knowns to shine with no trump on stage. what did you take away? >> reporter: well, i think this is the first time we grappled with that many candidates on stage running for president at the same time and means you get very little time to make the case and you have to immediately hit the ground running and launch into the rehearsed talking points as fast as you can. they seemed nervous and get everything out at once and the biggest difference was probably that there's no donald trump. trump was one of the only major candidates with mike huckabee to skip the event. things were just let's say it boring. cordial and friendly. no pot shots at each other. they mostly stuck to talking about their message or laying attacks on democrats and trump will be there on thursday and engaging with other candidates so it should be very interesting what happens there and trump was in fact on "morning joe" just today and he gave little idea of

what maybe you should expect in thursday's debate. >> i think that people are tired. they're sick an tired of incompetent politicians. nobody knows the politicians better than me. i was on the other side of the ledger. i was fair haired boy in the rnc. >> reporter: so as you can see, trump here is talking about his outsider status. you know? it's interesting how that translates to a debate here. for example, he's been suggesting on twitter to surprise everyone and after attacking rivals and handing out one of their cell phone in a speech, he'll be polite and respectful and will he still command attention and people interested in the same way? it's an interesting tension seeing how donald trump changes the style or doesn't for thursday's debate. >> benjy, it was c-span and not a ratings bonanza last night but

did you think any candidates not in the nbc top ten differentiated themselves? i thought fiorina stood out. >> reporter: she was a good example. she seems very confident, maybe more calmer than the veteran politicians running and looked like that for weeks in a variety of settings. lindsey graham is off the main debate stage and seemed very comfortable. a couple of stumbles here and there and got the audience laughing and gasps with a very bracing attack on hillary clinton. that invoked the monica lewinski scandal and said hillary clinton was dishonest because he lied about the affair with lewinski. graham is not gotten any traction in the polls either. >> i think most traction is breaking the cell phone into a million pieces after donald

trump gave out his number. benjy, thank you so much. for more on the politics, let's bring in political analyst howard fineman. the global editor and director at huffington post. thank you so much for being on the show. >> great to be here. >> howard, starting off the question because he does lead our own nbc news qu/"wall stree journal," donald trump sucking up the oxygen, how do they differentiate on thursday night and maneuver around him? if he does, in fact, take a shot, how do they respond? fair to say he's sort of a pace car here. >> yeah. well, a couple of things. this is a debate on fox. and a lot will depend if you're a candidate on the tone that the people at fox who are the moderators set. that's chris wallace and megyn

kel kelly. >> they're serious journalists. >> they are. they have a former republican consulta consultant. does fox want wwe or do they want npr? obviously they're not sure either. i would say it's going to tend more in the wwe direction and if that's the case then candidates no toad adapt. if it's a calmer and more sort of studious affair, then i think candidates have to be more careful attacking trump. i think three levels here. donald trump himself who i think does need to be substantive and surprise people. there's the top tier under him which would include scott walker and jeb bush and marco rubio and arguably one over two others. they i think should avoid being entangled with trump unless they attack him. they need to be ready for that. i don't think there's much risk in their attacking donald trump

for the rest on the stage and certainly get them a headline, whether it makes progress with the voters, i don't know. >> we have seen from people like rick perry, you can go after donald trump on the massive flip flops whether it's health care, whether it be abortion. there's ample ammo there. i want to talk about the rise of trump corelates with 2012. we had the rise of herrmann cane, rick perry. as we can show you right here. at what point do you think that donald trump perhaps flames out? because we have seen it before. >> well, what happened with herrmann cane was among other things 999. remember that, luke? his economic plan which turned out to have been derived of a video game. i mean, that was it for herrmann cane. newt exhausted everybody with his newtness if that's a word.

donald trump nay be salve ri enough to figure out it's not a six-second vine. it's a shakesperian play. he's gotten everybody's attention. he's given a lot of big soliloquies. what happens now? what has to happen now for donald trump if he's serious is to show that, show that he knows the issues, and he knows the details, or he's prepared to learn them on the fly. because it's one thing not to be a politician. he wins if it's all about not being a politician. he finishes ahead of carson and fe fee ri no. then he's got to show he's willing to learn the substance. and i expect to see him at least attempt to do that or promise to do that tomorrow night. >> it should be noted if you go

on the website, this's nothing substantive of the issues compared to walker or jeb bush and the other candidates and lacks in that department. >> correct. >> i think that will be important. howard, let's talk about how this debate is setting up because there's been a lot of controversy. you heard of rick santorum and nobody gave him a chance in 2012 and he was able to win iowa because of the presence known on these debates. when you look at polling, the public is not necessarily thrilled with this idea, either. the highest poll goes for let's just sort of pick him out of this field and two back to back debates randomly selected. why do you think this is the debate format and what impact overall? a lot of people without the donald trump name recognition or money this is where their time is to shine. >> yeah. i think it's a bad format. and i agree with the plurality responders of the poll saying it would have been much better to

throw them all in a hat and do two randomly selected debates, of fewer people and still with 17 people in there, you're still talking about debates with eight and however many people there would be. eight an nine people which is a lot. i think this is not a very useful exercise as a real debate. this is not a real debate. this is serial long form youtube statements. >> right. >> and interspersed with perhaps what are going to be the news which are moments of confrontation between the candidates and that's almost certainly going to be between donald trump and somebody else. i'm not sure if it's in any of the other candidate's breast to attack anybody other than trump. it's a little early in the game for that. >> right. >> but that's what it is. it's a bunch of youtube statements essentially. >> it's a gamble.

if it's a feeding frenzy on him, perhaps they can kill him off. >> no. they won't kill him off. >> not with the money he has. lastly, howard, hillary clinton, new nbc news/"wall street journal" popularity under water. it seems that e-mail gate is taking the potoll. benghazi committee is starting to make an impact. people seem to trust her nationally. i don't think it matters that much in a democratic primary and has to have democrats worried in the general. >> well, yes. the way it affects her in the primary season is indirectly, luke. like the republicans want somebody to win the general. the democrats want someone to win the general. if the republican attack machine is successful in making hillary persona nongrata with independent swing voters that

gives the stis kated early primary season voters in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina and va florida, you know, worry and wonder. it is not something that's directly hampering her in the early stages of the democratic race internally. but something that she's got to look out for and to knock her down that extensively that quickly and the fact she had to respond with $2 million worth of tv ads reintroducing herself has got to give them pause in the clinton camp. >> and testify on capitol hill october 22nd getting a lot of attention, as well. thank you so much. take care. >> thank you, luke. breaking news out of camp shelby in mississippi. reports of shots fired on a base there. no word on anyone being struck. local affiliate is on the way. of course, we'll keep you updated on the breaking news story here on msnbc. shots fired there in mississippi joirks also breaking right now in new hampshire, the state fire

marshal updated us on the investigation after a severe thunderstorms knocked down a circus tent in last night's performance. autopsies are now under way on the two victims, robert young and 8-year-old daughter annabell. 32 others are recovering. that's a third of the show's spectators. it happened at the lancaster fairgrounds. the walker brothers circus only 15 minutes in when the big tent collapsed. right now, there are major questions about why there were no permits and no official safety inspection prior. >> the circus did not have a place of assembly permit and that's one of the things we're looking into. >> is that a criminal violation potentially? >> we need to look at the statute in detail before i can say whether it falls into that category or not. >> no word of walker brothers circus. they're awaiting guidance from legal counsel.

we'll continue to track developments on both stories and here's what else we are following today. mother nature on both coasts unrelenting. two dozen firls raging without west and a flood warning for parts of florida under water. the latest on both coming up. emotional testimony in the third and final penalty phase in the aurora movie theater shooting. and then just about 30 minutes, the president set to speak at an entrepreneurship event at the white house. this and more, busy afternoon here on msnbc. diabetic nerve pain... shoots and burns its way into your day, i hear you. to everyone with this pain that makes ordinary tasks extraordinarily painful, i hear you. make sure your doctor hears you too! i hear you because i was there when my dad suffered with diabetic nerve pain. if you have diabetes and burning, shooting pain in your feet or hands, don't suffer in silence! step on up and ask your doctor about diabetic nerve pain.

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and i am a certified arborist for pg&e.ughes i oversee the patrolling of trees near power lines and roots near pipes and underground infrastructure. at pg&e wherever we work, we work hard to protect the environment. getting the job done safely so we can keep the lights on for everybody. because i live here i have a deeper connection to the community. and i want to see the community grow and thrive. every year we work with cities and schools to plant trees in our communities. the environment is there for my kids and future generations. together, we're building a better california. welcome back.

las vegas is known for producing some strange bedfellows. get your mind out of the gutter for a 'm talking about the worl most sophisticated hackers and the experts trying to thwart them. they're gathered for the black hat security conference. sean henry, from the fbi is also in town for the event as president of crowd strike services. he's the guy your company would be hiring to beat the hackers. thank you so much for being on the show. >> thank you, luke. >> give us little breakdown. what exactly is going on here at this conference in vegas? you have people usually at odds working together? >> yeah, you know, black hat is really one of the premiere cyber security conferences in the world. here in love love, every single year, although in the last couple of years it started to expand and black hat now in europe and asia. been about 19 years and you have

got cyber security experts, corporate chief information security officers, government officials from the u.s. and also global security agencies around the world and then black hat hackers, people who are here talking about how to hack cars, hack atm machines, et cetera. it is about bringing people together to talk about the issues, raise awareness and lay out the threats to our infrastructure. >> sean, if you go back over two years, d.o.d. says number one threat to the united states is not terrorism but, in fact, a cyber attack. that it could bring down these electronic grids around the country and spark mass chaos of stoplights, air conditioning systems stopped working and hospitals have generators backed up. are we doing enough to really prepare for this and prevent this? >> yeah. luke, you know, when you talk

about cyber security being the biggest threat or cyber attack, bigger than terrorism, i see terrorists using cyber as a weapon to target the very infrastructure you're talking about. so when you're thinking about the infrastructure related to the power grid, water, sewer, et cetera, those are targets that terrorist organizations are looking at. we know that they have the intent. we no e that they're working to develop the capability. they're assessing the target space. and as more and more pieces of infrastructure come online, the target space increases which allows the organizations greater visibility into the very heart of what runs america. so are we doing enough? i think that there are more people who are becoming aware. something like black hat is a great way to get out that message. but still, things are not moving as quickly as you would expect because quite honestly, luke, the attack surface is so big,

the vulnerability so large, we have to move forward faster. >> we fear the lone wol wells fargo the gun and we should fear those with hacker codes. we're looking at a poll that a team and i earlier and how lax the public is regarding the internet in public places. aarp survey, 27% banked online via public way if i in last 3 months. purchased a product over public way if i using a credit card. about 45% of respondents who failed a survey on privacy. are we too lax with the information public forward publicly? >> we have all become so accustomed to connect wherever we want whenever we want. people want to connect at the local coffee shop or a hotel.

we have seen situations where criminal hacker groups set up a van in a parking lot and call the router free wi-fi and all of the data is viewed and passwords collected. connecting to do banking, connecting to do financial transactions over publicly accessible wi-fi probably not the best idea. >> not at all. thank you so much for your update on there and sure to keep an eye on the story for quoit sometime. officials in california now telling 13,000 people to get out of their homes as some 2 dozen wildfires rage. we'll go there live for the latest. still ahead, donald trump's classic response to those who made his cell phone number public. hi. hi. hello. hi. hi. hi. hi my name's josh. kelly. my name is raph. steve. my name is anne. tom. brian. krystal. and i am definitely not a robot.

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developing right now, the number of fires burning out of control in california has now jumped to 27. the largest one known as the

rocky fire has forced some 13,000 people from their homes. and at this point, it's unclear when if ever they'll be ever to return. nbc's jennifer bjorklund is live in town of lake forest. is there news from fire officials today? >> reporter: look on the bright side. it's a little bit cooler. the humidity level is up a tiny bit. it's in the middle teens and the containment line, it's still only 12% but the fire grew overnight, as well. so to 63,000 acres and 12% of that is a little bit bigger. but that's about all the good news out of this fire right now. this is one of as you said 27 fires burning throughout the state of california and in the west. and it all depends on how you count them. some of these fires are actually complexes. welcome at the names and a complex at the end of it, it's several small fires close enough together to classify it as one. just so it's not so confusing

and in the case of humbelt, it was 75 lightning strikes in the same area burning in different directions, this's one fire. everything they know about fire behavior and the way things are supposed to go as far as california fires go, they have to throw out the window for this one. this rocky fire which is where we are. incident command post, this 63,000-acre fire is not following any of the rules. the winds are not taking it the direction that they're supposed to be at certain times of day. it is not what they expect. so it's baffling to behaviorists and the firefighters and the incident commanders who are trying to figure out how to tackle this thing going in different directions. every different hour of the day and it's a different beast every day that they're fighting it. it jumped over what they thought was a pretty solid containment line which was highway 20 yesterday afternoon. and this time of the afternoon

is when they really, really have to look for it to kick up and one thing that's been predictable is that the early to middle afternoon is when they really start to see this fire move. just which direction it's going, nobody knows. luke? >> nobody knows and we should note firefighters from across the country descending on california to fight this fire. jennifer, thank you for that report. >> reporter: okay. you bet. the complicated death penalty phase in the movie theater shooting trial is nearing an end. the family members of the victims told the court how actions of james holmes changed their life forever. scott cohn is outside of the courthouse. how long could it be until we have an answer to that question? >> reporter: well, we don't know about the answer but we do know that the jury could begin making that ultimate decision as soon as tomorrow with about 15 or so 15 members expected to testify and well into that. right now, aymmanda medic talki

about the loss of her sister mikayla. family members began gathering at a will call high school to find out what was going on with the relatives and heard of tom sullivan and lost his son alex out celebrating a 27th birthday and described for jurors how he frantically went from hospital to hospital to search for his son. >> i was told he wasn't -- he hadn't been at any of the -- i think it was nine hospitals. at that point did you conclude he was probably gone? >> i decided at that point that i needed to get back to gateway high school because i needed to tell his mother and his sister that he was still in the movie theater and that he wasn't going to be walking out. >> reporter: there is still the potential that james holmes will make a statement in his own defense at the end of this.

the defense did not say so but one of the defense toernls asked sxwrurs at the beginning of this phase not to answer death with death. soon it's up to the jury to decide. luke? >> indeed. scott in colorado, thanks so much for the update. funeral services held on thursday for a memphis police officer shot and killed in the line of duty. the suspect in his killing is now being held on $9 million bond. wilburn turned himself in last night and said he is not a cold-blooded killer. national reporter adam reiss on the story for us. we are hearing a similar defense from the suspect's family. i mean, this death happened over a small-time drug deal. such a tragic circumstance. >> reporter: absolutely, luke. wilburn's sister saying he shot the officer in self defense saying, because, quote, police are also trying to do you in and told a local tv station here in memphis today. tomorrow he will be arraigned

here. $10 million bond set. charged with first-degree murder. turned himself in yesterday at the u.s. marshal's office with family and attorney at his side. law enforcement said a plan ket of police and federal officials all over this state of tennessee he had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. they were behind him one step at a time. he had to give himself in. the police said he wanted to meet with him face to face. he had an opportunity yesterday. here's what he had to say. >> i just basically wanted to go down and make sure, one, he is okay. i asked him that, are you okay? is everything okay? he said, yes. he wanted to make it a point to say i want you to know one thing. he said i want you to know that, one, i'm not a cold blooded killer an i'm not a coward. >> reporter: the officer would have turned 34 this week. his funeral is on thursday. luke? >> thoughts and prayers with his family. thank you so much. health officials react to

the deadly outbreak of legionnaires' disease in new york. a civil rights fight before congress once again. much more on those stories ahead right here on msnbc. ♪ no student's ever been the king of the campus on day one. but you're armed with a roomy new jansport backpack, a powerful new dell 2-in-1 laptop, and durable new stellar notebooks, so you're walking the halls with varsity level swagger.

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whole. grain. oats. welcome back. now, we have an update on the breaking news of a shooting at camp shelby in mississippi. the public information officer now confirms a pickup truck drove up to the base and fired a couple of shots at soldiers as they were training. it is no longer an active shooter situation. the suspect's vehicle had been located and no injuries were reported. we'll keep you update on the story throughout the day. just minutes ago, the state fire marshal in new hampshire said circus officials did not have at least one of the permits needed and they should have been monitoring the weather ahead of last night's deadly tent collapse. a father and 8-year-old daughter

were killed when the big top came down in winds. 32 people sent to the hospital. more severe weather in the tampa bay area. until 8:00 p.m. tonight. rivers tonight to swell. ten days of rain and torrential downpours forced evacuations and rescues today and any minute the president will deliver remarks at the first-ever white house demo day. the gathering gives entremendous neuros a chance to showcase their ideas and the president's 54th birthday. the twitter page with a makeover just for the occasion and you can use #44 turns 54 to send your well wishes. i wonder if ted cruz sends regards. he likes to get spirited on twitter. we'll see. now back to the top story. less than two hours until we learn who will take the stage in the first republican debate tomorrow night. we know who will be there.

donald trump who once again leads the pack in the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. at the forum last night, candidates mostly stayed away from attacking donald trump. trump says he'll only strike if attacked first. it's a principle he employed monday when gawker published a cell phone number. take a listen to his new voice mail message. >> i'm donald trump and i'm running for the presidency of the united states of america. with your help and support, together we can make america truly great again. visit me in twitter at real donald trump and check out my campaign website at www.dona www.donaldtrump.com. hope to see you on the campaign trail. we're going to do it. >> thanks to nbc producer for that video. nice peanut butter there, buddy. gawker published the number in response to giving out the

number of lindsey graham's cell phone number. i'm joined by reporter robert costa writing about the front-runner well tapped into the trump camp, the bush camp, the walker camp. you are the whisperer of the gop field. thanks so much for being on the show. >> glad to join you. >> all right. let's start it off, bob, with trump mania. we see he's leading the polls. all about the donald. but this is to some degree a moment where voters are going to want to kick the tires on the donald. you and i talked a lot of the same people and one thing that these republican operatives of the other camp say is there's no beef here. he has no policies on positions. taxes to abortion to health care, a flip flopper and has to talk about policy the bloom will come off the rose. is that the case and how important is it for donald trump to say that he has some chops on thursday? >> it's a major setting for

trump. political theater at its highest order. i'm briefed by trump's campaign about the strategy for thursday. here's what they're doing to do, luke. wait to see who attacks them. trump won't have an aggressive pot shots at the rivals. but trump's aids do say if he is attacked, if someone brings up lynns of opposition research, we'll go back at them. >> fascinatinfascinating. if you're jeb bush or scott walker or marco rubio, it is probably not in your best interest to engage trump one on one like that. so what is the strategy of walker and bush? are they going to sit back and just sort of let trump duel it out with the lesser knowns or will they sort of perhaps jump in on the feeding frenzy? >> the strategy for all of trump's competitors seems to be don't take the first shot. don't make that first punch and anger trump and seems like according to advisers, they're

all coming armed with information about the trump record, past affiliations with the democrats, past donations and be ready if trump targets them to come back at him. >> there's a lot we should mention. support of abortion rights, support of universal health care, support of progressive taxes, a lot of ammo. bob, one guy who's had somewhat of a drop over a last month and i thought did really well last night at the new hampshire candidates forum is marco rubio. well spoken. had detail. but he is taken a real hit in polls over a last month and some attribute it to the support of trump. how important do you think it is nor rubio on thursday night and have to do to get back in there in the top three field where he was in the beginning? >> everything's relative. this is the first of nine official republican debates. the summer is quiet.

you say, luke, slipped in the polls. that's very true. same time talking to rubio's inner circle, they have the belief he can make a generational contrast on the stage and if they can avoid the trump sir kiss and come across attractive, youth, then they can slowly start to make the way up in the polls. >> right. he has the job qualities without the dynasty problem that would really be coming in handy if he were to go into a general against hillary clinton in some capacity. one guy who seems to be making the cut is ohio governor kasich. on paper, he is to some degree kind of a perfect gop candidate. sky-high approval ratings in the state of ohio, well respected from both sides of the aisle. squeaking in here. a great quote of john weaver preparing for trump is preparing if a drunk driver in a nascar race. kasich, can he make noise here

and can be prickly if he wants to be. how important is this debate for him? >> prikly might be good. looking for someone with an outside personality, can be comb combative, rough around the edges and if trump fizzles, kasich is there. two-term governor of ohio offering a same kind of big personality, a political outsider and was an insider of washington for years. comes across as not a corporate politician in the persona. i think late entry, got in the race in july an rising to this point. he's a fresh face in a big field. >> fresh face in a big field and he is somebody from ohio. they have to take seriously if he starts turning upwards. bob costa, thank you so much. tune in to the commentary thursday night. you are the sleuth sayer of the gop side. thank you, my friend. >> thank you. number of people infected by an outbreak of ledge theirs' disease here in new york city risen to 86 and today the mayor, well, he said the city is

working aggressively to contain it and believes the five contaminated sites identified. so far, seven people died from the rare form of pneumonia. water droplets are inhaled and spread through air conditioning cooling units and showers. the bacteria discovered at a bronx hotel and in some hospital equipment. the health department says it will take weeks to identify the primary cause of the outbreak. back in three minutes with more news here on msnbc. wheat? in new purina one true instinct grain free, real chicken is always #1. no corn, wheat or soy. support your active dog's whole body health with purina one.

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we are back here on msnbc. this thursday marks the 50th anniversary of president johnson signing a landmark voting rights act. everyone has a right to vote. there's a battle still raging in the halls of congress over this legislation. after the supreme court gutted key provisions of the fact 2013. democrats are now using the anniversary to push several bills they say restore key protections. let's turn to perry bacon. perry, thanks so much for being on. when the supreme court gutted this, they said, well, you know what? congress can fix this now. congress can sort of flex their muscle, if you will. the house-led gop has not moved on it. there are republican members some quite conservative like jim sensenbrenner that want to move

to restore the basic protections in the voting rights act. what is the issue at hand and how do you see it playing through congress? >> i don't see this moving through congress, luke. we have had now two years since section 5 of the voting rights struck down and congress has not moved. you mentioned sensenbrenner. he is pretty much alone. particularly in the senate. there are very few republicans behind rewriting the vra and the reason why is because voting rights is is a partisan issue. essentially what you see now is in elections with higher turnout, more minorities and young people to vote, they tend to favor democrats versus the election turnout low eer that tends to favor republican and see voter i.d. law passed, restrictions on same-day registration and expand the amount of people who vote and republicans reluctant to sign on to those things and the voting rights act is very partisan and voting is now a partisan issue and what i think you will see

over the next year is republicans supportive of criminal justice reform. the idea of getting rid of mandatory minimums and on the side of the democrats and seeing bipartisanship on criminal justice reform but not voting rights and i don't think the act moves this next year and the democrats are pushing it. >> good point, perry. john boen we are a green light to move on voting rights. it's remarkable in 2015 the right to vote is a partisan issue. perry bacon, thank you for your time. >> thank you, luke. this fall, the supreme court will rule on the bedrock of one person, one vote. that principle to determine if states can continue the use total population instead of voter population when appropriating state legislative districts. our next guest has a book of "on democracy's doorstep."

joining us is the author, douglas smith. douglas, thank you so much for being on the show. let's talk a little bit about this upcoming supreme court case because it really could turn what we have known in the united states for the last few decades on its head in terms of proportional representation. what is the issue at the forefront of the supreme court case and why do you think the roberts court decided to take it up when previously they had not taken up the cases? >> thank you very much for having me today. the case that's now before the court coming out of texas involves a challenge by a group of vote earls in a fairly rural area who claim that their -- the weight of their vote is dilluted by the fact that texas counts total population and not just voters so urban areas such as houston which have large numbers of primarily latinos not citizens and not voters, those

parts of the state therefore have disproportionate power and ironic about this is that 50 years ago when the supreme court finally stepped in, the warren court in the 1960s and established the principle, it was rural parts of the country and small towns way overrepresented in legislatures throughout the united states and in congress. and so how in 50 years later here we are having the very same people enjoying way too much representation asking for more. >> you write about that. if you don't noesly have the representation then a place like los angeles can have the same number of voting representatives as a rural county with a much smaller population. take it further. if the supreme court were to rule the definitively on this and agree with the plaintiffs, who would that most affect? >> well, certainly, and most of the political scientists i think would say that at the present time it would be primarily white

conservative rural voters who would see the weight of their representation increase while urban residents would see their representation decline. decline. >> what would this mean also in terms of a new sentence and in terms of how the congressional districts are made up? i think foreseeably this could account for firm gop control of the house of representatives for some time. >> sure. and this was an issue 50 years ago as well. because in most statesish -- not all but most states the state legislatures draw congressional districts. so the legislature the mall apportioned you end up the malapportioned congressional districts as well. and in illinois you had a congressional district with 100,000 residents and one in cooke county with 800,000.

so massive disparities as the result of state legislative malapportionment. >> is it possible to read into how the court will rule on this? because the roberts court has seemingly taken up these voting cases where in the past they have not moved this far forward. it seems roberts has a distinct interest in these cases. is it too early? >> well i think that sort of given as your previous guest was discussing the voting rights act and the efforts that the current supreme court has made to gut key provisions of that, it is tempting to reach the conclusion they are looking for a way to further undermine the voting rights act and to -- that the court is determined to do that. there have been some recent -- some recent pieces by law professors suggesting that they don't see the court going quite that far. really what the plaintiffs in this case are asking the court

to do is to require that every state use voters rather than people. and up until now it's actually the supreme court in the 1960s did not specify that you had to use people rather than voters but almost every state did. at the time there were four or five states using voters rather than people. and to this day almost every state uses people rather than voters. so for the court to actually take that step and side with the plaintiffs and say texas and other states can only use voters really would be a remarkable step, not only a violation of precedent but public policies as it exists today. >> and when you talk about conservatives usually it is all about states rights, autonomous self determination and in this case sort of asking for the federal government to define how they could characterize voters. not to mention you would also have thousands upon thousands in this country legally who in theory would not get the amount

of reputation they in fact would deserve. so that is something i think could possibly spark a outcry. let's talk about the history of this one man, one vote movement. a center point of the civil rights movement in the '50s and '60s. talk hoe that came to be and how it resonates today. >> the quick story is throughout the 20th century as populations throughout the united states urbanized, people moved from farms to small towns and suburbs. states tended not to reapportion themselves. the state legislature did not reapportion despite the fact it was supposed to. by postwar period in late forties, fifties and sixties you had these mass disparities. one case earlier you mentioned in california, the california state -- los angeles county, sorry, had one state senator. as did three counties in the rural part of the state with

14,000 residents. and vermont, one town with 38 people and burlington with 33,000 with the same number of reputation. so representation. some states was a result of constitutions such as california which set up legislature where one branch is based on population and the other is paced on geography. and others simply refuse tods reapportion. the states said yes this is a problem but we're not going to get involved. only the legislatures can fix this. we're going to state out of this. so things became so bad. and literally you are talking about states where 15, 20, 25% of the people could control majority of the legislature. finally in the 1960 as after a series of cases the supreme court stepped in and said that the federal courts can hear these cases and that they have the jurisdiction to do so. and that really opened up the flood gates and there were lawsuits filed from 35 or 40

different states challenging the malapportionment of state legislatures. and 1964 the supreme court handed down the one person one vote. >> and that was a monumental decision. and we should also mention there have been movements where this can affect presidential politics. pennsylvania there was talk about having all the electoral votes go to whoever won the most districts in the state. thanks for being on the show. take care. and developing right now the president is doing something no president has ever done. hosting the very first white house dem moe day. they are not destroying the white house. this president's invited innovators from across the country to demonstrate how their start-ups are changing the world. and the president is set to announce another public and private commitment to increasing foster dwoers in the tech sector. a place where it is lacking.

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debate deadline got cutoff to make the first republican debate is just one hour away. >> i think that people are tired. they are sick and tired of incompetent politicians.

>> plus, why would donald trump tweet out his cell phone number today? we'll have that for you. the aclu is suing a kentucky school claim an 8-year-old boy with disabilities was restrained with handcuffs in an incident that was captured on camera. >> you can do [inaudible]. >> and a daring rescue in california california as two police officers pulling a man out of his car seconds before it was struck by an on coming train. good afternoon i'm aman mohyeldin. one hour the polls are close determining whose in and whose out on thursday's republican disability. trump is surging in the polls with a kplanding lead over his rivals. this morning the gop front runner who will be center stage spoke out on morning joe about