and now, two attacks in less than two months and the total freakout in l.a. today. yeah, it's a gloomyone. >> a wise prophesy. thank you both. that is all this evening. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> thanks my friend. thanks to you at home for being with us for this hour. this afternoon, former secretary of state and presidential candidate hillary clinton was set to give a speech on isis and terrorism and homeland security in minneapolis, minnesota, the site of the speech. the speech was scheduled for 3:45 this afternoon. but uncharacteristically for hillary clinton, she was really late. she didn't get to the stage until more than an hour after her speech was supposed to start. her operation is a well oiled machine. that kind of thing does not happen very often. apparently the thing went so late is because she was meeting before her speech with local muslim leaders from the minneapolis area. the twin cities, st. paul,

minnesota, are home to a lot of refugees and new immigrants from all over the world, including a big community of refugees from somalia. there has been a particular problem in the minneapolis area of young somali kids getting recruited from abroad to go fight for el shabab and other extremist groups. former secretary of state and hillary clinton met with leaders from the somali communities and other muslim communities in that reemgen today before her speech and apparently for whatever reason went really, really, really long. when she did take the stage just after 5:00 tonight, for whatever reason she was loaded for bear. she was a few minutes into the speech when she took a nice clean hard shot at republican presidential contender ted cruz. >> shallow slogans don't add up to a strategy.

promising to carpet bomb until the desert glows doesn't make you sound strong, it makes you sound like you're in over your head. bluster and bigotry are not credentials for becoming commander in chief, and it is hard to take seriously senators who talk tough but then hold up key national security nominations, including the top official at the treasury department responsible for disrupting terrorist financing. >> the target of that attack tonight from hillary clinton is obviously senator ted cruz he did say he wanted to carpet bomb iraq and syria until, quote, the sand glowed.

he's also been a part of the holdup for the nomination of the treasury departments under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. the nominee is a guy named adam zubin. we've been talking about his nomination a lot recently. adam szubin is supposed to be the top person in the u.s. government in charge of hunting down the sources of financing for terrorist groups like isis, cutting off their money supply which is a critical tool against them. president obama nominated him for that job in april. there is no substantive objection to his nomination whatsoever. when adam szubin had his confirmation hearing in september the republican chairman of the committee considering him said that adam szubin was eminently qualified for that job. no republican senator says that isn't an important job. no republican senator says that guy isn't the right guy for the job. but there still has been no vote on adam szubin and hillary clinton popped republican senators like ted cruz for that inexplicable delay tonight. big portion of her speech tonight, though, including a

part where she got a standing ovati ovation, was about bigotry and attacks and political demonization against muslims in this country. and on that suggest, she did not allude to one of the republicans running for president. she went ahead and named him. >> donald trump's proposal to ban all muslims from entering the united states has rightly sparked outrage across our country and around the world, even some of the other republican candidates are saying he's gone too far. but the truth is many of those same candidates have also said disgraceful things about muslims and this kind of divisive rhetoric actually plays into the hands of terrorists. it alienates partners and undermines moderates. we need around the world in this fight against isis. i can tell you insulting potential allies doesn't make it any easier. [ applause ]

and demonizing muslims also feeds a narrative that jihadists use to recruit new followers around the world. that the united states is at war with islam. as both the pentagon and the fbi cannot in any way lend credence to that twisted idea. this is not a clash of civilizations. this is a clash between civilization and barbarism, and that's how it must be seen and fought. we must all stand up against offensive, inflammatory,

haft hateful anti-muslim rhetoric. you know, not only do these comments cut against everything we stand for as americans, they are also dangerous. >> hillary clinton giving a major speech on terrorism and her plan to fight isis and her homeland security proposals but also going into detail about attacks against muslims in this country and the demonization of muslims by some republicans who are running for president. and, at around the same time that she was giving that uncharacteristically delayed speech tonight, a super pac

supporting hillary clinton for president, a group called correct the record, they blasted out their own version, kind of, of this same argument. it's about the same issue but it definitely comes out at a different angle. i'm going to show it to you now. it's about 80 second long. the way they start the video is saying viewer discretion is advised. i think they're partially doing that for dramatic effect. i do that too sometimes. i think partly that may be the title of this video that they have created. but i think you should also take it literally. viewer discretion is advised. you may find this a little bit upsetting. it is very charged and can be upsetting and this may not be appropriate for little kids if you've got your kids watching with you. so i will give you a moment to find the pause button or the mute button or be distracted. one, two, three. okay. now we're going to play it. check it out. >> get out of my country. >> get out. >> i'm a u.s. citizen.

>> well, whatever. >> okay. >> we have a problem in this country. it's called muslims. we know our current president is one. you know he's not even an american. >> we need this question -- the first question -- [ chanting ] >> from supporters lashing out at one of the hecklers, one man even yelling a nazi salute. >> donald trump was met by a contentious crowd at a rally late last night. >> man that was, i don't know, you say roughed up. he was so obnoxious and so loud he was screaming, this guy started screaming by himself and they -- i don't know, rough up. maybe he should have been roughed up. [ bleep ] [ bleep ] >> like the [ bleep ]

>> should up! shut the hell up! >> isn't a trump rally much more exciting than these other guys? >> that video was released from a super pac supporting hillary clinton, basically saying republican presidential front runner donald trump is creating a political climate with his campaign that is literally violent. that is inspiring violence including at lots of events where he is speaking. and that is an unsettling ad. and that is an incendiary charge. it is also clearly true that violence has been happening at his rallies and events in a way that is not true of other candidates this year. and that fact exists uncomfortably and in an unsettling way alongside something else that has been happening over the last few weeks in our country.

something happening outside of politics, certainly outside of the presidential campaign. it appears to be in a parallel lane. it is unnerving. we know the white house is concerned about it. because they held two meetings on the subject yesterday that they did not announce until the meetings were over, and then the president himself spoke about it today with quite a bit of passion. and that is next. stay with us.

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>> on december 6th, last sunday, police in buena park, california, were called to this sikh house of worship after members of that temple showed up for services to find misspelled graffiti spray-painted about isis and islam spray painting on the walls of their temple. in a parking lot. at a truck parked at the temple. in a few days, police ended up arresting a 20-year-old who admitted to spray painting graffiti there. sikhs, of course, are not muslims, totally different faith.

sikh men grow long beards and wear turbans. so particularly ignorant muslim haters have frequently targeted sikhs in the past out of sheer blundering bigated stupidity. well, this weekend, the police declared they would not be pursuing the attack on the buena park sikh temple as a hate crime. and then something remarkable happened on sunday. the 20-year-old arrested. the guy that got arrested for vandalizing the temple and doing all that spray painting, he showed up during the temple during services and gave a personal apology to the congregation for what he did. so confused 20-year-old motivated by anti-muslim bigotry, vandalizes non-muslim house of worship issues a personal apology. sikh community in buena park, california, is left und standbly bewildered by the whole thing and also in some ways threatened. this has been a rushing current in the news.

if you look at national news and also local news around the country these past couple of weeks, that feels like we have been experiencing a spike in criminal incidents designed to hurt or at least intimidate muslims or people who attackers believe are muslims. two days before the sikh temple incident in buena park, california, it was the islamic center of palm beach in palm beach, california. they had half their windows broken by an unknown assailant. two days after the sikh temple incident it was a severed pig's head in philadelphia. >> jim, the severed pig's head was found right here behind me, thrown right in front of this mosque. that's what the fbi is investigating tonight. they're looking for the truck you are about to see in this video. >> i'm scared because you don't know what's next. >> from a different angle you can clearly see the severed pig's head land near the front door of the al aqsa society mosque. >> that was last week. last monday in philadelphia. the following day, it was a mosque in jersey city, new

jersey. >> he opened the letter yesterday and out spewed hate. he has since turned it over to the jersey city police. the typewritten note reads in part we do not want you here. we do not like you. you are evil. >> it's a big concern for us now. >> the letter comes a month after a threatening voicemail. was left for worshippers at the islamic center. >> every american that has a second amendment right is going to take [ bleep ] out. i just want you to be prepared for that. >> that was jersey city, new jersey a week ago today. that was last tuesday. then a couple days after that, last thursday, police were evacuating the d.c. offices of care. the council on american islamic relations after a suspicious foreign substance was sent to that d.c. office along with a message that read, quote, die a painful death. on the same day, another care office in california was also evacuated after another envelope was discovered containing a suspicious white substance. the substances in both of those

cases did turn out to be harmless. those two evacuations of the care offices, thursday, that same day the islamic community center of phoenix, arizona, reported that its windows had been broken. and that same day, in grand forks, north dakota, a man was arrested for setting fire to a somali restaurant after the same restaurant had been spray painted with nazi graffiti and the words, go home. that was thursday. this past weekend it was three separate mosques in california. >> extra police patrols in private security at two mosques in hawthorne tonight. >> we just had a peaceful march yesterday. somebody comes up. >> you see the black right here. >> this morning mohammed found this black graffiti that says, jesus is the way, on the front wall of the islamic center of hawthorne. overnight, another hawthorne mosque. a mile from the islamic center was vandalized as well. crosses and the word jesus were

spray painted on the gate and windows. and on friday a mosque in the coachella volley was fire bombed just before the big afternoon prayer service. this man, carl james dial, was arrested for arson and a hate crime. you can see the windows have been cleaned off at this mosque. they obviously were here praying again tonight. they will continue to do so. i have been in touch with hawthorne police. i am told they as well as the fbi are still investigating both of these incidents as a hate crime. >> three separate mosques in california this weekend, all reporting from this weekend. this is from grand rapids, michigan, about a shooting there on saturday night. >> reporter: the 34-year-old store clerk who goes by tony can be seen in this surveillance video getting ready to close saturday. it was just before midnight. you see a man walks in, pointing a long gun at him. >> he said, just give me all the money and like keep your hands up. don't look at me.

>> reporter: the store manager says the masked man demanded money. you can see tony pits cash in a bag and hands it over. but it's not the end. she says the robber ordered him into a back room where tony was forced on his knees, had a gun shoved in his mouth and was called a terrorist and a member of isis. tony told her and police the robber then said he used to shoot people like him all the time in iraq. >> we shouldn't be targeted for it, because we have nothing to do with it. obviously we're just trying to like live our normal lives and -- like i grew up here. and a lot of my friends did. >> the clerk is from india, not the middle east. and he's not muslim. >> whether like we're indian or whether we're, you know, it doesn't matter, like you shouldn't be just specifically going for one race. you know, like it's not like, we're not involved in any of it. you know so it's really sad that people are thinking like that. >> police say tony grabbed a gun and started to fight back,

causing a gun to shoot him in the cheek instead of the back of his head. the robber then fired two more shots before leaving. >> he is very lucky. because, you know, it could have been a lot worse. >> saturday night in grand rapids, michigan. a man shot in the face. and there are other incidents beside those. those are just a sampling just from the last two weeks. it seems like at least part of the way we are responding to the san bernardino mass shootings is by these criminal acts toward random americans who either are muslims or who people think are muslims. i mean, should i -- maybe you pin this to san bernardino? those were all attacks since san bernardino. maybe you pin it to the paris terrorist attacks last month? maybe you pin it to being december. maybe you pin it to the anti-muslim animus in republican politics right now. i don't know. but it seems like there are a lot of physical attacks against muslim targets and targets perceived to be muslim right now. how do we know if that

impression is true? how do we know if there is a spike in these things right now? and what works to stop it if we are having a violent spike in bigoted attacks against one minority. joining us is criminologist of criminal justice at cal state san bernardino. professor levin, really appreciate you being with us this evening. thanks for being here. >> thank you for being here. >> anecdotally, it feels like there is a lot of these kinds of attacks right now. i don't trust anecdotal evidence as real data in terms of aggregating it. how do we know if attacks on muslims are going up right now? >> well the official data is in a lab because that's done monthly by most departments. additionally the fbi's national collection of data which occurs annually lags a year behind. so we just had a 2014 figures come out about a month ago. i can tell you that we've averaged about 13 anti-islamic hate crimes reported to the fbi each month.

which is probably an under count. we had 5479 hate crimes reported nationwide, yet the bureau of justice statistics data seems to suggest there's about 200,000 hate crimes annually. so there is a big gap. so let's look at the reported hate crimes. over the last five years we're averaging about 1300 a month. our center's preliminary data, where what we tried to do was take crimes reported in the media that appeared to be criminal acts, and hate motivated in whole or in part against muslims over the last month, and what we see is about 33. so we're talking over 2 1/2 times the five year moving average of anti-islamic hate crimes in the united states. that's reported hate crimes as you have shown, we saw assaults shooting, arsons, and it goes across the united states from new york and new jersey, florida, california, north dakota, as you showed. >> let me recap that. just to make sure i understand it. you are saying there are different sources of data and

different levels of confidence in that data and also different lag times. but if you're looking at reported publicly available information, as far as you can tell, what's happening right now is more than double the typical frequency of these type of events in the united states? >> that's exactly correct. i am former nypd. i was one of the first people to do multijurisdictional statistical analysis. so what i tried to do was take out acts that were hateful, but not criminal, and then tried to take those cases that would probably pass muster with regard to the fbi standards for reporting. again we're not a law enforcement agency but as a criminologist the available data seems to indicate, at least our center's preliminary unpublished data shows about 2 1/2 times, more than 2 1/2 times the moving average of hate crimes over the last five years. we've had between about 150, 160 a year. in the last month it looks like we've had about 33 hate crimes, give or take and we're averaging about 13 a month. so that's a significant increase

to what we usually see. >> brian levin, center of study of hate and extremism. really helpful to get that quantitative data driven look at it, sir. thanks for helping us understand that. i appreciate it. >> thank you so much for having me. >> i will say that is, those numbers, again, like to get those qualifications from somebody who is studying them like that is important in terms of taking all the caveats. but if it feels like there has been a lot of these types of attacks in the last couple of weeks i think it's true that there has comparatively speaking been a lot of these attacks. and the problem of attacks on muslims, and attacks against targets that people think are muslim, that is a problem that is now big enough to at least have warranted not one, but two, big white house meetings yesterday. as far as i can tell i think those were meetings they did not announce in advance, until after they had happened but yesterday a group of sikh leaders and separately a group of muslim leaders were both invited to the white house yesterday for high level meetings with white house

staff. specifically to talk about this perceived uptick in violence and harassment against religious minorities in this country. high level hemeetings at the whe house yesterday and today president obama gave a fairly emotional speech at a naturalization ceremony for people sworn in, held at the national archives literally in front of the copies of the bill of rights and the declaration of independence and america cited america's historical decisions to do things like reject jewish refugees in world war ii and the persecution of chinese immigrants and the internment of japanese-americans during world war ii. the president today cited those examples and then pivoted to how we are flirting with some of those same dynamics again right now. >> we need to resolve never to repeat mistakes like that again. [ applause ]

we must resolve to always speak out against hatred and bigotry in all of its forms. whether taunts against a child of an immigrant farm worker or threats against a muslim shopkeeper. we are americans. standing up for each other is what the values enshrined in the documents in this room compels us to do, especially when it's hard. especially when it's not convenient. that's when it counts. that's when it matters. not when things are easy. but when things are hard.

the truth is, being an american is hard. being part of a democratic government is hard. being a citizen is hard. it is a challenge. it's supposed to be. there's no respite from our ideas. all of us are called to live up to our expectations for ourselves, not just when it's convenient but when it's inconvenient, when it's tough. when we're afraid. >> president obama speaking at the national archives today talking before a group of people who were being sworn in for the very first time as brand-new american citizens. we'll be right back.

>> so a press conference has just wrapped up in los angeles, california. city officials announced the schools there will reopen tomorrow. the story that pretty much dominated headlines all day today was the l.a. unified school district's decision to shut down the entire school district today. second biggest school district in the country. 900 public schools, 187 charter schools. all shut down, 640,000 kids across l.a. were told to stay home on very short notice. the shutdown happened after l.a. and new york city received similar if not identical e-mailed threats, warning of pretty dramatic and detailed attacks on schools, in both cities. new york city officials were quick to dismiss the threat as a hoax. schools in new york stayed open today. but in southern california, which fair to say is still reeling from the san bernardino attacks basically in their backyard a couple weeks ago, l.a. decided they weren't taking any chances. they shut down the whole school district.

officials there now say the fbi has determined that the threat today was not credible. and tonight l.a. officials say a total of 1531 school sites have been walked through and inspected. they've all now been deemed safe to reopen tomorrow. back to school tomorrow in l.a. we'll bring you more as it develops.

>> behold, the 1912 cadillac model 30, 1912. so cool. so elegant, it almost hurts to look at it.

the 1912 cadillac won awards for its technological breakthroughs that year. the model came with an electric starter. it came with headlights. general motors started making cars in central michigan 100 years ago, and aside from the occasional strike or painful layoffs and thanks to a big federal bailout, general motors has kept going right along all these years. but just over a year ago, one gm plant in michigan realized they had a really big and really strange problem. the water at the factory, the water coming out of the taps, the water they were getting from the city water supply, where the factory was located, just as they always had, all of a sudden, the water basically went bad. and it turns out that's because the city had changed the source of where it was getting its water supply. and the new water, city water coming out of the spigot all of a sudden was so corrosive that that gm factory could no longer use it for anything at that facility where they were making

cars. so they made other arrangements to get water from other places. turns out that same tap water that gm decided it needed to keep away from its metal engine parts, that same corrosive, bad water, was also bothering the people who lived in that town who were trying to drink it. this is from june 2014. check it out. >> they're now getting its water from the flint river, the switchover a little more than a month ago is not sitting well with some residents and businesses who say the water smells, and they don't want to drink or even shower with it. >> i don't know how it's clean it smells and tastes bad. >> reporter: he can't even remember the city's water tasting this bad. now he's turning to bottled water and avoiding the tap. >> it's not proper for people to be drinking that. if i can smell it, this is not a big debate. this is nothing that no one can figure out. >> when i'm showering and bathing, my skin just feels just a little bit different. so the smell from the water, and the shower one, kind of convinced me that the water is not the same. >> i know what hard water feels

like against me skin because i have very sensitive skin. and it feel like hard water. >> people of flint, michigan, started speaking up about their water last year. they could tell something was wrong right away. right away after the city stopped using water piped up from detroit like they always had and switched instead to water drawn from the local flint river. people right away said the water tasted bad, it smelled bad, it felt bad on their skin. we know the folks at general motors noticed it. they took that factory off the city water supply to protect the fine new engines that they were building at that plant. but if you were just a resident you had no means to arrange your own substitute water supply like the factory did, then in flint, michigan, what you found was that this was the official response to your complaints. >> now in a statement the city of flint tells nbc 25 that the water meets all dep standards and that they continuously monitor the water for any problems and there are no issues with the water at this time. city officials also say the water is perfectly safe for everybody to drink. >> perfectly safe, people.

your water is perfectly safe to drink. so it smells, so it stings, so it corrodes car engines. drink up, flint! we're continuously monitoring your water and it's perfectly safe for everybody to drink. that was the official line for more than a year. it turns out, that official line was not just wrong. it was dangerously toxically and perhaps irreversibly wrong. because both the gm plant, and the neighbors were right. the water was bad. the water coming in from the flint river really was corrosive. that river water corroded the pipes of the homes and the schools and the shops in flint, and when it corroded those pipes it released into the tea kettles and water glasses and shower sprays and sippy cups of flint poisonous lead. the water corroded the pipes. it released the lead that the was holding the pipes together. the people of flint drank that water now filled with lead and it made them sick. and in september, the local press uncovered state documents showing lead levels rising in the water in flint. scientists from virginia tech

came up to test the water in flint. they said the state should have known this could have happened when they started using water from the flint river. and despite these unequivocal public assurances the water was perfectly safe, government officials it turns out, did know about the lead. the city's own testing found the lead levels going up after they switched to flint river water. then came the blood test results. a local doctor found nearly twice as many babies and kids in flint had elevated levels of lead in their blood as kids from other places. in some neighborhoods it was nearly three times as many kid, all since the city switched the water. and all that lead flowing in the bloodstreams of children and the babies of flint, it puts them at risk for sickness and lasting neurological damage. lead poisoning is not reversible. the next month in october, state officials finally admitted they had used the wrong standards for safety when they set up the plan to get water from the flint river. by then the epa was investigating. fema was starting to truck in bottled water for people to

drink. you can still find today, the official public advice for worried flint parents from the state of michigan, it includes advising parents that their kids should be eating plenty of fruits and vegetables and tofu and milk and cheese to help keep lead from being stored in a child's body. so maybe fema should be trucking in spinach and tomatoes and tofu along with the water. as long as those spinach and tomatoes and tofu haven't been washed or prepared in flint, michigan, tap water. eat up, drink up, try spinach to keep lead from being stored in your baby's body. the new mayor of flijt was elected in the middle of this crisis. she campaigned on a promise to fix this and last night she took a dramatic step. she issued a remarkable call for national help. quote, the city of flint has experienced a manmade disaster. i, mayor karen w. weaver hereby declare a state of emergency in the city of flint effective december 14th, 2015.

mayor of flint declaring a manmade disaster in her town as of last night which makes this the full day one of the declared disaster. what happens on day two?

i don't know how it's clean when it smells and tastes bad. >> flint resident senegal can't even remember the city's water tasting this bad. now he's turning to bottled water and avoiding the tap. >> it's not proper for people to be drinking that. if i can smell it, this is not a big debate. this is nothing that nobody can figure out. >> the people of flint, michigan, knew there was something wrong with their water as soon as the city switched to getting it from a new source, from the flint river. even though everybody knew something was wrong it took more than a year for the city to admit that lead levels in the water were rising to dangerous levels. and lead levels in flint kid's have therefore been rising to dangerous levels, as well, which of course is devastating because lead poisoning can cause lifelong and irreversible serious health problems. last night the mayor of flint declared a state of emergency in her city, joining us now is mayor karen weaver of flint, michigan. mayor weaver, i know that you are right in the middle of a million things right now. thank you so much for taking

time to talk with us tonight. >> thank you for having me. i really appreciate it. >> so this was an unusual step. i'm not sure i knew this was even an option for you, as mayor. why did you feel it was necessary to call a state of emergency? what are you hoping will happen because you did that? >> well, you know, we really felt like it was the only step that we could take at this point. we are at a critical point right now in the city of flint, michigan. you talked about the lead that impacted the kids and the families in the city of flint. we need federal assistance. we need state and federal funds to help us fix this problem. like you said, it's been going on for over a year now. we have problems with our infrastructure. we have children that have been damaged by this lead. they have permanent brain damage. we know that flint is not in a position to bear this burden alone. we are asking and looking for state and federal assistance. the only way we are going to have this happen is declare a state of emergency.

hopefully, that gets it to the county, which will get it to the state, where the governor can make it federal. >> i understand that you are basically sending up, it sounds to me, you are sending up a red flag, trying to make this a national issue. >> yes, i am. we are trying to get national attention for awhile. i really thank you and others that have stepped forward to help us, you know, with our efforts. >> do you, as you try to run this as far up the flag pole as you can it seems like you're already encountering some resistance. we heard from the head of the county board saying there is no need to declare an emergency, in flint, you have to go from the town level to the county level to the state level to the national level. do you anticipate you will get resistance at every level? >> i hope we don't get resistance at every level. the last update i got was that the county was going to address this at their meeting that's coming up the first of the year. >> okay. i know that flint has now reconnected to the water system for detroit, which was the old system before this switch was

made that went so badly. >> correct. >> is the water safe to drink now in flint? especially if damage was done to those pipes by that corrosive water? when do you expect to get some kind of all-clear? >> that's the issue. we don't want people to feel that because we've made the switch back to detroit water that everything is fine now. because it's not. we needed to go back because we know that lake huron water was treated. it didn't have the corrosion going on that the flint river water had. but when we made that switch, our pipes were damaged by that corrosive water that was coming from the flint river. so that's what happened. so the biofilm that was on those pipes was torn down. we don't have that anymore. that's what was protecting us. so when the water comes through the lead leeches out. and that's why there's still a problem. there's still a problem with lead. so we've made the switch back to detroit, but one of the things you talked about was that permanent damage that's happened to those kids that are under the

age of 6. we know they have neurological damage and so we're going to have to provide services for those kids and families because we know they're going to show some deficits. >> karen weaver, mayor of flint, michigan, elected by the people of flint, michigan, in large part to fix this problem. you came in knowing this is what flint needed to do. this is a herculean task you have ahead of you, ma'am. good luck. keep us apprised. we'll stay on this story. >> i thank you for that. thank you so much for having me. >> thank you, mayor karen weaver of flint, michigan. you think of what they have to do in terms of the damage already done, like diagnosing problems in kids. making sure there is support, for the kids that have been poisoned by this stuff. then the fact that the water has been switched back to the water supply does not end the threat from the water because the bad water hurt the pipes in a way that the mayor just explained there in such that they may continue to have an ongoing poisoning problem for their

population because of this terrible error that was made. this is not right in flint. and this is going to be a big project to fix it. honestly, my opinion, i think she's right to run up a national flag pole. this is something they're going to need national help for. michigan has treated this with the back of its hand all along. so slow on it and not fixing it -- not fixing it fast enough and aggressively enough when they finally acknowledged it. i think this is a national story. i think they do need national help. we'll be right back.

>> awkward conversation last night on this show with the director of the monmouth university polling institute, patrick murray. if you saw it. you might have noticed it was a little awkward. because his poll, showed donald trump with a basically unimaginable lead. which didn't seem real. monmouth poll showed donald trump at 41%. the biggest lead mr. trump has ever had in any national poll, the first time any republican candidate has broken the 40% mark in a national poll this year. i mean donald trump's been leading in all the polls for

months, but he has generally been hanging out in the upper 20s, occasionally breaking into the 30s. so 41%? a 27-point lead over his nearest rival? that seemed very new. and you got to ask in that circumstance, is this an outlier, could this be wrong? could donald trump's national poll numbers really be spiking like that? especially after his whole ban the muslims thing? when i put that question to patrick murray, he was very serious and thoughtful about his response. he pointed out different polls measure different things. this was just one poll among many. that national polls this far out are not necessarily predictive. okay. but you know what? 24 hours later, we now have new evidence to suggest that yeah, no reason to be shy. that monmouth poll is not an outlier. 41% in that poll was the highest number donald trump has ever had in any national poll, but in today's brand-new "washington post"/abc news poll, donald trump is almost there. he's got his second highest number ever, 38%. that's about as much as his

nearest three rivals put together. so apparently that monmouth poll is not a fluke. since announcing his proposal to ban muslims from entering the united states, donald trump has seen his support among republican voters nationally reach record highs. that does not mean that donald trump is necessarily going to win the presidential nomination, but it does mean that republican voters right now are absolutely buying what he is selling. in record numbers. sleep well tonight. sorry. sure, tv has evolved over the years.

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>> would you like to hear bernie sanders swear? of course you would like to hear bernie sanders swear. we're all human, aren't we? >> we were in the north. we were in chicago, at the university of chicago. what we saw, if i can use some [ bleep ] is we saw our friends getting [ bleep ] and getting beaten to held. >> if you would like to know what's going on with bernie sanders and the beeping and the swearing, i can explain. i swear. all: milk! milk! milk! milk! milk! okay! fun's over. aw. aw. ♪ thirsty? they said it would make me cool. they don't sound cool to me. guess not. you got to stick up for yourself, like with the name your price tool.

people tell us their budget, not the other way around. aren't you lactose intolerant? this isn't lactose. it's milk. ♪

this isn't lactose. it's milk. wfrom your cold & flu. you give them a case of the giggles. tylenol® cold helps relieve your worst cold & flu symptoms... you can give them everything you've got. tylenol® >> it was 2003, fedoras were having one of their first comeback moments. fedoras were very in. those fuzzy velour sweat pants that said juicy on the butt, also in. that soundtrack you could not escape, even if you wanted to, was this. ♪ >> by outkast. i just tried to sing it. you don't actually have to shake

up the picture. they owned 2003 with that song. but they were not a one-hit wonder. the year before that song came out, they won the grammy for the best rap performance for a song called "the whole world." they won that grammy for that song along with a guy who rapped on that track with them who was a hip-hop artist named killer mike. killer mike's real name is michael render. he's had a storied decade long career in hip-hop. his current gig is called run the jewels. their last album was named rolling stone's best rock album of the year in 2014. and because they're funny they kick-started a remixed parody version of their own album called meow the jewels. and that was also super successful and the money raised by that album was donated to the families of eric garner and michael brown and other people killed by police. so killer mike, he's an award-winning rapper, a busy activist. he's also a businessman. he owns his own barbershop in atlanta, and it turns out he's also best buds with bernie sanders, as you do.

>> i have said in many a rap, i don't trust a church or the government. a democrat, republican, a pope or a bishop or those other men. but after spending five hours tonight, after spending five hours with someone who has spent the last 50 years radically fighting for your rights and mine, i can tell you that i am very proud tonight to announce the next president of the united states, senator bernie sanders. everyone give him a round of applause. >> that was november 23. and today, we learned that beyond that endorsement, killer mike, aka michael render, also did a big, well-produced long, and it turns out, fascinating interview with bernie sanders. they did it at killer mike's barbershop in atlanta. they just released the tape of it today. >> what pulled me was your voters right act interview. you talked -- you talked about the restoration of the voters right act. and i remember thinking to

myself [ bleep ] is this crazy white guy? like it didn't even make sense to me, because i have lived in atlanta all my life and i virtually have no black politicians about it. >> let me tell you something about that. >> you were the only voice of outrage. >> let me tell you something. this is true. i am a fierce believer in democracy. you know what? i love democracy. i love the fact that in this room somebody disagrees with me, they say bernie you're full of [ bleep ] i'm going to vote against you. i love it. i love people thinking about what kind of future they want. >> meeting of the minds. >> they just posted this interview. it's really long. like over an hour. you can see the whole interview at maddowblog.com tonight. we're posting the whole thing. it's great. killer mike has already endorsed bernie sanders in the race for the white house. he seems to be the head of a surge of rap artists coming out in support of the senator. there's a hip-hop for bernie sanders podcast. he's doing great in new hampshire. he's filling big rooms across the country.

but as one of the oldest guys to run for president tanking with black voters which is an important part of the democratic primary electorate, the emergence of the hip-hop booster caucus has got to be a very welcome surprise. "first look" is up next. >> it's wednesday december 16th and right now on "first look," fight night in las vegas. the insults were flying. we've got the must-see moments as the republicans battle over isis. plus a few surprises. meanwhile, hillary clinton takes donald trump to task over fighting terror as she lays out her own plan. hundreds of thousands of kids returned to school today after a major scare. plus, crime time, brazen thieves caught on tape but still on the loose. then a brush with death. everyone survives. and a simple act of kindness. "first look" starts right now. and good morning everybody. i'm shannon mulaire.