about what it was like that sunday. and all of them said the same thing. that it just happened so fast, it just happened so fast, kate. >> craig melvin, thanks so much for sharing all that with us. that does it for this hour. i'm kate snow. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts right now. ♪ if it's tuesday, it's time to place your bets. how soon will congress come after your favorite fantasy sports website? this is mtp daily and it starts right now. ♪ a lot to get to tonight including the harvard professor who's running for president. lawrence lessig on his long-shot bid. he's running to resign. he'll explain. exclusive new tv ad spending data, telling us who's shelling out the most in the early states and overall. we'll have the latest on russia's military moves in syria, and why nato ally turkey

is getting very vocal about what russia is doing. all of that is coming up, but first, let's hit the press box on the stories that have mattered most to us today. kristin welker is covering the hillary clinton campaign in iowa. kyle any is following marco rubio in new hampshire. jim miklaszewski is at the pentagon with the latest on the deadly air strike of the hospital in afghanistan. and craig melvin is in his hometown in south carolina where the hiss tor flooding occurred. let's start in iowa. as the will he, or won't he story surrounds joe biden. and some announcements that could be seen as an effort to make biden opt out of a run. >> when i'm your president, i will never give up. i will never quit fighting. i will always be there for you. >> her campaign today released

heavyweight list of local leaders and officials from key states that will hold primaries and caucuses during the month of march. what's interesting are the names she threw out on this list in colorado, hickenlooper, senator michael bennett. governor dayton and both sitting senators on team clinton. clob shar and franklin. in virginia, her long-time ally and personal friend, terry mcmcauliffe is with her but so are both sitting senators. why did this list matter? cain, clob shar, bennett, all were seen as obama people. a sign that says obama people are now with clinton. keeping an eye on the super delegate count, let's go to kristin welker, who is live in davenport on the ground there. kristin, the biden story just sort of is hovering over every move the clinton campaign makes this week. >> oh, it absolutely is. and they are keeping that at the

front of their minds as they release new information like what you just mapped out, chuck. these so-called leadership councils and i spoke with an official inside the clinton campaign who made the point that part of this is aimed at sending a message not only to vice president biden that she has this race locked up, at least in terms of the primary, about you also sending a message to her supporters that this is going to be a much more organized campaign on the ground than she ran back in 2008. these big names that she rolled out today, trying to get supporters, super delegates on board with her campaign in these key super tuesday voting states, minnesota, colorado. important to point out, those are also caucus states, so they require a high level of organization, but you're absolutely right, this is also aimed at sending a message to vice president biden who we know is increasingly considering getting into this race. we expect to have an answer sometimes within the next 7 to 10 days that she has a lot of support, including support from those who used to support

president obama. now, we're also getting a little bit of news on the campaign trail, chuck. just broke moments ago, she stopped at a farmer's market here in davenport, and she was asked about the hot button topic from the transpacific partnership agreement announced earlier this week. she has dodged questions about this consistently. she continued to this afternoon. she said she's going to read through it tonight. she does plan to weigh in. her challenger, bernie sanders, has already weighed in, saying it will cost american jobs. so she'll be getting pressure to weigh in on this. but hillary clinton going back on offense in the wake of the e-mail controversy, really trying to turn the page on that. chuck? >> it will be interesting to see where she comes down on tpp. if she comes against it, it might mean joe biden could be the only candidate for it. kristin welker, thank you very much. now, let's turn to the republican side of the trail.

marco rubio, spending a lot of time on the trail and critics are hitting him more with questions about why he's missing so many votes in the senate back in washington. here he is reacting to that knock this morning on the "today" show. >> the majority of the job of being a senator is not walking onto the senator floor and voting. the major of the work is the constituent service. >> it was a different take than rubio had in april when pushing for an amendment to the iran deal. >> if you don't want to vote on things, don't run for the senate. if you don't want to vote on things, don't run for office. be a columnist, get a talk show. >> since announcing his presidential bid, marco rubio has missed 42% of his senate votes. compared to the four other colleagues on the presidential trail from the u.s. senate. he's the only one who leads him in more missed votes is lindsey graham.

lindsey graham has missed 48% of the votes since he declared his candida candidacy. rubio has missed a larger share of votes since graham got in, but less than that since he got in. today marco rubio was the only senator to miss the vote on the national defense authorization act. let's bring in kyle any in new hampshire who is following rubio on the trail today. i got to ask, did this even come up at any of his campaign stops? >> reporter: so, actually at house party right now in bedford, new hampshire. this is marco rubio's first new hampshire campaign stop of the day. he'll do several here tomorrow. but as you can see, as marco rubio's rising in the national polls, he's also rising in the state polls. the poll that came out here on sunday, he actually had 10%, which is kind of quite a lot for somebody who has not been here quite as much as other republican candidates have.

but people here are really excited to see him. they're excited about him. there is definitely some strong support here in new hampshire for marco rubio. but at the same time, when i've talked to voters here, when he's been here at previous events, some of them have voiced concern to me that he may be a little bit too green. he may not have enough experience. and other people, when i've been covering marco rubio at his events, they have said to me, we like everything that he says, we really like his message on national security, and his proposals on social security and other things. but they really wanted to vote for a governor. >> and very quickly, how often do you hear him being the second or third choice at, say, a carson event, a fiorina event, a bush event, things like that? >> to be honest with you, it does come up now and then. i've heard voices not just in new hampshire, but elsewhere, that like the idea of a kasich/rubio ticket. so i think it's on the minds of

some people. people here are excited to see him regardless. >> kyle any koenig, in new hampshire, thank you very much. let's turn now to the latest from afghanistan, including the hospital bombing that took place there. doctors without borders has called it a war crime and is demanding an independent investigation. not one led by the united states, but one led by the u.n. in the shifting u.s. account of what occurred this weekend, when a u.s. air strike hit a hospital killing 22 civilians in afghanistan. what is not done much to clear up many of the questions so far. why did the air strike come in? who asked for it? was it a u.s. ask? was it an afghan ask? appearing today for the senate armed forces committee, the top commander of forces in afghanistan, insisted the hospital hit was a mistake and was not deliberate as some have claimed. >> the decision to provide aerial fire was a u.s. decision made within the u.s. chain of

command. a hospital was mistakenly struck. we would never intentionally target a protected medical facility. i must allow the investigation to take its course. joining me now is jim miklaszewski. mik, when it comes to an investigation, is he referring to a u.s. investigation or a u.n. investigation, and where would the u.s. stand about ceding investigative authority? >> he said he thought there could be preliminary results from that investigation in about 30 days. and i doubt very seriously that the u.s. military would willingly cede that authority to anyone else, including the u.n. >> i want to play for you another part of the hearing today, though, that i think has more long-term impact. and that is, this exchange with john mccain when general campbell over how many troops should be on the ground. here it is. i want to get your reaction on

the other side. >> could i respectfully ask again, do the conditions on the ground warrant a change to the current plan that calls for, by the end of 2016, we'd be an embassy centric force? >> again, based on conditions on the ground, based on the transitions i've talked about, i do believe that we have to provide our senior leadership options different than the current plan that we're going with, absolutely. >> now, mik, that's a lot of careful military-like language. put it in plain english for us. >> well, general campbell even got more careful when he said that, you know, the decision to withdraw almost all american forces by the end of 2016, that the president made that call two years ago, and a lot has happened since then. there's been a resurgence in the taliban. there's an an isis element

introduced to the fight there. pakistan has been allowing some taliban fighters to return to afghanistan for the fight. and it's clear that general campbell believes that the idea that almost all american troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2016 could spell disaster for the future of afghanistan and any kind of afghan military operations. he said, they need help. in intelligence, training, and particularly, counterterrorism. and you can't do that by keeping a thousand or so u.s. military confined to their bases in kabul. >> bottom line, really fast, mik, this feels like a telegraphing to the american public, more troops will be on the ground when president obama leaves office? >> no question about it. >> all right, thank you. now turning to south carolina and the historic flooding they've been dealing with there. these are new aerials over columbia, where you see receding waters are revealing just how

devastating the damage has been. weather related fatalities are up to 14 with ten dam failures in the state and more on a close watch. governor nikki haley said today that the danger is nowhere near over. >> south carolina has once again proven that we are strong, and we are resilient. we are still in prayer mode. we are still in the fact that the next 36 to 48 hours is going to be volatile. so what we'll tell you is don't let the sunshine fool you, but we are prepared. >> let me bring in craig melvin. as a native of the area, craig, you grew up here. i take it you've never seen anything like this in your lifetime in columbia, south carolina? >> chuck, i haven't. no one that i've talked to here has. and that's one reason why so many people here just don't have flood insurance. and certainly don't have the kind of flood insurance that someone who lives along the

coast like in charleston might have. 7 of the 14 who died here in south carolina, died drowning. and everyone i've talked to, they said variations of the same thing. it wasn't just the sheer amount of the water. it was the speed at which it came. one of the dams that they were concerned about, the windsor dam, about 15, 20 minutes from here, they're not as concerned as they were earlier today. it looks as if that dam will hold. we're in a neighborhood, this is over gills creek area. we're standing where the haileyes lived. and i say "lived" because it's going to be a while before they can again. they managed to get out just in the nick of time. the 12-year-old at one point actually had to cling to this mailbox, the water that high, rushing that swiftly. and he managed to get out. there's a sink hole, we've seen

lots of these sink holes, chuck, but this is what we've seen more often than anything else. you see the pile of stuff in this yard. every yard along this block, chuck, people taking their belongings out. so that the folks can get in and try and repair those floorboards and what not. it's a bad scene. >> it's gotta be. and there's going to be a lot of houses that look like they're upright, that are probably inhabitable. >> yes. >> craig melvin, thank you for your reporting there. keep it up and we'll check back in. a big bombshell. did employees at some major fantasy sports sites use inside information to cash in? we'll talk to a congressman who is has been leading the charge to get the government involved in what has become a billion dollar industry. and later, tracking russia's moves in syria.

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every tuesday we'll get you brand new numbers when it comes to the tv ad wars. so here's the latest round. the biggest spender in iowa so far, it's bobby jindal and the super pacs that are supporting him. together they've shelled out more than $2 million in the hawkeye state. bush and clinton come in around the $2 million mark. and rubio rounds out the list of the biggest iowa spenders. so if you're wondering why jindal has moved up a little bit, that will explain it. we have to look at what all that money is or isn't buying. more than $2 million has jindal in the tie for fourth place in our latest nbc news/maris poll. the names at the top, trump, carson, and fiorina, they have yet to spend big money in the state. i don't think trump has spent any money in the state. in new hampshire, it's still team kasich, $5.4 million.

nearly a million more than team bush and more than $2 million more than team christie. all those ad colors have kasich in seventh, christie in sixth, and you did see the first inching up of bush, because his ad spending is the most recent. now, moving on, who is spending the most overall? we have that and a lot more ahead on "mtp daily." we'll see you in a minute. or becoming the next highly-unlikely dotcom superstar. and us, we'll be right there with you, helping with the questions you need answered to get your brand new business started. we're legalzoom and we've already partnered with over a million new business owners to do just that. check us out today to see how you can become one of them. legalzoom. legal help is here. to take their act to the next level... before earning 1% cash back everywhere, every time... 2% back at the grocery store...

and 3% back on gas... vince of the flying branzinos got a bankamericard cash rewards credit card, because he may earn his living jumping through hoops, but he'd rather not earn cash back that way. that's the spectacle of rewarding connections. apply online or at a bank of america near you. >> you of course cannot watch a major sporting event without seeing one of these ads, promoting fortunes to be made from fantasy sports leagues, but today that very lucrative industry is under a major cloud of suspicion after an explosive "new york times" report this morning and the fall-out is coming fast. just this afternoon, espn pulled some sponsored fantasy sports programming from its websites. and today two fantasy sports giants, draft kings and fanduel have barred its employees from participating in fantasy contests for money on other

sites. meaning they used to be able to do that legally. a "new york times" report said a draft kings employee admitted to inadvertently releasing data last week, and using that data that showed how staffers would have an insiders' edge. that same week, said draft kings' employee won $350,000 playing on rival site fanduel. a spokesperson for fanduel said she didn't believe there was an attempt to manipulate the contest. in a joint statement, they declare nothing it more important to draft kings and fanduel than the integrity of the games we offer to our customers. both companies have plsss in place to ensure that employees do not misuse any information at their disposal. and we have no evidence that anyone has misused it. >> that statement comes across as a flat-out falsehood when it's exactly what happened. somebody used data and used it

on the other site and before you respond, let me say this, nbc sports group and the nbc parent company comcast are both investors in fanduel. so are they lying in their statement, stephanie? >> we don't know. draft kings is denying their employee used this information to play the competition fanduel and win $350,000. i think the larger issue is, whether he did or not, that information is being gathered by both of these companies and it's incumbent on both of them to prove to their customers that that information isn't then being used to basically rig the system. it gives an edge. and the information for those who know fantasy football a bit, is that these companies gather the frequency that players are chosen for line-ups by their customers. that's not something that you would know in the public. although it's not fool-proof to winning lots of money, it certainly does give you an edge over time. and that's the allegation.

basically their business model requires that they have to have the faith of -- the customers have to have trust in them, that this isn't rigged. so they are scrambling right now to prove that that isn't going on. chuck? >> well, i'm going to move this along a little bit. stephanie, i know you'll be reporting for "nightly news" tonight. and i think the real issue here, there's nobody minding the store. i think that's it. stephanie, thank you very much. i want to bring in a congressman on capitol hill who has decided that maybe these two fantasy sites and this entire industry needs a little federal oversight. it's congressman frank pallone, democrat from new jersey. he sent a letter to the house last month before this scandal broke, asking congress to look into this murky legal territory and congressman pallone joins me now. you're representing a state who has sued the federal government in the past over sports gaming. i'll get to that in a minute. but how soon do you think you'll

be able to put together a congressional hearing investigating what needs to be done to regulate this new industry? >> well, we're hoping within the next month or so. maybe november or december. i spoke to the chairman of the energy and commerce committee. i'm the chief democrat on the committee and we're both hoping that we can have something, some kind of hearing in the next month or two. >> now, explain in some ways, how the federal government regulates gambling, regular gaming, casino gaming, and where this, you think, should fit in or shouldn't. >> well, of course the hypocrisy here is that the major leagues and the teams that are investing in these fantasy sports sites are suing -- it's not the state that's suing the federal government. it's these major league sports that are suing the state of new jersey, because we want to have sports betting. we want to legitimize sports betting and bring it out from

organized crime and have the state benefit from some of the proceeds. but the major leagues carved out this exception to online gaming for fantasy sports but said it wasn't gaming because it was just going to be a bunch of friends getting together, maybe using the internet to have a game for the season. but now it's become full-fledged gaming where you just place a bet, you win and they are making all this money, the teams as well as the leagues, as the same time that they object to sports betting regulated by the state. now we're finding out that not only are they making huge amounts of money through this exception, which is in fact gaming, probably not even legal because it is really gaming, and now they have insiders who are using inside information to make a buck individually. i mean, it's unbelievable what's going on. there has to be some oversight. there has to be some regulation. where would that come from? if you had your drothers and you were told, regulate this industry, how would it work? >> well, first of all, as far as

fantasy sports, i sent a letter today with another center to the ftc, which under the underlying legislation that carved out fantasy sports, can do enforcement, saying, what is the situation here? this seems to be deceptive practices that are being carried out by some of the employees of these two sites. can you do something about it? can you regulate it? can the ftc regulate it? or does congress have to step in and pass new legislation? but the initial legislation that carved out fantasy sports said it wasn't gaming, but something that could be done because it wasn't gaming, did allow the ftc to have some oversight, so we're asking the federal trade commission to exercise that oversight in light of the latest developments. >> all right, is your goal to have these fantasy sites labelled as gaming and open up sports gaming for all 50 states? >> absolute -- >> or is your goal to get this so that it gets pushed underground? >> no. it's just the opposite.

i want sports betting to be open in general to every state that wants to do it. that gets it away from organized crime, that makes it transparent and makes it fair so that it's regulated. the bottom line is now, this is kind of like the wild west with fantasy sports. it wasn't supposed to be gaming. it has become gaming because of the money that the leagues and the teams are making. and now we find all kinds of irregular unfair practices that are going on. this needs to be regulated. otherwise, it's going to be almost like organized crime. you make a bet with the local bookie, you don't know what he's doing. now we don't know what fantasy sports is doing either. >> let me just get you, both big companies here say this is not gambling, that it's a game of skill. >> that's ridiculous. >> and that it's different. >> no, you place a bet, the house makes a cut. you get proceeds back if you win. but now it's even worse because

you don't even know if it's a fair competition. so this is not only gaming, this is unfair gaming. >> congressman frank pallone, like i said, you were the first guy on this, about a month ago, and here we go with the "new york times" report. i have a feeling you're going to get your hearing very soon. >> thank you. up next, we'll get you caught up on the who, what, when, where, and why in today's headlines, including why you still might miss out on an egg mcmuffin as mcdonald's rolls out its new night-time breakfast menu. and democratic presidential candidate that you've never order of. maybe you have. lawrence lessig joins me to discuss his bid to run, win, and resign. we'll explain. ♪ ♪

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congressman john dengel. he's undergoing a heart procedure in detroit. in true john dengel fashion, the 89-year-old decided to take to twitter to break the news of his operation. here's what he wrote. back in the hospital, being old sucks. congressman dengel, with your sense of humor, we know you'll have a speedy recovery and you're already in the right mind-set. now to the what. it's a battery-powered luxury car and you'll never guess which 2016 candidate drives one. it's ben carson. the staunch conservative expressed his love of the car and said quote, i'm sure from left-wing environmentalists heads are exploding. to the where. yankee stadium where we think a few people will show up tonight. astros and yankees in a winner-take-all american wild-card game. and finally the when and the why tonight. they're both from the same

story. the when is this. today begins a new era. starting today, mcdonald's is serving breakfast all day. however, what you can order depends on where you live. in the live in the blue area, you can only order breakfast sandwiches and biscuits all day. the rest of the map, you can only order mcmuffins. look what two states are not really in the south on this map, florida and most of virginia. i want my biscuits, darn it. as for the why, like ihop and waffle house, this is just another way the nation split up its food choices. there was a report this morning that said hash browns would not be available at many of these mcdonald's restaurants for the all-day breakfast. we asked robert gibbs, yes, the same who worked for president obama, if this was true. in lieu of comment, he sent us breakfast at 5:30 p.m. all the hash browns we wanted to eat. bottom line, 90% of mcdonald's are serving hash browns.

when we come back, we'll have the how, how the world is reacting to russia's military in syria. but first, here's the cnbc ma market wrap. >> we didn't match monday's big rally on wall street. stocks ending mixed for the day. the s&p off by 7, the nasdaq falling by 32 points. imf is cutting its flobl growth target for the year again. it's now predicting growth of 3.1%, and warning of more pronounced downside risks. the trade gap widened in august as exports slumped to the lowest level in three years. and crude jumped nearly 5%, the highest since mid september. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide.

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back now with developing news out of turkey where officials have confirmed that russia has violated turkish airspace on more than one occasion in the last couple days. nato secretary-general said it's not a mistake. saying russian military actions have reached a more dangerous level with the recent violations of turkish airspace. in a new video, syrian air force helicopters drop leaflets, warning a planned ground offensive as russia moves heavy artillery toward hama, an apparently devoid of isis members. all of this while turkey ramps up its efforts for a no-fly zone. >> chuck, there's an interesting dynamic to all of this. turkey has obviously explained, it has summoned the russian

ambassador twice. nato has said it was no accident that russia violated turkish airspace. a senior official i've been speaking to said there's a potentially positive development in all of this, in that turkey has been such an uncooperative partner in the fight against isis, in the entire syria campaign. and perhaps this u.s. official said, by the new antagonism from russia, that turkey could become more friendly, more compliant, more open to suggestions from the u.s. so the whole entry of the russian forces, the entry of putin into the syria battlefield, has multiple layers of complexity. violating the airspace is just one of them. obviously there's a danger, because you have russian planes and nato aircraft operating in fairly close proximity, but it

also could have a role of nudging turkey closer to the u.s. chuck? >> all right, richard. joining me now, former u.s. ambassador to russia, ambassador mcfall. let's start with turkey's complaint here a little bit. they're a nato ally. verbal warnings are going to be one thing. at what point does nato have to do more than verbally warn russia? >> well, i agree with what richard just said there, that putin has done a lot to help unify the nato alliance as a result of these activities. because turkey was not being cooperative. and some turkish officials have said some pretty tough stuff about what might happen when the next jet comes through. my guess is, nobody wants to start world war iii with the russians over what they're doing in syria. so there's not going to be a military confrontation, but it's a serious moment and unanticipated things can happen

when jets are flying where they shouldn't be. >> you know, ambassador, it feels like putin is pushing on an electrified fence and seeing how many ways can he push, push, push, before he gets a response? is that what he's up to? you are in charge of trying to figure out what putin is up to and what his agenda is. what is he up to? >> i think his objective is very clear, it's been the same for the last four years, which is to support his ally in syria, mr. assad. it's just that simple. he's not supporting the syrian people and the syrian government. and i would say it's important to understand that he's really turning this into a sunni versus aloeite divide. he believes that all sunnis are terrorists if they're fighting against assad. and he's doubled down to support his ally there. and i think it's extremely dangerous because it means all of the sunnis, the two dozen groups fighting against assad,

are now going to be against russia. >> to take this furtherer on the sunni-shia divide, do you think he sees it that way, that basically russia's on the side of the shia? >> i think he sees it, that russia's on the side of strong men. when i was in the government, i used to listen to his theory about peace and stability, and he always emphasized that we have to support the strong men, that's the only way to keep the peace. but he's been doing that for four years. that strategy has not worked. so now he's doubling down to support him. but de facto, it means what you just said. you are now seeing a sunni-shia divide, and russia now is on the shia side. and that's going to reverb berate not just in the middle east, i'm sure the saudis are looking at that and sunnis will be wondering why is the leader

in moscow supporting the shia in a religious divide? >> do you expect russian ground troops in syria? >> they've backed away from it. but they've left the door open. they used this phrase, volunteers may be there. so we should wait and see. i would be surprised by it, but he's doing some surprising things now in syria. so let's wait and see what might happen. >> and very quickly, does this change any -- any way the united states should treat putin differently than they have for the last seven years? >> no. i think we need to stay the course in terms of what we're doing around the world, not just in syria. and be careful that we don't get into a shooting match with russian soldiers and airplanes in syria. >> do you think that's what he wants? >> no, he doesn't want a shooting match with us. he wants to avoid that, but i just want to emphasize very unintended things can happen when you have lots of different people fighting in the same

battlefield. >> all right, former ambassador to russia, mike mcfall and nbc news contributor, thank you, sir. >> thanks for having me. still ahead, lawrence lessig, he's proving that he can raise money for an intriguing white house bid. not the type of white house bid you might expect. but how much can he do with his million dollars against the multi billion dollar campaign landscape? that's actually part of his message? we'll be right back. so you don't have to stop. tylenol® 8hr arthritis pain has two layers of pain relief. the first is fast. the second lasts all day. we give you your day back. what you do with it is up to you. tylenol®. and when you bundle your home and auto insurance through progressive, you'll save a bundle! [ laughs ] jamie. right. make a bad bundle joke, a buck goes in the jar. i guess that's just how the cookie bundles. now, you're gonna have two bundles of joy! i'm not pregnant. i'm gonna go. [ tapping, cash register dings ] there you go. [ buzzing ] bundle bee coming!

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data for you on the tv ad wars. we've crunched the numbers and jeb bush retains the title of biggest tv ad spender to date. bush and the super pac supporting him, have shelled out more than $7 million for tv time so far, nearly $2 million more than the next guy on the list, john kasich. team clinton is right in the middle of the pack there, with $4.6 million. you don't see any other democrat on that list, by the way. and we know one place where money is not really being spent. on a new 30-second ad that attempts to aim at kevin mccarthy's benghazi comment. this ad has just $25,000 behind it. that's it. just $25,000. and it's run all of five times so far between today and thursday. it's a press release ad. we'll be right back.

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so we can see things others can't. mitigating risks across your business. leaving you free to focus on what matters most. a harvard proffer and activist has given talks on the inefficiency of government and he's founded his own super pac. now he's adding presidential candidate to his bio. it's now a full-fledged campaign, he raked in a million dollars in one month, afterect cling 10,000 contributions to 8,000 donors. he's promising to serve a single term or perhaps less. he's focused on a single issue, when he gets it done, he'll quit and hand it over to his vice president. he hopes to ride an insurgent wave to the white house and overhaul the nation's electoral and financial systems. but he'll have to make it onto the ballot and the campaign stage. today he's out with a new

$100,000 ad in new hampshire and iowa right now. ♪ >> this is what our political system has turned into. larry lessig is the only presidential candidate with the will and the way to fix it. >> well, that candidate, lawrence lessig joins me now. where did you pick on marco rubio and not every other candidate? >> we open up with marco rubio because donald trump has opened this issue in the republican party, and what we're trying to do is to grab the focus around the way the corrupting influence of money makes government impossible in america today, because that's the premise for everything else that follows in this campaign. >> your campaign, you've said, you you're a one-issue candidate. it's campaign finance reform. so what does it look like under the lessig government? >> no other issue that anybody's

talking about can get done sensibly until we get done with this first. they're promising the moon, and i'm saying the rocket can't get off the ground until we way cams are funded. and if we change the way campaigns are funded, we can crack the corruption that makes it so you can't talk about taking on wall street. >> how do you change it? public funding or is it all money into a candidate and then everybody can see? >> it's bottom-up public funding. i support vouchers, for example, give everybody money that they can give to candidates that would radically change the way we have right now. right now, candidates spend 30 to 70% of their time raising money from the tiny frex of the 1%. they can't begin to think about what the average voter cares about, because they're not cared on the average voter. >> what happens when you have the average voter say, on public funding, i don't want my tax dollars going to canada? >> let's have that argument. >> that's an argument that's out there. but the problem is, we know again and again, the polls show,

the people are so deeply frustrated with this government they know is not responsive to them. so what we're saying is, let's find a way to make a government responsive to you. and if we did that, then i think you would begin to see a government actually dealing with the problems that the democratic candidates are talking about. >> why are you running in the democratic primary? >> because i'm a democrat. because the democrats are the party of yes. we have a whole bunch of ideas we want to get done, and these are the most important ideas. dealing with the problems of social security, dealing with a living wage as the minimum wage. having a plan for dealing with climate change. these are the issues we've got to find a way to do, and we can't do it, chuck, until we deal with this fundamental issue first. >> there's a guy that's running for president right now, who in every stump speech, in every interview i've done with him, brings this issue up. it's not -- this is not an issue that's not being brought up. bernie sanders, arguably, is making this one of his top two issues. why do you feel as if you need to run, when bernie sanders is getting traction and arguably, partially because of this issue?

>> bernie sanders has made many issues, salient and central in this campaign, and i am a big supporter of the issues that he's talking about, but what he's not said is that he would take this issue on first. and the reason that's so critical, if we don't have this as a day one issue, then you can't begin to have the opportunity to do the other things he was talking about. "the new york times" just did a review of the health care proposals of bernie sanders and they couldn't even give a paragraph to bernie sander's proposal, because so obvious was it that you couldn't have a single pair health care system in a world where the industry has the power that the industry has. so if bernie were to say, look, here's the reality. we can't deal with any of these until we deal with these first -- >> then you would get out -- >> i'm not saying i'm getting out, but it would be a different race. right now, he's promising the moon, when we need people to tell america the truth, which is, we can't get the moon if we don't have a rocket that gets off the ground. >> and very quickly, your pledge is, you will quit the presidency as soon as you pass this issue? >> what i'm trying to do is do something nobody's done.

and we've got a lot of pushback on the quit promise. >> you're thinking about pulling back on that? >> you tell me, chuck. what is the way to get the mandate strong enough to be able to take on the most powerful interest here in washington? that was the whole theory of me saying that i would step down. that we are going to focus on the single campaign, so there would be no ambiguity. and once i was here, washington would have to say, look, the people have spoken. but the only way to have that clarity is almost a frodo-like move. you're saying is, this is the thing i'm doing, but people are pushing back, because they don't trust the congress would follow through or live us to this. this is the fundamental issue that we've been thinking about, but in the context of three to five-minute conversations, let's keep focused on, what is the motivation? the motivation is, we don't have a government that works. so we've got to have a campaign that focuses on getting us that government. >> all right. well, you are right, it's a three-to five-minute conversation and i'm going to have to go. mr. lessig, i will be following your campaign and perhaps we'll have you on again soon. >> all right, up next, it's the lid, tackling the today's two

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it's gotten squarer. over the years. brighter. bigger. thinner. even curvier. but what's next? for all binge watchers. movie geeks. sports freaks. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. time for the lid, to cap off today's most crucial developments in politics. it began with this headline from politico, that joe biden himself was the source of this infamous maureen dowd column back in early august, that said that beau biden's dying wish was for his father to run for president. after first pushing back off the

record, the vp's office came back said, the bottom line of the politico story is that it is categorically false and the characterization is offensive. joining me, molly, let me start with you, that denial told you what? >> very little, basically nothing. they said it was categorically false, but not specifically false. on the other hand, this didn't seem like that much of a surprise to me, because how many people were in that room? if it wasn't -- >> it had to be a family member. >> if it wasn't joe biden himself, it was someone very, very close to him. >> exactly. >> always the theory that it was some family member and that the reason you tell that to a "new york times" columnist is to get it out there and to see how people react to it. so, you know, if it didn't come from him, it might as well have. >> unfair, this is about, do you think, this is someone -- someone clearly leaked this piece of information to damage biden. motivation is what? >> well, i think you just said it, to damage biden and to discourage him, also, from running. and we saw another story today

that the clinton team is, surprise, surprise, preparing opposition research in case biden runs. i think that this is a race that because there are so few issue differences, would very rapidly become personal. >> it's going to be, just like obama/clinton, it will be with the finest points. >> let me shift to the story that washington is gossiping about a lot, this race for the speaker, 7:30 tonight, something we've never seen before, a speaker's debate or candidate forum. you'll have jason webster, jason chaffetz in front of a coalition of the conservative caucus groups. so he's got to debate for his job. how much -- how important is this day for kevin mccarthy? >> you know, i think it turns out to be pretty important, just because mccarthy damaged himself so much with his comments, saying the benghazi investigation, suggesting that it was political. that hurt him so much with the conference. and i think that he's got to get the healing process accelerating. >> well, the reason it was damaging to him was because

heads this tendency to put his foot in his mouth. he is not very good at putting sentences together with nouns and verbs and all in the proper order. so i think he has to prove that he can stand on two feet and not trip over himself. that's a big part of it. a lot of this nervousness is not so much ideological, but the ability to communicate. >> molly, you'll get an e-mail from mike long in a few minutes that will have nouns and verbs, i have a feeling. that's it for us. ayman mohyeldin picks up our coverage, next. right now on msnbc live, surveying the damage. tonight, a look at the results from historic and deadly flooding in south carolina. plus, the potential of more evacuations and even more breached dams. extended stay in afghanistan. president obama reportedly considering keeping up to 5,000 u.s. troops in the country beyond next year. and a major sports scandal in the unregulated world of fantasy sports gambling. allegations that employees were