democrats. they don't identify with the party. that's a bigger issue we're seeing play out. steve, always a pleasure to have you here. that is "all in" for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> thanks for joining us this lawyer. you know what, al sharpton, he did not always look like this. this is reverend al hosting what until very recently was his weekday show "politics nation." here's reverend al hosting the new sunday morning version of "politics nation." this is him in his exclusive interview with presidential candidate hillary rodham clinton. this is the reverend al you're used to seeing. this is what reverend al looks like these days. but reverend al didn't always look like this. and that is not usually a terribly relevant thing for somebody who has a big public persona like reverend al sharpton. a complaining in his look over

time wouldn't necessarily be a notable thing. when you were talking about his political history. the difference is incredibly striking when you go back and look at foot and of had imrunning for president in 2004. he ran in 2004 and that was a fascinating year. 2004 was the year that john kerry ended up getting the nomination on the democratic side. he picked another guy who had been running for president that year, john edwards to be his running mate and kerry and edwards went on to lose the general election to george w. bush but the democratic primary to pick a nominee that year was very exciting. wesley clark ran. howard dean from vermont had all the busy' energy that year. he ran a very exciting liberal campaign. lots of excitement behind dean in '04. carol moseley braun was in the running for a while. dick gephardt, dennis kucinich ran that year. joe lieberman ran that year. it was an interesting bunch on

the democratic side in 2004. but none of those people honestly were anywhere near as interesting as the reverend al sharpton. naturally out of all of those who were running in 2004, it was al sharpton who was the one who was invited during the presidential primary that year to be the host of "saturday night live." >> hit it. ♪ i feel good, i knew that i would ♪ >> while he was running for president, al sharpton hosted "saturday night live." it was awesome. he did his james brown impression which turned out to be much better than any other james brown impression you have seen. it was amazing. it was one of the more awesome political nights on saturday night live". but it also led to the most boring thing that's ever been put on television in the history of the world. because that night, with the reverend al sharpton hosting

"saturday night live" led to some poor nbc local affiliates in missouri and california having to play this. they had no choice about it. they had to play this taped joe lieberman town hall event. and honestly, i'm not even sure this is the specific one they had to play. i think it is, but does it matter? i think this is the joe lieberman town hall specifically that nbc affiliates were forced to play because of that "saturday night live" but it could have been any number of them. they all looked exactly like this. the reason the awesome al sharpton saturday light live" hosting led to the saddest political broadcast in the history of politics, joe lieberman droning on in a town hall meeting in new hampshire about his tax. the reason those two things both had to lap is because of the equal time rule. the equal time rule only applies on broadcast television, doesn't apply on cable. doesn't apply if the television program is featuring a candidate in a news cast or if the

broadcast is doing aginterview with the candidate or if they're airing some sort of documentary about the candidate or if you're showing the candidate in a live news event. it doesn't apply in any of those circumstances. but if you are a broadcast tv station showing a candidate while they're actively running for office and it's not one of those categories that's exempt because it's news, then you kind of do have to give the other candidates equal time. so joe lieberman had a sharp eyed lawyer who worked for his campaign back when both he and al sharpton were running for president in the democratic primary and the lieberman campaign saw al sharpton doing his james brown impression and being in all these skits on snl and they realized that was how they could force nbc stations in at least two states to give joe lieberman the equal opportunity, equal time to reach nbc viewers with what turned out to be the most boring thick ever shown on television. equal time for joe lieberman.

and there comes up from time to time in big laek cycles not just at the federal level either. arnold schwarzenegger ran for governor in california around that same time reverend al was hosting snl. tv stations all over california stopped showing movies that had arnold schwarzenegger in them while he was running for governor because they were worried all the other candidates he was running against would come knock ong their door asking for their own equal time time on those stations. same thing happened to ronald reagan when he was running for governor of california and later running for president of the united states. if you were a bedtime for bonzo fan, ronald reagan resulted in that great achievement in american cinema being pulled off broadcast tv to make an equal time for the people he was running against. recent recently when hillary clinton appeared on saturday night skit in that skit about val the bartender last weekend, local nbc stations that aired that episode of "saturday night live" had to put out a public

notice explaining she appeared free of charge on that show in a way that might be susceptible to equal times by the other democratic primary candidates. she was on for precisely 3 minutes and 12 seconds. well, now, i can report tonight, that can democratic presidential candidate lawrence lessig has in fact filed an equal time claim with nbc because of that saturday night live" appearance. since hillary clinton got her three minutes and 12 seconds on nbc affiliates, in plays where she is an official candidate for president of the united states, lawrence lessig's campaign now says they would like him to get his three minutes and 12 seconds on nbc affiliates in places where he is a candidate for president of the united states. now, if he is successful with this equal time claim, it doesn't necessarily mean he's going to get time on saturday night live" but he is asking for a comparable amount of time on nbc affiliates at roughly the

same time that her appearance aired on those affiliates and there is a history of the strategy working out for some candidates. that's how the joe lieberman town hall event ended up getting airs on nbc in 2003. and however you know big a deal this becomes for lawrence lessig trying to get his equal time because of that appearance by hillary clinton, however big a deal that becomes this whole issue is conceivably about to blow up. the hillary clinton, lawrence lessig equal time issue if that comes to pass, that is going to be garved darveed by the fact t donald trump was just announced today as the november 7th host of saturday night live. so he's not going to be doing three minutes and 1 seconds like hillary clinton did in that one skit. he's going to be doinging what al sharmton did back in the day. he's going to be hosting all over the show for a significant portion that have broadcast. that may well give rise to any or potentially all of the other

republican candidates for president trying to make the equal time argument that are legally america must see, george pataki's latest stem winder on nbc affiliates or bobby jindal down home family funtime political picnic. this could be the way jim gilmore finally captivates america. thanks to a demand for equal time on nbc affiliates around the country. so donald trump's going to host saturday night live november 7th. that is probably going to be amazing enough. but after that, it may create a total broadcast television chaos round for all of the other 14 major republican candidates for the republican nomination. there has been a little bit of a circus around that issue in the past. this year could be a very, very big circus. whoo-hoo. rand paul, this is reason enough for you to not drop out yet. get in on that. but that was only one of the big

surprises in republican presidential politics today. it was also today when the news broke that i have to tell you broke on an obscure conservative website, this news broke that the man who is running second to donald trump in the republican primary, dr. ben carson he reportedly has only been a member of the republican party for less than a year. their got prominent placement on conservative website the drudge report today after it broke in this again, this -- it broke on an obscure website. but the drudge report picked it up like injecting it directly into the blood stream of conservative media. it's apparently a florida voter registration form from the palm beach county board of elections which shows that dr. ben carson only became a republican for the first time apparently last october. last halloween, october 31st, 014. so ben carson is doing great in the republican presidential primary. there's a new fox news national republican poll that came out

today. ben carson and donald trump are way out ahead of the rest of the field in first and second place. in this new fox poll, look, ben carson is only one point behind trump. donald trump is first with 24%, ben carson is second with 23%. the next closest candidate to them is ted cruz who has less than half the support of either of them. ted cruz coming in at 10%. that's the fox news poll today. a cbs poll cape out yesterday, a national republican poll. ben carson in second place to donned trump. donald trump is at 27%. in that poll, no other republican candidate is even in double digits. so donald trump and ben carson are very clearly very far out ahead of the rest of the field. and there has been this big long list of things that carson has said or done which seemed outrageous or scandalous to mainstream audiences. he very frequently compares the united states to nazi germany,

he has now started blaming the holocaust on the jews themselves not having enough guns. after the mass shooting in roseburg, oregon, recently he blamed the victims of that shooting for being shot. he has said that a muslim could not be president of the united states. he was asked on npr last week what he would do about the debt sealing. he clearly at least seemed to have no idea what the debt ceiling was. there's all this stuff about ben carson that seems sort of disqualifying to most mainstream audiences and certainly to the mainstream media but republican voters over and over and over and over again are showing they don't mind. none of this stuff bugs them. they also didn't mind any of the donald trump supposed gaffes. republican voters don't mind any of the ben carson supposed gaffes. nothing about either guy that seems crazy or ignorant or obscene to the rest of the country bugs republican voters about them at all. ben carson and donald trump very clearly are winning. there is one top tier in the republican party and that's it.

now, interesting test. now there's a different type of scandal about ben carson. right now there's this reporting that ben carson might not are be a republican or at least he wasn't a republican till less than a year ago. after all these other things that have broken about carson, will be interesting to see if that is the sort of scandal that does bother republican voterers. one surprise today was is donald trump hosting "saturday night live" what that might mean in terms of equal kaw time claims from all the other republican candidates. other surprise today was this reporting about whether or not ben carson was even a republican this time last year. for presidential candidate jeb bush today, the surprise about him continues to be what we did not hear from jeb. thursday, the day after tomorrow is the deadline by which the campaigns are supposed to announce how much money they raised in this past quarter. fund-raising numbers are always an interesting snapshot of the let of the campaign. this quarter for example, ben

carson and bernie sanders each turned in surprisingly giant fund-raising numbers for this past quarter. ted cruz turned in a surprisingly large fund-raising number. marco rubio turned in a surprisingly small fund-raising number. rand paul turned in a shockingly low fund-raising number. so the numbers can tell you something about the health of various campaigns. but jeb bush so far no news. and we're right up against the deadline. part of what's supposed to lock jeb bush in as a permanent member of the top tier of candidates no matter how bad his polling is, part of the reason we're supposed to think of him as a top tier guy no matter how badly he does is because of his money. the amount of money he is supposed to be rolling in for this campaign is supposed to trump, forgive me, trump all other concerns how his campaign is going. well, if that's whaes what's supposed to make us think of him as top tier, his campaign has not said bupkis about their numbers right now. they've got to say thing by

thursday. maybe it will be good news. right now it is no news which is weird news. speaking of old sad rand paul, even rand paul had a big day today in presidential politicking. rand paul has been suffering lately as you know with not great poll numbers. he is right on the cusp of making it or maybe not making it into the next republican presidential debate. his fund-raising numbers were shockingly bad for this past quart. republicans in his home state of kentucky are getting increasingly vocal in their criticisms of rand paul saying he should quit his long shot presidential bid and focus on trying to hold on to his senate seat because that is not going to be any sure bet and they wish he would focus on that to the exclusion of there other fantasy thing that's not going to happen. things have not been going great for paul. today was a banner day in his presidential bid. it was a better day for him. it was also a banner day for i

q wa caucuses because today was the start of the criminal trial for two people who worked on rand paul's dad's presidential campaign in 2012. two people who were indicted by federal prosecutors in conjunction with what is essentially a bribery story from the iowa caucuses. the story told by prosecutors, the allegation in these indictments is that the ron paul for president campaign basically paid tens of thousands of dollars to an iowa state senator in exchange for that state senator endorsing ron paul for president in the iowa caucuses in 2012. rand paul's dad, ron paul, is expected to personally testify in that rile in iowa in the next few days. one of the two people who is on trial in that case had to leave his job running the rand paul super pac this year in order to go face these charges. but this is kind of a key moment for this one campaign but also in some ways for this whole race

for the presidency. we already had the one candidate on the republican side who was himself under criminal indictment. we already had him drop out. that was rick perry. we're not going to get the chris christie administration bridgegate trials till march at the earliest. but even though this iowa criminal trial that opened today is about the ron paul presidential campaign and not the rand paul presidential campaign, at the heart of this trial is the conceded fact at least as recently as the last time iowa held its republican caucuses, republican endorsements in that crucial presidential race where is literally for sale to the highest bidder. you could biennial doorsments. as recently as 2012 in the republican caucasus in iowa. is bribery still part of the is many in iowa? is this trial potentially going to fix that or at least shock us about it? joining us is russ, a reporter from mother jones covering the legal troubles surrounding paul

campaign in this case the ron paul campaign. thanks very much for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> we had opening statements in the trial. we had jury selection yesterday and today. do you have any sense of what's going to come out in this trial, what we're going to hear about over the next several days? >> well, it looks like the defense attorneys for jesse bent done and this other guy are basically going to argue, yeah, we paid this guy ken sorenson. it just wasn't illegal. they're going to say on the federal level that's not a crime. i don't think it is a crime to pay. that he very careful not to say it's a bribe. it is against iowa rules but not a federal thing. that's their defense. and the prosecution is essentially arguing, that's not the issue. the issue is did you lie about how you paid him? did you fudge the documents from your campaign. and that's sort of what it comes down to is the way they paid this guy okay. >> and i guess aside from the

legalities in terms of whether or not there's likely to be a conviction in this case, there is sort of the shocking political fact that bribery is, was both accepted and in some cases not an illegal part, at least in some ways not a legal part of the way the republican caucuses happen in iowa. >> right. it raises that. and the -- this case was particularly brazen i think. but yeah, it does make it seem like this is not. i think kent sorenson along the way said i'm not the only person who does this. everyone makes money off the iowa caucus. why shouldn't i, too. so yeah the question is where are the other ones. if this happens so easily, where are the other payoffs. >> right, exactly. i mean the competing claims in this that is part of the way this -- part of the way this is laid out in the indictment at least, he needed to make sure he was getting paid as much by the ron paul campaign as he was getting paid by the other campaign paying him previously. >> right. >> russ, let me just ask you in terms of rand paul, obviously,

demeettory kesari does not seem to have a direct association with rand paul though he did with rand paul's father. jesse benton had a long time association with rand paul including running the super pac supporting his presidential campaign. is this affecting rand paul at all in the way he campaigns in iowa? is he keeping this at arm's length successfully. >> he's try package.tomorrow he will be in iowa, as well just a few miles away from the courthouse. what he's been saying the whole time, this is complicated documents and who sign this had or who didn't sign that. that's sort of a mischaracterization of what the charges are. i think he's been holding it off. i think part of the defense is to try to make this look like the government is unfairly prosecuting these liberty people who you know, it's a political prosecution. i think he's been sort of spinning it that way. i think that's what's so interesting about ron paul coming to testify.

i think the prosecution is going to try to frame ron paul as the victim saying he's not the kind of candidate who buys endorsements. these guys went behind him. they hid it from ron paul from the public, from the press. so it's going to be interesting to see what what ron paul says when he comes to the stand. >> what it does if you have ron paul as the portrayed victim and the guy running rand paul's super pac as the portrayed perpetrator, that's going to be fascinating. russ choma, thanks very much for being here. >> thank you for having me. we've got lots ahead tonight. including we haven't had one of these for a long time. we need one and we have one and it's amazing. a best new thing in the world tonight. yes, we do. stay with us. can a business have a mind? a subconscious. a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit?

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voting can sometimes be a hassle. if you're serving overseas, you have to request a paper ballot from back home, get it mailed to you internationally. you have to receive it, fill it out, send it back and you have to do all that in time, right? sometimes under difficult conditions dealing with international mail. but first in the nation alabama show us the map. alabama of all places has just made it possible for service members overseas to vote electronically without the snail mail hassle. first in the nation. they started with a local runoff election last week in montgomery county. they had precisely two u.s. members who wanted to try the new program. they had a nice soft launch for those two people to but it worked. those twos voted electronically in overseas without having to send a ballot home with a stamp on it. congratulations, alabama making it easier for one specific group of people to vote.

while at the same time, are you also shocking the conscience of the whole nation by what else you are doing to voting rights in a bad way. and that story is next. ♪ ♪ [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪ [ birds squawking ] my mom makes airplane engines that can talk. [ birds squawking ] ♪ my mom makes hospitals you can hold in your hand. ♪ my mom can print amazing things right from her computer.

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to show new forms of id at the polls they never had to show before if you wanted to be allowed to vote. and a valid driver's license is at the top of the list forcepsable alabama i.d.s. driver's license the most common way people are allowed to vote now in alabama. it had heavy and disturbing voting rights implications when the alabama governor decided last month he was going to close the places where you get that kind of i.d. in the alabama counties that have the highest proportion of voter who are african-american. republicans shut down the place with your get a driver's license in every single alabama county where at least three-quarters of the voters are black. it should be noted heavily black keens in alabama tend to be heavily democratic counties. these are the ten alabama counties that went most strongly for barack obama in the last election. he had closed the dmv in eight of those ten counties.

intentionally or not, this they were blacking out voting rights notice alabama's black belt making it harder to vote in that black belt region of former cotton plantations where after kwan americans tend to outnumber might people. regardless of what you meant to do, that is not the kind of decision you can make without having people notice. >> okay. wait a second. to vote in alabama, you need an i.d. and they're closing the places where you get i.d.s? [ bleep ] seriously, alabama? >> apparently yes. seriously. alabama, the reaction around the country to what alabama did was -- it was swift around the country and brutal around the country. it was swift and brutal at home in alabama. the republicans state auditor of alabama kaulds the governor's cuts illegal. a republican state senator said they were intentional pain unleashed by the governor on districts that didn't support

the governor. he was already unpopular with members of his own republican party at home. in part, that is because governor bentley's wife filed for divorce this year after 50 years of marriage. and the rumors about that sensitive matter have only recently left the headlines in that state and the uproar over that issue, he faced calls for him to resign, faced calls for an investigation into potentially inappropriate use of state troopers on the state plane. this has not been a great year for governor robert bentley in alabama, not a great year for him with his own party. the past two weeks a disaster. after the news broke about his plan to close all the dmvs in all those black belt counties he first tried to defend it. he told reporters closing all of those offices in mostly black counties had nothing to do with voting rights whatsoever. he tried to defend his decision. in the end he could not defend his decision and today, alabama ma press is reporting those offices where you get that most common form of voter i.d., those

offices could reopen. because now, governor bentley has decided to change course. he has a new plan. he's quietly floating an idea for an emergency loan to reopen those offices to undo that thing he did that so embarrassed him and the state of alabama. the governor's going to need the state legislature to go along with him on this new plan and maybe they will. they have been pretty happy to see him take all the heat for this at home and nationwide. maybe they'll help him undo this but maybe they will leave him out there at the edge of what you apparently can get away with in conservative politics. maybe they'll leave minimum on his own continuing to try to explain this away.

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we've got a best new thing in the world on tap tonight. also, there's new news ahead about a household name republican who is apparently now actively campaigning to become speaker of the house. all the attention is still on the former vice presidential candidate paul ryan who says he's not running. but now a former republican presidential candidate says not only could he do it, he wants to do it. he wants it bad. that unlikely story is ahead. stay with us. le things. and the big milestones. and just like i'm there for her, pacific life is there to help protect me and my family so i can enjoy all life's moments. pacific life. helping families for over 145 years achieve

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that colonel sitting there in baghdad, posed by a reporter from the fox news channel. >> when was the last time that a pilot a russian pilot approached a u.s. warplane. >> serious question. right? just as a historical matter. when was the last time our military and russia's military had air to air confrontations. our planes and their planes in the sky together. our armed pilots going eyeball to eyeball. when was the last time that happened between russia and the u.s.? was that like 1985? was that as late as 1991? give us the historical context here. this was the answer. >> i don't know the last exact time. i think it was probably saturday is the last one that i recall where a couple of russian aircraft came within visual recognition distance of a couple of coalition aircraft.

visual identification took place. all pilots conducted themselves appropriately and everyone went about their business. but this is -- but it is day, right? >> this is dangerous. yes, it would be -- it would seem like that would be dangerous, right? this is not an exercise. this is armed u.s. warplanes bristling with firepower, live bombs, live ammunition, having a happenstance meeting in the sky with russian military aircraft. bristling with firepower, live bombs, live ammunition. this has now happened at least three times in the past week and since russia started shooting missiles into syria and the russian military started acing as the syrian air force the pentagon said today they're now dropping pallets of guns and ammunitioning to syrian rebel groups. "new york times" reporting the u.s. has significantly upped the heavier weaponry it's dropping into syria including anti-tank

missiles and maybe some of those anti-tank missiles will be used against the syrian military. maybe they'll be used against rival rebel groups, maybe against isis. who knows what that stuff is going to be used for. maybe it's going to be used to shoot at russian military assets which in a way would sort of put the u.s. in kind of an indirect war with russia in syria. and the really spooky thing is putin seems awfully excited about that. today in moscow he made public comments at some sort of investors conference which frankly seemed designed to try to provoke the united states. he was responding to criticism that the russian military has basically been bombing the wrong people in syria. and in response to that criticism, president putin said today publicly he "recently, we have offered the americans give us objects that we should target. no answer, he said. "it seems to me some of our partners have mush for brains."

mush for brains. maybe it sounds better in cyrillic. really? mush for brains? so says the president of russia about the united states. and it is a little unnerving to think of the president of that giant nuclear armed nation as being that excitable on an issue like this, behaving that childishly about something as serious as armed conflict between the united states and russia. apparently on this issue putin is very excitable. in this moment, we sadly have the misfortune to be going through a presidential election cycle right now which this year means lots of republican candidates for president have been busy saying publicly they think a war with russia sounds kind of awesome. at least saying so maybe had makes them look tough so they're willing to say it even if they don't mean it. i don't know if they mean this stuff. jeb bush told reuters today this "i wouldn't worry about antagonizing the russians. they should worry about

antagonizing us." how to deal with vladimir putin is to confront him on his terls. according to bush, that means the united states should say to putin "there's going to be a consequence." this is kind of how all the republican candidates talk right now. they're all somewhere between blaise about the prospect of a war with russia and seemingly kind of excited about it. >> if you're going to have a no-fly zone, it has to be against anyone who would dare intrude on it. i am confident the united states air force can enforce that including against the russians. i believe the russians would not test that. i don't think it's in their interests. >> you think he would back off. >> i don't think he's going to go into a safe zone. i do not believe he would look for direct military conflict against the united states. >> what if he was. >> you're going to have a problem. that would be no different than any other adversary. >> i would establish a no-fly zone along the boarder with turkey and in no way would i back off. i would also face him in other parts of the world.

you know, the whole baltic region, you know, and eastern europe. i re-establish the missile defense system. i would have more than one or two armored brigades there. i would face him down. >> putin is in crimea, in ukraine, in syria. and has assets at work in other countries, as well. what are you going to do to vladimir putin. >> you set up a flow fly zone in syria and call putin and say listen we're enforcing a no-fly zone against everyone and than includes you. don't test me. >> and then he flies there you your territory. >> then you take him down. >> you shoot him down. >> yes, do you. >> just like we do in new jersey. you get the sense if he didn't have to stop for the dramatic pause, the next thing he would say would be wouldn't that be awesome? it is always a little unnerving to having very sensitive subjects addressed by active candidates for political office.

right? subtlety in stump speeches go together like chalk and cleez. but how sensitive is this situation we are in right now? and is it so sensitive that our chest beating, over excited ignorant domestic politics on this subject could potentially make it worse than it is out there in the big scary real world? joinings us now is michael mcfaul, former ambassador to russia, professor of political science at stanford university. nice to have you with us tonight. >> great to be back. thanks. >> for people who especially detainee follow this stuff closely, and who have been hearing vaguely worrying things about putin and his level of aggressiveness for a while, how would you explain how serious this is right now that the u.s. military and the russian military are operating in the same space with quite a bit of overlap. >> extremely serious in that the consequences of some kind of

accident are pretty dire. and the probability of that is pretty high. i was just thinking about it listening to the interview when the last time we actually did have forces in there kind of territory before. maybe vietnam. there's allegedly there were some russian pilots flying around in vietnam. but if you take that out, that's not historically, it's not been proven. it didn't happen during the cold war. the only time it happened was whether he we were on the same side in world war ii. it's a scary moment for the pentagon as they try to run their operations simultaneously with the russians flying around in the same place. >> in terms of the way this is being discussed back and forth between our country and russia, very striking and sort of insulting comments. well directly insulting comments from president putin be today saying in moscow using the phrase as it was translatesed by "the new york times" mush for brains to describe. >> i don't know how to say that even in russian.

i was thinking what is mush for brains. i have to look at the tape. >> i have to get a reverse translation and give you the original. it was something that made "the new york times" at least say it that way. we've also had ash carter, we've had senior officials in the u.s. government describing russia's behavior in syria not just as worrying or inappropriate but describing it as unprofessional. essentially talking about russia as incompetent and insulting their military capacity even while saying they disagree with it. is that par for the course or also ratcheted up to a new do g degree. >> there's two concerns. there's the accidental consequences can of russia not having been in a fight like this for a long time. we don't know their capabilities. we assume their capabilities are not as good as ours. both in terms of deaconflicting what our airplanes are doing but also in terms of what targets they're hitting with their bombs. i had one pentagon official joke

smart bombs does not exist in the russian ver nan knack cue lar or exist in the russian language. that's not true but that's a sense of the way they talk about it there's also a big policy thing here which is that russia and putin wants to polarize this conflict into a fight between isis and assad. so that they can then say at the end that have, be there's nobody but assad to deal with isis. and that policy question, if you look at their campaign, if you look at where they're bombing, that's what they're trying to create. that is a bigger challenge i think than the probability of an accidental attack between our two countries. >> in terms of that effort by them to make the world at least frame the conflict that way, does the united states have an approach to stop them from doing that? >> not great options. let's just be clear about it. people oftentimes say the united states is doing nothing in syria. well, i just looked up the

numbers. operation inherent resolve probably an operation that most of your viewers have never heard of has already taken out 7,300 strikes in syria. with our coalition forces. $4 billion we've already spent in syria. and we haven't achieved the results that we had hoped for. so the notion that there's you know, an easy solution to this if we just do x, y, or zed new policy i'm skeptical of. i think this fight, unfortunately and tragically is going to go on for a long time at a minimum we can't let those not part of isis or assad being extinguished by the russians or their allies. you already reported on it and already see the united states, the cia in particular dropping weapons toe make sure that that doesn't happen to make sure that those forces will continue to survive this latest campaign. >> mike mcfaul, former ambassador to russia, professor of political science at

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ryan zinky. possible next speaker of the united states house of representatives. the congressman is from montana. has been in the house since january of this year. he's considering a bid for speaker. his phones have been ringing off the hook. add ryan zinke to the list, along with these other republicans whose names have been put forward by themselves or other people as the potential next and speaker of the house. paul ryan, of course, is the guy who everybody is waiting on off the giant list. he says he's not interested in the gig. unless watching c-span is your unhealthy addiction, paul ryan is probably the only one who you could pick out of a lineup, other than ryan zinke, of course. there is one other person who has the real-life experience, who knows how to deal with difficult republicans and desperately wants you to know that he is totally available if you want to pick him. he is totally ready.

pick me. >> you want to say to me, 218 guys called you up and have given you their pledge? obviously no citizen, i mean, could ever turn down that kind of challenge. this is why george washington came out of retirement. there are moments you can't avoid. >> george washington, me, me, george washington. that was last week. now, as of today, it seems like mr. gingrich would not just accept the offer, it seems like he's campaigning for it. >> it's almost impossible for an outsider to lead the house, but i am very prepared and i have been talking with a number of members individually. i'm very prepared to try to help the house republicans think through what they are doing, but they ought to find a leader among, you know, a very talented group of people. >> newt gingrich, very prepared, actively speaking to members of the house about this possibility. should be noted that when he actually was house speaker, things didn't necessarily end

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best new thing in the world. last month, richard engel is reporting from hungary. one of the boarding crossings where refugees have been pouring in from syria. the police that day met the refugees with force and richard was in the process of reporting on that when this happened. a pregnant woman literally collapsed at his feet during his live report. that woman was carried to a makeshift inferneirmary nearby.

she was 19 years old, giantly pregnant, due to give birth in a matter of weeks. just fled syria. in the middle of richard taping this record, she dropped. it was unforgettable. since we saw that report from richard, we have been wondering and worrying about what happened to that pregnant young woman, trying to find somewhere safe. today, we got an answer. watch this. >> reporter: she was 19 from syria. and pregnant. she recovered and, with her husband, covered her journey. we have been trying to find her ever since. and we have some good news. she made it all the way to germany, where she just had a baby boy. >> i am so happy to see you here. >> translator: me, too. i'm very happy to see you. >> reporter: she named the boy

the kurdish word for freedom. >> richard posted these photos on instagram of the baby and his mother, both healthy and safe in germany. the syrian war and the refugee crisis continues to be the most devastating story in the world. it's not one huge story. it's human survival and tragedy, one by one. the family is seeking asylum in germany. but they made it there, and the baby is in great health. if you're looking for a best new thing in the world today, i'll take that one. that does it for us. we will see you tomorrow. good evening, lawrence. >> we've been watching the debate, and we're going to do some early reactions to it. >> wonderful. >> thank you, rachel. >> thanks. the democratic presidential candidates have completed the first hour of their first debate in las vegas. the candidates clashed on gun control, foreign policy and what bernie sanders called the worst foreign policy mistake in history, the iraq