everybody else has to be done with it. dnc people, come on, do the right thing here. you got to do this, and i know we're out of time, we don't want to go into rachel's time like we did last night, i wrote you up. >> please. >> i got it sweater at nordstrom. >> that is all for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts on time.

house, and montana is one of those states, current member of congress is republican congressman ryan zinke. this past november mike fellows ran as the libertarian candidate against ryan zinke for congress, and nobody thinks that mike fellows had a shot at unseating this incumbent congressman, but

it still had a really big policaimpact on the state of montana, when ke fellows unexpectedly died in the leadup to the election. only 59 years old, he was driving home from a campaign event on a monday night in september, he got into a head-on car crash, and mike fellows died, led to a lot of kind tributes to him in montana from people across the state, people across the ideological spectrum. but one of the practical nuts and bolts and indeed financial consequences of mike fellows dying right before that election, after he had qualified for the libertarian line on the ballot in that congressional election is that it cost counties across montana a lot of

money for that election. there's a law in montana that's very strict about ballots for every election having to be absolutely correct so when mike fellows died just a few weeks before the election every single county in the state had to shred all of their ballots that they had printed already and they had to reprint all new ballots for the november election, and that, among other things, made the 2016 november election in montana the most expensive election that state has ever had. added to that factor about that guy passing away, it was also a very high turnout election. it was an unusually long ballot in montana this year, because they had a bunch of stuff to vote on in the state, but all in all, usually the statewide cost of running a statewide election in montana is about $2 million. this past november it was about $3 million. and the counties in montana were really not happy about that extra expense. there's mic pile of money that comes in from the federal government or even fthe state government that pays for the cost of administering elections in montana. it's the county, local taxpayers, local budgets have to foot the bill, no matter what they cost, and this last election they just had, you know, through nobody's fault, just through a series of circumstances it was 50% more expensive than any election they'd had before and a lot of

counties didn't have money in the budge tote pay for the extra expense. and that was already a real cause of financial consternation in that state before montana's one congressman, ryan zinke got nominated by the new administration to leave congress and instead go join the president's cabinet. ryan zinke, montana's only member of congress, he's also the new nominee to be secretary of the interior. now he hasn't been confirmed yet, democrats have managed to slow down most of the cabinet confirmation process, although we're going to report later on tonight that one of the cabinet nominees republicans were able to rush through they may be having second thoughts about him, some buyers remorse on one they were able to get done but ryan zinke is still on ice. there's been some concern over him getting disciplined during his navy career for falsifying travel records so he'd get reimbursed for travel he shouldn't have been reimbursed for, some controversy around that, aside from that though it

is still broadly expected that he's going to get confirmed. he is going to get the job. maybe it will happen sometime in march they'll confirm him? whenever they confirm him, at that point that will start the process of montana holding a special election to replace him. montana will need to elect a new member of congress to replace ryan zinke and in terms of how that's going to go, well, you know at first glance montana is a very red state. trump won there in november by a lot, by like 20 points. republicans have won every

presidential election in montana all the way back to 1992. but the state is more complicated than that, even just when it comes to statewide races. montana has a democratic u.s. senator, john tustor. they've got a democratic congress, steve bullock, and montana is one of those places where, in political terms it sort of looks like somebody hit

that state with jumper cables since the election results came in. this for example is what it looked like, look at this, january 30th at the state capitol in helena, montana. look at this, there have been more than a handful of instances since the election where the republicans in washington tried to go ahead with something, but then they had to change their mind and take it back when the public blowback was so strong they couldn't handle it. the first day of the first congress when the republicans tried to gut the congressional ethics office, remember they had to take that one pack because of the blowback and remember them demanding the names of all the ientts who had ever worked on climate change at the energy department, but they had to reverse those things. they've this to face blowback and take those things back. another big flat-out reversal from the republicans in washington was a plan to sell off more than 3 million makers of public land, tens of thousands of the acres they wanted to sell off were in montana, and this was the reaction in montana to republicans trying to sell that land off. it was a pretty big reaction, and when republicans in the house saw this big reaction in montana, and in other states like that, they did back off. they changed their mind. they dropped that bill to sell off public lands, but for a taste what have it was like in montana when that was still pending this is montana's governor steve bullock speaking at the state capitol january 30th. watch how it goes here. you'll see why republicans didn't want to be up against this particularly in states all over the mountain west. >> thank you for coming out from all corners of our state today. thanks for what you're doing today, and every day to keep our public lands in public hands. i see folks from sanders county, i see sportsmen, and

sportswomen, i see ranchers, i see veterans, i see big fishers and fly fishers, i see grandparents, i see the next generation, i even see some of my former high school teachers here. and you know what's great? every one of us own these public lands. the 30 million acres in montana, and the beauty is, we don't need permission to go on them, do we? >> no! >> these lands are our heritage. these lands are our birthright. these lands are one of our great equalizers the size of our checkbook doesn't matter to access our blue ribbon streams,

our rivers and hunt in some of the finest places around the world, because we all own them. >> montana govern steve bullock. that day more than 1,000 people piled into the montana state capitol to protest the republican plan to sell off over 3 million acres of public land, including tens of thousands of acres in montana. and republicans backed off. they changed their minds about that in washington. but that footage from montana, i remember seeing that the day that that happened january 30th and being like oh, whoa, montana

it turns out it wasn't just that one issue. the day after the presidential inauguration we know that was that huge women's march in washington, we know there were

protests around the country, even around the world that day, sister marches, right? even knowing that, i was still taken aback to learn that the number of people who turned out that day in montana for the montana women's march at their state capitol the number of people who turned out was 10,000. what? there are only a million people in the whole state, 10,000 people came out and protested at their state capitol that day. i mentioned that montana has a democratic u.s. senator in john tester and also have a republican senator steve daines. since the election steve daines is finding when he comes home his airport greetings from his constituents are not what they used to be. to we have that footage? >> you work for us! you work for us! you work for us! you work for us!

they were holding up signs, they were saying "you work for us" they were asking him for a meeting, this one woman over the course -- you see there on the right side there, one woman holding up a sign that quotes adele "hello from the other side, i must have called a thousand times." randomly the guy in yellow there, a guy in a chicken suit now who follows steve daines around everywhere he goes. we only have this little bit of footage. he's not even wearing the chicken head, standing there flapping his chicken arms no matter where steve daines goes because steve daines won't meet reacting around the country to this president and here's one super interesting, super practical consequence of that, that may have national implications and it has just come to pass today in montana. one of the consequences around the country of this huge reaction we're seeing to the trump potcy, reinvigoration, there's a lot of attention paid to the individual elections here lean it, that are what otherwise look like one-offs, strays, in terms of electoral politics around the country. so for example this saturday,

this weekend there's a state senate race in delaware that wouldn't usually make national news but that state senate race will determine which party controls the delaware state sete. so the democratic candidatin th race has been getting support from like former vice president joe biden and democratic leaning groups around the country. another republican incumbent congressman who is leaving the house to join the trump cabinet is tom price in georgia. his district only went for donald trump by 1.5 points. there's a huge amount of democratic interest nationwide in trying to make that seat a democratic pickup when they've got that special election for that seat in april. we profiled the it's of the liberal coast website to support a candidate named john ossoff. they've raised nearly $1 million on behalf of john ossoff in that race. the first polling in the georgia race puts john ossoff not just ahead of the democrats but the giant field including the multitudeness of republicans running for that seat as well. in montana, there'sing if to be

another one of those special elections. like i said montana only has one member of congress, a congressional district special election in montana is a statewide election, because that's the congressional district. depending on when ryan zinke gets confirmed to the cabinet, it's likely that the race to replace him in congress will be, i don't know, may? june? early june? i don't know. here's the thing though. across that state, the county clerks and elections administrators, the people who actually run elections county by county across that state, those clerks have started squawking. they have started raising the alarm about the cost of that election, because remember, montana just had the most expensive statewide election they have ever had this past november. counties hadn't budgeted extra money for it. it was 50% more expensive than they thought it would be, 50% more than any election.

there wasn't extra money to pay for that, they are way in the hole in terms of what they spent on elections and unexpectedly they have to run another statewide specl election to fill this congressional seat. where is the moneyoming from to do that? the counties have to cough up that money. they don't have that money. the county clerks have an idea, they've been lobbying for it statewide and writing op-eds and testifying is at the legislature. their idea is this in montana when there are school board elections, local elections,

they're run without the expense of opening up the polling places, run instead by mail, montana is a huge state with not that many people in it. running an election by mail just makes economic sense in a state where the people are that spread out. and montana elections administrators have a lot of experience of running elections by mail because of it. why not do the congressional election as well, just mail everybody a ballot? here's the tea time county clerk and recorder making the case, "as representative zinke's pending appointment looms over montana, election administrators across the state see mounting costs for an unbudgeted election. election administrators have a solution to save the taxpayers money, we are proposing a bill to conduct the congressional special election by mail. conducting the election by mail would conservatively save taxpayers statewide between half a million and three-quarters of a million dollars." another county clerk making the case in her local paper "mail ballot elections are safe and cost effective in an effort to minimize costs for ryan zinke's condwregsal seat election administrators across the state see holding a mail bat lot election as a solution. this is a technocratic thing. this is a practical noncontroversial thing, a solution only designed to save money. it's being put forward as a good government option by the people who actually have to run that part of the government.

trying to save taxyersoney. until today, because of that, this proposal had bipartisan support, and then that bipartisan support clamscollapse today because the chair of the republican party in montana sent out this. "the emergency chairmans report on the negative impact on republican candidates due to mail ballot elections." even though this was a republican bill that was sponsored by a republican in the house and a republican in the senate, the republican party chairman has now come out in an emergency action come out against it and told montana republicans they have to stand against this, because if montana votes by mail, too many people might vote. "all mail ballots give the democrats an inherent advantage. vote-by-mail is designed to increase participation rates of lower propensity voters. democrats in montana perform better than republican candidates among lower propensity voters. i know my position will not be popular with many fiscally conservative republicans or the sponsors of this bill. they may be well intended but this bill could be the death of our effort to make montana a reliably republican state." if it's too easy to vote the

democrats might win. there are not that many of these special election, these one-off elections this year, but each one of them is going to be interesting, both in terms of their consequences as, you know, consequences clock consequences but they're also going to be interesting, each of them as a potential sort of check of the country's temperature. we're going through these very strong changes in washington, and in response to what's going on in washington. there's a very strong movement in this country that is responding negatively to this new president, and montana is one of those states in the country right now where, if we take the temperature we might find it is at a fever pitch, at least it looks like the temperature may have changed a lot in response to what happened in the presidential election. you know after donald trump won the presidency in montana by 20 points, republicans in that state shouldn't have to worry about the exact logistics of how the next congressional election would be administered in their state.

they shouldn't be lobbying to purposely waste hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to try to tilt the playing field against democrats and make it harder to vote. even the initial republican sponsor of the vote-by-mail bill she's a republican. she says she doesn't get it. "personally i'd rather get beat in an election with a good turnout than win in an election with low turnout." but apparently her party is not with her on that, even in red state montana her party appears to be scared about holding onto ryan zinke's congressional seat, scared to the point they're trying to make it harder to vote on purpose when it comes time for that next election.

when montana republican senator steve daines arrived at the montana state house today to give a little prepared speech about his support for the donald trump supreme court nominee, he was greeted by a whole lot of his constituents who would really like him to meet with them, would really like him to hold a town hall meeting with the constituents. they intercepted him at the airport, he wouldn't answer their questions. they held their own town hall outside the state house yesterday when senator daines was originally scheduled to visit the state house, when he heard about his constituents waiting for him there at the last minute he canceled his visit. they held a town hall meeting without him. his constituents did find him at this conservative press conference including the listless guy in the yellow chicken suit. this is the climate in montana right now, as a brand new strange controversy has sprung up around the election they're going to need to hold in that

state to fill the seat of montana's lone member of congress, ryan zinke is expected to soon join donald trump's cabinet, two republicans in the state legislature sponsored a bill to make the special election to replace ryan zinke a mail in your ballot election. it's much cheaper that way. the elections administrators in the state were begging to do it that way and republicans put forward a bill to do the election that way, everybody vote by mail. now today, rrr, u-turn. the chair of the montana republican party has put out an emergency report saying that bill must be blocked. the election can't be by mail because if the election is run by mail-in ballot, too many people will vote, and then republicans will lose that seat, and now that bill, even though it's sponsored by republicans now it is in jeopardy. what's going to happen here? and what does this mean about montana and what does this mean about the country?

joining us now is montana's democratic governor steve bullock. governor, thank you very much for being here. it's really nice to have you here. >> it's great to be with you tonight, rachel, for sure. >> have i summarized what's going on right with this bill? am i right that this was a republican sponsored bill in the house and the senate but right now we don't know what's going to happen? >> well that's what's fairly shocking, to have the republican party chair, who is also a sitting legislator, brazenly acknowledge that he wants to spend more taxpayer dollars with the hope of getting fewer voters? i mean that's not only wrong for montana, it's wrong for the country. we need to be figuring out ways to encourage people to vote, certainly not take away their voting franchise. >> i was trying to follow the history of this proposal and i read all these on-eds and looked at the testimony from the county clerks and administrators, people who run these elections around the state, and it doesn't seem like it was offered as a partisan thing. it doesn't seem like it was offered as even a proposal to try to increase voter turnout in the state. seems like the county, like we're out of monday, the november election was really expensive.

we'd like to do this, it's cheaper, and we've got experience with it. it feels like it became partisan when it just started as a technocratic fiscally conservative thing. >> well, and that's right, because at the end of the day, it's republicans carrying it, clerks and recorders who are on the front lines each and every day are saying we ought to do it this way, our county organizations are saying let's save $750,000, and let's try to do everything we can to get more people voting. from the perspective of, you know, my job as a governor is to represent democrats, republicans, all montanans and i don't care where your stay is on that as long as we can get more people voting it's good for democracy, good for our elections and it will save taxpayers dollars.

>> governor, obviously if ryan zinke is confirmed to the senate that will be a landmark moment for montana, the first montanan in a cabinet position at least as far as i know. it will create a statewide opening because he's the lone congressional representative for your state. >> yes. >> when you take the temperature of where people are at in your state, i saw that tape of you speaking before more than 1,000 montanans in the state capitol to save public lands. the footage of 10,000 people turning out for the women's march at the state capitol. i've seen the way people are hounding senator steve daines and trying to get him to talk to them. what is your assessment where the state is right now and how montana is reacting to this president? obviously donald trump did very well on november 8th in montana.

>> yes, recognizing what donald trump took montana by about 20 points even though there are more television ads run in the state of montana than any other state for a governor's race, i won by 4 1/2 so i think montanans look at where are the values of foek andho is going to take our state and represent our state the best in washington, d.c. you played that clip. i truly believe public lands are one of our great equalizers. i think public education is one of our great equalizers and the neat thing on election day every montanan is exactly equal so the right to vote and access to the polls is one of those great equalizers, too, and we sure shouldn't be spending more money to try to get fewer people voting. acksweat and gordo's everything. i love you, but sometimes you stink. ♪ new febreze fabric refresher with odorclear technology... ...cleans away odors like never before. because the things you love the most can stink. and plug in febreze to keep your whole room fresh for up... ...to 45 days. breathe happy with new febreze.

for more than one month i have wallowed in shame over a mistake i made on inauguration day and it had to do with this. >> crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. this american carnage stops right here and stops right now. >> "this american carnage" for many americans that's an understandably terrifying phrase, right, coming from the leader of the free world but for a very specific group of awesome americans, the phrase "american carnage" means something else. it means metal! the 2010 american carnage tour headlined by mega death and testament and anthraxx and

slayer, and on inauguration day when i told the history of the american carnage tour and how weird it was of so that metal tour echoed in a presidential inaugural address at one point i called the bass player and lead singer of slayer tim arraya. his name is tom araya. actually in the segment i called him both tom and tim, because i miss, like typoed it in my notes. nothing less metal an slipping and falling on a typo and thereby inventing a new diminutive timmy nickname for a metal god like tom arraya. i felt so bad, i have felt bad for more than a month but tonight, perhaps an opportunity for a reprieve, because tonight right after the show at 10:00 p.m. eastern we are going back to american carnage. tonight is our special on "trump: the first month." i'm cohosting with brian williams and chris matthews and

all the other members from msnbc, right after our show here but tonight i'm going to get american carnage right. i've got my american carnage tour t-shirt. i've got slayer lyrics tattooed on the inside of my eyeballs. tonight i get a second chance to get at least the metal part of this right. stay with us. i'm seriously going to wear this shirt during the coverage.

on saturday june 11th, about 1,000 people turned out in the streets of houston, texas, they wore orange shirts and chanting, marched from the convention center to the harris county jail. they had signs reading "time is running outend to 87 jg" also "tell ron hickman that 287g tears families apart." ron hick mapp was the sheriff of harris county, houston, it's 4.5 million people. we're talking about montana earlier in the show. harris county alone has four times the population of all of montana. the decision facing sheriff hickman last june with the protests in the streets was whether his department would renew or end an agreement that he had made with the federal government, under that oddly

named 287g. the idea behind 287g is that counties can sign a contract with the feds that allows the federal government to basically deputize local law enforcement to turn local police, local sheriffs into federal immigration enforcement officers. the policy has evolved over time, but the lasting criticism of it is that it hurts local law enforcement efforts. it makes immigrant communities afraid to call the police, even when they need help. if you're the victim of a crime, you need to be able to call police, even if you are undocumented.

if the police are going to deport you for calling up and reporting that you got mugged, that's a problem for your local community. it's great for muggers, but it's bad for everybody else. and so a thousand people came out from across the county to show support at that march in houston to be part of that call for reform to tell sheriff hickman in harris county that they didn't want him to renew that program that had local cops deputized to be immigration agents. in part because of that 287g company harris county is responsible for more deportations than any other county in the entire country. now about a week after those protests last june, sheriff hickman made his decision. he decided he was going to renew that agreement with the federal government, his local officers would keep doing that federal immigration enforcement work. but then you know, as it happens, sheriff hickman came up for re-election in november, and in addition to organizing those street protests, those same

activists behind those protests had been very busy working on, among other things, registering latino voters in harris county. conveniently for those efforts there was a nice stark dividing line between the incumbent sheriff hickman and his opponent, a man named ed gonzalez. sheriff hickman was for that federal agreement that turned local cops into immigration enforcers. ed gonzalez said if he was elected he would end it. there are 254 counties in the great state of texas, out of those 254 only 27 went blue on election night, but harris county, the big one, harris county was one of those blue counties and harris county didn't just vote top of the ticket for hillary clinton they elected a new sheriff, ousted the incumbent. >> our decision 2016 coverage with some surprising results in the race for harris county sheriff, as we showed you right before the break the latest numbers have democratic challenger ed gonzalez ahead of ron hickman with 52%, with 53% of the vote now. bill spencer joins us live in the heights. bill? >> reporter: yes, bill, and the candidate just took the stage a few minutes ago along with his lovely wife melissa and he did accept winning the sheriff's race, he acknowledged himself as the new sheriff.

the new sheriff in town. in fact -- >> a new sheriff in town, in fact. that thing we always say applies literally here. elections do have consequences. sheriff hickman lost and harris county ed gonzalez became the new sheriff in town. interestingly that didn't stop the local activists. they continued to rally and march and organize even after ed gonzalez was elected. every week people would march to the city council and jail to put pressure on the new sheriff to get rid of 287g and today he kept his promise. today sheriff gonzalez in harris county announced he would scrap that program. >> i decided to opt out of the voluntary 287g, the department will no longer be serving as front line immigration officers as they've been deputized to do under this program. >> the new sheriff reviewed the program and decided to opt out a day after the trump administration released new homeland security memos outlining plans for aggressively implementing anti-immigrant policies in the trump era, including plans to revive that 287g program. sheriff gonzalez's decision may

not have been a political one but it definitely sends a message around the country at a time when the trump administration is saying they want to put rocket boosters on 287g, the top law enforcement agent in one of the most populous counties in america, a county responsible for more deportations than any other county in the country they say no, we're out, we're not going to do it. joining us is harris county sheriff ed gonzalez. sheriff, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i appreciate your time, sir. >> hi, rachel, honor to be with you. >> i was expressing a moment ago there that some of the concerns about this program making local law enforcement into federal immigration enforcement authorities, effectively it is a problem for local law enforcement. it made people in immigrant communities reluctant understandably to call 911, to

call when they needed help. was that, in fact, happening in harris count why i? was that part of your decision-making process? >> it was part of the decision-making process. over the course of last year, through the election and here in my first month and a half, i've noticed that there's been a lot of fear and concern in the community. i could feel that. i could see that and obviously with everything that's going on at the national level, it really concerns me to see that kind of fear happening in communities. to me it leads to more mistrust of police at a time when we need to be growing more trust, more collaboration with communities to solve local crimes. >> i've read the way you addressed this in the past. i hear the way you're speaking about it now. it's clear you don't see this as a political crusade of any kind. this is a question of resources and priorities and practicalities. it does have political resonance though nationwide. are you worried about losing funding as a result? are you worried about texas state government coming after you in some way?

are you worried about the federal government coming after you in some way and trying to reduce your resources or make life hard for you in other ways because of this decision? >> i'm not worried about that. in my mind, this has been the correct decision to do at the end of the day. i'm going to focus on what's best for the men and women of the harris county sheriff's office as well as what i can do each day to make sure the resident of harris county are safe. it's under my purview considering this say voluntary program and up until recently we've been an outlier, the only county sheriff's office to be under this program for many, many years and even now out of 254 counties, 251 have been able to operate out it. i think it was time to end this program. >> sheriff, since you made this announcement today obviously this was part of your campaign in november and people may have

known this is coming. what's the reaction today, now that you've made the announcement? >> i think overall we've received very positive comments and i think people understand the need for us to focus on local priorities. i basically run what's considered the largest mental state hospital, if you will, by the number of inmates that i have. i have a huge jailover crowding issue, our jail is understaffed. we need more patrol cars for our deputies. these are issues that we need to be focusing on to make sure we're keeping our local communities safe and that's my priority each and every day. to me this say common sense approach making sure we can redirect the costs we were investing into this program, this voluntary program spending over $675,000 staffing it. we can now redeploy those resources to fight local public safety issues. >> harris county sheriff ed gonzalez of texas, thank you very much for your time tonight, sir.

i know i'm wearing it but no one else will. always discreet for bladder leaks.

we have news tonight from this new administration's continued whiplash pattern of radical changes in course. tonight the justice department, which is now led by attorney general jeff sessions announced that they are reversing the obama administration policy on the rights of transgender students in american schools. we have known that the white house intended to roll back lgbt rights. we thought they might first take aim at kids. we've been waiting all day for the official notice. here it is. the justice department tonight notifying the u.s. supreme court that they're withdrawing the

transgender protections that had been issued by president obama. but they're also telling schools, quote, this withdrawal of these guidance documents does not leave students without protections from discrimination, bullying or harassment. the department of education's office for civil rights will continue its duty under law to hear claims of discrimination and will explore every appropriate opportunity to protect all students to encourage civility in our classrooms. how exactly the new adminiration intends to secure safety and a stability by uprooting the policy that protects transgender kids' rights, that's for history to say. but as of tonight, everybody who told you that the trump administration wouldn't be terrible on lgbt issues, at least they'll be okay on that. as of tonight now you know those

people were all full of it.

this was the line at senator tom cotton's town hall tonight in arkansas. people still lining up to ask a question an hour and 15 minutes after he started. and that's after he moved the venue of this thing i think five separate times. obviously people were still able to find him at the end of the day. we also just got in this video tonight from branchburg, new jersey. hundreds of people apparently not able to get inside a packed town hall meeting with leonard lance. this week for congress presents kind of a devil's choice for lawmakers. do you show up and face your constituents who are lining up

with really hard questions and unfriendly feedback, or do you run? republican senator deb fisher of nebraska, do you run? >> here she comes. >> deb, when are you going to hold a town hall? hey, deb, meet with us! hey, deb, meet with us! hey, deb, meet with us! hey, deb, meet with us! hey, deb, meet with us! hey, deb, meet with us! hey, deb, meet with us! >> senator deb fisher of nebraska doing her best to slip out of a closed door meeting that she held with a local business group in her district last night. i like how the security guard is no, not that car. this car over here, turn around. smile and wave. do not meet with your kintz,

whatever you do. people have been trying every which way to track down their member of congress and their senators. this is like a lost puppy ad that ran today in the palm beach post newspaper. quote, lost, united states senator. he may respond to the title senator marco rubio, though his constituents have been unable to verify whether this is still the case as they have been unable to contact him in recent weeks. in huntington beach, california, republican congressman dana rohrabacher's constituents say they've been trying for weeks to get ahold of him or anyone at his office. they have tried lobbying his staff through tint come outside his office. they have tried pushing letters under the door that they will not open. one lone vietnam war veteran tried to walk into the office alone to please schedule a meeting. he was run out of the place by two uniformed police officers who kicked him out. yesterday, dana rohrabacher's constituents tried again to get his attention. they're sort of down to the bottom of the barrel in tactics.

this time they spelled out his name on the beach with their bodies. "where's dana?" maybe that one will work. in pennsylvania, senator pat toomey's constituents decided to hold a town hall without him since he wouldn't agree to meet with them. they did hold a place for him, though. they asked their questions to an empty suit they put on stage just hanging from a hanger. here is another interesting one out of new jersey, though. one that may have just made some news. in new jersey, constituents of congressman rodney freedlinghighsen. every friday his constituents have been showing up at his district offices to please meet with them. his answer consistently has been no, no, no, i won't meet with you. that's why it was surprising to see the congressman tweet this. great questions and comments during my telephone town hall meeting last night. thousands of constituents on the line. i'm listening. people were what telephone town hall? as far as we can tell there was

no warning, no advanced notice that the congressman would be holding a town hall by telephone or otherwise. apparently it was an invitation only event. the whole thing was so low-key it didn't even register in the local new jersey press except for one reporter who found out about it at the last minute and managed to listen, in and good thing too. because when congress members do have to listen to people in their district, even under duress, even then sometimes they say something important. >> i think actually the congressman made have made some news with some of the things he said in his response to constituents. >> like what? >> like that he -- that any funding for a wall on the mexican border would be stopped by his committee. he has no intention of funding that. >> house appropriations committee chairman reportedly telling constituents last night at his telephone town hall that he has no intention of funding a wall on the mexican border. that's one thing if you're an average schmoe.

that's national news if you're head of the national appropriations committee. if the head of the appropriations committee won't fund the wall, that means the wall won't be funded, not unless you believe that bullpucky about mexico paying for it. nobody fell for that, right? we reached out to the congressman's office tonight for clarification on this point. also to see if we can get audio or transcript of the town hall. we haven't yet gotten our hands on audio or a transcript, but we did get a statement interest the congressman denying that reporting and saying any request for funds by the president will be reviewed in due course by his committee. okay. but we'd still like to know what you said to your constituents last night. if anybody else was on the line for the last-minute town hall with the congressman, anybody

has the audio, or hey, no matter where you are, if you have shareable stuff from town halls in your town, please send to it me. it for us this hour. "first look" is up next. i'm mary story from fayetteville, and i am not a paid protester. >> i don't really care if anybody here is paid or not, y'all are kansasans and i want to hear from you. >> you want to stand there and expect us to be calm, cool, and collective. what kind of insurance do you have? >> okay. it was another night of empassioned town hall meetings for lawmakers across the country. while some are facing the rowdy crowds, others are ducking constituents. plus, despite a deadline to clear out, dozens ofak