quick reminder in a few weeks, i'm heading on a book tour for my new book. facebook.com/all in with chris. events are filling up fast. more details soon. that is all, rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening. >> good evening. thanks my friend. and thanks for joining thus hour. happy monday. you know the airport that serves the seattle area is called -- it's not seattle airport, it's called sea-tac. the tac is tacoma, washington. it is an hour south and a little west from seattle. and tacoma is a big city. seattle has 650,000 people, tacoma has about 200,000 people. i love that part of the country, i love that part of the lovely state. but on july 1st, 1940, tacoma got a brand new bridge. a really important part of the infrastructure for that part of

the world. july 1, 1940, tacoma got to connect with the tiptop northwest corner of washington state. it's a bridge that spans what they call the tacoma narrows, but the tacoma narrows bridge that they got on july 1, 1940, it was not a good bridge. look at that. look at that. when they were building it, they knew something was wrong. 1938, 1939, 1940, the construction workers were telling anyone who would listen there was sothing wrong. this thing just movedayoo much whenever the wind picked up. see the car there? construction workers who built this thing called it gal lops girdy. it would twist and undue late and get going. it was basically a break dance move. and it was amazing to see. it was sort of funny, object of fascination for a time, but then december 7, 19140, the same year

it was opened. it was two days before that bridge opened. >> it broke apart. the winds were 30 miles per hour that day and the twisting that had been so sweerd, it finally blew the thing apart. >> they actually just left the dead bridge in pugant sound. >> the country by 19 4i, we were into world war two and other more pressing uses for american steel and american engineering fire power. it was not until a decade later they replaced it and put another

bridge across the narrows. 1950, they built a new one. without the galloping girdy flaws of the old one. this one worked. but you know what, by this century, even that replacement bridge from 1950 and it was fine. but tacoma had outgrown it by the 2,000. in 2007, they opened up a whole new narrows bridge. and the great thing is they put it up right next to the old one. the good people of tacoma are now lousy in bridges over that particular part of pugant sound.

195 # #, they have the 2007 one. and both bridges they've got are a good reminder now of the importance of good engineering. just because you can build something, doesn't mean you can build it right. the company that built the latest bridge, the modern bridge over the tacoma narrows. that's called becktell. it's one of the biggest in the united states. and the amount of stuff they have built or had a hand in building since it was founded over 100 years ago. it's basically a history of major infrastructure and building adventures in america and around the world for good and bad. i mean, becktell played a big part in building hoover dam. they built the d.c. metro. they built tons of nuclear power plants. they built the channel tunnel. the chunnel between england and france. hundreds of u.s. warships during world war ii. they built some of the earliest

railroads in the american west starting with oil pipelines all over the middle east. they built the metro for athens greece. the jubilee line for the london tube. they're building the saudi city a brand new subway system right now, one of the biggest projects they've ever been involved in. they did the big dig in boston. which was almost unimaginably big. if your city just found out you're hosting an olympics in the future, these guys is who you will call to build all of your olympics facilities as well. when they decided the only thing to do with which you are noble was to build a giant dome because it's going to be rad radioactive forever, they built the giant dome too. in fact that was built like everything. and when you're a company as big as becktell, you are bound to be a troeshl company. i mean, when they got contracts from the george w. bush administration to rebuild iraq, and the iraq war, lots of americans started having

nightmares about becktell all at once. but, whatever you think about this gianormous company, it's worth appreciating all the things they've done in their history as a company. they are undoubtably experienced. they have built bridges and roads and railroads and power plants and you name it all over the world. and they have been doing it for over a century. and before wikileaks got all inextricably bound up in the new national nightmare about russia hacking our presidential election. before that's what we thought of when we thought of wikileaks. and it happened and this country you see there. between russia on the top and giant iran on the bottom.

this country called small country, it's about the size much ireland. it's a former soviet state run by a dictator. now they have got oil money, that's always a good combinatio the new oil money doesn't of course mea that the people of that country are no better off. it never works that way under a dictator. and in the case though, they're oil wealth resulted in them doing a lot of building. they've built a whole bunch of stuff, particularly in their capital city of vacoup. big showoffy buildings, in particular for government agencies. and in 2007, the transportation minister -- he had what could have been a really, really important meeting for the future of his country. he met with becktell. to talk about roads. he met with this giant american company that has, you know, that built the tacoma narrows bridge, the latest one. and that built the hoover dam and nuclear power plants all over the world. transportation minister from

this little country, flushed with oil money. he met with the senior vice president of becktell. to talk about the prosecute of becktelecoming to the area and building roads all over that country. big projects. lots of roads, they've got money to spend, that's part what have they want to send it on. becktell totally could have done that. they've done it all over the world. but that meeting happened in april 2007. and they made no deal. and part of the reason we know how that meeting went is because of wikileaks. the american ambassador in that country cabled home to the state department to explain what happened with that meeting. from the big american company coming to talk about a big infrastructure deal with this transportation minister. she explained that the quote pressed the senior vice president on a typical price for any proposed becktell road project. after extensive caveats, a

greenfield road starting from nothing could coast approximately 5 to $6 million per kilometer. and struck as quite expensive. thought that was way too much to spend. for each kilometer of warning 5 or $6 million. that's way too expensive and sent them packing. sent them home empty handed and hired somebody else to do the work instead. and instead of costing 5 or $6 million per kilometer. becktell must have been like say what now?

when it comes to storied related to our new president. reporter adam davidson has a new piece out in the new yorker today about what may end up being the next major line of inquiry into our new president. and it is starting to me to look like one of the best explanations we have had yet about why the white house is so dramatically freaked out about the prospect there prospects an foreign contacts. and this story basically has just basically three steps. the first one is what explains that thing? what doi namic is at work there. . why would this country turn down to do this work because of their $6 million price tag. instead give it to another company who charged triple that.

the company that charged triple that. the company that got that gig, the company that did the work and tripled the price, that's a company believed to be iran's revolutionary guard. iranian revolutionary guard is basically the second military in iran. it's charged with preserving internal order in this country. and that's meant to be a scary thing to say. the guard also wages war ob behalf of iranian interests and the supreme loader around the globe. it's one of the world's major supporters of international terrorist mements. and the iranian revolutionary guard is deeply sanctioned by the u.s. government. revolutionary guard actually sort of b counterintuitive in terms of the way we think about military stuff here, but the revolutionary guard in iran financially and otherwise support terrorist movements and they have a ton of their own money. they are a a financial power

house. revolutionary guard in iran have front companies in everything from oil and gas to illegal alcohol importing to weapons manufacturing to construction, lots of construction. revolutionary guard has a lot of money and they need a lot of money. but with the sanctions ob them, it's awkward and often ill local for them to move their money around. they need what awe peer to be legitimate business transactions to receive and spend as much money as possible to move as much revolutionary guard money through legitimate means so guard money becomes apparently legitimate business money, which then is much easier to access and move around the globe. so you can finance terrorist groups or whatever else you need to do. so if you're the revolutionary guard, you need front companies

to do what appears to legitimate business. itou're the revolutionary guard you have a front company doing construction and if you can get a a deal infrastructure deal during some construction projects, the bigger the deal the better. the more money that moves through that the better. and if you're the transportation minister, the bigger the better for you too. if you care about a good deal for the people of your country, it would be a a bad thing to have money moving through these countries. if you want to support the iranian revolutionary guard and if the guard wants to help you out in return, you know what, big is beautiful then. can we quadruple this. transportation minister who did these deals his government salary is reportedly about $12,000 a year. somehow on a salary of $12,000 a year he has become a billi billionaire. we're sort of all learning now that this is one of the things

to watch for in international interruption, money laundering, bribery. look for deals on the surface make no financial sense. because they are going to make sense in some other way. look at this. you see this big building in the center of the picture. look at the roads around it. if you wanted to drive u to that building, how would you droif to that building? the new yorker writes, reaching the property is sprourprisingly difficult. during the nine days i was in town, i went to the site half a dozen times. i had a comical exchange with the taxi driver who had no idea which combination of turns would lead to the entrance. so it's literately 45 lly hard into. t. this is a picture that ran in the noew yorker today that i think is supposed to be the front of the building. susan saw me reading this article and laughed out loud

when i got to this page. she thought from across the room i was locking at dirty pictures. it does have a certain something, come on. the building i have to say whatever you think this looks like, itten doesn't make sense for a a bunch of reasons. not just because there's no way to get there, there's no way to get to it and it's kind of hilarious looking from the front, but lock at this. we marked on this map with the red arrow that's where the fancy hotels are in the capital. right on the sea. the other building we just showed you with the onramps and off ramps is not where all the other hotels are. it's over there. and what's described as not a particularly good neighborhood, it's over by an extensive field of rail yards. it's a about an hour's walk from any other well off western tourist might be expected to stay in this town. it's weird for a a luxury

building. until december, this past december where the upper right arrow is, that weird building you can't get sbo next to the rail yards was supposed to be the site of the new trump tower. away from everything nels this the capital city. if you have never been there, you might find it hardo picture what's weird abo the location. let me show you how weird the location was. the president's daughter was on a business trip. they had a trump building project. she posted this video showing how awesome the view was from her hotel rom. >> a very long flight, but i'm here. check it out. the view from my balcony. the flame towers. and the cast pea yan sea. >> that is a lovely view there

next to the sea. that's nowhere near the building she's there to work on. that's not where the trump tower was going. we think she's at the four seasons. which is five kilometers away and an hour's walk from where the trump building was going up near the town. this building in this random neighborhood is a business project that really just doesn't make sense on the sur it is a. building is a huge luxury development that isn't sustaining its properties. it's in the wrong part of town. no way was it designed to get sbo the property. why was this built? how could it make financial sense? this was supposed to be trump tower. one month after our presidential election, the trump organization abandoned this project. they pulled out. and here's what you need to know. the trump family's business partner in that project is the family of the transportation

minister. the one who made all those lucrative partnerships. the lucrative deals with companies that reall do appear to be fronts for the iranian revolutionary guard. apparently helping the iranian revolutionary guard lander money for their support of terrorism and making his own family wildly wealthy in the process. that was their partner. his family was their partner in that deal. deals that make no financial sense on the surface deserve another look. . if you are a government official who gets rich off the contracts you award and the projects you green light, you might award anything as a contract. you might green light anything. american businesses are free to do business anywhere it is legal to do business. but american businesses are not allowed to accept any funds if the origin of those funds is is a sanctioned organization like the iranian revolutionary guard. you have to check it out. you have to know. american businesses are not

allowed to participate in business deals with partner who is are acting illegally. and you have to know, you have to check it out. looking the other way is not a defense. the handbag company dooney & bourke, me neither. i don't know if i'm saying it right. but they are nice handbags. i'm learn iing about them becau he was convicted in 2009 of doing a business deal with a corrupt partner. the handbag guy wasn't pay iing the bribes. he was just in business with another guy who did pay bribes and was corrupt. that's enough to have put the handbag guy in federal prison. if you're an american business, you're expected to do your due diligence to make sure the people you're doing business with are not paying bribes, they are not it corrupt. in the case of this trump building project that was abandoned right after the election, trump and his family were in business in that country. and i mean that almost literally. in the fall of 2014, four months

before ivanka trump was on the balcony of the four seasons from a normal hotel location, the family she was there to do business with was featured in this article in foreign policy magazine. under the foreign corrupt practices act, which is u.s. law, but under the foreign corrupt practices act you cannot go into business with the corr loans of the cass pea yan. the terrorism like the iranian guard. it's a a violation of u.s. law to make money from a business partnership like that. the new president, as i said, he and his organize organization

back ed out of this deal a mont after the election. not before he received millions of dollars in the deal. we know that from the limited financial filing he made as a candidate for president. if there is going to be an independent investigation of this president, his campaign and his ties to russia, it is inconceivable that an undependent investigation would not include an examination of the president's financials. his business words and all the rest. adam davidson has jus detailed enough about the president's dealings in this one former soviet republic to raise several questions. is the president or his family potentially at risk of having violated the foreign corrupt practices act, which is a a crime for which you go to jail. is the president or is his family potentially at risk of being blackmailed by foreign business partners who have evidence of ties or behavior that might put the president and his family in legal jeopardy if those things were exposed.

a senior democrat on the banking committee sherrod brown says he's seen enough to justify starting a new inquiry into our new president. we'll have more on that ahead. but if there is an independent inquiry sbo this president, whether it starts in russia and winds its way through or starts here. starts with this. there is a reason we should expect this white house, this president to do everything in his power to keep secret his finances. and his business dealings. but you know what, if you get paid an extra $60 million if a house in palm beach no one wants to live in and it gets torn down and never setting foot in it, you get paid $60 million over what you paid for it and you put nothing into it and the guy who paid it is a russian guy, that needs, pla explaining. if your company is getting paid millions of dollars for a a project that makes no sense,

that needs explaining. we have two of these stories now in one week. how many more do you think there are? and what length dos you think they will go to avoid this being turned over and made public? stay with us. ition. this is one gorgeous truck. oh, did i say there's only one special edition? because, actually there's five. ooohh!! aaaahh!! uh! hooooly mackerel. wow. nice. strength and style. it's truck month. get 0% financing for 60 months plus find your tag and get $5500 on select chevy silverado pick-ups when you finance with gm financial. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. there's nothing more than my vacation.me so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation if my plans change. visit booking.com.

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adam davidson is known for making financial crime and intrigue readable. in the new yorker today, he has unfolded a very dark story about the trump organization in the

former state. the top democrat in the banking committee wants ab investigation. congress and the trump administration have a duty to examine whether the president or his family is exposed to terrorist financing, sanctions, money laundering and other associations through their business holdings and connections. senator brown has written to the treasury department, which has jurisdictions over sanctions. he's asking the treasury department to look into the president's business ties. quote, unlike previous presidents, trump has elected to not divest himself of investments that pose potential conflicts of interest. the lack of transparency with respect to those interests raises questions about whether they pose potential conflicts with existing federal laws and regulations related to terrorist financing, sanctions, anti-money laundering, anti-corruption rules, and thelike. senator brown is asking the

treasury department to look into the trump family and the american people. joining us now is the author of this new piece in the new yorker. he's a staff writer. any american company operating there needs to be careful of running afoul of the u.s. law here. >> any company doing business needs to be careful about the foreign corrupt practices act and they know that. they are careful about it. >> is this something that's aggressively prosecuted. >> i've asked so many lawyers, so many. corporate folks who know this world. explain to me this thing that the trump organization did partnering with a man who is called notoriously corrupt, known as one of the most corrupt

countries in the world. is this weird. is this 30%, 40% of companies would do this, and i heard so many people say no percent. . nobody would do this. this is extreme behavior. even for a corporations thatten aren't for some ethical reason don't want to be corrupt. they are simply reasonable risk managers. they are not going to get in business with someone who is corrupt and has relationships with the revolutionary guard. >> not out of the goodness of their heart, but because it's illegal under american law to do so. >> the fines are way disproportionate to the money you make. so trump stood to make $3 million a year. he could have easily been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for this deal. for all we know, he will be. >> the red flags here, one of the red flags is doing business in a country that's known to have a corruption problem. the other is doing with a government official, which can be a marker. >> and the transportation

minister and his brother, who was a member of parliament. >> and in this case this is a government minister whose salary in the case of the transportation minister has apparently become a billionaire. >> he's very smart in his investments. >> the implication here is that this is a way that the trump organization regularly did business or that this is a uniquely dangerous deal even for them. >> i will say u the trump organization said some things that i consider troubling. they said we did all appropriate due diligence. i asked them again and again, please show me the due diligence because nobody thinks this was appropriate. if you show me, i'll believe you. they refused to show me. i have no idea. they didn't show it to me.

there are dozens of deals around the world and this is the one i spent three and a half months really digging into. the ones i just peeked at, the brazil deal fell apart because of corruption. the deal that fell apart in georgia is questionable. the deal in turkey is questionable. and on and on and on. and one of the things that was shocking to me, you'd think by november, december of last year we reporters sort of knew a lot about donald trump. but looking at just one deal, spending three and a half months on it, there was so much that shocked me in the shabbiness with which they approached this deal. i do have to wonder with dozens of other deals what else is out there. >> what else is out there. what else remains to be found. what will be the response of authorities in this country if the suspicions are bourn out and is the first family or the president vulnerable to blackmail if there are people

that can document this stuff in a a way prosecutors finder resistible, to be determined on all those things. thank you. >> thank you. >> i know you didn't let me. but thank you for letting me have that much time with your story. it's incredible work. a whole lot going on today. stay with us. the first eye drop approved for the signs and symptoms of dry eye. one drop in each eye, twice a day. common side effects include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when applied to the eye, and an unusual taste sensation. do not touch the container tip to your eye or any surface. remove contacts before using xiidra and wait for at least 15 minutes before reinserting them. if you have dry eyes, ask your doctor about xiidra. with 9 lobster dishes.est is back try succulent new lobster mix & match or see how sweet a lobster lover's dream can be. there's something for everyone and everyone's invited.

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in the five weeks since ryan owens was killed in a raid in yemen that went wrong, his

father has given precisely one interview to the miami herald. the headline everybody pulled out was that ryan owens body was brought back to the u.s. his grieving father declined to meet with the president at dover air force base. there was something else that bill owens said at the end of that write up that has stuck with me. it didn't get as much attention. but it feels important today. when donald trump signed his muslim ban the first time, it was january 27th. it was a friday. that order singled out seven majority muslim nations and banned travel to the united states by anyone from any one of those seven countries. one of those seven countries was yemen. that was on friday. the nextday on saturday the u.s. launched what turned out to be this disastrous american raid in yemen. a large number of civilians were killed including at least one child. four navy seals were wounded.

ryan owens was killed. here's the miami herald speaking with ryan owen's father about that raid. one saspect of the chain of events that nags at him is the fact the president signed the order suspending the entrance the day before the mission. owens wond red if that affected friendly forces assist iing wit the raid. it just doesn't make any sense to do something to an tag knight news an ally. did we alienate some of the people working with them. translators or support people, maybe they decided to release information to jeopardize the mission. great question. one day we tell yemen nobody from your country can come to our country. the next day we launch an on the ground raid in yemen. it's been reported that the seals lost the element of the surprise from the beginning of that raid. that al qaeda fighters were tip ed off and knew they were coming. if any u of them were involved in the chain u of the operation,

the seals was counting on them to be partners in this. why would you sign something so inflammatory abo yemen the day before this incredibly difficult, upscaled conflict mission. in yemen. we don't know whether that decision had an affect on the raid, but you can see why his father is wondering if it did. now the trump administration has issued the new version of their muslim ban. it's only six majority muslim country this is time. iraq is off. we saw what the fight over this was like. thousands of people descend issing on the airports and protest iing. then the muslim ban got destroyed in court with ruling after ruling going against the administration. the new order is going to go into effect in a week and a half. it's going to go into effect in ten days. so three, two, one, here we go. it's an important question you ask,

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with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... which adds fuel to my bottom line. what's in your wallet? the first time this president signed a muslim ban, a call. wept out for volunteer attorneys to show up, to go to airports, to help people whose lives had been upeneded by this new radical, poorly run policy. the international refugee assistance project made that call for volunteer attorneys. within four hours, 3,000 attorneys had signed up to volunteer. it's part of the way that i knew our country was something different than i thought it was going to be in this new era. there was a new level of civic

engagement we hoped for but never expected. the president signing the new version today, is that going to happen again? should we expect it to happen again and will it help if it does? joining us is the policy director for the international refugee assistance project. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> is this the same policy basically as the old one? >> it's the same policy with different dressing. >> what are you expecting in terms of when this goes into effect next week? the first time this happened, a big part of what we saw was chaos and upset. are you expecting it to be any. different? >> we're expecting the crisis to remain in the middle east where they are. because they will be left in limbo. we don't think there will be the same. >> what will lawyers be able to do? seeing lawyers respond personally trying to advocat individually for people who are stuck and in limbo, it was

heartening to see, as i just said, it was this incredible level of rising to the occasion on civic terms. what do you expect to see in terms of the response and what do you need? >> we will continue to challenge this ban through our litigation and working with members of congress and members of the public to express their opposition to this ban. the administration was very clear that it intended to dim chris name against muslims. it's clear the intent of this order is to do just that. we will continue to challenge it. but as far as assisting refugees in transit, refugees won't be left in transit. they will be stranded in the middle east for 120 days while this refugee resettlement program is on pause. >> while the program is on pause, the overall number of refugees coming into the country will be quite severe ly curtailed, cut back by more than half. how is that going to work in practice? a more selective process? a random distribution in term os of how that affected people who

might otherwise qualify? >> we don't know how that will work out. we know tens of thousands of refugee who is are in the very late stages of a year's long screening process will remain in limbo and in danger. among those people are thousands of iraqis who served as military translators who are waiting for resettlementhrough t refugee program. kids with medical emergencies, many others. >> has anybody from the administration talked to you or talked to other people that do the kind of work you do about what their ideas mean in terms of extreme vetting and the way these things are going to be allowed to be cut back. any sort of due diligence with you guys in terms of being the people that work with refugee families? >> we haven't had that kind of engagement. the extreme vetting we have had has been in place for many years for refugees. we see people rejected for pretenses for many years. it's already extreme vetting. >> betsy fisher, which has a

very solid reputation in this field doing very difficult work. good luck. >> thank you. we'll be right back with a story i guarantee you have not seen anywhere else that will not involve the word trump even once. this is the silverado special edition. this is one gorgeous truck. oh, did i say there's only one special edition? because, actually there's five. ooohh!! aaaahh!! uh! hooooly mackerel. wow. nice. strength and style. it's truck month. get 0% financing for 60 months plus find your tag and get $5500 on select chevy silverado pick-ups when you finance with gm financial. find new roads at your local chevy dealer.

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montana has only one congressional district. it's a giant montana-shaped congressional district. montana has only one member of congress. he's no longer in congress

though because he's been -- he's the secretary of the interior. he has vacated husband house seat and that means that montana needs a new member of congress. every election for montana's congressional seat is a statewide election because they've only got the one congressional district. that means electing a member of congress in montana is expensi e expensive. and they've got to pick a new one now because of ryan zinke being elevated to the cabinet, they got to pick one now in a special election. montana doesn't budget for something like a statewide special election. and i should also tell you that the budgets are already a little crimped, anyway, because in millionth mt montana they had an unusually expensive election in november, that busted the budget of a lot of counties that had to pay to administer these things. it's all a big bummer. there is a neat solution. they can hold the election via a

mill-in ballot. montana already knows how to do it, local elections, school bond issues, pretty much everything except federal elections are already done by mail. local county clerks across the state have been advocating that they do this as a mail-in election. "conducting the election by mail would conservatively save taxpayers state wide between a half million and three quarters of a million." that's a cheap easy way to do it and know how to do it. the idea gained support from republican lawmakers who sponsored the bill to switch the special election to replace ryan zinke to a vote by mail election. fiscally conservative plan. that's good. because both the house and senate in montana are controlled by republicans. but opposition from an unlikely source. m m montana's republican leadership, meaning the chairmen of the party, last week as this bill for a mail-in election gned steam, the republican party chairman blasted this out. "a mail ballots give the democrats an inherent advantage. vote by mail was designed to increase participation rates of

lower propensity voters. they may be well intended but this bill could be the death of our effort to make montana a reliably republican state." so the state party chairman is saying we can't vote by mail, too many people will vote. that will make it too likely that a democrat might win that election. nevertheless, the republican bill to make it a vote-by-mail election, it passed the state senate last week. that bill now awaits its fate in the statehouse. our next guest says the bill, which she co-sponsored, that vote-by-mail bill, she says it's being purposely derailed in the house by her party leadership and she is fighting back against it. joining us now is republican montana state rep gereldine, says she has a plan to keep the bill live. i've been looking toward inini talking to you. thanks for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> the bill you are sponsoring in the house, did you know it would be controversial when you

first wrote it up, first thought about introducing it? >> i did not. i thought it would be a way to save money for the presidents and it makes sense that everybody get a ballot and vote. i didn't think there would be an issue with what would be the problem with everyone getting a ballot and voting it. >> i understand that are a former -- sorry, excuse me. sorry, ma'am. didn't mean to interrupt. continue. >> i was going to say, is the party chairman saying maybe republicans won't go to the post office with their vote-ballot or won't drop it off at the courthouse as opposed to democrats? >> i understand you are a forme you're, you've done this work at the county level. i've been struck by these good government arguments, these fiscally conservative arguments that have been made by county clerks across the state. just saying, listen, montana knows how to do this, this is an easy way to do it, familiar to everybody and we can do this without controversy. is there any substantive

objection to it other than the party chairman saying that it might help democrats? >> there's not anything that's wrong with mail ballots i can think of, we've been doing mail ballots since 1983 in the state. most the school elections are held that way and which are mostly the bond elections. any time there is a special bond election, they're usually held by mail so you can get a better turnout. because that's what happens with the mail ballot election. you get a way better turnout. and all the municipal elections now are held that way so the mayors and the city councils and are elected by mail and a lot of the special smaller districts and it's just more convenient and it's very cost effective. and that's the problem with the elections. especially one that usually you have two years to plan for and this is going to happen within 8 5 day s and right now the clock is ticking, less than 85 days right now. the big venues and bigger areas, they usually book those two years out so you just can't get a venue on may 25th this close

to the election loelection. lots of them are in use like the bigger areas, fairgrounds, civic centers, in one of our largest counties, population wise. and then our judges -- our judges are -- a lot of them are snow birds and they're still in arizona. and school's on. for a lot of the polling places in the rural areas use schools so there's always a conflict with the room. there's just a lot of reasons to have a mail-ballot election. >> state representative geraldine -- >> more cost effective and easier. >> i'm sorry. we've got this awkward satellite delay which is why i stepped on you twice there, ma'am. i'm sorry. i want to thank you for coming to studio tonight to talk to us about this. i know that tomorrow the legislature's back in session. we'll be watching this closely. an interesting interparty fight there that you've got among your fellow montana republicans. keep us apprised, ma'am. nice to meet you. >> yes, i will. thank you. >> thank you.

>> be interesting to watch this tomorrow. state legislature, state house is back in montana tomorrow. the bill sponsor you just saw there has got a fight for her bill, the leadership of her party is going to be trying to kill this thing. republicans fighting republicans over whether or not they want a cost-effective way that makes it easy to vote. i love state politics. all right. stay with us. more ahead. finally. hey ron! they're finally taking down that schwab billboard. oh, not so fast, carl. ♪ oh no. schwab, again? index investing for that low? that's three times less than fidelity... ...and four times less than vanguard. what's next, no minimums? ...no mini. schwab has lowered the cost of investing again.

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united states which i know is not something you would usually care about, but now that the attorney general, jeff sessions, recused himself from any investigations into contacts between the trump campaign and russia, it is the deputy attorney general who would oversee any such investigations or who would decide if maybe an outside special prosecutor should handle that instead. nominee to be deputy a.g., rod rosenstein, not emerged thus far as a particularly divisive or controversial nominee. nevertheless, this is going to be must-see tv because he's about to step into a job that's critically important to the future of the country. we do not know what we would man on doing if he becomes deputy a.g. it's entirely possible we'll find that out tomorrow at the hearing. democrats are making this decision about whether or not a special prosecutor should be appointed. they're making that a stick point for his nomination. one member of the committee, richard blumenthal, senator from connecticut, says he'll block rosenstein's name from confirmation unless hearing to

he will appoint a special investigator to lead the investigation of trump and russia. can blumenthal do that? can he and his fellow democrats hang this nomination on that question? will republicans join them in support on this? i told you it's going to be must-see tv. we will find out tomorrow. 10:00 a.m. eastern. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time your "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> thanks a lot, rachel. >> indeed. >> no, no, no. >> oh. >> i mean, thanks a lot, rachel. >> what? >> i was prlanning to sleep lat tomorrow. look what you've done. 10:00 i have to be up. >> you know we have our 9:30 coffee date, anyway. come on. >> i'll get you t ual. >> all right. thanks, dear. >> thanks, rachel. in baking health care newsrh care plan is going public on capitol hill and already four republican senators are opposed to it. and after a weekend of reckless tweeting that once again brought