>> thank you for joining us tonight. appreciate it. >> the leading suspect, and this is "hardball." i'm chris matthews. good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington, we're following the latest on egypt air flight 304, which crashed with 66 passengers on board. this is what we know at this hour, a senior official tells msnbc there is strong indication that the explosion blew the plane apart, based on infrared sensors. and sources say this was more likely an attack than a mechanical failure. greek officials say shortly after the plane entered egyptian

air space it swerved sharply and then lost altitude. well, today both donald trump and hillary clinton blamed the crash on terrorism. donald trump tweeted looks like another terrorist attack, when will we get tough on great hate and sickness? and donald trump is on stage right now with new jersey governor chris christie with a fundraiser to help pay off chris christie's campaign debt. let's listen. >> we're all in the construction industry. governor christie contributed more to the pension system than any other governor in new jersey state history, right? governor christie brought the insolvent, and this was important. the insolvent new jersey insurance back to solvency. and i will tell you it was done at least two years ahead of schedule. so that is a pretty good track record.

and that is just a few of the things, all right? that is just a few. so we have had an interesting time. and you know it all started. and chris was out there and i was out there. and i have to say one of the more interesting parts was i was watching the debate because i had one debate that i really enjoyed. because i was watching. and i like marco very much. but marco was over here, chris was over here, and i was standing there. and i watched it happen -- i watched it happen. >> here is what we'll do, we'll see if he talks about terrorism, this is political stuff we'll skip right now. anyway, let's get into the latest of the investigation on what happened with egypt april flight 804. and first guy on the ground, craig, the feeling over there is what? wonder or suspicion? how would you describe it? >> reporter: i would describe it as a bit of both, chris matthews. 66 people were on board as you said. at this point they are still calling it a search and rescue

effort. but you have to wonder how long that will be the case as this thing drags on. i just heard you mention what our intelligence in america is saying with regard to infrared imaging. at this point imaging tells us there was a sort of explosion. was it a technical problem that caused the explosion? or was it something far more sinister than that? was there a person who managed to smuggle a bomb on board this egyptair air flight. i can tell you here at charles de gaulle there are roughly 87,000 employees, 87,000 employees. right now we're told that the records of some of those folks are being scoured. they are looking for any type of connection, who had access to that plane. we can also tell you before that plane left from here in paris heading to cairo, before that it took a trip to tunisia. just yesterday, and as you know

northern africa has become a hotbed for terrorism. that has been the case for a number of years now. so folks are looking at who had access to the plane there, as well. egyptair has been roundly criticized for much of the past year. back in october, of course, there was the bomb that was smuggled on board the plane. more than 200 people died, around october 31st of last year, that was a flight that originated in egypt. a number of officials have said this is obviously going to be something that takes a fair amount of time. but at this point all indications point to terrorism. >> craig melvin, right on the ground there for us, thank you so much. let's move on to some of the experts, we have our chief global correspondent pete neely, here he is with a report on what is happening there.

>> reporter: yes, chris, in the cairo airport, where the families of the members on board have been all day, looking for answers, mourning their possible loss and deep in grief. they were at the very center of this. it was an egyptian plane, most of the dead egyptian, and it crashed over the sea in egyptian waters. whatever happened on that plane happened very quickly because there was no distress call. and whenever a plane falls from the sky as this one did, twisting and plummeting very quickly without a may day call it does raise the spectre of terrorism. but today, the egyptian authorities say they're not ruling anything out including terrorism. and indeed the transport minister here at the aviation ministry says that terrorism was a more likely explanation for the missing plane than mechanical failure.

but as i said it's early days yet. we have had no claim of responsibility from isis here. and remember, they were responsible for the downing of that russian metrojet airliner, killing all on board. and they boasted about it very quickly after it went down saying they had used explosives in a soda can. so far no claim of responsibility or proof that this was a bomb. and indeed if you were to think about the motivations of a bomber in paris, say, why would they choose to ignore an american plane? a western plane at charles de gaulle airport and instead bomb an egyptian airliner. lots of questions. >> thank you, nbc kerry sanders is here in washington with more on the investigation itself. kerry, thank you for joining us. i can see of a reason why you go

after egypt. because the whole goal of isis and the islamist terrorist movement is to try to knock off these moderate pro-western arab governments and you want to destabilize the economy of egypt. if it was terrorism, it would have a purpose. >> well, yes, there is strong indication it could be terrorism, but at this point there are still pieces of the puzzle that need to be put together, but yes, i think chris you're on to something. it turns out they didn't find the debris. the goal is to not only find the debris field, but also the black box, a flight data recorder, that gets thousands of pieces of ongoing information, how the engines are running, the temperatures, everything. so it can determine up until the

plane fails whether it was a mechanical problem or whether perhaps it was something it. and then the cockpit voice recorder which is recording is recording the conversations in the cockpit. so if somebody broke into the cockpit this would have picked up the sounds of somebody making a threat or the pilot or the co-pilot, not when they're transmitting to the egyptian or greek authorities back at the control system. but this has a pinger system in it, for about 30 days. the water as you go down in the water up the two miles where we believe the plane might have gone down the temperature drops to the 30s which means the battery here was not as strong as it would be as it would be on land. this is primarily an overseas operation between the greeks, the egyptians and french to find this. but the united states is helping. the navy ship or aircraft has

taken off from sicily from the daylight hours flying, trying to look down. and it drops down little buoys, like little parachutes that come down off hit the water and sort of get a look at possibly spotting the debris. when the sun comes back up, it will again take off and see if they can see something in the area. now, finally if they do find something, let's say if they find the debris filed and the black box two miles down, how can they do that? well, there is the successful that has been successful before. it's an rov, a remotely operated vehicle. you can see here this is a system that goes down autonomously. and what we're looking at right now is something that maps with side scan sonar and looks at the debris field. and then they put the rov down, and the rov can maybe find it, but the arm can go down and

bring it to the surface. but chris, these are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that they can look through. kerry sanders, great reporter, i'm joined by the director of the anti-terrorist project. terry, let me ask you about the information here, doing it over water, some say it slows down the investigation. if you went to create terrorism and almost inexplicable terrorism, you say let's make it two or three days or a month or even if it was terrorism. second, the insult to egypt which depends on tourism from europe to here, so much in fact that is its product, killed the tourism in egypt, like it did from sharm el sheikh airport. >> one thing that is strange, they have not claimed it yet, i

would be interested to see if they claim in the next 24 hours. groups like to claim attacks, these are high media propaganda attacks, they use it for propaganda and try to use it to motivate people to join the cause and use it for material on line to recruit people. i would be curious if there is a claim from the al qaeda affiliate, or even they mentioned northern africa, the plane was there, there are al qaeda affiliates there, as well. >> what do you see as you look at the plane? >> well, very early on i assessed this was obviously, or we had indications it was an explosive device which was placed on the aircraft. unlike most people, i have a very hard time believing this was a device, if it is a device, very speculative now that was placed on it during paris. i think most likely during the maintenance phase in cairo, it

would be much easier to get the device on, it could fly from tunisia to paris and met up with the bomber who would have to death -- detonate attitude, it is very unique that they would detonate it over egypt. >> do you think it was to insult egypt? to make sure we had the mailing address right, that we're out to get you guys or was it harder to get the information out so we could spread fear? >> absolutely, i think both. the egyptian fingerprints are all over this. if this was actually a device planted in paris, which was plotted in europe, you would not go to charles de gaulle on a one-time strike because this was never going to happen again, really, because of the security measures put in place. you wouldn't waste that unless you had access to that aircraft

early on. you would go and try to do the pan am flight 103 routine, where you try to put it on a large airliner over the ocean. i believe this has something to do with egypt's politics. certainly there is an isis affiliate group there. and there is also al qaeda affiliates. and they wanted to make sure this plane went down as it approached egypt or it was just the easiest way to get the weapon system detonated. >> i have heard all afternoon about the inside job of developing this weapon. as malcolm said, you're checked by the equivalent of the tsa, you can't carry a bomb to the checker, no way you're going to sneak it through probably. so it has to get on some other way. to people putting food on the plane, gassing up the plane, putting food on the plane.

and the other stops in the hours before -- >> the plane had had multiple stops, but i wouldn't rule out the possibility that it could have been out of france. i'm not saying it's likely, but france has the highest fighters going into syria -- >> could it be a worker? >> it could be somebody on the inside, what they're looking at in the passenger list -- >> by the way, it just hit me, this is the kind of thing, malcolm that really stuns us civilians here. why would they be checking the passenger list at this point against the terror list? why wouldn't that be done before takeoff? >> well, i'm sure it is done in a cursory level, on their list, to make sure suspected personnel don't get into egypt or come from egypt. here, we're talking about agents. people who may not have any previous association with

terrorism. but who may have a different route to that, maybe a relative put in prison, or isis groups there. so now they're going to do a deep dive of the passenger and the crew, which is probably likely where we'll find the fault in this mission. >> have you looked into the co-pilot who committed suicide in new york -- and the egyptian government still denies it was a suicide case. >> and the egyptian government came out early saying it was terrorism possibly, that suggests there could have been a bomb, whether it is from image or other intelligence that they have behind the scenes. but again, it's still too early to say until we know what happened on the intelligence side. >> when will we know what happens? >> i give it a week to look at the claims, the passenger list,

the crew list. >> i tell you, the greatest trip, one of the most amazing terrorist spots in the world to see the pyramids. if that killed their tourism over there, their greatest prize, it will really hurt egypt. people will not feel like going there right now. coming up, much more to come on the crash 804 egypt airliner, donald trump took to twitter early today saying it looked like terrorism. hillary clinton saying donald trump is unqualified to be president. she also pointed to terrorism. we'll keep looking at what he is doing, if he says anything important or newsworthy, we'll get to it. he hit back against clinton, we'll hear more on that. and this is "hardball," place for politics. when a moment turns romantic

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welcome back to "hardball," of course following the developing news tonight about egyptair 804, that went down over the ocean. and more on donald trump and chris christie, helping at a we needed 30 new hires for our call center. i'm spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. (announcer) need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job

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welcome back to "hardball," of course following the developing news tonight about egyptair 804, that went down over the ocean. and more on donald trump and chris christie, helping at a fundraiser. and chris christie called for a hawkish approach to terrorism, endorsed trump. anyway, tonight's fundraiser came after the announcement on the egyptian air tragedy, writing yet, the plane departed from paris, when will we get tough, smart and vigilant, great

hate? and anyway, trump citing terrorism as a possible cause of the plane's disappearance. anyway, a new national poll, catch this by cbs and "the new york times" shows hillary clinton leading trump by six points, coming on the heels of a fox news poll which is very reliable, which by the way shows a three-point lead for trump over clinton, so put them together, make your own stew, they're very close. now clinton is challenging trump's credentials when it comes to fighting terrorism. in an interview today, secretary clinton laid out her case on why he, trump, is not qualified to be president. >> do you think that donald trump is qualified to be president? >> no, i do not. and i think in this past week, whether it's attacking great britain, praising the leader of north korea, a despotic

dictator, who has nuclear weapons, whether it is saying pull out of nato, let other countries have nuclear weapons, the kinds of positions he is stating and the consequences of those positions and even the consequences of his statements are not just offensive to people, they are potentially dangerous. >> well, just moments ago at his event in new jersey trump hit back at secretary clinton, here he goes. >> bernie sanders said that hillary really -- essentially is not fit to be president. she is not qualified to be president. you know why? he said because she suffers from bad judgment. so today she made the statement. you know, she wouldn't use the term radical islamic terrorism. you understand that. she refuses.

you know why she won't. because her president won't use it, that is why. and i'm saying to myself, and it's a terrible thing, and he essentially should not be running for office. he doesn't have the right to run for office. and i'm saying for myself what just happened about 12 hours ago? a plane got blown out of the sky. and if anybody thinks it was not blown out of the sky you're 100% wrong, folks, okay? you're 100% wrong. >> this is the heart of the campaign, i think, chair of the republican national committee and he is an msnbc political analyst. and national correspondent for "the washington post." everybody take this. either it's intuition on the part of trump, which is fair. intuition is important. he said he punched it out that the odds are there, all the information we're seeing that is available. the attack on him is he is not prepared to make these types of decisions, which is a fresh

attack on hillary clinton. either it's intuition on his part, which should be valued to some extent, or it's irresponsible. to make the claim before any of the information got gelled, that it's terrorism, and by the way, it's islamic terrorism, by the way. >> so it would have been damaging if everybody had not come to this conclusion by the end of the day. >> their hunch was a guess? >> well, sure, if they didn't have information about the attack. and hillary clinton was out there pretty quick in the morning saying apparently it was an act of terrorism. he has the guts to just say it out loud without any hesitation, even though you don't know for sure whether it's true. even tonight we don't know if it is true, although it certainly looks like that. >> he knows his odds are naturally he will lose, so he has to shake this thing up and do things most candidates would consider less than calculated risks, they're uncalculated risks and he is willing to do

that, because you know he has to beat somebody who has all the cards. >> well, absolutely, and i disagree only slightly with my esteemed colleague, susan, i don't think it would have bounced back on him that much if it still turns out to be wrong. >> we go to the other way and somebody said it was not terrorism, and it turned out to be terrorism they would look the fool. >> exactly, he is doing exactly what he has been doing all along and profited by every turn. >> it reinforces that he is such a strong leader that he can make declarations. >> that is really the key part, i mean, he got out there this morning, 6:30 a.m., tweeted it. because he knew when people got out there this morning immediately people were going to think that, because islamic terrorism is real for him. and she wouldn't even use the term, that is not leadership, folks, i took the risk and called it what it was, and

people appreciate that. and i really think that is a space he is going to try to take throughout this campaign. it's interesting to see how hard hillary clinton can hit him with that. >> how long can your luck run, michael? you have to make sure you keep doing it. >> we're a year into his shooting for the moon and so far the moon has got a lot of holes -- >> here comes hillary clinton, she has a new line on him, which a lot of producers think it will work today. secretary hillary clinton says he is being used as a terrorist tool. here it is, her new line of attack. >> when you say we're going to bar all muslims, you are sending a message to the muslim world. and you're also sending a message to the terrorists because we now do have evidence. we have seen how donald trump is being used to essentially be a

recruiter for more people to join the cause of terrorism. >> well, the trump campaign of course reacted to that tonight in a statement, quote, the fact that hillary clinton thinks that tempering the muslim ban promotes terrorism proves bernie sanders was correct when he says she was not qualified to be president. and this is going to go after the second tuesday of november, we now know how the calendar works. every time i see hillary clinton and i know how good a lawyer she must have been. and she is very good at getting evidence together, getting a team together, it's almost like a fixed army and then she is running against this guy doing it like this. playing the craps table. and she is using -- what kind of a president do we want in the 20th century? a deliberate president, equipped

with good briefing, or a guy on the street corner just doing it by instinct? >> there are a lot of hillary clinton supporters now who are saying just that. you know what? this is a clarifying moment, we have somebody who shoots from the hip and says whatever comes to his head, and so far that is working for him. and we have somebody who is deliberative and this, plus this, plus this, so which one do you want? they're not going to try to make her in any way into that. i mean, who knows, i can't answer your question of which one do we want. >> in the debates she has the advantage, i think, she will be pretty prepared. >> if she can get her argument out. he can just zing and say -- >> he will say something crazy, but the moderators will keep it inside the penny -- >> she wouldn't go for stand-up comic, but she is very good when she is ready.

i've seen her in the 11 hours taking on the house committee on benghazi, and she just flicked them off. >> it's not like -- she is not george mcgovernor even barack obama running against a hawkish or more muscular republican, she is more hawkish than donald trump when you get down to the policies. that gives her an ability to respond to the issues than she would if you had a traditional democrat or republican. >> i think trump is a hawk versus dove. one day he will say let's mow them down, next day, let's not get involved in that crap. he is either a guy looking for it or not getting involved. >> it becomes a little bit of a problem for her with bernie sanders still very much in this fight for the remainder of this program, folks. so progressives out there listening to her talk the way she is talking, thinking really?

>> so charles krauthammerer, wait until bernie is out of the fight before you endorse hillary clinton. that would be advisable, right? i think some of the moderate hawks will be moving in there for hillary. anyway, thank you. it's good to speculate about that stuff. it will be interesting to see whether the hot hands turns out to be a consistent hand and that is trump. he shoots a gutter, as they say in basketball. how about that game last night? steph curry, i never saw anything like it in my life. anyway, susan page, thank you. when we come back, information on the top story, the crash of egyptair 804. we'll be right back.

we have more information now on the investigation into what happened with egyptair air

flight 804, the plane took off from charles de gaulle airport shortly after midnight eastern. christopher dickey, the world news editor for "the daily beast" lives in paris and has experience covering the middle east. christopher, thank you so much. just from your wide-ranging instincts and capital information tell us what it looks like to you at this point. >> well, i think the best theory i have heard is actually very similar to what malcolm nance was talking about earlier. if it was a terrorist event, and the most likely scenario was probably the bomb was put on before it got to paris, and was detonated by somebody on the plane who boarded in paris, but who was a clean skin and didn't have anything to implicate him as the terrorist. that probably is the most likely

scenario for a terrorist event. >> you talk about clean skin, i mean, somebody who has not been put on a list, somebody who has not had done something wrong. but in tunisia, and other places where they get refuelled and fitted with food and cleaned out maybe in some cases, plenty of opportunity to drop something in a corner somewhere. how can you possibly check out all the various people who come from those areas and make sure they have not been radicalized as of a week ago or other times? >> you can't, if the bomb was put on in paris you have to remember there are 86,000 employees at charles de gaulle airport. and you can't be sure that all of them are absolutely hostile to jihad. in fact, you can't be sure that some of them are not radical jihadists, they may not be wearing beards and look like them, but they may sympathize

with them. you can't be sure, obviously you do screening tests and try to put in police informers who will give you some idea. but 86,000 people, that is a lot to police. >> i was just thinking back over the patterns, i'm sure you have done it many times as an expert in these world affairs issues. you try to find some sort of plan or transcribed line. and you look back at egypt air what happened in 1999, where the co-pilot just locked the door of the cockpit and said his prayers and put the plane into the atlantic ocean, killing everybody, including himself. the egyptian government never accepted that aside side or terrorism. and of course what happened from the plane on sharm el sheikh, what happened in the former soviet union to moscow, another plane that was clearly a terrorist strike. is this a concerned effort to bring down the economy, the

government, the society of a relatively moderately led country like egypt. is this what this is all about? >> it clearly targets egypt and the tourist industry, you used to have thousands of russians coming to egypt, the whole terrorism industry has been dying in egypt. a good friend of mine is a very senior guy in that industry. he is here in new york, right now, was coming here yesterday to try to promote tourism and then of course it was a disaster last night. obviously, it targets that. but i think one of the interesting things about this bombing is that it is so egyptian. it is an egyptair flight. not a full flight. obviously, egypt is a target. but if we were really talking about isis and talking about them going for a big score this would not have been a big score. also what is interesting is that the egyptians have acknowledged

pretty quickly this was terrorism. and nancy youssef, who is egyptian, said that much more than any other offense this really affected egyptians. there may have only been a smaller amount of people on board, but everybody felt they knew these people. and the government is responding very differently. >> i grew up in this country, but with all its problems i love egypt. i said the greatest trip we were ever on as a family was that nile trip. and now to have that basically unreachable by most people now. anyway, maybe it will get cheaper, i don't know what is going on, but it's a terrible, terrible situation. thank you very much. thank you. and up next, hillary clinton says she will be the democratic nominee and says it as a definite fact. she is calling on bernie sanders to unite the party, even though

he is campaigning hard. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

well, we continue to follow events in the crash of egyptair, the flight 804, but let's go now to msnbc's halle jackson, at the event both a rally and fundraiser, never heard of one of those. the interview just wrapped up. halle, how do we look at the tone and the event in the news? >> reporter: if you didn't know it was a fundraiser for governor chris christie you would have thought it was another trump rally. it had that same feel and vibe, and trump came out and delivered basically the stump speech, with a new additions, including fan, a litany of accomplishments for chris christie.

but the other comments were regarding the plane crash, the egyptair. he was adding to the comments and talking about regards made by hillary clinton in which she said he was not qualified for office. and he said he is thinking to himself what happened 12 hours ago? he said a plane got blown out of the sky, and if anybody thinks it was not blown out of the sky you're 100% wrong, folks? okay? that is a quote from donald trump about the situation that happened that happened obviously overnight with that egyptair crash, this is a reminder this is his first public remark since may 7th. when we last saw him out holding a rally. i would point out another event that happened, when he discussed the list of the supreme court

pick, who he would like to pick as nominees. he had 11 names on that list, and chris, donald trump said tonight he expects to add to that list of names soon. so if you thought that was a definitive or exhaustive list of names, think again. >> halle jackson, thank you for reporting on the trump event in new jersey. we'll be right back in a moment. we needed 30 new hires for our call center.

i'm spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. (announcer) need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 100 of the web's leading job boards with a single click. then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. makes my job a lot easier. (announcer) over 400,000 businesses have already used ziprecruiter. and now you can use ziprecruiter for free. go to ziprecruiter.com/offer6 well, there is more big political news today when hillary clinton said catch this. she said it unequivocally, she said i will be the nominee of the democratic party.

she calls for bernie sanders to united behind her now. >> so you get into the general election -- >> i will be the nominee for my party, chris, that is already done, in effect. there is no way i wouldn't be. >> bernie sanders says he is going to fight all the way through. >> he has to do his part to unify. he said every day he would do everything possible to fight donald trump. he said seven days a week. i take him at his word. >> all right, reporter for the washington post, and correspondent, and david drucker, quickly we'll run through it. let's talk about the burbs around philadelphia, which i really do think if you just go to pennsylvania and score that for the next six months you will know who is going to win. trump does what? how is he doing, according to the report on the suburban moderate republicans? >> the democrats already knew he was doing better than they would like in pennsylvania, but what

woried them since the primary, moderate republicans they thought would be screaming and running from trump. they have not. he does what seems popular. he is playing with people that have given up on republicans for those reasons, they like the businessman quality and like what we call straight talk. >> he is playing the general election game right now. one thing we know that in the philadelphia area they have had problems with manufacturing, like many other urban cities have. and he is talking about he is not for this trade deal. he is not for trade. but then he is also talking about raising the minimum wage. so he is pulling in real people who have real needs. >> that is why bernie sanders is so mad, he says he is taking away all the working people. >> i think one of the reasons people are so surprised they forget trump's victory was fuelled on moderate republicans and liberals. you listen to trump and listen

to see tone and you think to yourself right winger and you see the tea party support and the support, but really, the reason he won he is getting the romney vote. so it is not surprising the people in pennsylvania are supporting him. the question is are there more of them in the general election? >> i think people are much more upset with the status quo and the establishment. they don't like the way things have been going. look at every msnbc poll. 60%, we're going in the wrong direction. that is high. when we return, the latest on the investigation into the crash of that egyptair jetliner. "hardball" back after this.

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the fbi, as you would expect is working with the partners around the world to try to gain a better understanding of what happened. we, nr the national security business and law enforcement business have tried to make the world very small so when something like this happens, we talk to each other and share information and that process is going on right now. >> that is fbi director james comey on the investigation into the crash of egyptair 804. and what security officials are doing here. let's get from justice correspondent pete williams. pete? >> and chris, the fbi director also said this afternoon, that was an appearance in chicago, that the u.s. has no evidence of what happened, no evidence that anyone has claimed credit here, so there is still no indication of what happened. now, the military satellites did not pick up any kind of blast or heat signature that would suggest an explosion but we're

told by other intelligence officials that there were indications of a potential explosion around the time the plane disappeared. what the cause of that, if in fact there was one, you couldn't tell from that intelligence, so officially, we've been hearing the same thing from american officials all day. they simply don't know what happened to cause the plane to crash. they can't say whether it is an act of terrorism. they haven't ruled anything in or out and a lot will depend on parts, the all important flight data recorders, chris. >> it is two miles deep there, isn't it, in the mediterranean. will it be hard to find expedition to discover it. >> no. they say the depth won't be a show stopper in terms of recovering the black boxes. >> great. nbc's pete williams. thanks for reporting. we lost an icon of television journalism today. morley safer died at the age of 84. we'll be joined by carlee leslie stall. this is hardball, the place for politics.

we're back for over 45 years, legendary correspondent morley safer reported for 60 minutes on issues that defined american life. he was driving the public opinion against the johnson administration.

i'm joined by the long time colleague. leslie stafrp. her new back is becoming grandma. the jofrps and science of the new grandparenting. this is like fiddler on the roof tonight. sunrise, sunset. we're talking about the loss of your pal and how you're getting to be an accomplished grandmother. so, let's talk about morley safer, what i like, i loved the stuff he did that was softer. i know he did the vietnam hard reporting. i love the stuff he did with jackie gleisen playing pool. >> morally was the king of quirkiness. he was a brilliant, gorgeous writer as everybody knows. his writing was infused with great wit. he was droll. the body of work was

extraordinary. it started with him as a war correspondent and a very brave one. he came under fire. he was in a helicopter that crashed. but when you do think of morally's pieces, you think of the off beat ones. he played pool with jackie gleisen. there he is with meryl streep. he talked about how the people of finland loved to tango. it was funny. look with him with his women. he always kind of flirted with the women. >> he was one of the incredible faces that wouldn't have made it in some sort of modelling audition but god, shae fascinating to look at. the amount of movement in that face when he would talk. he also made people, he respected people. i saw the interview he did with alex baldwin, tough questions about parenting and it didn't seem to bother alec baldwin. >> you don't know, they're under the cameras and the lights but morley did a have a kind face

and a kind way about him. it has been a bad time at 60 minutes with bob simon and mike, but morley, morley worked until the very last minute, basically. he basically retired a week ago. >> let me ask you about your book. i really want to know what you think about being a grandma. >> it is the best thing in the world. you know, i interviewed morley for the book and he told me that his only regret in life is that he didn't have his daughter early enough. he waited too long because now he said he was too old to ever know the story of his grandchildren. >> yeah. >> and i get that. i get that the. >> but you are appreciating that and writing bg it. >> i wrote about it and i interviewed him. i interviewed bob simon for the book. >> we lost him, too. >> are you a grandfather? >> we have two.

brandon and julia. we'll talk about that. maybe this summer. leslie, i've been a big leslie stahl fan. >> and i'm a chris fan. >> that is hardball for now. thanks for being with us. all in with chris hayes starts right now.