the more important. we're at a time when we really

ought to have good policy debates as a country. i'm heartened by the fact we're talking about iraq even if we're talking about it like idiots and don't remember what happened. the topic is a good one. is there something that either the media could do in terms of the way the thing is covered or republican activists could arrange so the campaigns could make the process better? it's important that it be a good process on the republican side. >> i think give it more airtime. i think people would want to watch it. it's going to be more interesting than watching hillary clinton hypothetically debate a couple of opponents who have no chance if i may say so. i think people could get into it. what's interesting is the republicans can't quite pivot to the fact that it might be a blessing because after the last election, after romney's defeat they made this big show of we're going to streamline the process, we're not going to have the circus we had in the primary season last time. the republicans are supposed to make the trains run on time.

they completely lost control of it so they should go with it. fox news which is doing the first debate who, says it has to be 90 minutes. i guess there's some commission. give the democrats equal time or whatever. >> no, the commission isn't till you're in the general election. >> exactly. so is the rest of what's going on therein so more entertaining? it would be hilarious. >> there is a karmic whiplash going on from them trying to they earlied up the convention. they came up with these rules to prohibit them from doing any nonapproved debates. they shortened up the debate schedule. the one thing they didn't control for is who's going to run. and now it's like eight times three. it's going to be fascinating. >> tragic that john bolton isn't running. we can't have everything. lo)i at someone like rand paul who everything thinks is such a wildcard and kind of has an independent streak from the rest of the party. somewhat less processed. be great to have him interact,

ben car on is completely untrained political candidate. they should go with it. and you know, if you feel as i do that hillary clinton's election is hardly a foregone conclusion why not make the most of this if you're a republican. >> i think the jindal's proposal for heats where people get randomly assigned provided you give them a chance to trade to switch the heats up. >> "the voice," it will be great. high ratings. >> writer at large for new york magazine, frank rich. much more ahead. stay with us. why ford is the brand more people buy, and buy again. i like the grill. the sexy look to it. epa-estimated 37 miles per gallon on the highway. are you serious? fusion is amazing. my opinion of ford has dramatically changed. take the ecoboost challenge at your ford dealer. and for a limited-time get a fusion with zero for sixty plus one-thousand bonus cash plus seven-fifty cash if you own a ford or qualifying competitive vehicle.

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there's this belief out there that disasters come in threes. i don't know if i'm superstitious enough to believe that is true. i do know there are three types you have political res igflations. and i know that he of those three types you have political resignations two of them are always disasterers. we are seeing each of them happen right now in upison in tonight's news. that's next. ♪ at chase, we celebrate small businesses every day through programs like mission main street grants. last years' grant recipients are achieving amazing things. carving a name for myself and creating local jobs. creating more programs for these little bookworms. bringing a taste of louisiana to the world. at chase, we're proud to support our grant recipients and small businesses like yours.

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(music) boys? stop less. go more. the passat tdi clean diesel with up to 814 hwy miles per tank. just one reason volkswagen is the #1 selling diesel car brand in america. okay. this is incredible. when it comes to politicians resigning from office, there aró really three kinds. there's wow, that was fast. the spectacularly rapid collapse resignation. there's the prolonged painful crumble when resignation looks like the only possible outcome

but it takes forever it will ultimately happen. there's the third kind generally called oh, my god, how is it possible that this guy hasn't resigned yet. those are the three varieties. right now we're experiencing all three. >> the wait here continues. members of the media gathered outside the speaker's office here. some members have been here since 2:30 this afternoon. >> that was last week in the state of missouri. the speaker of the missouri house had barricaded himself inside his office in the state legislature for more than eight hours with reporters camped outside. when he emerged from his office on wednesday night, those reporters followed him down the stairs and followed him to his car while he refused to answer their questions. that morning, the kansas city star published a series of sexually explicit text messages exchanged between republican house speaker john diehl and a 19-year-old intern. i'm not going to read the

messages out loud because -- you can read them yourself if you would like to. air sickness bags are in the see the barack obamaback pocket in front of you. but the speaker admitted sending these texts to the teenaged intern and then that night he barricaded himself in his office all night and the reporters chased him and by the next morning, missouri house speaker john diehl was done. he not only stepped down as speaker, he resigned his seat entirely. this all happened in a flash. last week and it was right at the end of the legislative session in missouri. missouri republicans ended up having to swear in a new speaker of the house to replace him. when they did so, there was only seven hours left remaining in the session for the year. in missouri the speaker of the house is gone. sexual texts to teenager in the morning paper apologized and said he wouldn't quit during the day, spent afternoon locked in the office got chased by reporters and done dusted, gone by the next morning. 24 hours soup to nuts. that's missouri. then there's new hampshire. this is one of the granite

state's two members of congress republican frank how do you, guinnta, juinta. i have it on good authority it's gin-ta. last week the federal election commission found he had accepted $355,000 in illegal campaign contributions from his mom and dad. congress guinta now has to refund all that money to his parents and pay a $15,000 fine. he does continue to proclaim innocence in this matter and offered an explanation for getting all that money from his parents. an explanation his county republican chair called "more plausible than at explanation we got from the patriots on deflategate." so that's a ringing endorsement. today, new hampshire's republican u.s. snorkelly ayotte said frank guinta should resign from congress. so did the state senate president who is a republican, so did the stays house speaker

who is a republican. new hampshire's conservative newspaper the union leader not only published an editorial entitled "guinta must go. >> " the paper also ran this special pictorial editorial. this is it. this is the entire editorial. six words, frank guinta is a damned liar signed by the paper's publisher. as of this moment, congressman frank guinta is still a congressman but it's going to be hard for him to avoid resigning. so resignation accepted in missouri. resignation eagerly anticipated in new hampshire. but in the state of vermont believe it or not, apparently we've got no resignation in that state's legislative scandal. seriously, this guy is still a senator. >> the 63-year-old senator who lives in this home in franklin allegedly forced his female farm worker to engage in sexual acts according to investigators. court paperwork says victims

were told they could live in this trailer in exchange for sex. in addition, at least one victim told police the senator offered to take her to a farm where she could have sex with a group of farm hands for more money. >> vermont senator norm mcalister was charged with three counts of sexual assault. the investigation into him continues. police are speaking to other lawmakers in the matter and say more charges are possible. one victim has said publicly she was definitely 16 but maybe even 15 when he starred abusing her which if proven would put him on the hook for charges related to assault or rape of a child potentially. his colleagues called for his resignation. kicked him off senate committees and looking into ways to expel him but the legislature wrapped up its session on friday. he hasn't step down so he's still a senator getting paid by the good people of vermont. there's no provision to remove him from office no matter what charges he's facing. so the lieutenant governor now says any action concerning

senator norm acal sister probably couldn't happen till the legislature reconvenes in january. if he's convicted before then he will then if his trial is ongoing, he could remain a state senator for the whole rest of the year while out on bond on sex crime charges. politicians disgrace comes in lots of different varieties. but disgrace and ceasing to be an elected official are two very different things. we'll see you again tomorrow. good evening lawrence. >> with that one, you have left me speechless. that is absolutely stunning. >> you and the entire state og0 vermont. that's exactly right. >> that's amazing. former white house counter terrorism expert richard clark will join us and how republican presidential candidates are handling questions about iraq. and senator elizabeth warren got a welcome in california this